A summer of fun...

This summer has been one of the most wonderful summers ever. We've made the most of the sunshine and are sad to see it go. The weather is starting to cool down and you can feel the approaching Fall in the air. So, as Summer 2014 comes to a close - I thought that I'd better get my act in gear and blog about some of our adventures from the last couple of months. I haven't been awesome at blogging, because we've been too busy having fun - but I certainly don't want to forget these fun things! 

Orem Summerfest 2014 

If there is one thing I love about summer - it's all of the summerfest/fair/booth/parades. We love to walk around all of the booths, eat some yummy food, and then watch the parades. It's the perfect summer date to me. We love the Logan Summerfest, but don't make it back up to Logan very regularly, however -this is our third (maybe even fourth) Orem Summerfest. The timing of it just seems to work into our schedules, and it's so so fun!  

 

 Grocery Shopping

Although this certainly isn't limited to summer, it has been a really fun age for Lydia to go grocery shopping. She's always been such a trooper at the store - and just recently I've started trying to make things a little more fun for her. Sometimes that's a donut that we pick out before checkout, sometimes it's a quarter that she gets to hold and then buy a treat out of the quarter machines at the exit, and sometimes it's just sitting in the airplane at the arcade area of the front of the store. She's always so excited and it makes me feel happy that we can both enjoy grocery shopping together.  

Summer Showers

One day while we were at the children's museum it started raining outside. And by raining I mean it was absolutely pouring. We heard the crazy pounding on the roof and saw the rain through the window - and it was insane. When it was time to head home it was still crazy intense and there were groups of people standing at the exit, afraid to brave the elements. I heard a couple of guys talking and they said that the microburst was supposed to last for another half hour. We needed to get home,  and couldn't wait that long - so I picked Lydia up and tucked her head into my shoulder and made a break for our car. Within seconds we were absolutely soaked. Lydia was a little scared, because the rain was coming down HARD, but we made it and I strapped her into her carseat and jumped in the car myself. The funniest part of the story is that as we started pulling out, the rain started letting up. By the time we had gotten home (seriously 2 minutes) the rain had completely stopped. If we had just waited another minute, or not decided to go home for five more minutes, we would have missed it completely. I still laugh about it - however, since then we've gone out and splashed in several rainstorms and we've loved every single one.  

Park Dates

Lydia loves the park, and we've tried to go as often as possible. During the heat of the summer it got kind of hard to get to the park because the sun wore me out, but now that it's getting cooler we are trying to fit as many park dates in as possible! 

 

Seven Peaks 

This is our second year of having our Pass-of-all-Passes and we still hadn't gone to Seven Peaks yet. I wanted to so badly, but it's kind of far away. However, one Saturday morning I told David that the only thing that I wanted out of the whole day was to be able to go and play for a couple of hours at Seven Peaks. So we headed down to Provo and paid the stinking seven dollars for parking. (So much for free admission! I hate paying for parking. It's seriously one of my least favorite things.) We had such a nice time! We found the children's area and played on the little slides, which Lydia loved. We also spent some time in the Lazy River and had to explain to a very distraught Lydia several times why she couldn't go down the big slides. Mostly we just loved being together and playing in the sun. I'm SO glad that we went - it was totally worth the parking fee, and it makes me feel even happier about our pass-of-all-passes. Plus, I just love playing in the water with this little family of mine.

Zachary's Train Birthday Party 

 Lydia's cousin Zachary had a super fun party for his birthday this year. We still talk about "the train party" all the time. The party was held in Salt Lake at the Train Shop. It's a place to buy model train parts, but in the back of the store they have these fun train displays and little party rooms. They even have a little train that you can ride on - it's so fun! We didn't get any pictures inside, but Lydia and Zachary were having so much fun playing with each other outside that we snapped a few pictures of the two cousins together. I think these pictures are so sweet!

The Wooden Park in Pleasant Grove

Lydia and I were introduced to this really neat wooden park that is only about 20 minutes away from us by our cute friends, The Middletons. I met Ali in our ward and she has a little boy the same age as Lydia and a sweet baby girl who is was only a few weeks old when we made this trip. We had a great time exploring, and even though Lydia and Henry don't really play together yet - I just know that they are going to be the best of friends as they get older. It was so nice to chat with Ali and let the kids play, and I think we will definitely be going back to this super fun park! 

 Playing with Cousins

Jenna and Camille came down to Morgan to get my Dad's expertise in building a wooden baby gate for their new house and so Lydia and I made a day of it and headed up to visit with them. Lydia and Camille love each other, even though their age difference is still pretty big. They played for a while in the pink castle in my parents basement and it was super cute. Earlier that day, we made a trip into Ogden to buy wood for Jenna's projects (and shelves for Lydia's room - yay!). Lydia sat in the cart for a while, but then decided she needed down. The rest of the trip was spent with me chasing her around, tying to keep her off of ladders and out of the wood. She is such a climber! 

 

Manti Parade

Did I mention that we love parades? We've been able to make it to lots of parades this summer and Lydia loves them as much as I do! It was my sweet friend Kayla's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and her sister Tausha threw her a surprise birthday party at their parents house in Manti. Because they both live out of state, and their friendships are so important to me, we made a special trip to see them! Kayla was so surprised, and Tausha did a great job with the party. It was nice to hang out with them for a while, and it just so happened that it was the Manti Fair that same weekend! So right after the party, we headed to the parade. First of all - can I just say that small town parades are the best kind? They totally are! Second - it did this heart good to see Lydia playing with the children of some of my best friends. It was so fun to see them all together. Rebekah was able to make it down to the party as well, but we neglected to get a picture before they headed off to watch the parade with their family. (Also, not for the first time - I really, really, really wish that my parents still lived in Ephraim. It would make things so much more convenient in times like this - plus, I just really love it down there!) I love these girls so much! Tausha just had her third baby girl about six months ago, and Kayla and I seem to be on the exact same baby track - she's due just one month after I am. They are having a girl, and Landon is just one month younger than Lydia - so we are exactly the same - just switched!  

 

After the parade, we made sure to stop at the Manti Temple and walk around for a little bit. Walking around turned into rolling down the hill - a favorite tradition of visiting the temple. 

Swimming Pool

We've loved having our community pool available this summer. Lydia and I have made lots of trips during the day, but we've tried to make it at least a couple of times with David. It's been so nice! 

Play-doh Monsters with Friends
We were invited to come and make play-doh monsters with some friends and had such a nice time. The night before, I told Lydia that in the morning we were going to Henry's to play with play-doh and she was so excited! It was the first thing that she mentioned when she woke up in the morning and she could hardly wait to head over. I love the way she says Henry, she just sounds like such an adult. There were three of us there, all with little's around the same age (plus Ali's new baby) and it was so nice to spend time with some girls from my neighborhood. Ali was an awesome hostess with all sorts of fun things for the kids to play with, and then we spent another hour just chatting while the kids played with toys in the basement. Such a wonderful morning! These kids loved playing with the play-doh and with a little bit of help (meaning we made the monsters and they stuck stuff into the doh) they made some really fun things. 

Lydia's "Bike"

When Lydia turned one (or maybe for Christmas when she was 18 months), my mom gave her this darling little scooter to ride around on. We've kept it inside and it regularly gets scooted around in circles in our kitchen. However, after seeing all of her "friends" riding their bikes outside this summer - she decided (all on her own) that she wanted to take her "bike" outside and ride it. She seriously loves it and can really get cruising! I don't typically take her out by myself because she doesn't understand the concept of stopping at the corner and then coming back - she just goes and goes and I have to run behind her to make sure she doesn't just keep riding out of our neighborhood. It's so cute that she calls it her bike, because it doesn't even have wheels/handles that turn. But she is able to compensate for the lack of steering fairly well, and she loves feeling like she is a big kid like her other "friends" (our neighbors that are all several years older than her). 

Lunch Date with Daddy

David was working in Draper at a client and so we decided to go out to lunch together one afternoon. It's not often that he works so close to us and so we tried to take advantage of it! We had a couple of places in mind to try, but when those fell through we ended up at Arctic Circle - thinking that Lydia would like to play in the play-place. In the end, her favorite part (other than hanging out with Daddy) was easily the ice cream cone. But we all had a nice time and left wishing that we could see David in the middle of the day more often! 

Lunch Date at Kneaders

Wayy back at the beginning of the Summer, Lydia and I were able to spend the morning/afternoon playing with Sue (Wah-ma Peabee) we went shopping for some fun summer clothes for Lydia (the she has absolutely loved wearing this summer) and then went out to lunch at Kneaders. It was such a nice day - and I feel like I've blogged about it before, but I couldn't find it and didn't want these pictures to get lost. Her favorite part? The special cookie at the end. 

Adventures with Mommy

Lydia has always been my little go-er girl and has always been more happy out and about than she is at home. We've loved going on all sorts of adventures this summer - everything from getting balloons and popcicles at the Lehi Roundup to waiting for over five hours for our car to be fixed at the mechanics. She's always a trooper and always up for an adventure. I'm lucky to have such a sweet girl that lets me tag along with her.

(Did I say over five hours at the mechanics? Yes. It took about an hour to diagnose the problem, and that's all that I had planned because we were expecting a $1,200 repair - so I figured we'd have them diagnose it and then call around to price-compare for the actual repairing part. However, they said it would be about $150 and they could do it in an hour. Angels may have sung in the background as I jumped for joy and agreed to wait the extra hour. That hour turned into two, which turned into three, which turned into four before they were finally through with our car and we were able to head home. No complaints here though! I was just so happy that the oil leaking into our piston wasn't going to absolutely destroy our car budget. We ended up walking to the Home Depot (which was the closest/only store nearby) to get some lunch: jerky, candy, and popcorn. Yeah. The Home Depot doesn't have a killer snack section. Still, it was an adventure and I was happy to spend the day with my girl in the sunshine.  

It's been a fabulous summer and we've had more fun than we probably deserve. It's crazy to think that next summer we will have another little baby to share our summer fun with. As excited as we are for that to happen, I have to admit that this has been such a perfect little summer as a family of three. I'm sad to see it come to an end. Farewell Summer- we shall miss thee!

Doctor Who?

So, here's the deal. Sometimes David and I can be a little nerdy. For the most part we are a fairly normal family who, although they might be a little awkward at times, does fairly normal things. However, a while back my family started really getting into Doctor Who. We'd occasionally walk in while they were watching an episode and we determined it was the lamest show in the world. It was weird, super British, low budget, and (did I mention) really really weird.  We swore we would never watch it and resisted all attempts of my siblings to get us to join in. As time passed, it got to the point that I could barely understand what my siblings were talking about because everything was riddled with references to "The Doctor", jokes about "blinking", and sonic screwdrivers. I finally gave in and told David that I was just going to watch it so that I could understand what was going on and become part of my family again. I wasn't terribly happy about it and had a sort of martyr-attitude going into it. By the time I hit the second season, I was hooked! Five netflix-seasons later - I felt like a whole new world had opened up with friends and adventures I could never have dreamed of! I told David that he needed to watch it with me, and after some hesitation on his part - he agreed. What I realized, and have since told all others that I've recommended the show to, is that you have to commit to watch the entire first season and the first episode of the second season before making any judgements. By then - you are in. Of course David loved it and we quickly became (arguably) the biggest Doctor Who fans in the family. (I should also mention that my dad grew up watching the old black and white Doctor Who series and he's really the one that instilled the love into his children. He's pretty awesome.)

Our love of The Doctor and his big blue box has spread, and we decided that for the Season Seven Premier - we were going to have a Doctor Who party and invite all of the people around us who love The Doctor as much as we do. That is how our front door ended up looking like this:  

And our kitchen ended up being filled with treats like this: 

Lydia was beyond excited for "the party". She'd been a big helper getting everything ready and she knew two things: 1-her "friends" were coming over to play, and 2-she got to eat a marshmallow treat at "the party". She could barely stand it and spent much of the beginning of the party running around and giggling out of sheer happiness.  Poor girl was devastated when we took her upstairs and put her to bed. So, so, so sad. 

We hadn't really planned to do much more than watch the new season-opener, but our nephews, Josh and Daniel, had found this awesome instructional sheet on how to write in Gallifrey-ian. So we decided to give everyone the opportunity to learn to write their names using The Doctor's native language. It was pretty awesome and it turned out to be really fun.  

We got our food and everyone got ready to meet the new Doctor. 

Did I mention that the show is about a man who travels through space and time and occasionally almost-dies and regenerates into an entirely new person who is completely different, but exactly the same? As crazy as it sounds - it's full of wonderful people who travel around doing as much good as possible while saving the world/universe. What's not to love? Plus, we certainly loved sharing it with these awesome people: 

From left to right: Josh and Daniel started watching in the "Matt Smith" seasons and it took much convincing to make them go back and watch from the beginning (starting with Christopher Eccleston). They were one of the main reasons for the party- mostly because we told them that they couldn't come unless they went back and started over. Matthew, my brother, has been a huge Who fan for years. Garret and Karli Shields got sucked in when we convinced them to start watching, and although Garret is more of a fan than Karli is - she was still a great sport. Melissa taught me that you can still be cool and love Doctor Who - and is slowly convincing Blake of the same thing. 

If you want to come to our next Doctor Who party - you can start watching on Netflix. Remember though, the whole first season and the first episode of the second season. Commit to it before you start. Also, don't ever tell me that you like Matt Smith more than David Tennant. Not that I'm worried that you would - no one makes a better Doctor than David Tennant. (Also, I should mention that they've introduced a few new characters that we don't love. We kept hoping that it was just a short-term thing, but they were in the newest episode and if they don't phase out soon our love for Doctor Who will be seriously diminished - or at least limited to certain seasons.) 

Happy time-traveling, friends. Allons-y!  

Baby #2 - 36 Weeks

I was going to do this post at 35 weeks, but...well... blogging is hard lately. So, this probably won't be the most fabulous post I've ever written - but I am determined to get it written and posted today. 

36 weeks! Holy Smokes. Our baby is coming this month (hypothetically). I can hardly believe that in just a few short weeks I'll be holding him in my arms. It makes me smile just to think about it. People have been asking if we are "ready" for this baby to come, and in all honesty - we probably aren't. His nursery isn't even halfway finished, I haven't gone through his clothes - so I actually don't know if we have enough newborn clothes to last longer than a couple of days, and my hospital bag isn't packed. However, we have a bed for him, we have a package of newborn diapers and a package of size one diapers, and we have a carseat base installed in both cars along with a newly washed and ready-to-go infant carseat. Oh, and my mother-in-law just delivered the most beautiful baby-blue-and-grey baby blanket that she made and it's soft and so so perfect! (It's just like Lydia's purple blanket that she loves.) So, technically if he came tomorrow - he would be just fine. I feel very reassured about that and feel like the other final details will fall into place over the next couple of weeks. 

I've been feeling a lot better than I was at 30 weeks. I started taking Iron supplements diligently and it is crazy what a big difference I have felt. Even though I'm getting bigger and definitely feeling 36 weeks pregnant, I don't feel like getting up out of bed/off of the couch is impossible. If I had known that taking iron supplements would make such a big difference - I definitely would have started sooner. (With Lydia they made me a little sick, so I was hesitant to start them up again - but I've been taking them at night before I go to sleep it has helped a lot. I don't notice any nausea this time around.) I'm sleeping pretty well, but I've started waking up several time during the night to go to the bathroom. It's SO hard to pull myself out of bed - and it's ridiculous how little my bladder can hold - but we are managing. I feel pretty good in the mornings, but can barely move my body around at night. (Our stairs are like Mt. Everest at eleven o'clock at night - thankfully David doesn't mind helping to push me up the stairs, or waiting patiently for 10 minutes while I slowly make the ascent.) No real complaints here though, I'm feeling good and grateful for such a healthy and happy pregnancy. Oh, one random pregnancy fact: my belly button is starting to stick out. I've occasionally heard about someone's innie turning to an outie during pregnancy but I didn't really understand and thought it was a weird thing, but my belly button really does stick out - sometimes you can even see it through my shirt. It was completely unexpected because it didn't happen at all with Lydia.

As far as names go, our list keeps getting shorter and shorter - but I don't think that we are sold on any name just quite yet. Austin has really started growing on us, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is the name that we end up with. (Samuel and Curtis are also high-ranked contenders at this point.) I also wouldn't be surprised if we find another name out there in these last remaining weeks. We'll have to wait and see. I think that people think we are crazy because of all of the hoops a name has to jump through just to make it on our list. We are very... scientific about it. Calculating popularity in numbers, comparing pronunciation and spelling, as well as making sure it meets many other criteria. Oh, and in addition to having such a weird last name (because let's be honest - Peaden is a fairly difficult name to work with: all P names are out automatically, and it's hard to pair with any name that ends with "sen" or "son" because it sounds funny), we feel really strongly that we want the middle name to be Scott, which is David's middle name and my dad's name so it's very sentimental but it makes finding a name that sounds good with the middle name Scott just a tad bit more difficult. It's really a miracle that any name has made it to our list. But at least at this point I have hope that our baby boy will not be nameless for longer than a couple of hours. (Previously I wondered if we would ever find a name we both liked that met all of our "standards".) 

On Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Daniel Tiger just had a baby sister. (It's a PBS show that we absolutely adore.) I was so excited when I heard that they were doing a big "three-day special" to announce and introduce Daniel Tiger's little sister Baby Margaret. We made sure to watch it, and we both loved it. Also, my dear friend Ashley just had a sweet baby girl, Emily. If you ask her if she's excited about her baby brother, Lydia will say, "Carson and Elsie had baby sister and Daniel Tiger had baby sister. I don't want baby brother - I want baby sister." I guess that everyone else is having baby sisters, so that's what she wants, too. But she will also talk about "Baby Brother" and you can tell that she is so excited for him to come. I don't know how she'll really handle it, but I think that she is just going to love him. One of her favorite books right now is "Baby Bundt" and it's about a sister who helps tuck her baby brother into bed. We talk about how she will be able to help with her baby brother and it's really sweet. Lydia is going to make a great big sister.

Less than four weeks to go! Here's hoping that we can get everything done that we want to. We are excited for this little boy to arrive, but we also realize that everything will change when he gets here - so we are trying to soak up our last weeks of just the three of us and we are enjoying the stage of life that we are at. For now we are happy to be sleeping through the night (for the most part) and getting things ready for baby boy to join us!