Summer Vacations-2012

Over this past summer we got to go on two other vacations besides the big family reunion (see earlier post). I got to take Noah to Colorado to meet my mom's parents for the first time, which was awesome! Noah and I rode over there with my parents and my sisters in their motor home, which was much nicer than trying to do that long of a drive in a car, and we got to stay for a couple of days. Noah had a blast exploring their house and yard and I think he won them over! :) Then, the first full week of August we got to go to my family's annual Lake Powell trip, which was SO much fun!! I was a little nervous about having a newly walking toddler around all that water, but there were lots of eyes watching him carefully. He didn't like the water so much at first, but once he got to play on the beach he was hooked and he would cry when we brought him in! Our boat was beached on a great sandy beach that also had a HUGE rock face on the far end of it, so by 1:00 everyday we were in the shade which was wonderful since it meant that no one got sunburned! We also celebrated a triple birthday: Noah (1), me (27), and my older brother Deven (32) so that was a lot of fun. I always love when I get to celebrate my birthday on the lake! We had a blast, so I have a ton of pictures below, sorry for the overload!

 Noah is a watermelon fiend, he eats it constantly all summer long and this is his "more watermelon" face and him reaching for the watermelon plate.

 Noah sitting in my grandpa's official chair

 Noah with his great-Grandpa and Grandma Clark

 Four generation picture with my grandma, my mom, me, and Noah

 First day at Lake Powell, we haven't left the marina slip yet, but the sunset was beautiful!!

 Noah and Auntie Em

 Ben is helping Noah get used to the water slowly and gently!

 Approved!

 Tradition dictates that we must always bury our legs in the sand on the beach, I don't know why, but we all do it every year!

 I brought along Noah's little inflatable pool so he could enjoy the water without being too overwhelmed. 

 He really liked having his own place to play!

 Little pool, big beach

 He kept DRINKING the nasty lake water. I shudder whenever I think about it...

 Ashley is kayaking, Brittney is tagging along for the ride...

Crawling in the wet sand, getting used to the water 

 Walking in the water with Aunt Brittney and cousin Kate

 Still not totally sure what is going on here!

 He fell asleep on one of the speedboat rides.

 Love snuggling a sleeping baby!!

 Playing up higher on the beach in the really dry, warm sand.

 See the "sand drool"? He kept trying to eat it.

 Diaper buddies! Noah and cousin Dylan

 "What's up, Dad?"

 Playing in the sand with daddy.

 Shot of our houseboat and some of the incredible rock faces we parked by.

 Walking in the water with daddy

 I liked walking in the water with him too...

 Even if he kept wanting to go deeper!!

 Kicking his legs in the water.

 Eating more sand...

 Cute little beach bum!!

 Speed boat babes.

 Ben took Noah on his first tube ride.

 It was so calm, I think they BOTH almost fell asleep!

 For my birthday I was told I could do whatever I wanted, and I really wanted to go for a nice boat ride and then find a canyon to hike into-one of my favorite Lake Powell activities. So, Dad, Mom, Ben, myself, and my three sisters all went and hiked Labyrinth Canyon while my brother and his family hung back and took care of Noah for me!

 You can see how the canyon twists and turns!

 So gorgeous, and it was mostly in the shade the whole time which was awesome!

 We had to do a little "bouldering" in a few places, and walking through so seriously nasty, bug infested water!

 Brittney caught a lizard,

 And she really liked him!

 Hiking, with help!

 Floating with my baby boy!!!

 We had fun!

 Noah's "bathtub" on the boat. There are only showers on the boat, so we improvised...

 Ben wanted to water ski, and I was very impressed because he got up on his first try and he hasn't been skiing for a couple of years!

 Tubing gals

 Our boat and our beach

 Sunsets

Lake Day Pictures, Finally!

I am finally posting some pictures from when we went to Ben's mom's family reunion back in July! We had a great time, they rent a HUGE cabin in Uintah Basin that can sleep around 100 people, and there is a lake day, and activities on the cabin grounds like volleyball and a pool, and it was really fun to see all of the Evans side of the family! They are pretty spread out, so this reunion is really fun for everyone to get together. Noah LOVED all of the attention he got from his aunts, uncles, and grandparents. He wanted to walk everywhere, but he needed an escort so he could hold their fingers, so I was glad for so many willing hands! Ben wasn't able to come up the whole time, he had to go to class and work so I went up on the first day with the rest of the family and Ben joined us a couple of days later. We were lucky enough to get our own room instead of sharing with about 12 other people which was so nice for Noah's nap times. He slept great despite the noise and heat. We had a lot of fun at the lake too, it was kind of cold so Noah mostly enjoyed the beach and a little wading. Ben went out on the jet skis once or twice, and we all got to ride in a speedboat, which put Noah to sleep in Ben's arms. :) It was a really fun trip, and I'm sorry it took so long to post pictures!

 Noah sitting in his special kid-sized beach chair

 Noah the stud man

 Getting ready to go in the water with Aunt Shannon

 Floating around

 His teeth were chattering by this point!

 Tired from so much fun in the sun

 Love his face in this one, he is crushing my water bottle

 Exploring the lake with daddy

 Mouth full of sand!

 Cold water!

 Ben's hair after jet skis is awesome!

 Love my boys!

 Me and my little guy

I sure love this little face!! I should mention, it was only about 2 weeks after his non-stop walking with everyone around the cabin grounds that he started walking on his own! :)

Walking Noah!

Noah is a walking man! This just happened today for the first time, he has been going all around the house with a big grin on his face the whole time. He loves his new found freedom. He has already face planted it into the ottoman, but didn't seem to mind too much even though it left a welt. Definitely a boy! I think life is about to get VERY interesting with a walking boy underfoot! :)

Alpine Fire

 My mom and Noah watching the fire and all of the helicopters dumping water

 My dad and Noah

 This picture is taken from the car as we are driving to my parent's house

 Also from the car

 There were reports that the flames were between 300 and 600 feet high!

 Water dump

This is the home of a family friend-the fire literally burned 360 degrees AROUND their house, but their home was saved! Talk about blessings!

The Alpine fire was during the week of the 4th of July and was devastating. Those mountains are as much a part of my home as the house I grew up in! It was heart breaking to see them burn. It was started by a backhoe and the flames were said to spread as fast as 20 mph! Luckily, my parent's house did not have to evacuate but just barely. The houses one street away did have to evacuate. They were lucky to stay in their home. After a miraculous rainstorm a couple of days after the fire started-the fire is out. I cried watching my beloved mountains burn, but I am SO grateful that my parent's house was safe and so were all of the people in Alpine!

Finally, an update!

 This is Noah's "Old Man Face", he does this all the time when I feed him, especially if he likes what he is eating! He is such a silly little boy. 

 More old man face, but you can see his top teeth in this one! They are already hopelessly crooked, so it's a good thing they are bound to fall out!

 Noah LOVES to clap his hands, and he claps at any and every thing. He also really likes to ride in the shopping cart of the various stores we visit. 

 Pucker lips face, he does this while he crawls and climbs and it's hilarious! The picture is a little blurry since it's from my phone, but it's a hard face to capture! 

 Noah's new ball-Daddy just couldn't resist buying it for him! He will say, "ba" when he plays with it. He is developing quite a little vocabulary!

 I just loved his face in this picture! :)

 Noah also LOVES his baths, he likes to splash like crazy, and when his super long eyelashes are wet and dark they make his eyes look so cute! 

 Big smile on his grandpa's riding lawn mower! I love this picture and I am thinking of framing it. (Kind of appropriate since we live in Lehi...)

 Ready to mow, baby!

 This is Noah's new hat that I got at the Disney store (don't worry, it was on sale) and I am trying to get him used to it before we go to Lake Powell. So far, he hates it. :)

 Old Man Face before church!

 We got a piano! We found it on KSL for $250, and Ben and his brothers helped us move it in. This is the before touch up work picture.

 And this is after my mom and I spent about 3 hours with filler, touch up color, and polish! Looks great and you can't see hardly any of the dings and dents that were there before. 

 Noah totally looks like he is playing in this picture!

 He likes it! Hopefully he will still like it when I start making him take lessons...

One of Noah's favorite activities is to empty out and kindly rearrange all of my DVDs for me. Gone are my OCD days of perfectly alphabetized DVDs! :)

Noah will turn 11 months old on the 4th of July, so I think it's a cause for fireworks and celebration! :) He is SO incredibly active, the kid is never still for a moment. The minute you set him down, he is off like a shot and either crawling, climbing up the stairs, or climbing up something else! He loves to be mobile and is very very close to walking. He can cruise with only one hand on the couch, and he can walk holding on to just one of my hands too. He does got a lot faster with two hands though! He loves to wrestle with his daddy, they are always rolling around on the floor and Noah also likes to be flipped upside down-he will clap his hands for more!

Noah is an excellent eater-I have yet to find anything he truly doesn't like and we are moving into more and more table food and less and less baby food. It will be weird to just hand him the same foods I am eating all the time! He really likes pieces of fruit (especially melon and mango) and he loves chunks of cheese. Breakfast and dinner are usually cereal, veggies, fruits, and finger foods and lunches lately have been just finger foods. He eats three meals a day and has a sippy at night before bedtime.

Speaking of bedtime, Noah is still an unbelievably good sleeper! He sleeps at night from 8:30pm - 8:30am, and sometimes even sleeps in until 9:00! He takes one morning nap for about 2 hours, and another 1 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon. He goes down for naps and bedtime with no fuss at all, although he is getting good at entertaining himself and playing instead of sleeping sometimes! He loves to jump in his crib, I think because it squeaks when he does it, so he will stand in his crib and hold on to the top bar and jump for long periods of time, I can't believe it. 

He is getting a good vocabulary, he can say: mama or mom, dada or dad, nana (banana), ba (ball), bye bye, baby, and hi. He just learned how to say hi and now when he is ready to get up from a nap or in the morning, I will hear him saying Hi over and over as loud as he can! It's hilarious! He still loves to babble and talk to himself like crazy, especially in the car. Sometimes I can't even have a phone conversation over him talking! I think once the rest of the vocab kicks in he will be a talker like his mom. 

Noah is still as happy as he could possibly be. He NEVER cries, and he is constantly smiling. He is such a joyful little guy. I hope that pleasant disposition sticks around through toddlerhood, teenagerhood, and beyond...He is a lot like his dad in his temperament, especially in social situations. He is not shy, but likes to kind of observe everyone for a moment or two before totally warming up. He will go to anyone and everyone, and doesn't really have any attachment issues. He is just peaceful-which is what his name means so that fits. He does have a mischievous side to him-which I know he gets from me. :)

As for Ben and I, we just got called to teach the Sunbeams in our ward which we love. It's a lot of fun to have Noah in there too, even if that makes it a little crazy. Most of the kids kind of ignore him, so he just crawls around and climbs on the chair legs. We have a darling class, mostly little girls, and they are really cute and fun to teach. 

Ben is currently working some insane hours at work for a big blitz until the end of the summer, he is putting in like 50-60 hours a week some weeks! That wouldn't be too bad if he wasn't also taking 18 credits of school. Yikes! Needless to say, he is SUPER busy! He is a great husband and an awesome daddy though, he always makes time for his son, and time for his wife too! It will be nice to have his work schedule calm down for the fall semester since he is taking another 17 credits this fall, and then one more semester and he is DONE!! We are so excited for him to be finished! It will be a tremendous blessing to have a lot more family time.

I am still absolutely LOVING being a stay at home mom, it's an amazing experience. Probably helps that I have the world's most perfect baby...I also work from home as the Director of Licensing and newsletter writer for a company called DVO Enterprises. It's a lot of work (about 20 hours a week) but I am lucky that it is all from home, and I can work when Noah is sleeping so I never have to "split my focus" off of him. I like my job a lot, it's all about cookbooks, cooking and baking, and other kitchen stuff, so it's right up my alley! 

There is the incredibly long, and much needed, update! :)

8 Months and Crawling!

Well, Noah is officially 8 months old today, and I just can't believe it! He's almost been out of me as long as he was in me! :) He is also officially crawling! He was scooting around a little bit the last couple of days, but starting yesterday it is a full blown crawl. The minute I put him down he's off like a rocket. He is so proud of himself! He can get into crawling from his tummy or from sitting down, so I can't "trap" him anymore. I have a fun video of him crawling that I will post as soon as I learn how to do that...He is still a VERY good eater-he will eat anything and everything I give him. He most recently discovered that he loves mangoes and those are his current favorite food. He can still say mama and dada and has said baby before as well. He likes to make lots of different sounds with his tongue, I wouldn't be surprised if he talks before I know it! He is still a very happy, social, enjoyable baby. He is very mellow-kind of goes with the flow-which I am sure he inherited from his dad. He is such a joy to be around since he doesn't really cry much at all. He still sleeps 12 hours at night, (from 8:30 to 8:30) with 2-3 naps during the day. We are getting ready to drop the last nap, but sometimes he's still tired enough to take it. He REALLY loves being outside, we play at the playground by our house a lot (and by play I mean swing in the baby swing and watch all the other kids) and he loves to go for walks in his stroller. I absolutely LOVE being home with him and taking care of him-it's such a blessing!