Just try not to smile

This morning I was running late getting ready for church (even though it doesn't start until 12:30- why is that always the case???) so I asked Taylor to get Isla bathed and dressed.  He brought her in and set her up on one of the pillows in our bed... and then we made ourselves even later oohing and ahhing over her and taking pictures.  Not the best quality since it was with an iphone, but seriously, can you resist smiling.  Taylor made it his opening screen and has commented several times since then that it is so wonderful to unlock his phone and see that bright smile beaming up at him especially when he's having a hard day at work.  Daddy's girl has melted his heart already!

Our 9th Anniversary

Our anniversary this year was a perfect accident of greatness.  We weren't really planning to do anything with a 2 month old in tow and definitely not much with our usual babysitters out of the country.  We really didn't even think about it until July when Taylor's sister sent out a list of the concerts her parents have tickets to and would miss since they were gone.  Did we want some?  Mostly, not, sadly.  Red Butte Concerts are fun and GREAT people watching with a very NON-traditional Utah crowd, but not a good place to take kids.  But amazingly, 2 nights before our actual anniversary, Al Green was coming to Red Butte.  He just happens to have written and sings OUR song.  It was too perfect!  We couldn't pass up the chance to hear him sing it live!

We found a last minute babysitter (thanks Heather! so nice to have family around) and headed off with Taylor's sister and her husband- and Isla in tow(who was fabulous and slept most of the time).  We LOVE Utah evenings.  It's instantly cool if you're in the shade so we brought a picnic dinner and hung out listening to the opening act.

Then it was time for Mr. Al Green himself.  He was A-mazing!  And for his last song he sang "Let's Stay Together" and even though I woke Isla up so I could stand up and dance with my hubby, it was absolutely perfect.  So fun to sing along and dance and remember 9 fabulous years together!

After the concert we picked up our kids and then left them with Barbara and Clint for Friday night and most of Saturday.
For my anniversary present to Taylor, I compiled and printed up our blog entries.  The first book covered all our time in DC and then I ended up making a book for each year since there were so many entries.  Taylor loved it of course and I'm glad we finally have hard copies of all the amazing experiences we've had these past years.

Making it was actually really easy as there's lots of websites that will "slurp" up all the entries and even make a table of contents for you.  Then I just had to edit things a bit.  So fun to read back through and remember things I had forgotten.

I LOVE seeing the cute pictures of my kiddos and being reminded of the amazing people we've known and places we've been.  It makes me glad I took the time to write about not just the big events but the small things like making snowmen in DC with snow off the trunk of our car.  Good times!

Maybe the best part has been that these books have become instant favorites of my kids.  I frequently find them reading them and they love to point themselves out.  Miles still refuses to believe any of his baby pictures are actually him.  In fairness they do look like Isla in her current form.

In the end an easy way to do our family history for a non-crafty scrapbooker like me.  And if (when) they get destroyed from overreading and little grubby boy hands, we'll just print another!

More pictures thanks to the fam

One of my regrets from our reunion was how few pictures I took.  Normally there are hundreds of pictures by the end of the trip but this time I was very distracted with Isla and hosting duties.  Thankfully my fabulous sister Kelli set up a photo sharing site for the family and so I got to see (and steal) some great shots I am so glad we got.

Ethan demonstrating that he could indeed have been eaten by this dinosaur. 

 Taylor carrying Miles because this 2 1/2 year old is a holy terror and several times had to be pulled off of exhibits and away from others he was "rocking".

 Proof that I was there!

 Proof that we ate at J-Dawgs even if it isn't us in the picture.

 Proof that Isaac is a cutie pie.

 And proof that Ethan will smile and pose for ANYONE with a camera.

 Eating smores outside- I apparently totally missed this.

 They do look like they were yummy though.

 Proof that Isla wasn't nursing the whole time even though it feels that way now.

 Uncle Fred: the human jungle gym and best uncle ever.

 A much needed shot:  my dad carrying Isla around to "look" at things.  He does this with every baby so someday I'll have to blog about this favorite grandkid past time and I'll have pictures with all 4 of them being carried by my wonderful dad.

 This one is classic.  And I did witness (and try to stop) this child of mine.  Did I mention he's a holy terror?  Apparently he was thirsty.  And apparently none of the myriad of cups on the table was good enough.  But then of course his shirt gone drenched.  So it had to be removed.  But of course he was still thirsty.  So there you go.  It's Miles.  We kind of just roll our eyes wait patiently for him to turn 4.

 This picture isn't of our family but I'm so glad I found it since it reminded me of a story I neglected to include.  Apparently while I was waiting with Miles for the bungy trampolines, Taylor took Isaac and Ethan on the alpine slides.  (pictured here).  Ethan was big enough to ride by himself (just like Nathan in the picture) so Taylor rode with Isaac who wasn't big enough to go solo (just like Robert in the picture).  Taylor let Ethan go first and then he came later when the worker said it was safe to go- basically that there was enough distance between them that they shouldn't run into each other.  Unfortunately Ethan is a first child- and that means he's very black and white, right and wrong.  And following rules is very important to him.  So when there were signs on the track saying "slow down" he SLOWED DOWN.  Truthfully it's just so they can take your picture and try to sell it back to you, but Ethan was obedient- of course!  Unfortunately he slowed down so much that he stopped and so when Taylor came barreling around the curve (clearly NOT following the signs) he wasn't able to slam on the brakes fast enough to avoid colliding with Ethan.  Who was bumped severely and knocked off the track, but in the end was unhurt and fine- but felt very indignant and several times lectured Taylor about his not following the rules.  Anyway, thankfully they're all fine and now it's a funny story even if Taylor and Ethan both still insist that they are each right and the other wrong.

 Miles and cute Jessica waiting for the bungy trampolines.

 A better shot than I got of the fun slides.

 The cousins on the aerial tram riding to the top of the mountain.

 And I do mean literally the TOP of the mountain.  From here you can ski down any number of ways and end up in very different places.  Here's the one and only picture of our whole group together (except Taylor who randomly had good cell reception at the top of the mountain and was dealing with some crisis at work). 14 adults.  16 kids.  Lots of fun!

Life with little Isla

Life with this little sweetie is truly wonderful.  She constantly amazes us with how sweet and cute and easy she is.  Taylor can't get enough of her and picks her up the second he gets home from work each night.  Of course there's some things you can't do one handed (like opening Papa Murphy's saran wrapped pizzas) so it's lucky Isla doesn't roll yet and is happy to just lay on the counter and kick her feet.

Isla is starting to really interact with people- and things.  She's pretty convinced these twirling fish are her friends- they do spin and blow bubbles.

This is the scene almost every morning minus me right next to her.  She normally goes to sleep between 8 and 9pm, gets up to eat once between 2:30 and 5am and then gets up again around 7 when her noisy brothers in the next room get restless.  That's when they get sent downstairs by an annoyed mother and Isla gets to join me in bed for another hour or two.  Seriously love this little cuddle bug!

Isla is pretty good at going to sleep on her own.  She still likes to be swaddled although she almost always breaks free at some point.

She loves looking at her little lady bug friends although she loves it even more if you turn on the mobile and they move and play music for her.  Unfortunately then she wants them to KEEP doing their little dance for her and gets mad when they stop.  So... slightly counterproductive to inducing sleep, but great if I need to set her down somewhere for a minute where the boys won't get her.

Taylor is still the official "sandman" in our house.  She has stopped falling asleep on me unless she's swaddled and it's early morning.  But Taylor has the magic and coaxes her into taking an evening nap almost every night when he gets home from work.

These two are so sweet together.

When people ask me how the boys are liking her, I tell them the truth.  Mostly Ethan and Isaac just ignore her.  She doesn't cry much and she doesn't interact with them much so they mostly just go about their own business.  But Miles, Miles is smitten.  He's truly concerned for her well being and will run and get her a binky whenever she starts to fuss at all.  Of course then she ends up gagging on it since he hasn't quite figured out how to gently put it into her mouth, but he does try.  And he's the one still asking to hold her.  He talks to her in a high baby talk voice and loves to kiss her little feet.  He's the last one I would have expected to be interested in a baby but it makes me happy thinking they'll be good little friends as they grow up.

Occasionally the boys decide to include her in their fun though.  This afternoon Ethan was waiting for me to finish making my lunch so I'd sit down and listen to him read to me.  Since I was taking too long he decided that Isla would want to listen.

Not sure how much she got out of it but she's an obliging little sister and it's cute to see them interacting together.

Rocky Shores at Hogle Zoo

For the past year our local zoo has had one huge section closed for construction.  The boys have enjoyed watching the big diggers and trucks working and we've anxiously awaiting the opening.  Sadly it opened right about when Isla was born and I haven't been brave enough to venture out with 4 kids in the hot sun yet.  But since the cousins were going along, we decided to join the big group.  So much fun!!!

Here's our big group of littles: Isla (you can see a bit of her arm), Ethan, Sam, Jake, Miles, Cole, Amelia, Isaac, Owen, and little Charlie asleep in his stroller.

The otters had just been fed when we arrived and they were very playful running around the yard, sliding into the water, swimming around and then starting their circuit all over again.

It was very cute to watch all the boys next to the glass.  When the otters were above ground they'd stand up on tippy toes and watch and as soon as they dove under the water all the kids would squat down in unison to see them better.

This new part of the zoo is amazing with lots of pathways and statues.  So of course we had to climb on each one and needed pictures there too.

The seals were fun to watch swimming back and forth.

But the polar bear, Rizzo, takes the cake.  She apparently does her exercise routine every morning for an hour or so and we were lucky enough to get to watch her do it.  She climbs up on this rock on the far left, looks in the window, dives backwards, swims back and climbs onto the rocks...

And then dives back under here in front of Miles(orange shirt) and Isaac(white shirt).  And then starts it all over again.  She's very entertaining to watch and the building has so many places to see from that even though the zoo was very crowded, we felt like we could stay and watch as long as we wanted to weren't blocking anyone.

The kids favorite spot is the window where Rizzo starts her back dive.  She stands up straight (which is really high since she's a big polar bear) right in front of the glass (and all the cheering kids) and then dives backwards.  And she's back to do it again in less than a minute so the kids were never bored.  Ethan's the one with his hand on the glass trying to see if he can reach as high as she will.

After the otters, seals, and polar bear, we hit the giraffes and tigers and then truthfully skipped the rest of the zoo.  It was just to hot and thankfully that's why we get a zoo membership.  We can stay as little as we want and come back whenever.  So much fun!  Great job on the new exhibits.  We LOVE them!

Zucchini Explosion!

Admittedly I have mostly ignored our garden this year.  We planted in May and I've weeded maybe twice.  It gets watered automatically thankfully.  So Sunday when we got home from church I walked over just to see how it was going.  And found 4 MONSTER zucchinis.  So apparently I need to pay more attention (I promise I will as soon as the tomatoes start to come in :) and in the mean time the question is: what to do with this much zucchini?!?

Pinterest to the rescue.  I've been pinning random zucchini recipes that look good and this seemed like the perfect time to try them.  

So Sunday night we added fried zucchini to our dinner.  Recipe score:  a perfect 10.  In fact they were so good that Taylor and I didn't even share them with the boys.

Tuesday night:  zucchini boats.  Score: maybe a 3.  And that's generous.  They took almost a hour hour to prepare plus a half hour to cook and then the zucchini itself was very slimy.  Next time I think I'll slice the zucchini, barely saute it and add all the other ingredients together- zucchini, sausage, mozzarella cheese, and spaghetti sauce. mmmm as long as the zucchini isn't slimy.

Wednesday night we added baked zucchini fries to our dinner and I forgot to take a picture until I was doing dishes and realized that these were the only few that didn't get scarfed down.  Miles kept stealing them off Taylor's plate.  Of course he was also stealing pieces of spinach off Isaac's plate so maybe he was just craving vegis.  Who knows?
Much better for you than the fried version and almost just as good.  Easier to make to.  Recipe score:  10- because my kids loved them so much.

And on Thursday we used our last zucchini to make zucchini brownies.  If you want the recipe it's on my pinterest account and they were Deee-Licious!  A little dry so they definitely needed the frosting to balance them out but they were gooey and fabulous and really very easy to make.  That brown glob in the top right is the piece Taylor snuck when he got home from work and we were still out swimming.  His comment to me when I made a face at him was that really I should be "thanking him" for not eating more since they were SOOO good.  And that was pre-frosting.  Recipe score:  definitely a 10.  So all in all and fun week of adding zucchini to our diet and I'm pleasantly surprised to be keeping all 4 recipes and only needing to modify one.

Next up:  I pinned a recipe for lemon zucchini bread.  YUM!  And since I haven't checked the garden since Sunday there's probably a few more zucchinis ready to be picked.  Yeah!  Love our garden!