A Visit from an Dear Friend...

First - a tangent...
The last two days have been amazingly productive ones.  Here, I am sitting, the dishes done, the house clean, the laundry folded, and myself showered.  Since it is such a rare occurrence to have all this at once, I felt that I just had to mention it.  It's nice...

Last Sunday, Garrett, one of my oldest friends, came by to have lunch and catch up - face to face for once.  Garrett and I went to high school together for freshman year, then he moved to Calabasas.  Then he moved to Texas for college, and in the last 8 years we have seen each other twice.  This visit was one of them.

Some friendships, truly, are amazing.  Despite not seeing Garrett for 5 1/2 years, it felt like we hadn't missed a beat and I am so grateful for that.  He's been a listening ear and a source of encouragement for a long time.  Thank goodness for free long distance calls.

I hope it doesn't take another five years for us to get together, but even if it does, I know our friendship will still be strong.

By the way, if you didn't know - Josh is amazing.  He entertained Corban the whole time so I could enjoy myself.  My husband rocks. 

Family Photos

Last Friday night Josh told me that he wasn't working the next day.  (Not working on a Saturday has become quite the rarity).  So, we decided at about 8:45 pm that we'd take family photos the next day for our Christmas card and what not.  So, at 9:30 I headed to Target to try and piece together some, at least, semi-choreographed outfits. 

We went to Rancho Sierra park and my sister-in-law, Megan, was gracious enough to be our photographer with such short notice.  This has to be one of the shortest family portrait plannings ever, but the day was beautiful, and Target came through for us, so we ended up with some nice shots.

 

My absolute favorite.  I admit, I'm pretty partial to pictures of my boys.

Really, I don't think we were supposed to be tromping around off the trails in a State Park, so don't report us to any park rangers.  

Thanks again to Megan.  You did an awesome job.

Change of Scenery...

Well, it's been just about forever since I posted, but I think I have a better reason this time than laziness.  Early in November our family officially ended our days as apartment dwellers and moved into a little house.  Now, when I say "little," I'm being quite literal.  It's 640 sq. feet - 300 less than our apartment.  But all the benefits of living in a house far outweigh the size issue.  I won't list all the joys of "single family unit," but my favorite, by far, is letting Corban play in the yard

hiding between the trashcans

sampling dirt

Sorry everyone, but I can't help but do a bit of bragging.  My kid is just so dang cute -

 Yes, face full of dirt, but I still think he's beautiful

Pumpkin Patch

So, I've been excited to take Corban to the pumpkin patch ever since last October, when we didn't go (I wussed out, citing something like "my C-section scar still hurts like a mother...").  Anyway, no excuses this year.  We were watching Charolette that morning too, so we had more-the-merrier fun.

I had this vision of Corban happily tromping through the pumpkin patch, but this is the way he looked for the majority of the morning...

He was just so SERIOUS.  Charlotte, on the other hand, had a blast -

bustin' some Charolette moves

Isn't she great?  Such a cutie...

We really lucked out and the morning was beautiful lending to some great photos

I think a piece of my hair blew in front of the lens on this shot

It was a wonderful morning and I'm looking forward to making this a family tradition.  And at least we got one smile out of Corban

Dressed to Impress

Today, Corban and I were playing with some Halloween foam stickers.  I started putting them on my clothes and so Corban decided to accessorize the only thing he had on...

This kid is too funny.  I guess I really should dress my child more often.  But then I wouldn't have these pictures...

Anyway, Happy Halloween!!

He took a tumble

Last week, Corban failed to negotiate a step quite right and ended up with a few scrapes and a mouth full of sawdust.

He scraped his nose, the corner of his mouth, and bumped his head (which you can't even see in this picture).  So, in his nearly 14 months of life, this is the worst he has ever been hurt.  My reaction - what a sheltered child!  He needs an older brother to toughen him up.  Seriously, this kid can go on and ON when he hurts himself.  He'll complain for about 20 minutes.  Apparently, he wants to make sure everybody knows.

So, my new strategy is to simply feed him something because it quiets him down mighty fast.  I know this is really not the best habit and I should find a different way to distract him.  It's just so easy.  But I guess I'll have no one to blame when someday he shows me where it hurts and says, "I need a brownie."

Utah Vacation

Last week Corban and I went with my mom and dad to visit my sister, Ashley, and her husband Addison in Provo. I'm always nervous when I travel with Corban, but I should have more faith in him. The kid really is a trooper.  He was great in the car all the way there and back and in the four nights we were there he only woke up once in the middle of the night.  I guess this kid is just a traveler.  Not to mention, quite the dresser!

It was so great to just spend some time relaxing...

playing at Pioneer Park

my little water baby

My mom and I took a morning to go to Gardner Village, an old flour mill turned tourist boutique shop central. They were in the midst of decorating for Halloween, so there were witches everywhere -

The architecture of all the buildings was fantastic.  Many of the shops were original cabins of Utah settlers and the old mill was converted into a restaurant.  Corban was just fascinated with the water wheel

The shops were also great. I left with a lot of craft and design ideas. And to top it off, there was a petting zoo!

Grandma teaching a lesson on "being gentle." Heaven knows, Corban needs it.

Corban loves animals, so taking to see the goats, chickens, rabbits, and an English Mastiff the size of a horse, made me feel like I didn't just put him through complete torture, having to endure two hours of shopping.

On Saturday, all of us went to Salt Lake City for the day.  We started by hiking to the top of Ensign Peak. Corban had some bonding time with his new uncle as Addison carried him almost the whole time...

We weren't exactly prepared for hiking.  Ashley and I were in sandals. But it was a nice, easy hike and the view of the city made it well worth it.

We spent some time sight-seeing - Joseph Smith building, Temple Square, the Beehive House - and then we met my cousin, Katie, and her husband Mike, at their beautiful new home in Lehi.  I'm terrible at keeping in contact with my cousins, so it was great to spend an evening with them.  They are such fun people. I'm sad they live so far away.

So, it was a great trip.  I have to say how grateful I am to my mom, dad, Ashley and Addison for being such an awesome help to me with Corban.  Everyone was so willing to hold him and keep him entertained.  It made it so I actually had a bit of a vacation too.  Time has a way of going so fast and it felt like we had to say goodbye too soon. Til next time...

Oh, my broken heart(s)

Here are my sugar cookies I made tonight...

As I tried to pry these babies off the cookie sheet, I'm thinking "I always mess up on some mundane detail."  (Quote, anyone?)

Anyway, my mundane detail was forgetting to grease the cookie sheets.  What a waste.

Girls Night In

Last weekend Josh went to a baseball game, leaving me to my own devices for an evening.

I decided to paint my toenails yellow, which I thought would be a fun end-of-summer color, but in actuality they ended up looking kind of diseased -

I even smudged one of them, which added a nice decaying effect.  Better yet, when I finally took the paint off, my nails were stained an orangey kind of color. 

I also made a white chocolate passion fruit cheesecake (recipe here) that turned out delicious.  In other words, a more rewarding experiment than the yellow nail polish. 

And then I wasted the rest of the night watching two and half hours of Arrested Development on Netflix.  Really, I don't know why I've procrastinated watching this show for so long.  The comedy style is perfect - sarcastic, outlandish, and mildly uncomfortable.  And how can you not love this face?

little, chubby Michael Cera!

Has anyone else out there ever had an obsession with this show?  For my part, I think I'm a believer.  Hallelujah.  

We cut his hair!!

Last week we cut Corban's hair for the first time.  I'd been procrastinating it for the last month or so, and Donny had been calling him a hillbilly long enough, so it was time to trim his luscious locks...

I didn't think it would be so difficult for me, on an emotional level.  He's just growing up too fast.  Toddlers get haircuts, not babies.

What I was fully expecting was how difficult it was going to be physically.  At first he was just curious -

But then he was angry -

He even fought to keep it...

In the end, I don't think he was so hot on the new look -

But I thought it was A-ok

A couple days later I decided it looked too much like a bowl cut so I tried to add some layers in the front, but really just ended up butchering it pretty bad.  But, hey, we're still convinced he's the cutest kid on the planet, so no harm done.

On Friday Josh turned 27.  To celebrate, me and my honey dropped the kid off and went to hike to the summit of Old Boney Mountain.  Since we were going to be hiking to the top of a mountain in the middle of summer we wanted to pack only the essentials, which of course included a machete...

doesn't he look tough?

Our conversation regarding the machete went like this -

What do you need a machete for?
 Rattlesnakes.
So, if we run into a rattlesnake you're going to chop off it's head?
No, I'm going to push it out of the way.
Couldn't you just use a stick?
What if there isn't a stick lying around?  This way, I have one with me.

Josh is an Eagle Scout, so how can I really argue with that?

So, we decided to follow Old Boney Trail, figuring it would take us to the top of Old Boney.  But apparently this is faulty logic because this is as close as we got -

 
We hiked for a while, having faith that the trail would get us there, but we eventually got to the point of no return and just ended up in Sycamore Canyon.

We saw some interesting stuff along the way -

fossilized shells

giant, creepy spider

but really, these weren't much of a consolation prize for missing the summit.  But, hey, there's nothing like hiking 10.5 miles for your birthday, right?

Josh and I have been hiking a lot this last year so we thought this would be a nice way to end the summer, but there was another reason I wanted to tackle this hike.  About 6 or 7 years ago my dad took Ashley and I to hike to the summit, telling us it would be an easy half day kind of a hike.  So we brought one water bottle a piece and a ziploc bag of trail mix between the three of us.  About 3 miles up Ashley and I were nearly out of water and wanted to go back but Dad kept saying, "We're almost there."  Even after the fifth time repeating that, we still believed him.  At the top of the mountain we drank the last of our water.  Then, he said there was a different way down, but there really wasn't, so add about 3/4 of a mile backtracking.  Half way down Ashley sat down under a bush and I had doubts that she was ever going to get back up.  About a mile and a half from the car a group of (prepared) hikers took pity on us and gave us an apple.  Probably our saving grace.  So seven hours and nine miles later we got back to our car and managed to survive long enough to hit a gas station for some gatorade.  I didn't hike with my dad for the next five years.

But for all the grief we've dished out to my dad over this, I do have to give him credit - at least he got us to the top.