Summertime

We’ve been trying to take advantage of the weather that has finally been consistently warm. I’m not the type who loves to spend hours at the pool everyday, especially when it’s such an effort to get ready and be there with a 2-year-old and 2-month-old, but I’m trying to go for Bennett’s sake :) He of course finds a basketball as soon as we get there and plays with that most of the time, although he wants me to hold his hand the whole time – good because I’m there so he doesn’t fall under water, frustrating when I need to take care of Ryan. We have gone on walks and bike rides, and I had to take a picture of Bennett a couple weeks ago because apparently I need to pay better attention when I put on his helmet (it was me, not him, who put it on backwards and even buckled it without realizing it).

Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival

Last Saturday, we spent the morning getting things done around the house, then decided to skip the rest of the to-do list and head to the Gateway in Salt Lake for the annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival. Bennett fell asleep on the way up there and is always a little reserved in big groups, so he didn’t seem as excited about it as we’d hoped he would be. We still had fun though. There were some amazing creations – who knew how elaborate sidewalk chalk could be? Here’s a picture of Bennett with his favorite piece of art: Lightning McQueen. And a couple of Nate attempting (fairly unsuccessfully) to get Bennett to play in the Gateway Fountains.

 

Camille & Bryce, Sitting in a Tree

I don’t know why that’s the first thing that came to mind when I typed Camille & Bryce. Anyway – My little sister is getting married! She and her fiance were kind enough to let me take their engagement pictures. We had a couple issues with wind and lighting, but they were great sports and we had fun – and got some cute pictures. Here are some of my favorites. We’re looking forward to their wedding in a few weeks!

  

2 Months

This post is way overdue, so I’ll make it quick. Here’s a little update on Ryan:

• can hold his head up (for a little while at least)
• likes to stand up and look around (while we're holding him)
• smiles (not just from gas)
• is still rolling from his tummy to his back, although sometimes he gets frustrated when he has tummy time
• usually wakes up once during the night around 4, but has slept through the night maybe 8-10 times (through the night being 9 or 10pm to about 6am)
• weighs 11lbs 9.5 oz (42nd percentile), 24.5” long (91.5%) and head is 15” (62%). This is pretty close to Bennett’s size at the same age.

It is fun to see him start to do a little more – looking at toys, pushing up off the floor for tummy time, smiling at us, and cooing a little bit. We think he’s pretty cute!

He still will sleep pretty much anywhere, as long as he falls asleep either with someone holding him or in the car. And he got his arm stuck in this ring while he was laying on his tummy time mat the other day.

Grandpa Morris

The Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, my Grandpa Morris passed away. He was 90 years old, and seemed to be pretty healthy until he had a stroke a few days before. That Saturday, I took Ryan and went with my brother, sister, and dad up to Idaho to see him in the hospital. He wasn’t conscious, but I was grateful I had the chance to go and say good-bye. On Tuesday, Nate got our mail (which I hadn’t gotten in a couple days) and I had a card from Grandpa thanking me for the baby announcement I sent him. It was so neat to get the card a couple of days later and I was grateful that I had gotten the announcement to him in time.

We went up to Grandpa’s funeral on Friday. I felt like I learned things about him that I unfortunately didn’t know before, and I was struck by how many of my Grandpa’s qualities my dad has inherited, and how many things I recognized in my dad. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to know grandpa and for his hard work and example. I’m also grateful to know that he is with my grandma again, who passed away almost 7 years ago. They met on a Memorial Day weekend 62 years ago, and were reunited this year on Memorial Day weekend.

It was nice to see my immediate and extended family for the funeral, even though we weren’t together very long. My sister Jessica and her almost-one-year-old James stayed with us for the weekend after the funeral, and it was fun to spend some time with her. We went to Camille’s bridal shower and had a fun bbq with Dave & Liz and Camille & Bryce while she was here (no pics to show for it though…).

I didn’t take too many pictures, but here are a few from the graveside service:

Grandpa was a radio operator for the air force during WWII, so they did the military ceremony at his burial, I can’t remember what they call it. And Bennett being reverent with his grandma.

Jessica taking Bennett and Kallie for a walk, and Grandma and Grandpa’s Headstone.

and one of James “helping” Ryan swing – he loves babies and would get really excited whenever he saw Ryan!

and a picture of us with Grandpa at his 90th birthday party in January:

 

Rolling Over, Counting and Passing

Ryan and Bennett have learned some new tricks the last couple weeks. On the 27th – so when he was 7 weeks old – Ryan decided to roll over (tummy to back). Bennett had rolled over 3 times in a row at about 6 weeks, but then didn’t do it again for about a month, so I thought Ryan’s might just be a fluke too. Ryan did it 4 times in a row that day, then has done it a few times since then, but not necessarily consistently. I only had my camera phone available when he rolled the first time, so the quality’s not great, but here he is:

Bennett has also been counting things (up to 10) for a while (usually with all the right numbers in order, although they do get mixed up sometimes) but generally won’t do it when we ask him to. He decided to count his and Bennett’s diapers the other day, so I took a little video of him counting.

And finally – Bennett decided he needed a play buddy. Ryan was laying (lying?) on the couch, and Bennett went over and opened up Ryan’s hand, put a ball in it, moved Ryan’s arm to throw the ball and said “pass!” Ryan seemed to go along with it, and even looks like he’s smiling in a couple of the pictures I took. Once again, my video is on the cell phone camera so I apologize for the low quality!

Memorial Day

We had a hard time coming up with something fun to do Memorial Day weekend because a) Ryan’s still really young, and b) it was supposed to rain most of the weekend. We celebrated our 4-year anniversary on Friday night by leaving the kids with my nice brother and going to dinner, then to a movie at the drive-in. Not super exciting, but it was at least something different and just the two of us.

We hung out with Nate’s family on Sunday, then Monday got some things done around the house in the morning and that afternoon, we went down to Provo and went bowling with Camille and Bryce (my sister & her fiance). I had possibly one of my best games ever. Unfortunately, I can’t remember my score (I want to say 140-ish but that seems too high given my past performances :). Bennett had a blast and made sure he got to use the orange ball every time. We stopped and got dinner on the way home and although it wasn’t a super exciting day, it was nice to be able to spend it together.