Now A Mom

     Last weekend we got to take Mia to her very first circus. I know I know, she won’t even remember it, but it was still a lot of fun. My parents wanted to go along with my sister and her kids, so we decided to tag along. It was a log of fun. We went early for the preshow where you can walk around and see the clowns and the elephant and they have clown noses you can put on and what not. It really was so crowded we couldn’t do much, but still fun just to be there and get a few pictures.

    Once we got up to our seats (way WAY up, haha) than we had a few minutes to sit and relax before the show started. Mia had fun walking across our laps and playing with the chairs in front of us. The circus finally started and it was so fun to watch Mia and see how she reacted to all of it. She just stared at everything for a while and eventually started yelling ‘Da Da Da Da’ over and over again. I told Jason I’m pretty sure she wanted to be louder than the circus. She really seemed to enjoy most of it, all the loud music and bright colors. We of course only had her about half of the circus then she went down to sit with Grammy and Grandpa. She still continued to watch the circus and have fun for a while, then sat on my dad’s lap and fell right asleep. After about a 15-20 minute nap, she went right back to watching. It was really a lot of fun. Even all the adults seemed to enjoy it, I know Jason and I did. After the circus, we all went to The Pie for dinner for some yummy pizza! It was a really fun night with the family!

Mia and I at the preshow before the circus started. 

 

Mia on the motorcycle they use in the show. My little biker chick!

 

Elephants! 

 

This is Mia during the circus. She LOVES to stand, espeically when she’s excited about something. She wouldn’t take her eyes off the circus long enough to get a picture with her looking at the camera. 

 

Mia sitting with my Dad. She kept playing with his binoculars. 

 

Her little nap time. It was so cute to see her sleep even though it was crazy loud. She was nice and cozy on her Grandpa’s lap. 

For those of you not aware of this momentous occasion, The Office season 5 premiere begins tonight on NBC. If you haven’t watched previous seasons, thats ok, watch anyways! Trust me, you will still enjoy the amazing humor that this show has to offer. And in all honesty, there isn’t to much as far as a story line to follow. All you need to know if you want Jim and Pam together, Dwight and Angela dated once, and Michael and Jan dated once. There, i think you are all caught up. Now, watch and enjoy.�

    Well, since Mia was born I’ve gotten pretty in to a few new ‘crafty’ activities and with that, have created a lot of headbands and bows for Mia as well as handbags, dresses and jewlery for myself. Since then, I’ve been stopped by people to ask where I have bought the various objects or how I made them. Because of that, I’ve decided to look in to the possibility of selling them. So, to begin the process, I’ve made a new blog to show off some of the things that I have made thus far. I still need to add jewlery to it, but here’s what I have so far. Check it out. If you know someone that might be interested, please please send the link on to them. Thanks a ton!!

http://www.miabcollection.blogspot.com/ 

              Alright, so her birthday was over a week ago, but I figured a post to celebrate her and to show some of the fun pictures from her party. My Mom is an amazing mother, women, wife, and friend and I don’t know what I would do without her. I know that with out her influence and example in my life, I would never have been able to become the women, mother and wife that I am today. For that, I am so thankful and I know that my family is thankful as well. I know without a doubt that a lot of my best attributes are the things that I learned from her. We are so happy to have her here close by now, to know that my daughter will be able to really get to know her and to have a great relationship with her Grandparents. She will be a better women in the future because of it. 

 

            Anyways, enough of the mushy stuff and on to the fun! My mom decided that for her birthday, she wanted to go out and do something fun that both the adults and the kids would enjoy. After a little talking with the family, she decided on hiking up to timpanogas cave. I said of course, that it sounded like a good time and from what i could remember, was a really easy hike that would be no problem with Mia. Boy was a wrong, at least a little bit wrong. The hike is paved all the way up to the cave, but it is 1.5 miles of straight switch backs with the last 1/4 miles being in particularly steep. Besides being a little winded, we did make it up to the top without really any problems. I did have to pass Mia off to Jason a little after the 1/2 way mark because with a baby in a pouch that sits right on your stomach, you become winded quite a bit quicker. We made it up to the top, then went in to the cave. For those of you that haven’t been to timpanogos, I’d recommend it. That cave really is quite amazing, it’s actually a combination of I believe 3 caves together. The hike is worth it to go to the top. I guess there are some things in this cave that can’t be found in the large numbers they are in timpanogos, I believe called helectites, but they really are amazing. It looks like a ton of coral, really quite pretty to see. The cave tour is just under an hour long, so plan a good 1/2 day for the hike and the tour. Anyways, It was a really nice day and even worth loosing the ability to walk for the next couple of days, haha. It’s so nice to have my parents here and to be able to celebrate it all together.

 

 

This is Jason, Mia and I on the hike up. We were only 1/4 of the way there, so we were still happy and peppy at this point, ha. 

Some of my family on the hike up. I love my dad with his little preppy sweater tied around his shoulders. I was quite impressed with my 5 year old nephew walking the whole way up himself and my 3 year old neice going a part of the way up walking herself.  

Mia and I in the cave trying to squeeze through some of the tight spots without hitting her head or mine on some of the sticking out rocks. To make it even more challenging, your not supose to touch anything in the cave because it’s considered ‘alive and growing’ but the oils on your skin can kill it. It got a little tricky, especially because all that Mia wanted to do was get down and play. Luckily, there aren’t that many tight spots, most have room to move.

Jason Mia and I in one of the caves, I believe it was called Middle cave. I only remember the name of this one cause it’s in the middle of the 3 and the 1st one because it’s called Hanson cave and made me start humming ‘Mm bop”while the tour guide was talking about it. 

Some of the growth in the cave, a bunch of stalagtites and stalagmites. The looked a little prettier in person then they came out in the pictures. It really did look like coral. My sister kept asking my princess obsessed neice if she thought Ariel would like it and she’d just say ‘No, it’s WAY to cold in here’. They did say it was about 43 degrees or something like that, as cold as a refrigerator inside. It is a little chilly. 

This is some of the flow rock in the cave. I liked it cause hey kept comparing it to ice cream with carmel sauce. They actually had a few food referrences in the cave, the ice cream, carmel, marshmellows, arby’s curly fries, and cave bacon. Needless to say, I was ready for lunch when we got out.

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          Well, considering the amount of things that have changed in our life, I thought it was time that I posted not only an update on Mia, but an update on everything. All good changes, but changes none the less. Mia’s doing awesome and changing so much these days. I can see her turning in to a little toddler and I’m so not looking forward  to when she’s not just my little baby anymore. She is almost 8 months old and learning new things all the time. Right before she turned 6 months, she decided it was time to start sitting up and won’t do anything else. She sits really well now and doesn’t hardly fall over. She is still refusing to crawl, at least the traditional way. She scoots on her back and rolls all over the place, it cracks me up. She can get anywhere fast doing this, so we have to have a constant eye on her. I even find her rolling all over her crib, which can be good and bad. Good because when she wakes up in the morning, she just plays if we don’t get to her right away. Bad because when she wakes up in the night, she just starts rolling all over and playing til she’s super awake and doesn’t really make much noise to let us know she’s awake(luckily, she doesn’t wake up most nights). She’s still sleeping and eating super well. Everything she can get her hands on goes in her mouth. I’m learning fast that I can’t leave her alone for more than 2 seconds and I have to vacume WAY more often to avoid any little things she can choke on being left on the floor. She is still such a good baby, just always super happy and giggly and we just love having her around.

            Jason quit working for his previous company, medicity, a few weeks ago and is now working right down the street for a company called UCN. It’s so much closer to home, we love that he is home so much sooner and we get to see a lot more of him. He seems to be really enjoying the new job and as long as he’s happy, I’m happy with whatever he’s doing. He’s awesome at what he does and seems glad to be doing something new and different. The new job also seems to have a lot of great future opportunities to offer him and we’re really excited to see what will come from that.

            Honestly, not much has changed with me. I’m still home with Mia all day every day and still love that job more than anything I’ve done in the past. We’ve had a lot of visitors lately, my little brother Jordan, my best friend Katie and her husband Bryan, and my parents have all been up here visiting. It’s been so nice to see them all and be able to spend time with them. The trip up here also brought on a lot of change for my parents. My Dad had a job interview with a company in Utah valley and was offered a position, which he of course accepted. They plan to be all moved up here for my little brother to start school, which begins on Aug. 20th. So, anyone in the market for a house in Arizona, my parent’s is all renovated and will soon be on the market. We’re all really excited to have them here close by. I want so badly for Mia to have a closer relationship to her Grandparents and cousin’s than I was able to have. I would love for her to be able to spend a lot of time with them all and to develop the bond and friendship with them that I was to far away to reach with my extended family. I’m so happy that this change is coming while she is still so young.

          Overall, we’re really happy with our life and the way things are going. Jason is quickly moving up the ladder in his career which is bringing great opportunities for our family. It has always been his goal to retire by 26, and while I don’t think he’ll make that, maybe he won’t be to far off, ha. He is not only amazing at what he deos there, but a great husband and father and I feel so lucky to have him as both. We feel blessed to have Mia in our lives and to have been blessed with such a good baby. She really is amazing. We are so excited to see what is in store for her and for our family.

         

          As most of you know, the 24th of July is a big holiday around Utah and to members of the LDS church. It’s the day that we celebrate pioneer day, to show our gratitude to those men and women who years ago, faught for our religion crossing the United States to find a place they could practice this religion in peace. This is a holiday my mom has always loved. She grew up with the big celebrations of a small Utah town and loves to take every opportunity to join in those celebrations all she can. As for me, growing up in a state where this wasn’t a celebrated holiday, to me it’s always just been like any other day, with thoughts of the pioneers on my mind. No big celebrations or tributes to those men and women.

             This pioneer day, my family came in to town. My Mom and Dad, and my little brother Jordan. It was so fun to have them here and to be able to spend time with them. Mia and I woke up early and got ready and went down to meet them for the parade. I met my mom at my Grandma’s house and drove over where we’d meet the rest of the family, including my sister and her kids. We stopped on the street the parade would soon be coming down to let my Grandma out and to hand off Mia to my Dad so that we could go park the car. I left the car running and hit the unlock button because the back doors automatically lock while the car is on. I jumped out, shut my door and that second, realized I had hit the wrong button and locked the door with the car running and my sweet baby girl inside. Needless to say, with my family there watching and we can’t forget about the hundreds of parade fans lining the street, I was so embarressed. We thought to call triple A for help getting it up, but in past experience, they’ve been known to take a while to get there and with a parade starting in about 5 minutes and my baby locked in a running car, time was not something we had.

             So, my motherly quick thinking kicked in to gear(or common sense, ha) and I saw a man that looked like a police officer down the street. Tan shirt and huge walki talki thing on his hip. I ran down the street to ask for his help and when finally getting within about a couple feet of the man, looked at him and realized it wasn’t a cop, just a man probably helping with the parade. I stood there long enough for him to notice I was staring and him, akward, then turned and ran back. On my way back, my Dad and I spotted a police car driving up the road and instantly began yelling and trying to flag him down, of course only for him to not notice and drive on by. Luckily my mom up a  little ways, stood in the road in front of him and gave him no option but to help us.

            He pulled over and grabbed the tools he needed to get the door open. That included a wooden wedge covered in what looked like painters tape that he shoved in to the door frame to get it open just enough to stick what looked like a much thicker version of a straightened hanger in to the car. All the while, Mia’s just looking out at the officer, my dad and I trying to get the door open, not concerned one bit with why she was still in there, just as happy as can be. Not to mention the officer was getting calls over his radio because he was due to be helping with the parade. The officer tried on the drivers side door for a little while with no luck getting it unlocked, and moved to the passenger side where he could see in a bit better. After a few attempts, he finally got the door unlocked. And of course, to make it all even better, just as he pushed up on our lock button and got it to work, the hanger like took slipped off the lock, only to shoot up and hit the windshield just enough to cause it to crack out in circles, you know so it looked like a little spider web circle of cracks all stemming from the spot his tool hit the window.

            The officer looked so embaressed. He hurried and grabbed his tool and basically ran back to the car quickly responding to our thanks and drove away. We finally had my little girl out of the car and I could finally move the car out of the way of the parade which we could see beginning just a little ways up the road. Now I had my next challenge on hand, explaining to Jason not only that I had locked mia in a running car, but that in the process of getting her out, the windshield was broken which of course would mean around $150 to replace. Jason was a little upset at the officer, but luckily, not at me. I felt so stupid with everyone there watching as I frantically tried to do anything to get my baby out of the car and running in the street to track down police for help. What a day it was.

             The rest of the day went well, with lunch and the craft fair and just spending time with my family. It all worked out fine over all and I’m just glad we were able to get Mia out of the car quick and that nothing happened to her nor did she get upset in the process. I think she was more upset when she got out when what to her seemed like strangers took her out of the car, she hasn’t seen my parents in a little while. I was just happy to be able to spend some time with them and to let Mia get to know them a bit better.

             Jason and I just spent our first night without Mia here. It was our anniversary this past week and we had asked my sister to watch her for a few hours while we went out. She called back the week of and said why don’t I just bring her down on Friday and leave her til Saturday night. Jason and I talked about it, and decided it sounded nice to have a little alone time. I thought it’d be good for me to try leaving her too since I knew there was some vacations we wanted to go on in the future that wouldn’t include her. It was a nice trial run, especially leaving her with the one person aside from Jason and I that Mia has seen a lot of and is completely comfortable with.

         It was such a nice weekend. Friday we didn’t do much of anything. Just sat around and home and played some wii and relaxed a bit with just the two of us. It was nice to be able to sit there with him and have a conversation without one of us having to get up every 5-10 minutes to take care of Mia. We also had a few things that just came up to figure out about our future such as where to live and things like this this past week so it was nice to have this time just Jason and I to make those decisions.

          Saturday was a lot of fun. We slept in a bit, which was so nice in it’s self. It was nice just to be able to wake up when we wanted to wake up, rather then when Mia wants us to, ha. I then just took advantage of not having her even more and got myself really done up, which I feel like I haven’t done in quite a while. We got all ready and went up to this Farmer’s Market in Downtown Salt Lake City. It was a nice warm day and I wore the tallest pair of heals I have (it’s a little to hard to wear them places when I have to carry Mia too). We spent an hour or so there and bought a few fun things, then headed to lunch with some friends.

              After lunch, it was our date night out. Just the 2 of us. I don’t remember the last time we were able to do that. I know it was before Mia was born, but how long before she was born, I’m not to sure, ha. We went to an early movie and saw ‘Get Smart’ which was really fun and cute. Then it was off to dinner. We decided on a place called Asuko because it’s entertainment and dinner in one. It’s one of those sushi and Teppan Yaki style places where they bring all the food out and cook it right there in front of you. It was a lot of fun. Our chef was really good and he lit lots of stuff on fire, ha. The food tasted so good and it was so nice to be able to eat a whole meal as I wanted to. Usually as soon as our food comes out Mia wants to be held or fed and I end up eating slowly with one hand, if I get to eat at all. It was a really nice day and much needed. I of course missed my little girl and was glad to bring her back home, but I have been missing the alone time with Jason as well. It was nice to know that Mia was well taken care of so we could just relax and enjoy the time we had with eachother. I just loved having Jason all to myself and to be able to just do what we wanted to without worry of a nap schedule and things like that and I’m so greatful to my sister and her family for watching Mia for us. It really was the perfect day and a great anniversary.

So if you havent guessed yet this isnt Julia writing this post. I thought, what better way to tell your wife that you love her than to secretly hijack her blog and leave her a note about how much you love her. Let’s see how long it takes her to find this.

You’re the best babe! We’ve had an incredible 2 years. There have been some tough times and some awesome times. I love you so much and dont know what I would do without you. We have an amazing daughter and I can’t wait to watch our family grow together. Thanks for everything you do for me and our family. I want to grow old with you and be the most immature grown-ups ever! LOVE YOU!

           With a husband and daughter to take care of, my time is limited, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. Just a quick thank you and Happy Fathers Day to all those men in our lives. The fathers both present, future, and of course past. To my Dad, who has always been an amazing man. Who taught me the kind of man that I should want to be with. Who should me how I should be loved, by loving my mother always and for always showing us what she meant to him. A father who always gave me everything that I would need to be who i am today. Help to be an amazing mother and person. To you, Dad, thank you for who you are and for all you have done to give me, my father, and my siblings an amazing life with all the love and joy we needed.

             Next, to my husband(although I know there’s a good chance he won’t read this unless I tell him to:) ) I absolutely love you with all my heart. You are an amazing husband, always have been and I know you always will be. I know you will always be there for me and do everything you can to take care of me and give me a good life. Even more, I thank you for being the most amazing father to our little girl. It is very apparent to everyone around how much you love her and how much you would do anything for her. From playing with her all day, to sitting up with her all night, to saving her from falling in a river(ha) I know you will do everything in your power to keep her safe, healthy, and as happy as can be. You truly are naturaly an amazing and loving Dad, the best that Mia could have. You are an amazing man and I love you with all my heart! Always and forever!

              To all you other men out there, Happy Father’s day! Wether you are a father now, or will be in the future, enjoy the day, it is for you and you deserve it! Enjoy the opportunity that you do have or will have to be a father. Keep your priorities straight and spend all the time you can with your amazing kids! Enjoy them and love your wife always with all your heart. Make sure she always knows what she means to you. Never take advantage of the fact that you think she’ll always be there, never treat her as if she’ll never leave no matter what. Enjoy your time with her and your family and make sure they always know how much you love them. You are very appreciated and your gestures don’t go un-noticed. I hope you all have an amazing father’s day and enjoy your time as a father to the fullest!

        Well, we’re finally home after one fun, relaxing, yet long and tiring week. We got to take a week off for memorial day this year for a vacation my parents have been planning for a while. We spent the week with all of my family in a cabin in Durango Colorado right on this lake. So nice and so pretty! All of my family was able to come for at least part of the trip. It was so nice to see everyone. I don’t get to see some of them often. My brother and his family hadn’t ever seen my sweet baby girl before this trip, so it was really nice to see everyone.

           The trip began with a fun day of just relaxing and waiting for everyone to get in to town. The cabin was beautiful. Nice stone tile floors and pretty new carpet and furniture. 3 stories with enough room to sleep 14 people, plus the babies. It was so nice to be there, out in the middle of no where. No cell phone reception, no computers, no internet. Just the few cabins and small general stores around with a beautiful view of the lake with beautiful mountains surrounding it.

          The second day was spent on a really nice train ride. It was an old steam engine train that we were told has been used in lots of movies. It was a 3 hour ride that traveled only about 50 Miles in to this little minning town called Silverton. The ride was absolutely gorgeous. The train went up through the mountains, riding right over rivers and a long cliff edges with amazing views all along the way. We all took turns hanging half out the windows to see what we could grab and to get some pictures hanging out. It was a blast. Once we arrived at Silverton, we just had some lunch and did a little shopping quickly before we had to catch our bus back to Durango.

           The rest of the trip was left unplanned to allow time for everyone to be able to do the activities that they most enjoy. It was the ideal relaxing vacation. We took naps around the cabin, read book on the deck overlooking our amazing view, made jewlery and other crafts. We fished, road around in the boat, hiked, played horseshoes and even took the kids on a little horse ride. We really had a great time and it was just what we all needed. A week of no worries, no bills to pay, no work, just time to enjoy with eachother and to relax.

          Perhaps someday we’ll make it back out  to those cabins when we all need another break. It really was wonderful to get away. I really enjoyed not having cell phone reception and even more enjoyed that my husband was without his computer and his internet. It was a great week and I was so glad to have my family there to enjoy it with.