Utah Trip: The Rest of the Pictures

Paul tells me I have a "Utah smile." Apparently, it's more relaxed and happy than any of my other smiles, and I had it the minute our plane touched ground in the Beehive state. Maybe it's because I really found myself during college there, or maybe it's because I started my married life there. Maybe it's the mountains and the dry air, or the fact that you can breathe when you go outside. Maybe it's having family everywhere. I'm not sure what it is, but I love being in Utah.

Here's the river behind Paul's house. That's Abby and Patrick, who just moved ten minutes away from us, and Anne and her son Adrian, who just moved back to Utah. Abby and Anne are both having babies this year!
We went up to Thanksgiving Point while we were there. I think the boys love being in Utah too!
Peter really enjoyed his pony ride, and wanted to go again as soon as it was finished.
Benjamin enjoyed it too, but was not as anxious to keep riding.
Benjamin got to see his second cousin Henry while we were there. We also got to meet Henry's little brother Ari for the first time.
Lots of little boys- here's Adrian, Benjamin, Ari and Peter with Adrea.
Unfortunately for Benjamin, we didn't end up going camping in the mountains like we promised. Instead, the tent got put up in the backyard. Paul was going to sleep out there with him, but a really loud wedding across the river finally broke little Benjamin's determination when he turned to Paul and said, "Every time the music plays I can't sleep." So much for a night out in the wild!
We had a fun little excursion down Provo canyon with one of Paul's friends and his little girl. Jon had all sorts of fun contraptions that we could ride. Josh rode a long board while pushing Nora in the stroller, others rode stand-up trikes, and as you can see here, Ben and Adrian rode a Power wheel. The Power Wheel lasted about 100 yards; none of the boys were very adept at steering through the curves of the trail. We ended up ditching it and cruising down the rest of the way on the other devices.
Another get-together with some of Paul's friends-Royce and his wife Anne, and Parker.
We also got together with the Browns, some friends of ours who moved away from St. Louis last year. Benjamin was sure excited to see his old pal Megan, and Emily was all grown up!
What trip to Utah is complete without taking a drive up the mountains and looking across the valley?
Benjamin really adores his little sister. Peter is usually indifferent. Here they are playing in another tent that we had set up for them indoors.
We got to have a triple date with Nathan and his girlfriend Traci and Marc and Miriam. Actually I guess it was a quadruple date as Nora and Johnny also tagged along. We had a great time!
Bath time with Anna. She is a very bright, talkative little two-year-old!
We went to Pineview one of the first days we were there. We had a jet ski and a raft. The kids were in heaven with all that sand and water!
Peter enjoyed the cherries a little too much.

Peter and Anna are about three months apart and have similar temperaments. They were really cute together.

Benjamin, Nora and I sat together on the airplane ride home. She has really grown up a lot in the past few weeks!

Utah Tip: With the Fam

We have way too many great pictures from our trip, so I've had to narrow them down. Here's a few of my favorites of the posed shots with family.

Utah Trip: The Wedding

We're back! Thanks to my little sister Jeannine and her new husband Jon, we had a pretty good excuse to make a trip out to Utah this summer. It was such a nice vacation! Here's the happy couple in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple where they were married.

The rest were taken with our camera, so they're definitely not as good. Jeannine and Jon were beaming!
We have a similar shot of our family at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house from a year ago, so we made sure to get a more current version. Nevermind that two of the three children are asleep and Benjamin has a squinty scowl.
I decided to make Nora a little skirt and bow out of the leftover bridesmaid fabric. I thought it turned out cute. The sad part was that it shredded the moment I took it off. Oh, well!
I'm missing my dad in this four-generation shot, but here's Nora, me, and my grandma Nola. My kids are pretty lucky to have three living great-grandmas and one living great-grandpa.

Here's a cute one of my Dad with Peter. Picture time happened to fall right during Peter's nap time.
Benjamin is really cute with Nora, especially when she's all dressed up. He was burying his face in her and giving her kisses here.
The nephews and nieces shot was pretty funny to watch (Wouldn't Jeannine look great with twins?). Benjamin and Anna are not pictured because it was a little too hard to wrangle them in, and Natalie, Lucy and Emily are not pictured because they were off canoeing in Scotland. We sure missed them!
This was my favorite picture of the day- Sarah trying to hug Benjamin. It took a little while for these two to really warm up...
...but once they did, they were really cute together. Here they are sitting at the reception where there was a tree decked out with 1000 paper cranes and white lights. It was pretty spectacular! Congratulations, Jeannine and Jon!

Four Weeks

Nora is four weeks old now, so I thought I'd give a run down of her stats. She is just starting to smile at us when she's awake.

We get them all the time when she's asleep though. She has lots of happy, funny dreams.
This is a more typical awake face though- she's often pretty uncomfortable. We've had enough rough nights this week to make me consider some diet modifications.
I weighed her this morning, and she's about 9 lbs. 4 oz. - almost two pounds more than she was when she was born. Here she is in the bouncer at 4 weeks. She's stretched out a bit since when she first came home!
And her hair is looking redder (at least to us) with all the new undergrowth and lighter eyebrows. I'm also betting she'll have blue eyes like her brothers.

Nora's One-Month-Old stats: She weighs 9 lbs. 13 oz. (46%), and is 22" (62%) tall.