Second Child Syndrome

Harper gets a lot of attention.  She gets plenty of one on one time.  She gets tons of hugs and kisses and snuggles.  She does not get a lot of documentation.  I take pictures, sure.  But with two kids it seems like I can either enjoy the cute the things they say and do, or document the cute things they say and do, but rarely can I do both.  Probably because both my kids do and say so many cute things I just can't keep up anymore.

But, Harper is two and a half, which is pretty much the peak of cute.  And my general rule is that cute always deserves to be documented, no matter how infrequent.

So here's a snapshot of Harper at 2.5

Her Favorites:
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood TV show
Fruit Snacks
Pinkalicious Books
Playing in Holden's room while he is at school
Singing

She'll Pass On;
Sleeping In
Eating Vegetables
Riding in a shopping cart without snacks
Keeping her shoes on in the car

She's Funny:

My sister Hannah said-- "Harper, you're awesome!"  To which Harper replied "No, I'm Harper!"

She feels like her body is just a second set of clothes and will say things like
"Can I swim in my bum?"  or "I just want to wear my tummy"

When she wants something she'll say "You wanted to...?" and when she wants to be carried she asks "You carry you me?"

Whenever she sees the McDonalds logo she says "Hey!  There's Diet Coke!"

She still sleeps in a crib, potty training is not even on our radar and she loves to be swaddled up like a burrito, so she's still very much the baby of our family.

And she's a pretty cute one, too.

In Summer

Summer is here and we are pumped!  Year round school looms in the not so distant future, so this is the closest thing we might get to a full blown summer and you better believe we are taking advantage.

We made it official by attending our very first graduation.  Some might say preschool graduation is overkill. Maybe it is.  But it exists for suckers like me and I will buy into it every time.

With pesky school out of the way we are ready to get down to the business of summer fun, and we take our fun very seriously.  Also, I love lists.

We are already making a pretty good dent in our list, too.  You missed out on some seriously amazing homemade snickerdoodle ice cream, if I do say so myself, and I hope to be up to my ears in zucchini in a month or so.  Also, who could forget our much anticipated "roadie" to Las Vegas.

We started off strong.  The kids were troopers in the car and we made an overnight pit stop in St. George. We were first timers, so we weren't quite sure where to start, but figured a visit to the temple and a splash pad couldn't be wrong.

Holden immediately bogarted the stairs in both locations, apparently. 

His adorable grin was gone the next day, however, when a stomach virus attacked him at both Target and the longest possible stretch of desert road before you hit civilization again.  Both ideal places to throw up.   Except for that they are not, in case you didn't catch the sarcasm. Luckily our Las Vegas hotel was pretty swank, because we holed up there the majority of our first day so Holden could recuperate and Harper could take a million baths in the tub and binge watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  

We were able to happen upon an old friend who was also visiting Vegas.  We live two towns apart and never manage to get together, so this was a fun treat!  Guess we just like to do things the hard way.  

Holden felt better the next morning, so we figured the best thing to do would be to hit up the breakfast buffet, obv.  Luckily it didn't backfire.  Holden's stomach was fine and Reo and I got to relive the magic doughnuts we've been dreaming about since our last trip to Vegas.

We hit up the pool early and praised the 105 degree weather.

Harper got a good nap in at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Other people were more excited.  Reo was stoked they had the pinball machine of his youth.  And Holden lives for arcades, so you can imagine his excitement level.

Despite losing a day, we were able to hit up a few of the highlights of The Strip.  And let's be honest, a few of the highlights is usually more than enough to tide you over.
We saw the fountain show...

And tasted some interesting Coke creations...

And then we blinked and it was time to go back home.  Ready to cross more things off our summer fun list. 

But really, having fun in the summer has never been our problem.  Winter is when I am a mean, unfun mom. Our real goal for summer is having slightly less fun, and spend slightly more time working on streamlining our morning routine from a leisurely 2 hours or so (complaining about doing your 4 chores is time consuming, Holden can tell you all about it)  to something slightly more manageable.  Or else morning kindergarten could be a struggle.  Which is ironic since my kids wake up before the sun every morning.  

Thanksgiving Thankfuls

So, sometimes a lot of times I complain, but it's no secret that I have a pretty sweet life.  One that I am so very thankful for.  And since there are about a million things I could list right now, I've decided to keep my thankfuls Thanksgiving related for this post.  Because there's plenty of those to keep me busy, plus it's an easy way to document Thanksgiving.  Well, parts of it.  I've discovered that the more food there is involved with a holiday, the less pictures I take since I am so busy stuffing my face, so Thanksgiving is lucky to get any photos at all.  

1.  Thankful for a husband who encourages me to decorate early so I can enjoy my tree on Thanksgiving.  I know.  Thanksgiving blasphemy.  Look away if you're offended.

2.  Thankful that we are all healthy enough to enjoy a Thanksgiving morning walk...Also thankful the weather cooperated.

3. Thankful that my mom is such a good cook, so that my job on Thanksgiving involves very little cooking, and a very lot of eating.

4.Thankful for Wii tournaments with the family.  And thankful that I was usually playing against Holden so I always got second to last place instead of last place.  

5.  Thankful for Black Friday deals that required no early mornings, Thanksgiving night shopping, or long lines.  Guess other people were not as excited about the tupperware sales as I was.

6.  Thankful that my family always comes to my random parties, and in this case, thankful they all took home extra eggnog after our taste testing session.

7. Thankful for this mama's girl, who is always ALWAYS up for a good selfies session.

8. Thankful for this little boy who drew me a ghost when I asked him to draw a Christmas picture.  He beats to his own drum, that one, which is equal parts infuriating and adorable, depending on the circumstances.

9.  And, as always, I am thankful for Diet Coke.

Our 4th

The Rundown:

We started our day with what is becoming a traditional 4th of July breakfast of champions.  Doughnuts and Diet Coke, picked up on the way to stake out our parade spot in the blazing sun, because I will never be hardcore enough to procure a shady spot the night before.  

We were joined by a whole crew of the fam this year, which exponentially increased Holden's taffy collecting footprint.

Which was good, because he spent the last week or so before the parade coaching Harper that she needs to help him clap so the people throw candy at them.

And I got a gift better than the 10,000 pounds of taffy Holden ended up with.  The news of happy hour finally within a reasonable driving distance?  Best news ever.

I mean, besides Gun Heaven.  Obv.

After the parade we brought everyone back to our house to show off our newly acquired pizza grilling skills.

The kids loved it.

What, you can't tell?

We threw in some eagle cookie decorating for good measure.  I was so engrossed in my craftmanship I didn't even notice Holden licking his spreader clean behind me.

We rounded out the day with what up until this year we have convinced Holden were "fireworks."  The snakes and pop its didn't fool anyone this year.

Which is why this was his face when he found out a couple of days later at the Manning BBQ that fireworks weren't going to be rained out after all.

Definitely going to have to up my game next year.

We finished up our patriotic weekend with good old fashioned red, white and blue pancakes for Sunday dinner.

All in all, another successful 4th of July holiday!

Hawaii (The Condensed Version)

 Here's the deal.  If it didn't involve eating, sleeping, or lounging by some water, it probably was not part of our vacation.  It was 8 days of doing as little as possible.  For reals.  A day in the life, as proof:

We made the most of doing nothing by following the "early to bed, early to rise" rule (with some pretty impressive naps thrown in for good measure.)  Here's us watching the sunrise and the sunset, respectively.

We'd lounge on the beach:

 Then we'd eat.

 We'd go to the pool,

 Then we'd eat.

 We'd pretend to do a touristy activity

To try to cover up the fact that we really went there for one purpose.  Dole Whip.

So, let's recap...

Beach.

Pool.

Eat.

Pretend to be active to burn off some of the eating.

Reward ourselves with Shave Ice.

Visit some of the haunts from my glory days (AKA one summer) at BYU-Hawaii.

Have a celebratory McDonalds run to commemorate that Hawaii was the birthplace of my love affair with Diet Coke.

Get more sleep in one week then we've gotten all year, resulting in us being pretty much giant nerds the whole trip.

Now do you believe me?  Eat + Sleep + Lounge = exactly the vacation I needed.  

The best part of going on vacation sans children?  You are actually excited to come home, instead of just suuuuuper bummed your vacation is over.   The worst part?  I'm pretty sure my parents now need a vacation after holding down the fort for a week.  

All in all, two 30th birthdays and one 10 year wedding anniversary deserved a big celebration, and I'd say we succeeded.