Happy Birthday to me.

For my birthday Jeff and I had a night out on the town. We actually found a babysitter (thanks Valerie!) and headed out for a movie and dinner. It sounds like a pretty boring birthday date, but I was practically giddy with excitment at the prospect of sitting, uninterrupted, for two hours to watch a movie and to eat a really good meal.

We saw Batman, which we liked, but I couldn't get over the fact that there was a little family a few seats down with a couple of kids probably eight or nine years old. What were they thinking! I will probably have nightmares from that movie. Poor kids! I kept thinking, "That mother needs to get these kids out of here!"

We ate dinner at Bonefish. It was SO good. The Bang Bang Shrimp appetizer is my favorite. We went all out and got dessert too. Amazing. Homemade brownie rolled in toasted nuts with ice cream, whipped cream, and raspberry sauce. I should have taken a picture. It was that good.

The night before my birthday Jeff brought home a cake so that Anna could participate in some candle blowing. She is really into birthdays and is always pretending to have parties and walks around singing Happy Birthday. She was so excited to have a real celebration to take part in. While Jeff prepared the cake she ran around the house yelling, "It's a celebration! It's a celebration!" Jeff did a good job with the picture taking. If you cut these pictures out and stapled them together, you'd have a pretty awesome flip book.

So cute.

Before Anna was born, I for sure wanted a boy. I think since I had older brothers it just seemed natural and the right way to start a family. Luckily Anna came along and our family started with a beautiful little girl. I have LOVED it! I love everything about having a girl. I love the pink, the dress up stuff, the clothes, the innate sense of caring and nurturing that she has. So when we originally thought we'd be having another girl I was thrilled. I had visions of two little princesses running around the house dancing, playing dolls, and all-in-all just being adorable.

It's been a little bit strange to change my thinking and imagine the new dynamic of adding a boy to the family. I am certainly excited, we've always wanted a boy at some point. But, to get to my point, it hasn't been until today that I've really been excited about having a boy, and to be honest, about having another one in general.

Today I decided to organize what boy stuff I've accumulated in the last few weeks as well as pull out any usable baby clothes from Anna's old stash. Anna was playing with her toys, but started to get really interested in what I was doing. She ended up looking through most of the clothes with me and exclaiming, "Oh mom, it's so cuuuute," and "oh, look at this little sweet one." I was just tickled by her interest. We then pulled out some of her old receiving blankets and wrapped up her baby dolls. I showed her how to swaddle them and we talked about how we'll wrap up baby brother when he comes. She spent the next half hour caring for "baby brodder." She put him to bed, read stories, and unwrapped and re wrapped her baby doll in blankets.

How could I not be excited for the future dynamic of our family after that?! Anna will be a great big sister and I'm (finally) looking forward to holding that new little baby boy in my arms.

PS I don't want you to get the idea I haven't wanted to have this baby, but it's been hard for me to focus on anything other than the added stress of having another one. I've in general been struggling with an "how in the heck am I going to handle having TWO children" attitude. (Please see "Confessions of a Slacker Mom" post below.) I'm not exactly super mom (who is really?) so I've been a bit of a scaredy cat in that department. Despite that, I feel blessed to be pregnant.

Summer Fun

I love summer. I love all the different things we can get out and do. It's great to be able to plan lots of different activities for Anna and I to while being able to get out of the house.


Swimming at The Bay. One of the cities nearby has a mini-water park. It's perfect for school aged kids and younger. There is a perfect toddler pool with water slides that Anna can do all by herself. We will definitely be visiting again.

Anna loves the zoo. When we get home the rest of the day is usually spent "playtending" zoo. Our house is full of peacocks, sea lions, and elephants. It's fun to watch Anna's imagination inspired.

The "yiddle pool" as Anna calls it, is usually a once-a-day (sometimes twice) ritual. I bought this
blow up pool and Anna can't get enough of it. It's awesome for me too, because unlike the big pool in our complex, I can just grab a lawn chair, sit in the shade, and read a book while Anna splashes and plays. Best five bucks I've spent all summer.

Disclaimer: Anna usually has a swimsuit on when swimming, but I just love this pic and it happened to be after she decided she wanted to swim fully clothed. After about two minutes of annoyance, I stripped her down and let her splash for a little while. It was all worth this look on her face. Pure joy for me.

Popsicles are becoming an staple in our house. Anna is mastering the art of manipulation in order to eat them. For example, after lunch she'll run up and say, "Oh mom, I ate my lunch so good, now I can have a 'sicle!" or randomly, "Oh mom, member the 'sicles? That'd be a good idea." Hard to resist. I especially love root beer.

Confessions of a Slacker Mom

Are you ready?

Here is my confession:

Anna is ready to be out of diapers and I'm too much of a slacker mom to deal with it. (Gasp!)

Anna has been showing signs of being ready to potty train for a couple of months now. She wants her diaper changed immediately after it's soiled, she constantly asks to sit on the potty, she even asks her nursery leaders to take her to the bathroom if she sees other kids going.

Great, right?! Not if you're a slacker mom like me. Really, do I have to do this? It's really quite convenient to have Anna in diapers. An extra diaper stashed in the glove compartment and I'm set to go anywhere without any stress of scoping out public bathrooms. (Although, truth be told, in my prego state I pretty much have to do that anyway.) Seriously though, I'm really dreading having to hunker down in my house for a couple of weeks, deal with accidents, and clean the inevitably more dirty bathrooms that come with potty training. Plus, you have to be vigilant, the antithesis to slacking.

Ahhh, I feel better now that that confession is off my chest. I think I'll go eat some ice cream.

The Blacks come to visit

My brother Josh, Julie, Caleb, and Taylor came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We had such a great time with them.



Anna and Caleb played together really well for the most part and Taylor was absolutely adorable. Anna was surprisingly friendly toward Taylor which gives me hope that she'll actually like baby brother when he gets here. (She normally has a cow if I give any baby attention. Major brake down.)

Fourth of July morning. No smiles! Don't they know it's a holiday?!

It was especially fun to have the Blacks here for the Fourth of July. We first headed to the ward house for some breakfast with our ward.

Julie, Taylor, Caleb, and Anna relaxing at the ward breakfast.

Then we drove to one of our favorite sites, the Red Rock Ampitheater. It was blasted hot and we must have climbed 200 stairs, but I always love the the beautiful scenery and view of the city.

Checking out the Red Rocks Ampitheater, Caleb in the RR Museum

J and A in the museum and walking up the millions of stairs.

The highlight of the day came after that when we stopped in a mountain town for lunch. We found a little park with a playground for the kids and were pleased to find a mountain stream behind the park to play in. It was completely shallow and safe for the kids to fun around in. Julie could even sit Taylor down in the river and let him splash. Anna opted to play in a mud puddle next to the river that some older boys had dug out. The impromtu river play was so fun and refreshing after the the heat of the red rocks.

Playing in the river.

Anna in the mud hole and Caleb showing off his big muscles.

Post-swim lounging.

After some naps we ended the day with some city fireworks. Personal fireworks are illegal here, so there was no home show. That's okay since Caleb had burned his hand on a sparkler the day before. (Poor guy!)

Being silly and waiting for the big fireworks show.

Watching the show and heading home.

Thanks Josh and Julie for visiting. We loved having you and you are welcome back any time! (That goes for anyone reading this. We LOVE having visitors.)

Anna's Prayer

Just before Anna jumped in bed for a nap today, she reminded me that she needed to say a prayer. Stalling? I think she's just really spiritually minded. Her prayer went something like this:

Dear Fader,

Grate for books, grate for bed, grate for toys, and chairs, and floor, and wall, and teddy, and carebear, and....that, and go to the library, and go back home, and the book store, and King Soopers (grocery store ), and Target, and shoes, and 'member that yesterday at the doctor, and dad go to work at the hopisal, aaaaannnnnddddd....,

(Mom interjects: Please bless...)

Bess Anna get some rest, and no be scared.

Jesus Chwist,
AAAAAmen

Had to try so hard not to smile and laugh watching her roll around the floor and pray. Funny kid. Love that she tries so hard.

I finally got a video to work...

Anna in her favorite pastime and demonstrating her diva attitude toward being filmed.

Summer Rainstorms

Yesterday while Anna was napping a summer rainstorm hit. Knowing the brevity of western rainstorms I quickly stopped what I was doing, opened the front door, grabbed a blanket and book and parked myself on the couch.

In my mind there is not much more satisfying to the soul than smell of fresh rain on dry earth and uncharacteristic cool air floating through the house. Even though the thunder and rain only lasted about 30 minutes it made me so happy!

Within an hour there was no trace of stormy weather. The sky was blue, the ground was dry, and the air was hot. But at least for few minutes everything seemed to hold still for the storm.

I need more moments of spontaneous stillness...

The Denver Temple

A couple weekends ago we finally went to visit the Denver Temple. It's about fourty-five minutes south of where we live. There is such an immediate peace when you step on any temple grounds and this one was no different. The grounds were beautiful, Anna was content, and Jeff and I had a great time taking photos. Can't wait to do a session. (Now if we could only find someone to babysit...)

SURPRISE!

It's a BOY!

We're still in shock.

After being told at 17 weeks we were (probably) having a girl, we are happy and still reeling over this news. Even better news, everything looks great and HE is a healthy, kicking, growing BOY

Sorry the pics are so blurry. The first is baby boy showing off the goods, and the second is him sucking his thumb.