Farm Country

My friend Laura and her daughter Grace came down today to go to Thanksgiving Point’s Farm Country with us. Bennett seemed to have fun looking at all the different animals, and being able to just run around on the grass. He had fun on the pony ride, although he did get just a little nervous when the pony started moving. It was a fun little outing. Some of the highlights:

Petting the horse, and riding the pony (don’t worry, I did hold onto him when we were moving. I took the picture before we started.)

more of the pony ride, watching the cows, and looking at other kids riding the ponies. We had moved on to looking at other animals but he walked all the way back across the lawn to watch the ponies

We attempted to get some pictures of the kids together sitting on the little picnic table, then on the cow bench, but weren’t super cooperative. They’re still cute though.

  

And my favorite…Bennett just chillin’ on the cow bench

Just Because He’s Cute

with his post-nap hair :)

this is his typical response when I ask him where something is or went

 

Very concentrated while picking up the ball, and finally: very mad because I wouldn’t give him the camera.

Pursuit of Craftiness, Part III – Christmas Stockings in July

Since this post over two years ago, I’ve done a few different craft projects, but apparently only posted about 1 other one. Anyway – yesterday, I FINALLY finished our Christmas stockings that I started making in November. It took me forever to decide what I wanted to do (I couldn’t find any cute Christmas fabric I liked, so I ended up going with a basic red / green with different ribbons on them) then gathered the various ribbons. Nate’s mom generously donated the white quilted fabric for the top, and after 7+ months of working on them off and on (with several hiatuses because I couldn’t decide quite how to do a certain part) I finished them yesterday. Hooray! I convinced Nate to help me find our stocking holders so I could see them hanging from the mantel. If you look closely there are definitely flaws, but overall I’m happy with how they turned out. Hopefully my next project won’t take nearly as long!

Happy 4th of July!!

We had a fun 4th of July weekend – lots of relaxing, and some fun stuff too. On Friday night, we went up to a little party at the Red Ledges community in Heber City. They had a BBQ and lots of balls for Bennett to play with, then we got to watch the fireworks. It wasn’t the biggest fireworks show I’ve ever seen, but it was definitely the closest I’ve ever been – we were right under the fireworks. Bennett was pretty tired by the time they started and he enjoyed watching them for a few minutes, then just laid his head on my shoulder and almost fell asleep. Nate went back there on Saturday and had fun playing in a golf tournament on their beautiful course with his cousins.

On Sunday, we went to Nate’s cute nephew Carson’s baby blessing, then spent the afternoon with family.

Nate had work off on Monday, so we decided to take our baby hiking backpack on its inaugural journey. We had a hike all planned in the Albion Basin up Little Cottonwood Canyon, but when we got up there the road was closed because there was still too much snow, and we were told the wildflowers weren’t out yet anyway. We decided to hike up to Twin Lakes instead. It ended up being a little harder than we expected based on the description, but the scenery on the way was really pretty and the lake at the top was beautiful.

After our hike, we went home and all took naps, then after dinner we went to get frozen yogurt at Thanksgiving Point. Bennett loved running around some of the gardens while we ate our frozen yogurt.

A few pictures from the hike:

The hike led to the top of the mountain, then we hiked down to Twin Lakes. As you can tell from Bennett’s expression, it was windy at the top

 

The view back into the Salt Lake Valley from the top, and a mountain Nate wanted to ski down

Bennett fell asleep just a few minutes before we got down to the lake – apparently the new backpack is comfortable enough :) Nate also taught him how to throw rocks into the lake and he was pretty mad when it was time to leave.

There was one spot on the trail down to / back up from the lake where we had to hike through some snow, and Bennett fell asleep again on the hike down. If you’ll look closely, you can see that he was sleeping with his crackers still in his hand.

Dave & Liz

My brother Dave and his fiancee agreed to be my guinea pigs and let me take their engagement pictures for my first “official” photo shoot (I’ve tried several with Bennett, and done several with my photography class but never by myself). It was fun to try out some different poses, etc., and the park we went to was beautiful. I waited to post these until they had decided which one they were sending out – I’m not posting that one so I won’t ruin the surprise :) There were of course many that didn’t turn out, but I thought we got some cute ones. Thanks Dave & Liz!