lately, around here, this summer...

we've been busy. doing nothing terribly significant. and loving every minute of it.

...{summer highlights include}...

Picnics. Lots of Saturday and Sunday afternoon picnics in the park. There is nothing better than a cool shady spot to waste away a summer afternoon, especially when Daddy can join us.

More summer evenings at the Deer Valley Music Festival. We've loved seeing the Utah Symphony perform up there along with some really incredible guest performers like Indina Menzel (who I just so happen to be obsessed with).

Leah totally loves it as much as CJ and I do, and I love exposing her to such great intelligent music.


Sno-Cones. What would summer be without sno-cones and slurpees, right? Leah is just as in love with her chewy straw and plain ice-flavored shaved ice as mama is with her beetlejuice!



Outdoor Cooking. Finally having a grill has been one of my favorite parts of summer this year. We've been loving cooking anything and everything outside. Steaks, chicken, salmon, pineapple, veggies, burgers and more. yummo.

Swimming. Lots of swimming. Usually until our piggies look like this....

Gardening. We have loved having a garden this year and have been devouring all of the fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers and more. Leah got to pick the very first ripe tomato!

We've been putting our abundance of zucchinis to good use with treats for family and friends!

Family Time. Lots of it. Between swimming with cousins, playdates at Grandma's and a weekend family reunion in Idaho. We've spent lots of time lovin' on our families this summer.

Homemade Ice Cream. Oh my. Without a doubt, the best/worst thing that has happened to us in a long time. CJ's sister suprised us with an early birthday gift for Chris earlier this summer and we have done a bang-up job breaking it in. Lemon gelato, fresh peach, natural vanilla bean, rootbeer freezes, frozen raspberry lemonade. Oh and the salted caramel custard ice cream from last weekend might have changed my life. so.freaking.delicious.

Child-Proofing. The littlemiss is now fully mobile and on the move which means all kinds of annoying things... like child-lock gates with doors so skinny that it's nearly impossible to walk through with anything in your hands (like, oh um... a baby, or groceries.)

Good thing she's so ridiculously cute. It turns out she's totally worth it. Go figure.

Friends & Neighbors. Last night we closed down our entire street with barricades (and police approval) for a back to school street party. CJ was a large part of making this party happen and it was a huge success. There were ice cream cones, treats, waterballoons, a sidewalk chalk art gallery, wide open spaces for scooter, bike and big wheel races and loads of fun with some of our besties. We love our neighborhood so much.... for reasons exactly like this!! It was so fun to have so many out... from old to young, visiting, dancing, playing and running through the street without a care in the world. Lucky, lucky us!!

Although it's hard to believe (and a little sad) that summer is already drawing to a close and the kiddies are back in school... we have a few things that we're looking forward to as we prepare to usher in the cooler (I hope) days of fall...

Canyon Campfire. Next week's FHE with hot dogs, s'mores, roasted banana boats and all of our neighborhood besties.

Kindermusik Classes. We're scheduled to start her first class on September 16th and we are giddy with excitement. I'm pretty sure she is going to LOVE it. Music and being around other kiddos is right up this girl's alley!

Football Season. Another fun year is about to get underway. And thanks to Aunt JoJo, Leah is all set with her gear!

A Mini-Vacation. We're looking forward to a fun weekend trip to Daddy's old mission stomping grounds... and a football game to boot.

Birthday Girl. It's hard to believe that in less than 6 weeks, Littlemiss Leah will be a year old. Crazy and surreal. Plans for her birthday bash are well underway and we couldn't be more excited!

Creamery's almost closing. :)

Halloween and Leah's homegrown pumpkin. (it's so cute and starting to turn orange!) Oh and costume time.

And this little girl and her mama are both looking forward to sweater and boot season!!

or, even better... sweater boots.

♥

Laughing Leah

No one can make this girl laugh quite like her daddy can...

(and a bouncing pillow pet helps too!)

I especially love when she "timbers" backwards and just keeps laughing even harder.

This Is The Place...

A few weeks ago, one of my dearest friends was in town from Seattle with her family. She had a little girl less than 4 months before I had Leah. We hadn't seen them since Leah's blessing day, so we were especially excited to see them.

We decided to do a playdate and take the kids to "This Is The Place". Seeing how it's practically in my back yard, it was nice to do some exploring up there.

We got to ride the train...

And tour Brigham Young's Summer House...

And these cute girlies got lots of time to play and have some fun together...

The picture below might be one of my new favorite pictures of Leah.... I love that her toes are buried in the grass and I love seeing her smile as she's watching Hope run around (the difference that 4 months makes at this age)...

Two little cuties...

As we were wandering through the village, who should we run into? The coolest oxen handler chick ever.... the one and only Becky B. It was so fun to see her and get up and personal with the big bulls, even if Leah wasn't too sure what to think!

After a short break of relaxing in the stroller it was off for pony rides...

We were lucky enough to get this sweet little pony and Leah got her first chance to saddle up!

We also didn't miss the chance to check out the petting zoo and all the smelly animals...

You can get really up and personal with these cute little guys...

Sometimes too close and personal...

This pig was even trying to escape his smelly self...

Most of all, it was so fun to hang out with some of our favorite girls!!

A pretty good day, indeed!!

littlemiss mohawk

the morning sunshine caught it perfectly this morning...

ten

ten months old

double digits

time just seems to go faster and faster every month.

She is still the light and joy of our lives. Go figure.

So often, as she is being smothered with love and attention, I think about and wish that all sweet innocent babies could feel so much love. It hurts my heart that many may never feel a love like that. Leah is surrounded by loving grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins and friends who adore her and spoil her and she has a mama and daddy who are pretty sure that she hung the moon. We honestly couldn't love her any more!

She is a very happy content baby. She is very social and if she's awake she's nearly always happy. It's rare that she is super high maintenance or overly fussy, though she does have her moments.

She still loves books and loves being read to. She likes to turn the pages when it's time and loves to hold them herself (though we're still working on not eating books). Some of our favorites right now are... Barnyard Dance, Welcome Little One, The Biggest Bear Hunt, Farm Fun, Pat the Bunny, If Kisses Were Colors and of course, Time for Bed.

She loves music and has a cute little bouncy dance that she does whenever she hears music. She loves any toy that plays music.

She also still loves mamas silly songs... The Wheels on The Bus is her current favorite. It literally cures ANY ails these days.

She loves water. Loves the bathtub, loves swimming, love other kids. LOVES it!

She HATES getting dressed. HATES it.

She likes to have her teeth brushed.

She is a fantastic eater even as we branch out and start experimenting with new foods. She is still breastfeeding and doing great, though she is starting to seem a little less interested in it all the time (which actually makes me more sad than I thought it would) She eats almost all fruits and veggies now and she especially loves butternut squash, carrots, watermelon and pears. She loves yogurt and cheese and applesauce and is starting to really want to feed herself. She loves finger foods that she can pick up and eat herself and now wants to help with the spoon as well.

Heaven help us.

She likes to bite the spoon when we're feeding her and not let it goes. She thinks it's really funny and laughs out loud at herself. I don't think it's nearly as funny.

These monthly pictures are getting harder and harder as she's getting more and more mobile. She no longer wants to sit and pose. She wants to wiggle and dive for the camera and play.

She finally started crawling last week and is getting better and faster every day. It's an adorable, akward sort of crawl still and she is so proud of herself. However, it has definitely changed everything.

She still doesn't love to stand up and bear her own weight for very long, but I'm sure it won't be long and I'm not in any hurry for her to grow up any faster than she already is!

She is still a great sleeper and loves her crib. She sleeps 11-12 most nights and then 3-4 hours during the day between 2 naps. She loves her crib and plays and jabbers for a long time before falling asleep and sometimes after she wakes up as well. I wish I had a hidden camera (or video monitor) sometimes, I'd like to see what exactly she's doing in there and how her crib looks like this when she wakes up sometimes...

She is starting to give loves and hugs and kisses. Mostly to her stuffed animals, but occasionally we're lucky enough to be the recipient and although it's more like an open mouthed headbutt, there is pretty much nothing sweeter that I have ever experienced.

Pure-True-Joy

That's what her little smile is all about...

Love You Littlemiss!

xox

uh-oh

It looks like I better start baby-proofing.

(I guess she is almost 10 months old afterall... she was bound to figure it out sooner or later!)

Deer Valley Weekend Extravaganza

Since we've been diligently working on perfecting the art of staycationing this year, we've been uber-clued into watching for good local deals. So when a weekend in Deer Valley popped up on our radar, we jumped on it faster than you can say do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!

We used CJ's birthday as the perfect excuse, because that's the way we roll. We like to celebrate birthdays for a good week around here. We're fun like that.

Lucky for us, some of our besties jumped on it too and we all got to enjoy a much needed just-close-enough-yet-secluded-enough-to-feel-far-away kind of weekend getaway at the beautiful Chateaux at Silver Lake.

We spent Friday night loving every.single.minute of the delightful VonTrapp Children at the Deer Valley Music festival. I argue that the only possible thing better than feasting on a delicious picnic in a beautiful mountain setting with crisp, clear mountain air and symphony music playing is also being able to sing along to the Sound of Music favorites. A perfect combination really.

staying up waaayyy past bedtime
and loving every bit of it!

She clapped and bounced right along with the music and couldn't have loved it any more.

evidenced by this smile.

...and this one as she's lovin' her some auntie g time!

This picture is a little deceiving as she really only crashed for about 25 minutes only to wake up in a start, wondering what she had missed and ready to go again. As hard as I tried to get her to sleep, she lasted pretty much until the bitter end (and was actually delightfully happy)

We took a beautiful mid-day Saturday drive to Oakley to feast on cheeseburgers, onion rings and milk shakes at the Road Island Diner. It was well worth every single calorie.

After the second mostly failed attempt at baby naptime... we snuck in some afternoon pool time, which pretty much makes a vacation a vacation, atleast in my mind.

There's nothing sweeter than a daddy and his little girl.
Nothing.

We rounded out our nearly perfect Saturday with a beautiful and insanely delicious dinner on the patio at Cena. The setting was breathtaking, the food was delicious and the company couldn't have been better. A nearly perfect evening.

LJ was loving her some of the endless, warm Italian bread. mmm.

And just in case we weren't entertained enough with all of the copious amounts of mouth watering food, Leah kept us all laughing with her newest trick of sticking a lotion bottle (or whatever else) in her mouth and giving us the look of "Hey, do you see this...no hands. Cool, huh?". It's amazing (or embarrassing) how much I swoon over all of her cute, little proud moments... no matter how absolutely ridiculous they may be!

Unfortunately, all good weekends end sooner or later and the only thing that slightly softened the blow was one last pit stop of outdoor dining at Loco Lizard on our way down the canyon...

A pretty great weekend, indeed!

We're getting pretty good at this whole get-away thing with our new little sidekick. She's a fantastic traveller, a good sleeper, a good sport when choosing to bypass her naps and a great go-with the flow travel buddy. If she keeps this up... there may very well be a Hawaiian beach trip on the horizon!

And in the meantime... 2011-Year of the Staycation is treating us pretty alright if I do say so myself!

(and yes.... as clearly evidenced, I easily ate a weeks' worth of calories in about... oh 36 hours)

(and no.... I don't regret one single bit of it)

(and if you want to see more of our fun weekend, you can check it out here)

xox