Abby is 8 months

Abby is 8 months old today. I just looked back on some pictures of Kason when he was 8 months old, and am truly shocked at their differences. Here are pictures of Kason when he turned 8 months old: He was sitting up unassisted in the bathtub.

He crawled around like crazy--under tables, through chairs, and every where else.

He was pulling himself up and standing. Neither of them have much hair at 8 months.

I took this picture of Abby about 10 minutes ago this morning during her nap. She is a total blob! She just lays on the floor and rolls a little. No crawling, no sitting, no standing. (Not that I'm complaining--I'm thrilled to not be chasing her around and having to keep every small toy and scrap of paper off the ground). It's amazing how 2 kids from the same parents could progress so differently.

She's so cute and sweet. She eats great, sleeps great, is very mild natured and happy. She's my snuggle bug and we adore each other.

Memorial Day at the cabin

We went to my parents cabin for Memorial Day with my parents and my brother Clark and his family. It was chilly and rainy, but we still had a great time. The boys went fishing in my dad's new fishing boat at Panguitch Lake. They didn't catch anything, but in asking around, neither did anybody else on the lake this weekend. We read books, magazines, took naps, went for walks, watched movies, and played games. One of those nice, relaxing vacations. Kason and Clark's kids striking a pose on an afternoon walk. These 3 are so silly together.

A fort the kid's built (with a little help from Clark). They loved it and were outside for hours playing in it and adding sticks.

Wizard time.

Tige's favorite past-time this weekend. He read another whole book and then started this one. If you haven't read it (Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins) you MUST! It's easily one of the best books in the young adult genre, right up there with Twilight and Harry Potter. Tige and I each read it in one day. Sequel coming out this fall.

Canyoneering with Cory

This is my first ever blog post. (Well a half post, because Julie is typing it, but I'm sitting here telling her what to say). Last week I did my first canyoneering trip with Cory (a friend from anesthesia school). Cory and some friends were here filming a video for his church and invited me to go with them. We hiked down the Birch Hollow and Fat Man's Misery canyons near Zion National park. We did a lot of hiking and bush-whacking mixed with some rapelling down technical slot canyons. It was fun to learn some new rapelling techniques and it was great to see Cory again. Here are some photos and a video from our trip: Exiting a tight slot canyon. Now I know why they call it Fat Man's Misery

View from the top of a 120 foot rapel down Birch Hollow

Side view of Birch Hollow rapel. Check out my sexy bike helmet. Julie didn't think my head was worth spending money on a real canyoneering helmet.

Cory rapelling Birch Hollow.

Cory half way down.

Nice view from the bottom of a slot canyon.

Cory rapelling down a slot canyon.

Preschool

Kason had his preschool graduation on Tuesday. He has been going to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings since September, and has loved every minute of it. Since this blog is basically my journal, I have to write down about the graduation before I forget. This is his class and teacher. Each child got a diploma with a personal award. Kason's award was "most likely to become the CEO of a large corporation." I wasn't sure what exactly that was supposed to mean, but afterwards, his teacher came up to me and said "I've taught preschool for 27 years, and I've only given the CEO award 3 times. I've never seen a child with as much natural leadership skill as Kason has." She said he was defnitely the "boss" of the class. I said, "yeah, he thinks he's the boss at home too." Kason really is a leader. At preschool, he was often the instigator of what the kids played at recess or he started the class "chants" during races. He has a stubborn and strong personality, but he's also sweet and very tender hearted.
This is the class singing one of their songs. "Drew Blue has the flu, achoo." They also named the 7 continents, all the days of the week and months of the year (which I wasn't aware he knew so well), they identified big numbers and a dozen shapes (hard shapes like trapizoid, ellipse, and rhombus that most adults couldn't name), and said the sounds each alphabet letter makes. Kason was usually the first to answer, and was definitely the loudest. I know his teacher has had her hands full with his energy. He's done great and learned so much during preschool. He's definitely ready for kindergarten.

Water party after the graduation. They all loved it, except the 3 girls were quite overpowered with the dozen rowdy boys.

Kason and one of his school buddies, Brayden.

Hikes, Fathers & Sons, and family

I just downloaded about 2 weeks worth of pictures on my camera and was surprised to find so many pictures there. I've apparently gotten quite far behind, so this post is going to contain a menagerie of pictures and outings:

Sweet baby girl. 7 1/2 months old. She occasionally is so tuckered out that she falls alseep being burped at her bedtime feeding. I have to take advantage of these snuggle times. I just can't get enough of her!

Father's & Son's outing on Monther's Day weekend. This is hiking up a cinder cone trail volcano by Snow Canyon State Park. Could Kason's face be any dirtier? You can tell how steep the volcano was in this picture. Tige says it was really bad and he's glad Abby & I weren't with them. Kason invited our neighbor and his 2 sons to hike too, which they gladly took him up on. The dad told me a few days later "next time Kason invites us on a little hike, I'm saying NO!" I guess it was pretty dificult for 3 little boys and 2 dads trying to keep them from sliding down to the bottom.

View from the top of the volcano. There's another little volcano in the distance. And what did I do while the boys were gone? Read a whole novel from start to finish. It was wonderful.

Our first slip-n-slide this year with cousins. A great way to spend a hot afternoon.

Tige's grandparents were here 2 weeks ago and we played games and went out to eat with them. I think Abby might be trying to pull Great Grandpa's chest hair??? Hope she didn't hurt him!

Great Grandma. They just couldn't get enough of Abby.

Ward Party at the park on Cinco de Mayo. This is how Abby looked upon returning home.

Kason & Tige hiked at Zion 2 weeks ago. I had no idea he hiked with his beloved "blue puppy" until I downloaded this picture. Too funny! This has been his favorite snuggle toy since he was a baby.

View from Zion.

They saw lots of deer on this Zion hike. I was impressed that Tige caught this picture with the deer peeking at them through the trees.

Amazing Spring

These amazing pictures were taken in the spring 2 years ago when we lived in Virginia, but since I didn't have a blog then, I'm going to put them on now so I have a record of it. You can imagine our surprise when we went outside to grill steaks and found a huge bird nest in the grill.

The first day there was one egg. The next day another had appeared, and the following day a third, and then a fourth. Who knew momma birds didn't lay their eggs all at once.

We checked them often, and after several weeks, they began to hatch. Kason loved checking on them each day.

2 hatched, 2 to go

Last bird pecking its way out

All 4 snuggling. Have you ever seen a baby bird up this close? It was really amazing--their little bodies were so fragile and we could see their veins.

Pretty soon, each time we checked on them, they'd be opening their beaks waiting for momma to feed them.

One of the birds died, and the momma dragged it out onto the side of the nest. Kason was devastated, so we had a little ceremony and buried it in the field by our yard. The other 3 all grew feathers and soon they were hopping around the deck and off they went. It was an amazing spring to watch them, and we all loved it.

(Except cleaning the grill afterwards of course).