One / Thirty-...Five?

A few weeks ago our Smoochface reached that big first birthday.  At her checkup this week she was looking great, measuring leaner and taller than average as per usual, but (to us at least) in the highest possible percentile for adorableness.  She didn't much care for her shot at the moment, but a few snuggles from Mommy and she was her usual happy self again.  She's overall such a pleasant and sweet girl, so cuddly these days and usually pretty sweet to new people.  She is absolutely walking and starting to talk just a bit and make animal sounds, which we can hardly stand how cute it is.  She has her way when it comes to meal time, hungry for what she's eating but only in just the moment she wants to eat it, and her naps are kind of hit-and-miss but her nighttime sleeping is great.  We love her ombre hair and her close-to-double-digits teeth and her scrunchy smile and her bright blue eyes.  She definitely has a nice loud wail that she uses to great effect when she feels it necessary, but overall she is a delight to one and all.

The Wife's great twelve-month update is just here, but here are some of my pictures:

Helping herself to one of Mommy's Valentine's Day gifts

Throwback to visiting the Puppy Barn

At the Provo City Center Temple open house.  She at least was very well-behaved there.

Enjoying a tea party hosted by Big Brother.

Helping with some home improvements

New favorite game!

The weather was finally getting nice enough to go out.

I love being home on the weekends and able to fetch this face after naps!

On her actual day of we just opened some presents (BB was happy to help her out with the wrapping paper/playing) and she tentatively tried out the strawberry shortcake provided by Mommy, and a few days later we had her birthday party playdate at the park, which was fun and with lots of cousins, and Mommy's amazing butterbeer cupcakes.  Kind of the opposite of The Boy's first birthday party, it was beautiful all morning long and then turned windy and cold by afternoon party time rolled around, but we bundled her up and she enjoyed her treat and some cozy snuggles while the kids played on the fun playground (and big bro took a tumble into the dry creek bed... watch your step there, Boy... more to come on that later).

Every little girl's birthday dream come true:  Costco.

Oh all right, and the mall.

Hee hee, Baby Yoda!

New book!

Ummmmm yes.

3 Cs: Cute, cold, cupcake. 

As usual, it's hard to forget our tiny baby but it's also hard to imagine her any other way than she is right now!  She has the sweetest disposition and I am always so so glad to see her clutching to the baby gate at the top of the stairs waiting to see me when I come home.  It's all I can do to not smother her with kisses at every moment.

Oh!  And then I had a birthday too.  Is it so weird that it's just hard to remember exactly how old you are when you get to a certain age?  I say it is so weird.  But I never mind a birthday (even if I am about halfway through the decade to 40...), and The Wife always makes it such a special occasion.  I went in to work a little late so I could enjoy my special birthday cereal with my three favorite people, and then was treated to lunch by my coworkers, and then had a special delicious dinner of my childhood pick spaghetti followed by presents, and THEN we had friends and family come over to enjoy another of The Wife's confectionary masterpieces.  She always does, but she really outdid herself this time.  It was great to have so many fun people come over, but we admit that we were sorry not to have leftovers...  Next time we'll make a bonus and hide it away.

Yes, Boy, you can have some Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Aww, thanks, work.

The best pants ever.  I have worn them every day since then.

Masterpiece!

So much for good luck -- St. Patrick was not with me when I somehow or other shattered my poor iPod screen.  At least it still plays just fine.  Back in the day I would have done a whole blogpost about this, but eh.

Happy birthdays to us!  We both had good ones.

July 2014 Races

We did some races last month!  I kept putting off posting about them, but no more.

First, on the 19th we joined in the Pound the Pavement For Parenthood crowd in Orem.  We heard about this race through Groupon or some such, and hadn't ever run it before, but it was fun and a pretty good, level course, and maybe we'll do it again next year.  What cause could be better than helping young couples who are hoping and praying and trying to add a wee young human to their family?  The boys did the 5K, and The Wife decided to go for the 10K this time.  There were quite a few runners for the 5K, but the 10 didn't have quite as many as we expected, and it was hot but not miserable.  I did pretty well at about 23:54 (7:25/mile), not my fastest, but pretty good for pushing a stroller, and it was 3.2 miles too, coming in apparently 2nd overall (they only gave awards for first place, and evidently the guy ahead of me was also pushing a stroller.  Fitting for a family-themed race, eh?), and then I backtracked on the 10K route and we all finished Julie's race together.  Then during the awards they actually gave away several IVF cycles to some lucky raffle-winners, which may or may not have made certain parties cry just a bit.

Then, on Pioneer Day of all days, we went from Temple...

... to Temple!

Mom and Dad joined us for our fun Pioneer Day race.  We were a little late getting started (so we parked farther away, thinking there would be no parking up at the temple, of which there turned out to be plenty...), which was kind of frustrating, since we were at the back of the pack from the very start, which meant that we were basically running into hundreds of street-wide walls of thousands of moseying people the entire time.  Still, we weaved our way through and made it to the end, and I had to get over my racing instinct of trying to go as fast as I possibly could, since it just wasn't going to happen.

Thanks for coming, Mom and Dad!

Baby's a lot bigger than he was at this race last year.

Ahahaha, his first [running] bib.

Yay for summer races!  (Though I always look forward to the fall ones more.)

Good and Blessed

Last weekend we had a couple of significant events in the family, kind of at more or less opposite ends of the youth Church milestone spectrum, so I thought I would just post about them together.

First, on Saturday, a bunch of beloved family went to the temple to see oldest nephew Jordan receive his endowments in preparation for leaving to serve a mission for the Lord in El Salvador and Belize.  The Wife stayed at home with The Boy, but Jordan had plenty of support from loved ones, and after the insanity that was us trying to get all of us into the same session due to overcrowding (for reasons) settled down, we worked it all out and it was really nice (and then we ate in the cafeteria which is always delicious).  It was very splendid to share this experience with him, and I can't believe he's already a better part of the year toward 19.  Yikes.  I remember when this boy was born and I ran around junior high shouting "IT'S A BOY!" to my friends so much that it sort of became a Thing.  He will be a super missionary, and he will be missed.

There were more people present than in this picture, but some of them left before dinner to get back to their little ones.
Also, the lesson learned here is that my phone takes less than ideal pictures.

I tried to adjust the colors in Photoshop for a few minutes.

Luckily the subjects are cute anyway.

Second, the following day we at last gave The Boy his baby blessing at church.  We thought it would be good to wait just a few weeks, and it worked out since Julie's dad happened to be in town that weekend.  So many friends and family came to witness the blessed event, and I actually recorded audio of it for posterity (someone recorded and transcribed mine and I always thought it was nice to have years later), but I won't post the whole thing here -- the general gist was that he's a lovely boy and he'll have a really great and inspiring life.  So he is now good and blessed and official (with the Church at least, with the government, almost), and it was a very interesting experience overall.  Afterward we went to a nearby park and had an epic picnic of snacks and cheeses.  This is definitely the first time I've been in charge of throwing this kind of party, so we had a few concerns about whether or not there would be enough food and if I would be able to supervise the making of a satisfactory Nightmare (this caused far more stress for me than it really should have), but it all worked out and everyone brought such delicious sides and such to go along with the standard (delicious) sandwiches.  I tell you, Costco has some pretty nice lunch meats and sliced cheese.

Emily's phone takes much better pictures than mine does.

He didn't make a peep the whole time.

It turned out to be a huge success!  (Julie's Dad was so amazed by the entire concept of this particular family tradition.)  The addition of BCEs was, if I do say so myself, inspired.

We must eat it.

Everyone who stood in the circle.  We missed you Todd, Jonny, KC and Jeff!  And Tyler and Bruce!

Oldest and youngest boy cousins!  The Boy will be so much bigger when Jordan comes home.

This family are we.

Amber loves a baby, so she snatched up The Boy, and then Cami and her newborn Nora came along and then this happened.  Baby smooches all around!

Emily and KC and their three poopsies were heading out after a nice long visit, and I managed to get a great triplets picture.  They have come a long way since their newborn days almost four years ago.

And then, lest he should, erm, mess up his nice white blessing suit, we put him in this other new getup, which is also adorable.

Then the next day we decided we should take some pictures of him IN said getup, so here they be:

ARGYLE (sort of) SWEATER VEST.  Pretty much exactly what I had in mind when I imagined what we should put him in.  Thanks for the blessing present, Ma!

He looks like he might be about to fly.

Black and white feet for ultimate effect.

Squinty smile, hee hee.

This is probably pretty much my favorite picture of him ever.

:D

This boy is so loved.

One Week and Counting...

(Retroactive post from Saturday)

At last my countdown has reached seven days left, and to commemorate the momentous occasion, we had a totally busy day. Everything went really well, I just wish I had put head to pillow a tiny bit earlier the night before! Nevertheless, here is a rundown of our plethora of yesterday's activities.

• We started out with the annual Alpine Days 5K at 7:00 am (honestly, it's such an obscene time of day to start a race, why not 8 or even 9? I know they wanted to get it going before it was too hot, but there's not MUCH difference between 7 and 8, and on the side, it was a really cool morning, great for running). We joined Mom, Melody, Jonny, Julia, Gabe and Cami and all did pretty well! I didn't get a new PR (you can't get one every time--eventually you would have to be running 3-minute miles!), but I am totally satisfied with my rate of 21:28. I was *this close* to placing, but I did much better than last year at this race.
  
• Then I checked out my garden, which yielded today a gigantic zucchini and several lovely red tomatoes.

It's been so nice, I've hardly had to do anything for my garden this year, and it looks great for the most part. Still waiting on those watermelon, and the poor cucumber seems to be wilting, but overall it's quite nice.

• After this, we came home and made ready for the bridal shower my lovely sisters threw for my bride-to-be. As I was shooed away, I used this time first to scan in some old photos I found (and I finally found my second and third old scrapbooks, which have eluded me for several weeks now. Silly me, why didn't I just look in that random box sitting on the floor next to the couch all this time?), and then to rush to Kohl's with Dad to buy some slacks, since my suit is at the cleaners and won't be done until Wednesday, and since I evidently threw out all my slacks last time I purged my closet of clothes that no longer fit, and since I needed something for the day's later events, as well as for church the following day. We found some finally (why in the world is my newish size so impossible to find everywhere I shop?) and made it home as the party was winding down. We were excited for all the lovely and useful gifts we received and there were plenty of cinnamon rolls (OMG, Matt, those cinnamon rolls!) and pound cake left to enjoy.
  
  
• Next came my epic shave. I wanted to shave before we headed to the temple, and I had shaved a bit of it before church last Sunday, leaving my well-loved and -missed goatee for this last week. This time Julie documented the process of shaving, as I again shaved in phases. I have to admit that I liked some of these looks far more than I expected, and infinitely more than I should have.
  
  After last week's goatee shave
  
  
  Assessing the situation...
  
  
  
  So many hairs! A pretty good razor too.
  
  
  You don't want to mess with the law in this town.
  
  
  
  Flashbacks from Pirates of Penzance, anyone?
  
  
  
  The photog makes her appearance
  
  
  Not a Hitler 'stache, a Chaplin 'stache!
  
  
  
  Oh, the drama. I think I look like a small child.
  
  
  
• We went to the temple! It was glorious! I have long waited to see my love in the Celestial Room with me, and it hit me that this is for real. She had a good experience, a little overwhelmed naturally, but she was about as prepared as she could be.
• We went to have dinner with some friends of Julie's family who used to live in Rolla, but who have some years ago moved back to Provo. It's always nice to meet friends and family from Julie's side, and it was good to get to know them.
• Finally, we rushed to Lindon for Liza and Kent's going-away party. In just a matter of weeks they will be first visiting Australia, and then moving to the northeast coast of the U.S. for Kent to start graduate school in Oregon. They have been such wonderful friends, and will be missed. It was such a wonderfully chilly night, I caught the autumn bug for sure. We had Kneader's sandwiches, amazing spinach dip, cream puffs and S'mores roasted over a campfire and spent many lovely minutes discussing the qualities of religious, controversial films and abusing the literary deficiencies of certain authors who have an inexplicable following, despite the fact that their vampire books are hideously written.

We filled up on gas, stopped at Walmart, and then came home. We tried to finish the last ten minutes of a movie we started over a week ago, and we couldn't even get through that. I love when days that are packed with things to do work out like they should. Hardly a hitch! This time next week...