4th of July Weekend - Balloon Festival

...and plenty of pictures to prove it!

Being that I grew up a Utah County girl (and still am at heart), the Freedom Festival was always a huge part of our 4th of July celebrations. We always got up early and went to the Balloon Festival, the Grand Parade, had BBQs and water fights and finished with the Stadium of Fire fireworks... the whole shabang. After moving away and getting settled up north a bit and especially since Chris and I got married, we've gotten involved in some of the 4th of July traditions within our own neighborhood and community, and it had been a while since I'd been down for the Utah County festivities.

Since Chris was working on Saturday, Leah and I took ourselves down to the UC to spend a couple of days at Grandma's house. It hadn't even occured to me that the Freedom Festival festivities had already began down there. Once we realized it, we immediately made plans to get up early and enjoy a fun holiday tradition.

I don't think she was very excited when I went to wake her up at 5:45am...

We let her stay in her jammies to soften the blow a bit!

Luckily, once we loaded her in Grandma's umbrella stroller and got out with the crowds... she quickly changed her tune! Crowds and people watching is this girl's cup o' tea!

She was fascinated by the flames!!

(man, i love this snuggle-bug)

Lovin' her some G & G time!

She also got plenty of time with her cute cousin Lydia. These girls are getting so fun as they become more and more aware of each other!!

i love the hand-holding.

Cute little Mae was there too in awe of all the balloons.

"wow"

Up, up and away...

So fascinated.

I love a good coke sunrise!

and just like they, they were all up in the air and we were left watching them from the ground!

waving bye-bye to the balloons

I'm not gonna lie....

I kinda can't get enough of this face.

xox

"YAY for the Balloon Fest!"

We had so much fun getting up early and hanging out with some of our favorite people. We only wish that our daddy could have come too!

After the excitement of the event had died down, Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to take us all to breakfast. yum.

Leah's washing down her first little taste of pancakes!

Such a big "almost" 9 month old!

But mostly, she spent her time trying to figure out how to open the box of Trix. She must be her Daddy's girl.

What a great start to one of my favorite holiday weekends of the year!!

summer lovin'

June has pretty much consisted of the kinds of things my dreams are made of. And it's gone by in a flash!

Here's the Readers Digest version of all the things I've failed to blog about:

{Parks, Picnics, Sno-Cones, Walks}
We've spent plenty of time outside making up for the dismal spring we had this year... from afternoon walks and sno-cones with our best girls to Sunday afternoon picnics in the park and lots of time on the front porch, we're taking full advantage around here.

{2011- The Year of the Yard?}
Okay, that might be a bit too bold a statement, but we are finally trying to slowly get our arms around our decade long neglected yard. We're breaking it up into small sections and trying to get a handle on things. We actually have a few small areas of our yard that are finally starting to look "on-purpose". Someday it will all look that way, I hope. We even planted a garden this year... a very rookie garden, but a garden nonetheless.


{Excercise}
Thursday night tennis lessons are still pretty much my favorite thing I've done in a long time. I look forward to it all week long and am loving my night out with the girls, our awesome coach, breaking a sweat and learning the game!
I'm also loving my early morning walks to the H-Rock. A great way to start the day.... fresh air, incredible views and fantastic company...


{Self-Feeding}
Any chance I could just spoon-feed her until she's 12 and less likely to make a mess? Hmmm, didn't think so. Since it's inevitable...we're slowly starting to experiment with self-feeding... simple finger foods and small snacks. I'm not looking forward to messier things. at all.

{Sleepovers at Grandma's}

Keeping with our "year of the staycation", we've been spending lots of time at Grandma's house, which is pretty much like a vacation. CJ has been working and gone a lot this summer (between taking his turn as a weekend farmer at his family farm in Idaho to Youth Conference to playing in his dirt up the canyon... let's just say he's been busy), so LJ and I have taken off to go spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. It's pretty great... sometimes we don't ever even get out of our jammies down there and no one even cares.

We're also hard at work on a very special project down there that's keeping us busy.... more about that later.

{Hanging with Dada}

We've spent some time chasing CJ up the canyon to make sure he's well fed as he plays in the dirt and tinkers with his pipedream up at his lot.

{Swimming}

It wouldn't be summer without lots and lots of pooltime. We've taken full advantage of our friends with pools this year. I realize that this is the perfect summer with her. She's big enough to really enjoy getting wet and splashing in the pool, but still small enough to be content to just chill. She LOVES the floatie that we got her and seems to have masterfully perfected the art of "relaxing at the pool". Somehow I think next summer will be different. So in the meantime.... we're loving every minute of our chill pool time while it lasts.

{Reading}

Between reading with Leah (who also LOVES books) and reading on my own, we can't seem to get enough of good books around here lately. Nothing says summer like getting sucked into a great book. I'm reading a lot for my Book Club(s) as well as finally trying to catch up on my huge stack of "must-read" recommended books! It seems that as soon as I get through a couple in my stack, there are several more to add to it, but that's fine by me. That's what summers are for, right?!

{AND still looking forward to...}

So many fun things on our summer calendar in the weeks ahead... just to name a few:

Weekend "away" for CJ's birthday.

Deer Valley Concert. (love me some sound o' music)

4th of July Neighborhood Breakfast (good food, great views and an awesome slipnslide)

Lots more time working on my special project (it deserves it's very own post and then some)

More Tennis

More Swimming

More Picnics

Lots of outdoor cooking (we finally broke down and splurged on a grill. yippee)

Farmers Market (to supplement what we may or may not reap out of our own garden)

HP - 7.2

and more.

iheartsummer.

06.19.11

Father's are a daughter's first love and a son's first hero.

That couldn't be more true!

***

We were so blessed to spend Father's Day together and with our fathers and families.

I've come to appreciate my dad so much more than I ever though possible, now that I am a parent myself. I've always known that I was lucky, but wow.

CJ would say the very same about his own dad.

These men shaped who we are and what we believe in and care about.

***

And CJ... Oh my...

I've never loved Chris more than to see him as a dada with my sweet miraculous baby girl.

Pure.Love.

Happy Father's Day!

elles and sophies and teeth... oh my!

It's here... It's f.i.n.a.l.l.y here! The breakthough we've been waiting for...

Leah officially has her second front tooth!!

And to celebrate its much awaited arrival:

...we took a trip to the zoo to see how the real animals compared to her softer and squeakier versions...

We arrived at the same time as 3 busloads of pre-school kids. LJ was in heaven kicking, squealing and watching them in all of their 4yr old glory.

I'm pretty sure we could have left right then and she would have felt satisfied. It's honestly as excited as she ever got seeing the real attractions.


But mama needed her fix of friends first!



We met several of our friends to stroll, play and of course... PICNIC.

Love this bunch of cute kiddos and their mamas.

Leah got to.... pet (?) a coyote pelt.

(gross? yes, I know... but I'm trying really hard not to inflict my germ issues onto her quite yet)

And with the little time we had before the potential earlyafternoon8montholdmeltdown could rear it's ugly head... we made good time as we attempted to see as many animals as we could (although most of them were of very little interest to Leah).

She was pretty enamored by the tiger that was literally right in front of us and she also seemed pretty fascinated by the giraffe... a life-size version of her beloved Sophie!

All in all... it was a pretty good day with me and my littlemiss...

...even if she's still significantly more interested in the kind of animals she can chew on.

It'll come.

forts, swings, picnic and park...

It's all just a day in the life...

...at grandma's house!

Grandma & Trey built the coolest fort EVER this week... it took up her entire living room, used every dining room chair, every throw pillow they could find and nearly every blanket in the house. It was pretty much da bomb. Leah LOVED it. She loved the fort and she loved hanging out with her cousin Trey. He's so good to her and the two of them pretty much have the best grandma in the world.

After we got tired of lounging in the fort, we were ready for some fresh air... so Grandma packed us a yummy picnic with gourmet sandwiches and all the fixins and it was off to the park to enjoy the afternoon.

it was practically a perfect day...

...in every way!!


...and enough to tire this littlemiss right out!

all i want for... june?...

... are my two front teeth!

We're teething around here and it's been tough. Really tough.

It's probably been one of my toughest weeks since she was teeny-tiny.

Her two top front teeth are coming in. The left broke through on Sunday and the right is so close and is making her soooo miserable.

Her bottom teeth didn't seem to bother her at all when they came in. They both came in within 5 days of each other and with hardly even a hiccup in her normal schedule.

It's different this time.

fussy. sleepless. clingy. sad.

poor thing.

She's literally chewing on e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

and a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g!

Can't we just have a breakthrough already?!

*



In other baby news (is there any other kind of news these days? sorry!), we lowered LJ's crib mattress this week.

No longer a newborn crib, she's now rockin' a big girl crib. :(

Although we weren't there quite yet, we knew that it was going to quickly become hazardous (I'm slowly learning that things like that sometimes happen even from one day to the next)

So, for once... we're finally ahead of the game!


***


and lastly...

HaPpY bIrThDaY to the best dad and grandpa in the whole.wide.world!

We Love You!

xox