September Trip to Utah Part One: Shannon's Wedding

We had a quick trip to Utah for our friend Shannon's wedding.  But first... a little tennis lesson...

Eating my face?

No, giving me a kiss.

Playing at Dallas Love Field Airport.  It's pretty great since being remodeled!

Now that she's old enough that she has to have her own seat, I let her have the window seat.

Max and Peter sat behind us which meant we were on man-to-man defense.

She's really into pretending to be a doctor lately

Woo - - look at those gorgeous mountains!

They didn't sleep on the plane, but they slept in the rental car once we got to SLC.

When we got to my Aunt Tammy's, Maxwell went out with Maryn to pick some tomatoes.

Maryn came with us to the store in the morning.  The kids were really excited to see her.

We dropped the kids off at the zoo with Aunt Aja during the wedding.

Shannon and her groom Colt got married in the same little chapel up at Fort Douglas that Peter and I got married in 13 years ago.  We hadn't been back since the day we were married.  They have switched the room around.  The back of the room now was the front of the room then.

We have a picture in front of these stained glass windows.  They were one of the reasons that I loved this chapel.

Pretending to ring the chapel bell that we ran 13 years ago.

It was fun to revisit so many of those memories from 13 years ago while celebrating a dear friend starting on her own journey in the same place.

The kids were having a great time at the zoo with Aja and her family so we spent a little more kid-free time enjoying some Cafe Rio and then drove up into the canyon to look at the fall colors.

Look at those colors!

I've been working to lose weight for about 5 months and I went shopping to find a dress for this wedding that I would feel good wearing.  I love it!

The kids had an amazing time with Aja and she sure spoiled them.

Maxwell and Korben got along great

Korben, Maxwell, Emmalyn, Ken, and Harleigh

Emmalyn took a few minutes to warm up (she was upset when we didn't go into the zoo with them) but then she was okay.

Cotton Candy, Ice cream, Pizza, oh my!!

They loved riding the train

Love that sweet profile and those baby fingers

Since it was a short trip where we got to see very little family, it was really nice that Aja was able to help watch the kids during the wedding so that they got some time together.

After the zoo we took the kids to the wedding reception with us

My cute family all dressed up and enjoying this fun night.

Maxwell was super happy to see Shannon

Family pic

Sibling pic

Maxwell was waiting all evening to get some time with Shannon.  It was super sweet.  We love her and are excited for her and Colt!

Let there be light!

Second week of April 2015...

This girl loves cereal.  Unfortunately it just becomes a messy ordeal in the morning when we give it to her.  She spills Max's or hers all over the place and then eats it off the floor.   Oh man...

Happy girl.  She's so happy and cute, she draws lots of attention when we eat out.

I had to supplement Emmalyn's milk intake with frozen milk and some formula this weekend.  I just don't have the output needed. :(

She waves all the time and has started blowing kisses.

I swear she says "yeah".

She is super cranky when you try to wipe her boogers and she produces SO MUCH DROOL!

She's demanding and screams loudly to get attention.

I got to read books to Maxwell's class during their library time this week.  I took a pic as I was leaving and captured Maxwell blowing me a kiss.  :)  He's fine now when it's time for me to leave.

Jacek, Maxwell, Harper, and Malia

The other kids get excited when I come to read to them too. It's super sweet.  They want to hold my hand or walk by me or talk to me.  I love getting to know the kids that Maxwell goes to school with.

...and since I was out of the office already, I stopped at In-N-Out for lunch.  Delicious!

My little swimmer - he loves swimming lessons.

Ha!  Those baby shades are so big on her!

FINALLY!!! We had a soccer practice.  We ended up having to rent space at the indoor facility but I am totally willing to pay a little bit to help get more out of this experiencing!

Cousins

My house is so dark.  Here's how "lit" it is with the lighting installed by the builder.  There are no uplights and the little solar powered lights along the path to the front door hardly do anything.  It's been my biggest dislike about my house.  I feel like it's not very inviting.  So finally we are doing something about it!!!  This is the "before" pic.

Here is the "after" with just the newly installed LED lights (that are on an automatic timer - - it's soooooo awesome!  They come on when it gets dark and go off in the morning.  I never have to turn them on or off and I didn't even notice a change in my power bill!)

And the full "after" with the new lights and the old lights.  I love it so much!!!  I am incredibly happy with the lights on the house and the lights on the path.  

She loves her time at the park

Video - Emmalyn is so different from Maxwell in that she loves puppies!  She's super cute in this video and then a stroke of luck, we caught her very first "kiss" on video!  She figured out how to make a kissy sound!!! and boy is it cute.

So tired that she fell asleep before the end of our bedtime routine.

Maxwell basically stays dry now at night.  He may have 1 wet pull-up in 3 weeks.

One morning this week, he woke up and called for me like he always does.  So I went into his room and he wanted me to cuddle.  When I got up into his bed he goes, "There's still hair you can touch." because he wanted me to play with his hair.  :)

She loves playing with books in the morning when she wakes up

Miss Mary Ann and Jared came to cheer Maxwell on at his soccer game.  We are so blessed to have such great neighbors!

We were planting our spring flowers and Mary Ann was working on her yard outside as well so Maxwell decided he wanted to take a bunch of flowers over to give to Mary Ann so they planted them together in her front yard.  She was so great with him and let him plant them even though they didn't match her other landscaping.  He was so happy! (I think he had more fun helping her than he did me!)

Helping Momma water after everything was done.

All planted and ready to go

Hopefully we'll have lots of pretty flowers soon!

There's been so much rain lately that lakes are starting to fill up.  We went on a random drive toward the closest lake until we found it.  Of course, once we got there, we didn't have much to do but at least we saw the lake.

He found a walking stick to use on the way back

Happy to be outside

She's looking so big to me here!

Gotta love that belly

However when you see her in perspective to other things, you see how tiny she is!

You can see her trying to say words when you prompt her.

She's standing forever and I saw her pivot today and move one foot - - getting closer to walking!!!

Her screams quickly make me crazy.  Ugh, girls.

Maxwell and I were talking about long tails in the car, and I mentioned that monkeys have long tails.   And Max goes, "At splash academy, the kids that were tigers got tails." (He was referencing the circus put on by the kids when we were on a cruise)  So I asked him what tigers say (because I have been trying to get him to say "ROAR" since the cruise because he didn't say it when the tigers were up on stage).  He goes, "I can't tell you but if you ask Emmalyn later, she can tell you."  ha!  can't fool this kid!