Family Vacation... 2013!!

 

'Round about July/August every year we usually go spend a couple of weeks at Karl's parents' house (where ever they might be living at the time), but this year, due to his parents being out here a bunch for weddings, a lack of funds, and various other impediments, we aren't going to be able to do that :(

Things have been pretty stressful lately (trying to figure out finances, Karl's job kind of requires him to be on-call a lot of the time, things falling through, life events/changes happening... etc.) and our summer visit is usually our break to kind of reset before the crazy stress of the school year sets in, so I finally just decided that we just needed to get away somewhere, even if it was just for a couple days.

Extremely fortunately for us, we managed to get Karl's 18-hour Friday shift covered/traded so we could get away for the weekend (seriously... this was a miracle)!!

So, I made some quick plans (yup... even my spontaneity is planned), booked a hotel, found something fun to do, and we were set! We didn't actually end up going far, but it was nice, and I really enjoyed getting some family time in with out work and junk interfering.

The day of our vacation came along and we were super excited... but, by the time we visited 5 different stores looking for an essential water floaty, being accosted by a mean/sweet old lady trying to get us to get a Babies-R-Us member card, forcing a cranky Evie back into her seat for the 5th time, and then getting on our way, we were all pretty hungry and grumpy. Thankfully, it was only about a 30 minute drive to... Sandy, Utah!

I know, that doesn't sound super exciting, but for us, it was pretty perfect!

Cranky Baby. Not happy to be in her seat...

We got to the hotel and went to put our things in our room, Evie saw the king size bed and was immediately in the best mood ever; she was so excited to be in that hotel room! She got up on the giant bed and jumped precariously on the edge, ran around the room, climbed on the sofa, looked in the bathroom... I think she was happy for a change of scenery ;)

Karl and I were not quite as impressed by the new surroundings, and still pretty hungry, so we had to gather up our little bouncing ball of energy and stick her in the car once more. While I was trying to get Evie in her seat (not an easy task) Karl offered to get the navigation on my phone started to get us to our dinner destination. It was right about when I looked up and realized he was getting back on the freeway that we both realized something was wrong... The phone was directing us to a restaurant that was 20 minutes away, rather than the one just down the street. But it was too late to not get on the freeway, it was rush hour at this point, and it ended up taking us about 15 minutes to get on and then off again and get to the restaurant... So more grumpiness... I was getting kind of nervous about the success of this trip when we finally arrived at our destination: Crown Burgers!

If you've never eaten at Crown Burgers, you really should... Maybe I was just starving to death, but seriously, FANTASTIC burger and some of the best fry sauce I've ever had. I was a little worried about getting a "crown burger" because my stomach has been a little sensitive lately and that burger is packed with pastrami, but I am so glad I didn't wimp out... It was amazing! We all really enjoyed our food and were honestly just soooo much happier after being fed, haha!

Also, we realized that the last time we were at a Crown Burgers restaurant was almost 7 years ago on one of our very first dates as an "official" couple! So, in honor of that, we had to take a picture ;) I don't think the two super young, naive college kids in that first picture could have possibly comprehended where we would end up 7 years down the road, but I don't think I could have imagined anything better!

October 2006
 (oh yeah, we're so cool)

July 2013
(Happy family!!)

Finally full and in a much happier mood, we headed back to the hotel and got ready to go swimming in the pool! Evie is a little fishy baby; she LOVES water. Last week for our family reunion she stood in the little sprinkler thing until her lips turned blue and still refused to get out. So I figured getting a hotel with a pool would be a good bonus ;)

 

 

It took quite a bit of convincing, but we eventually got her out of the pool by telling her we could go watch "Nemo" in the hotel room. We took a quick bath and then all snuggled up in the big bed to watch our movie on Karl's laptop!

Karl eventually fell asleep and half way through the movie, Evie remembered the swimming pool. She jumped off the bed, grabbed her floaty, and ran around the room saying "water! suit! again! go! again! WATER!". I managed to distract her by letting her play with the hotel phone (which I unplugged), she LOVED that... lol. Never thought an old land-line phone would be so impressive, haha. She kept calling her daddy on it, it was cute ;)

The only downside to the whole hotel experience was the fact that Evie REFUSED to sleep. It was seriously after 11pm before she finally gave up and passed out. We didn't have the most comfortable night ever, even with the awesome big bed, but we kind of expected that. Evie's not the best sleeper, even at home. Evie was okay with it though, she thought the whole thing was just the best ever. When we were down at the desk asking for a crib, they had a plate of warm cookies out, which Evie sampled, lol, and when we passed the desk after breakfast, the guy gave her candy! So basically, awesome. hahaha.

The next portion of our adventure was... The aquarium!!!

Finding Nemo was Evie's very first favorite movie, and she still loves it! She loves fish and sharks and water, so we thought this would be an excellent adventure for her!

It was pretty awesome. Evie kept calling it the "ocean", haha! We saw a lot of cool fishies, and Evie even got to have sharks and a giant sea turtle swim right by her face!

 We also got to see penguins!

 

Evie really liked the HUGE amazonian fish (totally brought me back to my "Amazon Trail" days, lol!), but there was one giant catfish that kept "chasing" her, she was so scared that it kept swimming after her that she ran away! I'm sorry, I may be a bad mom, but I thought it was funny ;)

The mean catfish

Running for her life...

Luckily, Daddy saved her!

Evie had such a good time! I don't think she wanted to leave, but mommy and daddy were tired, and Evie needed a nap after a morning filled with so much excitement! We stopped for lunch quickly, and then it was off to Grandma Janice and Grandpa Jack's house (which is also Uncle Christer and Auntie Myrna's house, for the time being, so we got a two for one deal!!)

We had a lot of fun playing at Grandma and Grandpa's, especially since Roxy dog was there!

Aaaand, playing with Christer and Myrna was pretty fun too... Once we warmed up to them a little ;) She wasn't in the greatest mood, since she was in a new place and hadn't been sleeping the last couple nights, but eventually we had some fun!

All in all, it was a pretty good trip, and the day we left, we realized she had sprouted TWO new teeth! That explains some of her grumpiness that week, I'm just glad she was still able to enjoy our fishy trip (which was all planned in her honor)!

I'm so happy we had a chance to get away from the everyday grind and spend a little family time, and even see some of our extended family! I love them so much!

False Negative

So,  this morning I decided it was high time that I go to the clinic and make things officially official. Though, I didn't decide this until after I had just gone to the bathroom... *sigh* Luckily for me,  first trimester hormones were working in my favor and by the time we got there I REALLY had to pee again (yeah, this was only about 20 minutes later...) 

Anyway, went back with the nurse who handed me a cup and asked "are you expecting this to be positive or negative?" Now, at this point I had already taken 5 home pregnancy tests of varying sensitivity and brand and every last one came back with two little lines (starting 5 days ago) and I am 4 days past when my period was supposed to start,  so I was pretty darn positive it would be positive! Anyway, did my thing and went to meet the nurse who was standing there performing my test (ie. sticking a test strip in a cup) and she started asking me all these questions about what made me think I was pregnant.  I thought she was just making small talk at first,  but then eventually she said "well,  it's probably just too early,  I'll give it a couple more minutes to see if we can get anything." So we spent a minute or two continuing our slightly awkward conversation about all the reasons a person might think she is pregnant before she eventually pronounced the test to be negative and told me to come back in a couple weeks if my period hadn't started yet. 

Frustrating... and slightly unnerving to be honest. So, disappointed, we went home. I had one pregnancy test left over from my testing binge and I decided to take it as soon as I got home (yes, I already had enough of the necessary material to complete the test... haha), and sure enough, it was almost immediately positive! Not only that, but it was quite a bit darker than the test of the same brand I had taken 4 days earlier, which was extremely reassuring!

Anyway, in all my days of peeing on sticks, I have never gotten a false negative (even the dollar store tests came back with a pretty strong line this time around!), and the last thing I expected was to get one from the "official" test.  Oh well, at least with all the bloating, indigestion, fatigue, and needing to pee every five minutes, it seems pretty definite to me that I'm pregnant, no matter the results of that stupid test...

*Update* 7/11:

Went back in to the clinic today and had almost an IDENTICAL experience to the one I had on Monday... *sigh* Either that nurse doesn't know how to read a pregnancy test, or they are the LEAST sensitive tests in the world, but either way, SO FRUSTRATING! However, we finally managed to get a faint line and that was enough to call it! So it's official, we've got a baby on the way!

A Visit from Grandma Christine & the Dino Museum

Karl's family has been in town this last month for his brother's wedding, so last week we were able to have a visit from Grandma Christine and Auntie Preah! I'm so sad that they live so far away and we don't get to see them very often, because Evie just loves them (even if it takes her a bit to warm up, haha)

Last weekend they came down for a quick visit (they've been sick and haven't been able to come, and Preah was getting anxious!) but ended up staying the night on an air mattress in our living room. Evie was so excited to wake up and see Preah asleep in our house, that even days afterward she kept saying,"Peah seeping? Gamma seeping??" it was cute.

Evie just LOVED having Preah around, she thinks she is the most fun, funniest, person ever. 

 

Evie didn't want to go to bed because she wanted to stay up all night with her auntie! So Preah climbed into Evie's crib and read her some books :)

Preah didn't even want to leave the next day either, but since they hadn't really made the proper preparations for a long term visit, they had to go back up to Layton. We did eventually make a deal with Preah that we'd go to the dinosaur museum after the weekend so she could visit with Evie again ;)

So, today we got to go to the Mueum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point! Anika and Leina even came too, so we had a lot of fun with the rowdy girls! It was Evie's first time, and I was a little worried that she'd be scared of the big dinosaurs, but she absolutely loved it!

Dinosaurs are AWESOME!!

There was a cool exhibit at the museum all about "Tinkering", it had all kinds of fun technical and sciencey things for kids (and Karl). The girls seemed to have a lot of fun with this one, but Evie was a little too young to really appreciate it.

Preah making her own movie :)

One thing that I think ALL the girls loved was the erosion table... Which is basically a bunch of sand with water running though it that you can play in. Preah and Anika got stuck in this area of the museum FOREVER, lol. Evie probably would have loved to hang out here all day too, but Mom got tired of holding her up to the table so she could reach.

Playing in the sand and water!!! I mean... Learning about erosion.

Riding her first dino!

Evie loved all the dinos, this was probably her first real exposure to them, but she EXTRA loved that they had sharks!!! Ever since she started her obsession with Finding Nemo she's had a thing for sharks. In the shark room she kept saying "Shark! Shark! Bruce!" (the name of the shark on Nemo)

 

Bruce!!

Look!! It's a SHARK!!!

The other activity that the girls all thoroughly enjoyed (we had a hard time getting Evie to leave) was the sandbox... er, the fossil excavation room. Evie thought it was great... by the end she was dumping the sand in her hair and her feet were caked in the stuff, lol.

We had so much fun at the museum, and THEN Grandma Christine even got Evie a cute little sea turtle (or "Crush turtle", lol) as a souvenir AND we got to go to Wendy's for some chicken nuggets (Evie's favorite). Such a busy, fun day!! So glad we got to spend some time with Grandma and the girls! Having family around is the best ;)

Man of Steel

Karl and I saw Man of Steel tonight for a date tonight. It was a really good movie, good music, lots of action... and just an all around good date :) That is all. 

Father's Day

Sooo... It's been a while since I've posted anything. I feel bad, there has been a lot to write about, but I get overwhelmed, don't know where to start, and so I don't end up writing anything! But here I am, trying to break this vicious, vicious cycle, haha!

Today is Father's Day, and I feel compelled to write down a few things about the amazing man who is the father of my child.

One night I was cleaning up our disaster area of a living room (aftermath of hurricane Evie) after I had finally gotten the girly to sleep. I was not in the best moods ever, I will admit, as I plowed through piles of children's books, gathered blocks, picked up baby dolls and little clothes that had been tossed aside in her latest attempts to get "naked!!!!" Sometimes it's hard when I see the same mess, day in and day out, to not grow weary. I love my baby to death, but there are some things that get old after a while, haha. Anyway, I was trudging a long through my recovery efforts in the living room, when Karl walked in, picked up a little tiny pink sock, and said, "I love that there are baby things all over the apartment; I like that there are little tiny clothes and baby dolls everywhere."

That caught me a little off guard... I'm pretty sure I thought something a long the lines of, "I really DON'T like having baby things all over the apartment... It's ALWAYS a mess, I'm always picking them up, and our apartment is too small!" (remember, I was tired and cranky at this point). But I looked at Karl holding that miniature sock, looked at the princess doll and the babies sitting in the toddler sized rocking chair in the corner, and realized, I love it too.

I've always been into decorating my home and trying to give it a "unified theme" (I have a "thing" about things not matching...), I really like doing things like looking on pinterest and seeing all the cool things I can do to make my home look awesome. However, it took Karl saying something so incredibly simple for me to realize, I have the best decorator in the world. She might be a year and a half old and like to use rocks from the park as accents in my  living room which may now be half playroom, but I love it now more than I did when it was empty, clean, and everything was the way I had planned and placed it.

I love that Karl can see things like that and remind me. I have not looked at my "mess" in the same way since.

He and Evie truly are the "fun" in our home. He is adventurous and energetic with her. He runs and dances and climbs and plays with her. He is an incredibly kind and loving father. And I love him. I know I've said it before, but I could not have asked for a better father for my children, and that is so incredibly important to me. One of the very first things that solidified in my mind that he was the one I was going to marry was the fact that I could see what kind of dad he would be someday, and he has completely lived up to the hopes and expectations I had so many years ago.

Now, he's not perfect (quite), but he works so hard to be the best daddy possible. He works very hard to take care of us and provide for us, even when it means giving things up that he wants, being uncomfortable, or doing difficult things. At the same time he tries to spend time with Evie whenever he can, and I know it makes him so sad when he has to work and be away from her.

I know I couldn't do it without him, and I hope I never have to for very long!!

Happy Father's Day, Karl!

18 months... Time for Nursery!!

My beautiful little Evie-Cakes is 18 months old!! I keep calling her my baby, but every day I'm realizing I can't really say that any more, she's getting to be such a big girl!

• Evie now weighs 19.4 lbs (which now puts her in the 10th-ish percentile), which means she has gained about a pound since her 12 month appointment, lol. She is 31.9 inches tall, which means she has grown 2 inches since her 16 month appointment (putting her in the 52nd percentile for height). So she's skinny!!
• She's a climber!! She's ALWAYS climbing on things... I don't know if there's really anything else to say about that, lol. I think we've got a natural born rock climber on our hands (she takes after her daddy!!)
• She loves to push her stroller around... It's been forever since we've been able to get her in it, but she likes to take it for walks. It's adorable watching her push a stroller that's more than twice her height.
• She loves to share her toys with other kids, except for mommy's phone and the kindle... those she's decided are hers.
• Evie knows a TON of words. I was keeping track up to about 75 words... and then I gave up. That was a couple of months ago, it seems like she says new words everyday! She loves to shout out the names of all the things she knows, which is a lot, so she's generally talking up a storm, haha!
• She's just recently started to use two word sentences like "go outside", "get chocolate", and "cute baby"
• She can name 21 of her letters! She loves to point out all the letters she knows every time she sees them. She knows, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, W, X, Z!
• She knows a few of her colors, she's usually pretty good with yellow, blue, and green, and sometimes she can get red.
• She started counting to 10 (minus the number 7) about 2 weeks ago... But then in the last few days she's decided that she has favorite numbers and now counts "2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10"
• She's still very into Yo Gabba Gabba and Finding Nemo, however she recently discovered the movie Cars... She really likes cars (she has a couple of hotwheels she plays with and she likes to point out all the real cars on the street) and I think she must have seen the preview for Cars 2 on her Tangled movie, and so she's been pretty into that one lately.
• She really likes to stack blocks! I can't remember what her record is, but I know she can stack at least 7 blocks pretty consistently.

18 months also means... Nursery!!! I feel like she's needed nursery since she was about 11 months old, so I'm pretty darn excited about this! Karl went and stayed with her the whole time (he couldn't leave her, lol!) and she seemed to have a good time, she did look for dad a few times to make sure he was there, but she was pretty good. We have a TON of nursery kids and there are a lot of kids who are bigger than her, but I'm hoping she'll be okay :)

 

My Gabba Gabba Girl

For those of you who have never seen Yo Gabba Gabba, it's a children's show (created by the singer from the Aquabats) about a group of toys who are brought to life by a skinny, dancing (and apparently magic) DJ, and who sing lots of songs about proper childhood etiquette (ie. don't bite your friends, being different is ok, eat your green beans and carrots, try new things-you might like it, etc.) 

Admittedly, it's a weird show, but Evie is OBSESSED, haha! We first saw it, kind of by accident, not long after she turned one, and she's been hooked ever since! I personally think it has some of the best music in a kid show that I've ever heard, so it's definitely grown on me ;)

Evie's magic robot boyfriend ;)

Evie has a valentine with her favorite character on it that she keeps in her purse (Plex, the magic robot). Karl calls him her boyfriend ;) The other day we were at target buying a wedding gift for one of my friends, and we happened to find a size 24 month Yo Gabba Gabba Jacket in the clearance section, and Evie just loved it. I let her put it on (it's pretty big on her) and she wouldn't take it off. The cashier had to scan the tag while it was attached to Evie! She got up this morning and one of the first things she asked for was her "gabba gabba shirt", and then she ran around the house looking for it, found it, and had to wear it over her sleeper. It was super cute. She also likes to look at it kind of like a poster and point out all the characters. She's so funny!

Anyway, tonight we went to Evie's (well... technically MY) cousin's 1st birthday party, and much to our collective delight, it was a Yo Gabba Gabba party!!! Best night ever! Evie just happened to have her Gabba Gabba jacket (since she always has it, lol) and she even got a cute "Foofa" hat to wear (another thing we couldn't get her to take off all night!) They also had an awesome homemade pinata that had Brobee and Plex on it (Evie's two favorite characters) and she could not stop looking at it. She kept running over and saying "Brobee! Pex!! Brobee! Pex!" over and over again.

Evie's Foofa hat and Gabba Gabba jacket!

On top of it all, they had cupcakes with delicious frosting that mommy let her smear all over her face... I mean, eat. haha! All in all, it's been an exciting day for my little Gabba Gabba Girl! Oh, and I should mention,  happy 1st birthday to Rudy! Your momma throws a rockin' party ;) I can't believe it's already been a year, he's growing up quick!!