A few more photos from summer

Lars is getting so big. It's good to look back of these squishy baby photos of him! He's still plenty squishy, but just getting so much bigger.

 I took him swimming in the pool two or three times. He was just too young to have much tolerance for anything more than a few minutes, even if the water was quite warm. It was much funner just to leave him napping in his bed and to swim the girls alone. Perks of having our own pool; I love it so much!

 One day, we organized a hike up at Mt. Charleston and invited anyone in the ward who wanted to come. There was a really good turnout! Mt. Charleston is about a 30-40 minute drive from our house (depending on which part of the mountain you park). It's so refreshing up there. To give you an idea, when we pulled of the highway it was 105 degrees and when we parked it was 80ish. It was so invigorating to get out of the heat and do a nice outdoor activity with friends. We all promised that we would come back and do it again soon - but then everyone's schedules got busy and we never got around to another big group trip. This hike up to the waterfall was just right for kids. At one point we were surrounded by so many butterflies! They even landed on us! June had a ball trying to keep up with the bigger kids on the hike. Willa complained to me "What's that smell?!" It was the pine trees. Our poor city girl, ha ha!

 Lars was a trooper the whole time!

 I found this photo from our Utah trip. June is a huge Doc McStuffins fan. My mom got her this doc coat and medicine bag while we were there. She looked so adorable giving everyone check-ups and coming up with a diagnosis.

 I thought this photo was of the girls and their cute Red and Blue nail polish for the 4th, you can see the nails, but clearly this is a photo of them making rice krispie treats with my mom.

 We got haircuts in Utah. I'm fine with getting cuts in Vegas, but it's so much easier in Utah because I have my parents to help. Each girl got a trim and a blowout! They looked so pretty, I really wish I was better at doing their hair.

I came across these one year photos of June and Willa. Obviously, I'm just taking a photo of a photo or a screenshot, but I thought it was still fun to compare them with Lars. I can't tell who he looks like. Willa and June definitely looked different to me. Lars just looks like a mix, which makes them all look the same to me now.

June one year

Willa one year

Willa one year

Lars 4-5 months, looking adorable in Burberry

And who doesn't love a baby dressed up as a little man? This cute outfit came with a bow-tie, but I didn't have the heart to force it around his neck. The entire thing was a little tight.

 June loves experimenting with make-up. Her application skills are improving and she continues to push boundaries with her color choices! She's absolutely fabulous.

My Texas friend Maura came out to Vegas to see Britney Spears for her birthday! It was so great to see her and Robbie, her husband. They rented a cabana at The Wynn for the day and invited us. We left the kids with Ryan's parents and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was so beautiful inside there and peaceful and calm. It was like a time warp. We thought we'd been there about 45 minutes but two hours had passed by. I think the novel "Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann could have taken place here.

CABIN 2017

We had so much fun at the cabin this summer. My sister Carrie and her family were able to come up at the same time so there were more adults to do all the work and more kids to play with my kids. Win win win! There was something just so relaxing having Darcy there to just jump in the car and put the boat or the wave runners in the water. Plus, Carrie's kids are just a little bit older. They are really responsible and really fun and were so good to play with my kids. It was the most relaxing time I've had up there since I've been a mom.

Willa and Presley by the dock

My mom got stuff to tie-dye shirts. We wished we had done a onesie for Lars, but other than that the cousins looked great and had fun all deciding their special design. The one tragedy was that dye got on Carrie's 50th Anniversary Neil Diamond Tour hoodie, sniff RIP.

Marshmallows

The whole crew

This is a still photo of a video, but poor Lars in those baby life jackets. I hate those things! Luckily, there were enough adults that he hardly had to ride in the boat at all.

 June got to drive and she got to go for quite a while and even steer the boat. It was thrilling for her.

 

These little kid kayaks were perfect for Willa. She had a lot of fun hanging out around the dock learning to paddle. One day my dad and I took the big two person kayaks with Willa and June and floated down Big Springs. It's kind of a long trip, but it's super calm and easy. Perfect for kids. You could see fish in the clear water and we saw two different moose at different times standing in the water just 20 feet away from us! Poor Lars, the week earlier he had taken his first bottle of formula just fine. But when my mom stayed home with him and tried to give him a second bottle this time around he was not having it. Eeek. What a difference a week can make! Luckily, he didn't have to wait that long until we got back, but I felt bad for both of them. And for the record, can we agree that formula is disgusting and their spit-ups and everything else is just so much worse than with breast milk?

Willa swimming with Golden Retriever pup Maggie. The girls kept calling her "Raggie" and it cracked me up.

My uncle brought in some sand and dumped it near our dock one year. The HOA was pretty mad about it all, but it is a perfect place for kids to play as people go on and off the boat!

Swimming! Another great cabin adventure! We can't wait for next year and are hoping for an even longer visit.

4th of July!

Baby sink bath. Don't be fooled by this face, he loved it.

 The Fourth was great, as always. Lars seemed so big, but looking at the photos he is so tiny compared to now! We drove to Utah July 3rd and Lars actually had a fever. It was pretty sad and his little cry was so sad. He had a little tummy bug. I actually didn't know quite what was going on, because baby throw-up is basically the same as baby spit-up. But when Willa caught it two days later, we definitely knew what it was....

 Rebecca got the girls these matching dresses and purses. She filled the purses with candy and patriotic nail polish! What would these girls do without Aunt Becca?

 The parade is just the best. Alyson and her family were there. Basically all the families I grew up with come and sit in the same spot we were sitting since we were little.

 The parade went in the reverse direction this year, which meant we were sitting near the beginning instead of the end. The candy collection increased exponentially because of this. June is happy, her mouth is just full of candy in this photo.

Chris and Roxy came by to hang out. Chris helped Willa with her Legos and got lectured repeatedly to just "look at the instructions!" Ha ha, not sure who is the biggest kid here.

 He also took us on a ride in his super cool jeep with the doors and top off. It was extremely exciting for the girls and a little terrifying for them. It reminded me of riding in Katie and Alyson's jeep growing up, imagining how and where we would lash all our supplies when escaping a disaster.

One more parade pic, not sure why this is out of order. My cousin Jason and his family were there too. It was awesome.

Baby Blessing

Lars was blessed in church the first week in June. We were lucky to have Dan and Melinda in town. My parents drove in the night before and my brother Curtis and his family surprised us that morning by driving down from St. George. The Thalmans came and that was our group.

Ryan meditated and thought some beforehand about what to include in the blessing. He blessed Lars to grow and develop wisdom and courage. To have grit, perseverance, and resilience to meet the challenges of life. He blessed him to have compassion and kindness, to treat others with dignity and respect. He was blessed to act on promptings, to have a strong attachment to his sisters and to be obedient to his mother :), and to go with the ebbs and flows of life. He also blessed him to be a link between generations and with his family history.

It was a beautiful blessing, punctuated only by my dad's very loud cell phone that RANG in the circle during the blessing! It was so loud and distracting that Ryan forgot to bless Lars to be ridiculously good-looking and extremely successful!

June and Brody

Aunt Jenn and Lars

Brody and Willa - only six months apart and both four-eyes

Beckham-man, - THE sweetest boy you will ever meet

Don't judge me by this photo - it's pre-make-up and also pre what I was going to be wearing that day, I think!

Rebecca had a girls weekend that had been planned long before the blessing. Luckily her flight arrived in the afternoon and she was still able to join us for dinner that day.

I just love his little face here. It's a good picture of both of them.

 I went back and forth about what to dress him in. I definitely did not want to do one of those mini-white satin tuxes. Those are adult clothes, not baby clothes. I don't ever think they look very cute and usually they are just saggy around a tiny baby. I wanted something really babyish. There were some cute little knit outfits online, and Alyson sent me that cute blue and gray one that I posted a photo of earlier. It just seemed so hot in Las Vegas in June to put him in a knit outfit. In the end, I decided on this Aden & Anais cotton kimono. It was on Zappos, and Rebecca and Shannon had both got me other similar items for him to wear and I had LOVED them. The cotton is so lightweight and breathable, it felt summery to me. Plus, they just looks so sweet and innocent - perfect babywear in my opinion (and believe me, I've got opinions on what baby boys should wear!). We ordered this white one with the silver design for him and I loved it. I was worried the 3-6 month size would be too big, but he was already busting out of the 0-3 month size. I think it looked nice on him and I'm still trying and about to be failing at squeezing a few last wears out of it for him now. That's a hunka hunka baby!

With Dad

The Art Show

Degas Ballet Dancer

Willa loves Fancy Nancy books and I've been so impressed at the little facts and especially "fancy" words that she has learned and retained from these books! She loves the book Fancy Nancy: Artist Extraordinaire and one time at one of my many doctor's appointments there was a Monet print in the room and she asked about it and when I said it was Monet she chirped "he liked to paint outside!" She decided she wanted to hold an art show just like Nancy. In fact, the art show was a goal for several months and seasons, but we could never get the timing just right. Finally everything fell into place. Lest anyone think she is too much of a genius, in the end she decided to copy the art from the book because she was having trouble producing her own art that fit all the categories.

She made a sign on her door "Welcome to the Art Show"

This sign says "Free" and she had colored small little scraps that you could take as a souvenir.

Imitation of Gustav Klimt

Another Degas Ballet Dancer

Monet Tulips in the Sunshine

Money Tulips with a cloud covering the sun

There was also a Jackson Pollock, but I guess I didn't get a picture of it. It was all just so adorable and cute and she was very sweet as she welcomed you to her gallery and showed you the various works of art. I think this would be a GREAT summertime activity for a mom who is just a little more put together than me. You could have an art camp week where you study different works of art and then try to imitate the style. Willa threw it all together by herself, but with a little direction you could really make an event of it! She wanted to have people over, so we invited the next door neighbor kids to walk through. And luckily, that night Brandon and Rebecca were coming for dinner so they had a chance to see the gallery too. Unfortunately, I drew the line at refreshments, so that's why she drew the little souvenir scraps of paper.