Pirate Party

Last year, we randomly heard about the annual Pirate Party at the Hutchings Museum in Lehi. I love fun things like that and so we packed up and went with our favorite Cooper family. Lydia was the most darling little pirate, complete with parrot on her shoulder. I've included pictures of my baby pirate so we can ooh and ahh about how darling she is. 

We had such a good time last year that we knew we wanted to go again this year. I'd been thinking about it and was meaning to find out when they were holding it again, but luckily Ashley found out that it was this week and we made plans to go together again. She still had the little red scarf for Carson from last year and I pulled out some scrap fabric and made matching pirate attire for Lydia and Elsie. I could not get over how darling of a pirate that Lydia makes. Ashley suggested printing a picture of Pirate Lydia each year and putting them together on a wall in our home. I love that idea! A super way to showcase our little girl as she grows. 

Elsie was a little nervous, so Ashley ended up carrying her the majority of the time but Lydia and Carson were enthralled with all of the cool pirate things going on as well as all the regular museum pieces. They had a great time running around together and exploring. When you come in, you get a little bag to collect all your pirate treasures and then you follow the path to different stations. You start by picking a pirate name out of a jar, Lydia was Lia the Lizard Tamer and Elsie was Eliza the Eel Catcher - which was so funny because they both randomly started with the same letter as their real names. Carson was Blond-beard the Pirate, which was funny given the color of his hair. The stations varied from picking a pirate ship and looking at a real pirate cutlass to petting a lizard and listening to pirate music (my personal favorite). It's silly and kind of cheesy but such a fun thing.  

After we had finished walking through the museum/stations we went outside and waited for the candy cannon to go off. Lydia and Carson were happy to play Pirate with their fun balloon swords. I don't know that Lydia knew exactly what sword fighting was, but she loved playing with Carson. Much of the time she follows Carson around hoping that he will play with her, and much of the time he just wants her to stop following him. It was so fun to see them play together so well at the museum.

We tried to get a good picture of Lydia and Elsie together - sitting - so they wouldn't run off. Carson wanted in on the fun as well. These were the best shots I was able to come up with. After they decided they were done with that, we let them run around for a good while while we chatted and followed them around. 

I know that this is seriously picture overload - and the pictures aren't spectacular or anything. But I just think that it represents so much of what our life is like right now. "Over here. Now over there. Whats this? A rock? I'll put it in my mouth. Uh oh here comes Mom. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Is that my sword? I'll take it with me. Oh there is Elsie. I'll chase her. What is this? What is that? The road! Maybe I can make it there before Mom catches me." So much energy! 

I don't want  that to sound like she has ADD. She is just so engaged in everything around her. 

She can run around forever and you can tell she is so excited to be able to explore. Sometimes it gets tiring because she doesn't even care if I'm there or not. If we are in the front yard she'll run to the back yard; if we are sitting on the grass, she'll run to the street. It makes me nervous that she is so independent. However, as we were walking back to the car she was holding onto my hand (okay, so I was holding onto her hand) and her little pirate bandana fell down over her eyes. I thought that she'd get upset and stop walking but she didn't. She just kept walking along, holding onto my hand and trusting that I would keep her safe. It filled my heart with gratitude for such a sweet trusting spirit in my little daughter. Independent spirit or not, she trusts me to lead her blindly on. I hope that I can always live up to that trust and always lead her in the right direction. Ashley was walking in front of us and snapped this picture. I love it so much. 

I tried to snap a cute picture of Lydia and I as we were getting into the car, but she kept staring and smiling at her reflection in the car window. Hey, when you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

I'm so glad that we were able to go to the pirate party again this year. Thank you Ashley! 

Lets put it on our calendar for next year, okay?

Five Things

The last couple weeks have been fun ones. I missed this Friday post last week, but i'm going to make up for it this week with some sweet photos.

#1- Last week, David went to Phoenix for an audit he was doing. He was gone for pretty much the whole week and so Lydia and I packed it up and headed to Morgan to hang out with my family. We missed him a lot, but it was really fun to spend the week in Morgan. (We watched the whole first season of "Hart of Dixie" with my mom and thought it was so cute!) And David also managed to have some fun while he was away (even though we know he missed us a lot, too). Here are some pictures of him at the Diamondbacks game!

 Go Diamondbacks! 

#2- Before David took off for his trip, we were able to go out to eat at Taggarts Grill. Taggarts is pretty much the only "restaurant" in Morgan (and it's not really even in Morgan, it's in Taggart). But we've been wanting to go there together for a long time. In fact, at some point fairly early on in our dating - I promised David that I would take him there someday. He teases me about it occasionally because after more than four years... I still hadn't kept my end of the bargain. But we finally made it! My parents watched Lydia for us and we went and had a really nice time. (Thanks mom and dad!)We didn't get very good pictures, but after four years - my debt is finally paid!

#3- Also before David left, my dad helped us replace the CV joint in our car, Tinka. For several weeks now, I've been hearing a grinding noise whenever I turned. Having already experienced what happens when a CV joint completely breaks right in the middle of a left hand turn (and believe me - it is not pleasant) I was really worried. Luckily I have an awesome Dad and an awesome husband and after just a couple of hours our CV joint was as good as new. I failed to get any pictures of the process, but here is a picture of what a CV joint is. It is the wonderful thing that gives a car the ability to.. well... turn.

Image from here: How to tell if your CV joint is acting up.

I really am so grateful for my dad. He is always so willing to help and is so knowledgeable when it comes to cars (and building things, and fixing things, and making 3-D models of Calculus equations, and well pretty much everything!)


#4- While David was gone, Lydia and I were able to go to the Brigham City Temple Open House with my dad and brother. It was so much fun and so beautiful! I was sad that David couldn't come with us... but I am so glad that we were able to go. It was such a fun time. I can't wait to attend that temple with David. I especially loved all of the peach blossoms. I love how special and sacred the temple is, and is such a neat thing for anyone who is interested to come and see what we believe and why it is so important to us. If you are interested in learning more about temples or our church... please here - visit The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Temples. 

Picture from Deseret News

#5- Today Lydia and I got to go to a Pirate Party. The local history museum put on this little pirate party and so we just had to go. We went with my friend Ashley. She has a rambunctious two year old boy and a sweet baby girl who is pretty close to the same age as Lydia and we love playing together. I also volunteered to take another friend's kids because she recently was put on bedrest until her third is born. Man, it was quite the adventure trying to handle that many kids - but we had a good time.

Ashley and I. 

My sweet little scallywag! Arrgggh.  

She was so good the whole time and just kept chatting up a storm.  

A cute and funny story about these friends. We went on a walk together yesterday, and then decided to go to the library. After we got there Ashley said that Carson had been saying "Hi Lyd-ja! Hi Lyd-ja!" the whole way to the library, while pointing to our car. We both thought it was so cute. (He is so good with both Lydia and his little sister Elsie.) We tried prompting him to do it again while we were at the Library but to no avail. After the library, we decided to stop off at the park. Ashley was holding Elsie, but Lydia was sleeping in her carseat so I was helping Carson climb a bendy-ladder to get up on the jungle gym. After a little bit, I walked back over to Ashley. Not too long later we heard this sweet little voice "Lyd-ja! Lyd-ja! Help! Lyd-ja!". We were confused at first, but then realized that Carson thought that my name was Lydia! It was SO funny, but totally makes sense... because anytime that Carson sees me... I am always holding Lydia and Ashley always says "Say hi to Lydia!" He just associated that name with me. It was so cute. We worked on changing my name to Lydia's Mom - and I loved that! It was the first time that i've really been known as Lydia's Mom. It was sweet.


p.s. I've had this horrible error keep popping up when I try to upload photos to blog. It says that my blog is full and I can't upload any more pictures unless I upgrade my blogger and start paying. I do NOT want to start paying for my free blog. Have any of you experienced this? What did you do? It's like like I post SO often or SO many pictures! I'm really upset. So far i've been able to work around the error by using pictures from the internet and not just the ones on my computer -but it's seriously a problem. I don't know what to do.