This one’s not t-ball. Cute anyway.
Category: Life
I Had a Birthday
I recently had a birthday. I turned 27. People almost always think I am older than I am and I think it will continue to be that way for awhile. I never feel old when I have another birthday: but I’m still not even in my thirties! In this last year I had a baby, but not much else has changed. That’s a good thing–I’ve spent so much time in my twenties moving around it is nice to finally be settled.
Here’s a selfie. I was tired of looking at my Facebook photo, so it got updated.
This is one of the first birthdays in quite a while that I was able to celebrate with my twin sister. (She’s temporarily moved back to Utah.) We had a big family party the day after my birthday. And then I went down and visited with her and lots of cousins for my kids.
My sister’s kids
Lots of cousins!
One my birthday presents was a camera, and it’s been fun taking pictures. It isn’t a super nice camera, but good enough for what I do. The lens isn’t super scratched and it isn’t lost so it beats out my previously two cameras.
Summer Fun
The boys did swim lessons. Neither of them passed. But they still got better at swimming!
Peter has struggled with riding his own bike. We finally got him a new bike with cool training wheels and he’s been doing much better. Good enough we even went on a short bike ride.
Playing at Mantua Lake. I love this little lake!
Joe made this pop bottle rocket last year, and we are still enjoying it. Fun thing to do on a hot day.
Peter adored the fireworks. It was worth staying up for.
Family Reunion
My husband’s family gets together a lot, but not usually to do anything all that exciting except for sitting around and visiting. That’s fine, but I wanted to do something else and sitting around waiting for other people to organize something wasn’t working. So I planned a family reunion. Attendance was not great (but Joe’s family is so large we had plenty of cousins to play with). We went to a children’s museum, went to a splash pad, and camped and played at the lake in Mantua.
I was having too much fun visiting and playing to actually take pictures.
Ogden Hike
We hiked up Waterfall canyon in Ogden. I did this hike last year with my two boys by myself. It went much faster with Joe along, even with another little boy in the mix. It’s a really enjoyable hike, not too long but still a bit of a challenge.
Willard Falls
The canyon is deceptive. One normal trail goes on a nice hike up to a couple of small waterfalls. But the canyon is also home to several other smaller trails that lead to eroded cliffs, dangerous creek crossings, and steep climbs. The first time we hike here, back before I had children, I was nearly crying because I was scared of falling down the steep hillside we were trying to hike across. We realized later we were on the wrong side of the creek.
Several years later we hike without incident. This time (as you can probably tell by my preamble), we didn’t start on the right trail and had to do a lot of scrambling to get back on the right one. Scrambling involved crossing bloating creeks, going up extremely steep, eroded hills, and bushwhacking through grass and sage brush. In some ways, it was a lot of fun. It had the benefit of being far shadier than the correct trail, and had almost as much thrill as a good roller coaster. The kids didn’t mind too much as well (minus the one creek crossing that scared Curtis to tears, but was actually easily crossed).
If you are ever hiking there, stay on the north side of the creek. And cross the creek right by the parking lot. Unless you want an adventure.
Stages of Early Childhood
Just wrote this one day, thought I would share.
- Cuddly newborn: Enjoyable very tiny, snugly baby.
- Sleepless baby: Just wishing they would sleep a big longer.
- Settled baby: Seems to have sleep figured out. Isn’t mobile yet. Just kinda a cute lump.
- Mobile mess: Learned to crawl. Not a good thing.
- Adorable toddler: Begins to do things that are just so cute.
- Wild thing: Does not have any boundaries. Constantly getting into everything.
- Terrific two: Starts to say things like, “I love you,” and wants to help all the time
- Terrible toddler: Doesn’t ever want to listen. Becomes very frustrated. Lots of tantrums. And they are supposed to get potty trained.
- Discovery: Starts to listen a bit, and becomes semi independent. Loves to discover and play.
- Inquisition: Won’t stop asking questions.
- Growing up: Almost fully independent and begins to understand things and self regulate.
Pictures from Peter
Photo Dump
This is how my kids feel about peanut butter playdough.
Eating a tiny ice cream cone with a tiny spoon.
Playing the floor is lava for Family Home Evening
Look who’s sitting by himself!
Guinea pigs are not good baby toys
Tower of cars
My hot husband building walls
Having fun at the fine arts center
Soccer
We’ve signed PB up for a lot of activities. Not because I want to do a lot of activities, but just trying to find something he likes. We’ve done t-ball, that was mildly okay, swim lesson that were decent but uneventful, karate that he tolerated but never liked, and yoga that was also a flop. So finally, we enrolled him in soccer.
And he liked soccer. Hooray! The first few games he played goalie, even though there isn’t a formal one. Then he got a little better and started to score lots of points. It was the first activity that he decided to do by himself at home too.
Liz Braithwaite 