Five on Friday

1. I dreamt up and put together this little craft this week. Now I just need a cute picture from tomorrow's game to display!



2. I made these Quick and Easy Garlic-Parmesan Rolls for my dinner group last night. Not only were they quick and easy, they were also delicious! And as a bonus, no one could believe they were made using Rhodes Rolls.

3. Today we took advantage of Rog having Fridays off by going to the zoo. It wasn't too terribly hot (until the very end) and it was not crowded at all because all the kids are back in school. Best of all, many of the animals put on a really good show for us. (I have a million pictures to go through that I will be sharing in another post.)

4. On our way home from the zoo, we stopped to look at our family photos from last Saturday. We got exactly one perfect shot which is all I asked for. Success!

5. Tonight Rog and Corbyn are at our ward's Fathers and Sons Campout. I made Tomato Basil Soup for my parents, Jared, Peyton, and myself because Rog and Corbyn are haters. Now as soon as I publish this post, I am going to ignore my house that needs cleaning and watch We Bought a Zoo (in honor of our trip to the zoo this morning) while quiet booking it up!

Labor Day Weekend

With no school on Friday and Labor Day on Monday, we enjoyed a nice long weekend!

The highlights:

*Took family pictures. The kids were mostly cooperative. Fingers crossed that at least one turned out!

*Visited my Grandma Ford, Aunt Tracy, and Cuddles. Peyton loved Cuddles!



*Watched the first BYU football game of the season - rain delay and all! It wasn't the best start to the season as Virginia came from behind in the last few minutes to beat us 16-19.

*Washed our couch cushions.



*Made cinnamon rolls for Rog who says I don't make them enough!

*Went to Seven Peaks for the last time this summer. We got to ride the big slides we can't do without Rog and even saw our friends Nate and Ann Edwards.



*Shared a snow cone for FHE.



It was a pretty great weekend and a good way to end the summer.

Books, Crafts, and a New Calling

A little update on me...

Books

I finished my 4th and 5th books for the year.

Book #4 was Reached, the 3rd book in the Matched trilogy. I didn't love it, but I liked it enough to finish it. I thought it was a good end to the trilogy and I'm glad I stuck with it to see the story to the end.

Book #5 was Love Life and See Good Days. I love Emily Freeman's books and this one was no exception. It was all about seeing good days as opposed to just hoping to have good days. I love how she uses different scriptures and stories to illustrate different ways to see good days.

Crafts

I kind of got out of the habit of crafting, so I really tried to make it a point to find time to do some new crafts in July and August.

July needed a new "o".



I also made a little washi tape garland with some washi tape I got from Pick Your Plum.



It was incredibly quick and easy and I love how it just added a little extra something to my July table.



I got the idea for this craft here, but I changed it up a bit to make it my own.



I also "fixed" this subway art I made a few years ago. The middle section bugged me every time I looked at it. It's a subtle difference, but I like it much better now! On the left, before and on the right, after.



A New Calling (kind of)

I wasn't really digging the whole emergency primary substitute thing, so I told Rog just to call me to be a real teacher. When your husband is the counselor in the bishopric over primary, you can do that! My class is kind of crazy, but I'm liking the predictable nature of having a class I teach every week as opposed to not knowing what I'm going to be doing.

And that is what I have been up to these past few months!

16 Months

PJ at 16 months:

*Says go, hi, cheese, mom, dad, mine, croc-dile, kitty, and Cor Cor (for Corbyn).

*Takes my finger, shorts, or skirt and pulls me where she wants me to go.



*Gives kisses.

*Says hi to everyone we see.



*Tilts her head back, so we can rinse her hair in the bath. (It seriously took Corbyn years to learn this, but she just picked it up from watching him do it!)

*Loves to help me water the plants.



*Unfolds her arms and very enthusiastically says amen at the end of prayers.

*Likes to hide and play peek-a-boo. I love that she's at the age where she thinks she's hidden when half her body is poking out!



*Knocks on doors.

*Finally got her two middle front teeth on top. She now has 6 teeth - 4 on top and 2 on bottom.



*Answers no whenever we ask her a question.

*Does the best little monkey impression.



*Shows us where her fingers, toes, and bum (after a month of an endless diaper rash) are.

*Finally started throwing things. She has the cutest little wind up she does before throwing.



*Loves to stack blocks.

*Has taken a liking to Jessie from Toy Story lately. (Corbyn has had a renewed love for Toy Story, so we've been watching a lot of it!)

Corbyn and I have started calling her Squishy. We sure love our little Squishy girl!

Five on Friday

1. This week the kids and I went to nearly every children's clothing store in Utah Valley on a search for a shirt for Corbyn to wear for our family pictures tomorrow. Ironically enough I ended up buying him a shirt from the very first store we went to.

2. On Tuesday I spent $60 at the BYU Bookstore on BYU shirts for our family. If that's not evidence enough that we still bleed blue, I don't know what is!

3. Rocky Gonzalez was born on Wednesday at 7:59 pm. He was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 21 inches long. I can't believe we have to wait until Thanksgiving to meet him! Congrats Anthony and McKae - he's perfect!



4. Also on Wednesday, Grandma, Grandpa, and Jared got home from their trip to Sweden. (Finally! It seemed like they were gone forever!)

5. Today we went to the temple. We were excited to see the new film they have for the endowment session. Rog says it was great, but I kind of slept through most of it. (Oops. I know I should go to bed earlier, but then I would never get anything done!)

Week Zero

Week Zero was kind of intense for Rog. He had classes or other things going on Monday - Friday from about 8 - 4 (some days he got done a little later and some days he got done a little earlier). He also had a  mandatory service project most of the day on Saturday.

And he had to get used to getting up there. It takes about 2 hours to get from our house to his building on campus with him driving to the Frontrunner station in Provo and taking Frontrunner and TRAX from there. That seems like a lot of time, but it's free (other than the short drive to Provo) and it gives him built-in study time.

I tried to plan things for us to do most days to help us make it through the week.

On Monday we drove up to the U to go to a welcome BBQ they had for the students and their families.

On Tuesday we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point with Amber, Tyce, and Liam. In August they have 2 Buck Tuesdays, so it was pretty insanely busy. Peyton liked it a lot more than I thought she would - she pointed and roared at all the dinosaurs. Corbyn didn't seem too overly excited while we were there, but he's talked about it a lot since, so I think he really did have a good time.



On Thursday we got out the pool and invited some friends over.



That night Rog and I had planned to go to see an outdoor showing of the Hunger Games while Mariah watched our sleeping kids. (They close 100 W in Provo in front of Sammy's Cafe and play movies on an inflatable screen.) Unfortunately it started to rain not long after the movie started, so they had to cancel it. We got a half price shake from Sonic to share on our way home instead. Hopefully they'll reschedule!



Saturday morning we went to Seven Peaks. Corbyn brought this little polar bear to play with while we were there. When we were packing up to leave he wanted a picture with him. He told the polar bear to say cheese and everything. Cutest.Kid.Ever.



We had fun, but it was a long week without Rog. We are glad to have Week Zero over with! Now we can settle into his real schedule. (Monday - Thursday from about 9 - 3. Much more manageable!)

Fun with Rog Home

We spent the week before Rog went back to school mostly at home. We worked on some projects around the house - cleaning the garage, washing/vacuuming our cars, boxing up the kids' clothes from the last year... I also got to run some errands without the kids. Of course we managed to fit in some fun too.

*I finally found the perfect taco pizza recipe. How can you go wrong with the Pioneer Woman though?!



*While cleaning the garage, I found 4 capes I'd forgotten I had in our Halloween box!



*Also while cleaning the garage, Rog bumped his head and got a little cut. Corbyn insisted he needed a band aid...or 3. I couldn't look at him without laughing!



*We floated the Provo River.



*We went with Rog up to the U to get his U Card and buy some packets he needed from the bookstore. (He's smiling because he wore a blue shirt for his picture. He may be going to the U, but he's a cougar at heart!)



*We went up to Girl's Camp for bishopric night. It made me feel really old to be up there as a bishopric wife! They had a fun photo booth with props.

Bishopric + Wives



Us



Mariah was the camp director, so I got a picture with her too!



*The kids played in the rain.



Mohawk Peyton and Freezing Corbs!



It was a busy week - productive and also fun!

The Scenic Route

On Saturday (the day after we got home from Aspen Grove), we drove down to St. George to celebrate Rog's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. (60 years - that's 10 times as long as we've been married! Definitely something to celebrate.) The main event was dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Kids weren't invited, so we had a lady in my parent's ward (who has kids of similar ages) watch our kids. (My parents hadn't come back down yet.) After dinner we picked up our kids and went over to their house to enjoy some ice cream cake. And we all had a good laugh over a painting they recently acquired. (We'll leave it at that!)

We finished the night at the St. George Splash Pad.



After going for the first time last summer, we made it a point to go again this summer. Such a great splash pad!



Here's a little side-by-side comparison of Peyton last summer and Peyton this summer - almost exactly a year apart and at the same splash pad. She's done a lot of growing up over the last year!



Grandma Dixie came with gifts for both kids. A cute outfit for Peyton and an Iron Man costume for Corbyn. Go figure, I only ended up getting a picture of Peyton in the Iron Man costume. Corbyn loves it too!



We had kind of an interesting Sunday morning. We planned to go to my parent's ward, but for some reason we both thought it started at 11:00 when it actually started at 9:00. So we ended up taking the Sacrament with the Spanish Branch and then heading out because we wouldn't have understood a word of it anyway! Instead we visited Rog's mission president. Then Corbyn played trains while Peyton napped and we got dinner ready.



My parents and Jared got back Sunday night. We enjoyed breakfast at Kneaders with them before starting the drive home Monday morning.

We decided to take the scenic route home. Our first stop was Navajo Lake.



It's been way too long since we visited the cabin (August 2009 - before we had kids), so we thought we'd at least stop at the lake.



We all had fun throwing rocks in the lake.



And as always Peyton had fun playing in the dirt!



Then we drove to Bryce Canyon National Park. I just love Bryce!



First order of business was a snack for the kids - yogurt for PJ.



Our little monkey at it again.



The kids look oh so happy in this picture, but trust me, they did have a good time!



As we were leaving, this chipmunk (or squirrel or whatever) was very friendly with Peyton. (I'm sure he wanted her Fritos.)



It was a fun little trip down to the southern part of our state - made even better by taking the scenic route home!