June recap

Before too much more time passes, there are a couple of June events I don't want to forget...

Tamsen and Eric blessed one of Grayson's new cousins, Gabriella, on June 1 (Happy Birthday, Dana!). We had a great time visiting with lots of family at a nearby park afterward. It was a little windy, but always fun to get together and pig out.

Yay for me and my party!

Special thanks to Natalie for her bundt pan Rainbow Jell-o adventure!

Josh worked in southern Utah June 5-6, so Grayson and I tagged along to see family and meet another new cousin. Grandma had a softball game June 5 and Grayson really enjoyed watching it. And like all good Grandmas, when her team was at bat and she wasn't up any time soon, she would come out to sit with us.

Caleen, Grayson, Bailey, Grandma, Me

The next day we made up a couple of sandwiches and headed to Cedar City to picnic at a local park. The wind sucked, but it was nice to see Penny's family, even if we all ended up crowding her kitchen while the flooded carpet was pulled up in the living room.

Grayson & JosephI just like this pic. I have a hunch Grayson may be the favorite.

We spent an ominous Friday the 13th at Rich and Joni's for a bbq with some southern Utah friends. Russ and Hill came up from Vegas and it's the first time we've seen them since our quick trip down there last November. Grayson also got to meet Jeff and Alicia, Kasey and Monique, Darren and Leslie, Jed and Nicole, and everyone's kiddies. There was so much to talk about and catch up on - it's always worth the hassle of gathering everyone together.

June 14th was our busy day! We woke early to set tables, cut fruit and skewer it, and stuff croissant sandwiches for Maryann's Toquerville baby shower. Tons of ladies came out to support her, which is exactly what we wanted. I tried to get 'action shots' of the party, so unfortunately I just took random pics of no one in particular. Here's one of them:
That night was the entire family's birthday present to Les Miserables at Tuacahn (thanks Mom and Dad!). Grayson did well with all the people and music (I made ear plugs out of napkins for him and I think it helped). Josh felt him relieve what he thought was gas during the performance and took him to get changed. When he came back, Grayson was naked! Turns out Grayson had had his second blowout ever, and it was a bad one. It had leaked all over Josh's shirt as well. Go figure I hadn't taken a change of clothes or any jammies for the little guy, but Penny had an extra nightgown in her bag and let us borrow it. I did have to get up and help put him to sleep later on, but I didn't mind. I got to sing 'A Heart Full of Love' to him because we were away from everybody. He loved it.

Grayson and I got to get together for girls' dinner with Chazzie, Jen, Natalie, Erika and Kristine on June 17th. It was so much fun seeing Jen's baby, eating all that delicious food, and catching up on the last couple of years. Hopefully Chazzie will help Josh and me find our dream home when the time comes!

My I.O. came for a visit and met Grayson for the first time on June 18th. It was a covert operation, but everything went smoothly, even the carpet cleaning the next day. I miss our travel memories, inside jokes, casual conversations, and daily Dave Barry quotes, but I understand it must be this way in order to keep harmony in his marriage.

We had family dinner at Don and Holly's June 22 and I took this pic in the car on the way home. Believe it or not, Grayson has two more chins under that one. So cute to look at, such a pain to clean.
The first Lake Powell trip was June 24-28 but we didn't get to go. :-( One of Josh's coworkers asked those days off before Josh had the chance, so he couldn't get the time off work. Grayson and I thought about going without him, but I wasn't confident I could make a 6-hour drive alone with a 4 1/2 month old in the back seat without killing us both, so we stayed home and pretended to get extra sleep instead. And let's face it, we needed a break! We're still bummed we missed out, but thank goodness we have another one coming so soon!

July 4th recap

Grayson's first 4th of July made for a wonderful weekend, if I do say so myself. On July 3, Josh, Grayson and I met up with Maryann, Riley, and Preston to watch the Riverton parade. We caught tons of taffy candy, almost converted to Catholicism, and I accused an elected official of making too much money. Fun, fun!!

I'm so excited to get out of this chair and watch the parade, Mom!Grayson's two most patriotic cousinsEven I thought this was neato

Later that night, Don and his crew met us at the park to watch the annual 'Movie in the Park.' They showed Bee Movie. I wasn't very excited because I didn't love it the first time Josh and I saw it, but I was pleasantly surprised by how entertained I was this time around. Maybe it's because I had a baby distracting me during this viewing, and babies make life just *that* much better.

Josh didn't have to work July 4th, so we spent his day off working in the yards and around the house. I declared freedom from clutter and cleaned out That Drawer; you know, the one in the kitchen where everything ends up. I also de-cluttered my desk in the office and Grayson's closet. Believe it or not, I'm a much happier person now. We were a little worried about taking Grayson to watch the fireworks that night because he startles quite easily, so we decided just to park at a local business and watch the fireworks from inside the car. Unfortunately, all the parking lots were taken with fellow firework watchers so we ended up on a street in some random neighborhood. I love fireworks, but I don't love watching them from a car near a bunch of people I don't know, so we drove home after a few minutes. I thought my first 4th of July back in Utah was ruined until we got home and saw that you can clearly see the fireworks from our own front yard! So we laid out a blanket and caught the last 15 minutes of the show in quiet splendor. Grayson loved it so much, he slept right through all the drama and sky sparkles. Why were we worried again?

We wrapped up the weekend with a picnic up Parley's Canyon with Josh's family Saturday afternoon. I took my camera, but the only picture I thought to take was one of all the sleeping babies. Of course Grayson woke up right when we started snapping photos, but rest assured the sight of three sleeping babies was quite beautiful while it lasted.

The Garden

I think I've hinted in previous posts how much work our yard needed when we moved in. After all that blasted snow finally melted, Josh and I got to work on the rose bushes, the lawn, and the flower beds. It's been a nightmare trying to keep up on weed control (anyone else facing serious morning glory woes?) and lawn maintenance, but we sure try. We get behind when we go out of town, but we've obviously made some progress because neighbors frequently tell us how excited and grateful they are that we're doing something about the yards because the previous renters did not. If I had a dollar for every hour Josh has spent replacing broken sprinkler heads, adjusting the spray, and substituting nozzles for the greatest coverage, I'd have enough to buy all y'all a slurpee. If you throw in the time he's spent fixing the lawn mower, I'd have enough to buy him a new one.

Anyway, in between all of these projects, we had to hurry and put in our garden before it got too late in the year. We brought our planter box up from Vegas, but didn't know exactly where to put it. There was a weedy corner of the back yard with a couple of bushes in it that we thought would work, so Josh started pulling all the weeds to make it more attractive for our box to live. One of the bushes was a rose bush, and we discovered that it was actually dead and not just hibernating from the winter, so Josh had to pull it out. This is what we were left with:With the rose bush gone, there was too much room for our planter box, so Josh built him some friends to fill up the space:We wanted to make the area as pretty as possible for as little money as possible (remember how we're on a tight budget all the time so we can buy our own house to put our money into?) so I used all of our email addresses, our current address, our Vegas address, and my parents' address to print off some of these Lowe's coupons. Good thing I did, too. Even with these coupons, plus a $10 off $50 Lowe's purchase I found on the back of a magazine, we're almost $200 into our garden, but that includes the new boxes (plus two more small ones), all the filler (peat moss, vermiculite, and compost), the decorative rock and bark, and all the plants and seeds. Josh had to dig up underneath the bush to replace the sprinklers' water filter, so it's just messy dirt under there right now, and we're going to stain the outside of the boxes so they all match, but it will be finished (again) very soon. Josh has done such a good job. We couldn't be more pleased with our small bit of tranquility sitting outside!This is the view from the street. All that grass is ours, and it goes ALL the way around the house. It takes us at least 2-3 hours to mow and weed-eat it all. Josh is dying for a riding lawn mower, but that kind of purchase comes only after we're mowing our own grass!
So there you have it. We've already harvested tons of super-yummy radishes (I'll be planting those again later this month for a fall crop) and we took out our peas and broccoli. We didn't plant early enough and they never really produced. But everything else looks good to go! We have three tomato varieties, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, strawberries, red potatoes, honeydew melon, watermelon, beets, carrots, lettuce, bush beans, red peppers, and jalapeños. And everything is already looking so much more vibrant than they did last year!

I just couldn't resist

Grayson loves bath time. After his bath today he just looked too cute all wrapped up in his doggy towel that I had to snap a quick photo. Enjoy!

I scream, you scream

My mom reminded me last night on the phone that I never updated my blog with the final word on this post. It's official...I won an ice cream party for my neighborhood on July 26! I finally got a thick envelope in the mail on June 24 with all the info. Dreyer's is going to send me everything I need to have an ice cream party for 100 people, including 12 cartons of ice cream. I was telling my visiting teachers all about it and mentioned how I'm going to buy extra ice cream and some waffle cones so I'll have enough for more than 100 people, only to discover that one of my visiting teachers' sons is something for the local Dreyer's distribution center in SLC and can get us a couple of extra cartons for free! It's going to be so great. I'm still going to get some ice cream cones (that will make the bowls and spoons go further) and extra napkins, but the cost will be minimal and well worth it. I think I'll just borrow some tables from the church, a couple of sun shades from the neighbors and have the party in our back yard. Plus our back yard neighbors have a swing set that everyone plays on, so that will be fun for all the kiddies.

However, I think I might wait to have the party until the second weekend in August since a lot of the people I've talked to will be out of town July 26. I forgot that July 24 is a state holiday when I picked my preferred weekends. Go figure. Dreyer's said I can delay my party, but I'll have to find a way to store the ice cream in the meantime. It'll all work out. My neighbors are definitely dreamy enough to hold off my Dreyer's Slow Churned Neighborhood Salute for a couple of weeks.

This is going to be so so awesome!

5 months!

Over the last month, Grayson...

• Grew to 25.5 inches long and 15.5 pounds
  
• Got babysat by a non-family member for the first time and cried the entire 2 hours!
• Went to his first musical - "Les Miserables" at Tuacahn in Ivins
  
• Watched Grandma hit a double at his first softball game!
• Started having his early morning feedings lying in bed with me (sooo dreamy!)
• Got into the groove of eating rice cereal
• Loved "ba-ba-bu-bu" -ing to Jimmy Buffet's Banana Wind album
• Got strong enough to pull the toys off his bouncer's bar
• Attended his first Neighborhood BBQ
  
• Began taking regular stroller walks with his daddy and loves them
  
• Rolled over!

Grayson has been doing the 'rocking' part of rolling over for more than a month now, but finally made it all the way over for the first time just yesterday! I always have the camera ready 'just in case' but usually end up with several minutes of non-rolling footage that only a parent would watch more than once. I got the camera out yesterday anyway, but it was set to take photos instead of videos and wouldn't you know I squatted down to start filming him, it took a picture, I stood up to fix the setting, and he rolled right over! Thankfully, I did get to see the actual roll, but he did it so quickly, there was no time for filming. So I took a picture of him after it was all over instead.

On the move

I did it!!

I called Josh to tell him the exciting news, so when he came home and spent the evening with Grayson while I was at my chemistry lab, he gave him some more rolling time. Like a good boy, Grayson didn't disappoint!