BFF Fun...

Sweet Mary and Critti have come to Utah for a visit. They will be here for a little over a week. One of the first items on our agenda was to get to Boise to see the other BFF. This is the first time that all of our babies have met each other. We called Rebecca's father and let him know we were coming. He was great at keeping this sneak attack a surprise. And she WAS so wonderfully surprised. Here is a pic from the first few minutes together. Babies and all:

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And here are our beautifully tired babies:

Oliver . Mary . and Ezra

We had a ton of fun. It was cold, so we had to get creative with our indoor activities. Here is Oliver cuddling into Rebecca. They have a beautiful connection.

Beautiful Rebecca and Ezra:

Beautiful Critti and Oliver Cash:

Check out Mary and Critti. I just cannot believe how big Mary has gotten. She used to be the baby of the bunch. Now she is such a grown up. She is so great with her two little BFF's.

Okay...here is where the trip gets a little less "epic". We had an amazing time together (except for Bryce. He was laid up at sweet Budgie's house all weekend.) We headed back a little early on Saturday because Bryce was in so much pain. Little did we know that we would encounter an AWFUL blizzard along the way. We were stopped on I84 for THREE HOURS!!!!!

It went from, fun kids bouncing around the car to MELTDOWN.

Besides the meltdowns...it was so scary! The roads were awful!

Here is how I handle such things:

Good news is that we got home safely. Critti and Mary are her for another week---I am sure there will be more adventures to follow.

Dad and Daniel visit...

So, Dad and Daniel are in town. It's been great having them here.

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I came home after a day of work to find the three boys like this:

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They had unloaded 135 2x4's. they were shirtless and tired. It was great.

And here is Oliver, cleaning up: (again)

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Today we drove the Alpine Loop. If you have never done it....please do.

NOW.

It is amazing.

We stopped along the way for a picnic.

Here is Daniel, being a sweet uncle.

Here is Oliver, doing his version of the sign language sign for "more". For those of you who know what it should look like, you'll find this charming:



Oliver, playing with a snail shell that Bryce found.

We found this monster in the woods......we ran. :)

Here is a good shot of all of us....please note how it looks like Daniel is about to push Bryce off this cliff. :) IN reality he was kind of tickling him.

The tunnel...

I think that you should all meet Bryce's son:

This is Oliver.

He insists on wiping down his tray when he is done eating. It concerns me. :)

Incidentally, he also REALLY enjoys throwing things in the trash and putting things away.

What should I do?

We bought Oliver this funny tube thing from Ikea. He loves it.

More tunnel fun:

And here is Oliver sporting his new hair-do.

First haircut...

Well, here are some of the cutest pictures you will see in your whole lives.

This is Oliver and our beloved nephew, Beckett:

. Please note how diligently Oliver his holding on to Beckett in this wild (not wild) wagon ride in Robyn and Ryan's back yard:

More diligence:

As you will note in the above photos: Oliver's hair has gotten to the length in which it disrupts his vision. This was a very hard fact for me to swallow. I don't know WHY it was so hard for me to stomach his first hair cut. But it was.....for both of us:

Below you will see a pictorial of my first attempt at cutting his hair:

It began innocent enough....he did not know exactly what I was doing....so he began to get his hands involved:

Then he started wiggling his head:

His concern grew to anxiety:

Ultimately, he was not having it.

I ended up cutting his hair in his sleep. It went really well. I wish my hair cuts could be done the same way. It was fine. I hardly cut anything off...but...like a good, ridiculous Mom, I saved every hair.

Few goings on...

So, I have good news and bad news.

Good news first: We started swimming lessons with Oliver.

Here is Oliver and Bryce. Note: Oliver is wearing his "fake" smile

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Me and Oliver....and the fake smile...again.

He was a little more nervous about the swimming lessons than he wanted to let on.

Here he is, doing his best "kick, kick, kick..."

But all in all, this facial expression captures how he really felt:

Now the bad news: We decided to renovate our *only* bathroom and have all of the pluming in the house re-done. We had all of the galvanized steel piping replaced with pex piping.

Here is our bathroom before:

Here is our bathroom after the gutting:

We moved the location of the tub and toilet and are adding two sinks instead of one.

Now the bad news: 10 days later and it still looks like this. Yep. No shower or bath (the faucet, etc is not hooked up). We DO have a toilet.

It is just turning out to be WAY more of a pain than we expected. I have had way more "showers" via the kitchen sink than I have ever dreamed of having. We are going to Boulder for the weekend, so I don't think we'll make too much progress for some time now.

Wish us luck. And sanity. :)

Food and Wine Festival and Cascade Springs...

We've been having some fun lately. We are trying to enjoy every last day of summer. On Saturday we went to Sundance's annual Food and Wine festival. It was decadent.

HEre is Oliver with the beautiful and amazingly talented Bonnie (she's the one that takes all those great pictures):

We then went on a great (but short) hike to/around Cascade Springs. This was a good hike for us because you can take the stroller on the whole hike.

It was so beautiful.

Oliver, in the river.
This is Oliver's latest trick: He blows kisses. Sweetest thing ever (to date).
I love Oliver's little expression here. It is sweet and mischievous, at the same time.

More birthday...

Okay...I am sure you have all gotten enough of our birthday celebration pictures. HOWEVER, sweet Bonnie gave us the honor of attending our to-do and taking pictures. Here are some of the high lights.

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. Once again, here he is, gingerly digging (not digging) into his cake....

Here is sweet Jack, helping Oliver into the house:

Here is Oliver, Jack, Zoey and Beckett with their beloved Great-Grandma's: Beth and Bernice

And sweet, Beckett: Come on...too cute. So serious We love him so much:


Here is Oliver, giving me "kisses". He only knows how to open mouth kiss right now (ummm...yuck). I love the kisses and have to ignore the slobber. I can say, I am grateful that he has just learned to blow kisses. Mommy does much better without the slobber.

We love you, little man.