Happy Trails

To celebrate our anniversary I convinced Gabe to take me horseback riding while we were in Arizona since I've never been and always wanted to. So we dropped Preston off at my Aunt and Uncle's house and drove about 15 minutes to the Ponderosa Stables. A quaint little tourist attraction on the edge of a state park in Phoenix.During Our "15" minute wait I was able to pet a very hot horse, literally, his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. We also made sure that we were under the weight limit... and watched out for snakes! Finally they brought out Smoky Joe and Lucky 7 and I got to mount little Lucky right there in the parking lot. Here Gabe is on old Smoky in his travelin' hat, too bad I cut off Smoky's head. It was a beautiful trail ride and we learned more about cacti than I could have ever imagined. I'm just glad we didn't see any rattlesnakes! When we were through with our private hour long tour we picked up Preston and took him on over to an old western town called Rawhide for a little horseriding of his own. He's too small for the actual pony's so we figured this would have to do. We were also able to ride in a covered wagon and play on a see-saw. What a great day it was!

My Little Dude

The first thing we did in Arizona was go out to the pool right after we got back from the airport. We were meeting Gabe's brother Mike and his girlfriend for dinner at Outback Steakhouse (yum!) so we didn't have much time in the water but Preston loved it!

He was all decked out in swimming gear and we made sure to slather him in sunscreen so his little body wouldn't turn pink... and everytime we put it on his hair went crazy so we tried to at least make it look like a mini fohawk.

Yes, in case you were wondering his clothes are a little big, but we're crossing our fingers that they'll last another year. I was so glad that he didn't even try to take off his hat or cool glasses!

Too bad we didn't get any actual pictures of him in the pool. We'll make sure to on our next trip.

Happy 2 years! April 29, 2008

A couple of months after Gabe and I met we had a ward talent show in our single's ward. Each family home evening group did a talent and this is what his came up with. Since we were in Arizona on our anniversary and had limited internet I wasn't able to publicly tell him how much I love him... and his Japanese ways. Thanks for all you do for me Gabe. You're the best husband anyone could ever ask for! Hope you enjoy!

Rescues and Red Rocks

On our first full day in Arizona Preston and I accompanied Gabe on the hour and a half long drive up to Sedona, AZ to visit a place called slide rock park. It's name explains everything. Yes, those rocks are slippery as a slip n' slide and all of those people you see are enjoying a natural waterpark! We saw a lot of cool buildings on the way to the swimming area. There used to be an apple farm here before it became a state park. The back view... now that's a lot of apples. I think someone actually lived there at some point in time. When we finally reached our destination we decided to take a photo opp. with the beautiful red rock since we weren't planning on swimming. A nice passerby took this family portrait for us. We let Preston get on the ground and play with the rocks. But when he started eating pebbles we decided to let him stand up. I love the crazy stairs! And Preston loves his Daddy! While we were enjoying the scenery we saw someone being airlifted right over our heads. Apparantly some guy was climbing up the rocks and fell about 30 feet, scary! On our way out of the park we passed the few remaining apple trees as well as some neat cactuses (yes, it is a correct multiple form of cactus). These are very foreign to me considering the fact that I'd never been to Arizona before. Preston sure enjoyed the sights! We were stopped on our way out because the helicopter was getting ready to take off again. That's the officer that made sure we obeyed the rules. And there it goes... I hope he was okay.

Even when we were stuck in traffic on the way back we couldn't complain too much with this stunning view!

For the Mother's in my Life

From Mother to Child

I gave you life, but I cannot live it for you.

I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.

I can give you direction, but I cannot be there to lead you.

I can allow you freedom, but I cannot account for it.

I can take you to Church, but I cannot make you believe.

I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot always decide for you.

I can buy you beautiful clothes, but I cannot make you beautiful inside.

I can offer you advice, but I cannot take it for you.

I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.

I can teach you, of course, to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.

I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.

I can advise you about friends, but I cannot choose them for you.

I can tell you about the facts of life, but I cannot build your reputation.

I can warn you about the evil influence of drugs, but I cannot say "No" for you.

I can tell you about lofty goals, but I cannot achieve them for you.

I can teach you about kindness, but I cannot force you to be gracious.

I can warn you about sin, but I cannot make your morals.

I can love you as a child of God, but I cannot make your place in God's family.

I can pray for you, but I cannot make you walk with God.

I can teach you about Jesus, but I cannot make Jesus your Lord.

I can tell you how to live, but I cannot give you eternal life.

Anonymous

I'm sure that every good mother has these feelings at some time in their lives and I'm so grateful that my mother chose to teach me these things and let me learn them for myself. She has always been a role model to me and has been able to teach me all of things things through her words as well as your actions. Thank you mom for all you have done and continue to do for me.

I'm also grateful that Gabe's mother taught him the same values. I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to continue to learn from her as well.

These women have made a lot of sacrifices as mothers and I have just gotten a glimpse of what they have gone through in my nine months of being a mother. I now understand the unconditional love mother's have for their children and I hope I will be able to be as influential to them as these women have been to us. I'm glad that they are also able to be there for my children as they grow. Thanks again for all you do! I hope everyone will take this day to celebrate the wonderful women who have made a difference in someone's life. Hope you have a great Mother's Day!

April Flowers

A good friend and I went up to the tulip festival the week Gabe was in Phoenix.

She is an amazing photographer so we spent our day mostly at one field hanging out, taking pictures, feeding our boys and letting them play. She called me her impromptu model. I was serious a lot of the time...

but had fun being goofy too.

I met Heidi when we first moved to Washington in our ward in Everett. I'm so glad that her and her husband invited us to hang out with them because that was the start of a blossoming friendship (no pun intended).

They had their little boy who they call Bubbers just three months before Preston was born and it's been so fun seeing them grow up together and start to interact more. I actually think this was the first time they really started playing together, in the dirt of course, but playing nonetheless.

Preston even had his first taste of dirt, mmmm. Trust me, that isn't chocolate unfortunately.

Anyway, I loved being able to just stay and enjoy the beauty of nature without feeling rushed. Sometimes in my life I feel like I'm only doing things to get them done and say I did them so I can just move onto the next thing. I appreciated being able to just slow down and take in the moment. I've decided I'm going to try to do that more often.

You can take a look at some more of that beautiful scenery on Heidi's blog as well.

It's also fun to look back at all the beautiful pictures Heidi took that captured each of those precious moments. The good...

and the not so good. I absolutely LOVE Preston's face in this picture. :)

Thank you Heidi for coming with us and making my life a little more memorable!

I'm looking forward to many more days like that one, and I'm glad I can enjoy that day forever through the photographs that will soon be framed on my wall. :)

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Saturday afternoon we had a Cinco de Mayo party with a few other couples in our ward. Our house was very full and crazy which made it a lot of fun! This was all despite my injury and the fact that I was on a lot of drugs and immobile most of the time (more to come about that later). Luckily for me Gabe was a lot of help and I was starting to feel slightly better by then.

In case anyone is wondering why we celebrated Cinco de Mayo, let alone the fact that we celebrated it on the Third of May rather than the Fifth, there are many reasons.

First of all we decided to have the party on Saturday just because that's usually a better day to have a party than Monday evening, plus we didn't want to get in the way of FHE.

We thought about having party in the first place because when Gabe and I were in Arizona last week (I'll post more about that later too) I saw many billboards reminding everyone to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. This is a holiday I don't think about much and have only ever celebrated in my high school spanish class. So I decided to look up Cinco de Mayo on Wikepedia, the source of all my knowledge, well not maybe all of it, but most of it.

What I got from what I read was mostly that Cinco de Mayo is not a real holiday. It isn't celebrated by most of Mexico and only celebrated by parts of the United States such as Arizona and Texas. Cinco de Mayo is just a good excuse for people do get drunk and stores to make a profit. So we decided to take advantage because we thought it was a good excuse for a party, and I'm glad we did! We were able to get to know some people in our ward better while eating a lot of good food and doing things like:

making homemade sombreros

and breaking open a pinata!

The kids attacked that thing after it fell down. Now that's a whole lot of candy! They ate a lot of it too.

Of course the kids were able to entertain themselves as well. Apparantly our new toy box seconds as a boat. Before the breaking of the pinata the little boys took over the bat. Preston just wanted to eat it. But Sawyer was ready to play ball with the balloon.I'm glad everyone could come, and hope they had as much fun as we did!

9 months old and counting...

Today is Preston's nine month birthday it's amazing how fast his little life has flown by, but at the same time it has seemed like forever. He's grown so fast and become such a little man, I love him so much! Here are some things he's been doing lately.

Timeline of accomplishments since birth:

6 weeks: smiled for the first time

3 months: got his first two teeth and rolled over in the same week
4 months: got really good at rolling over both ways and started smiling more often, got a third bottom tooth

5 months: started sitting up and getting up on knees, got his two top teeth

5 1/2 months: got from rolling over knees to a sitting position

6 months: started crawling, got three more teeth

7 months: started cruising around furniture

8 months: started pushing his walker, finally got his fourth bottom tooth

New accomplishments in the last month:
clapping!

banging two toys together to make a sound

standing without support every once in a while without even meaning to
pushing his walker all over the house
crying whenever he sees my nursing wrap because he knows what's coming

throwing his food when he doesn't want it anymore (I'm not sure this is a good thing)

eating cheese, yogurt, and meat and loving it

getting into everything including toilet paper, trash cans, cupboards and even turning on the dishwasher

he'll throw a ball back and forth with me

What he’s doing right at this very moment:
Squealing and playing contently on the floor with his bobble head toy that opens and closes and clapping when he gets it open. The rest of the house is sealed off so he can't get into anything.

What he’s wearing:
9-12 months bottoms
12-18 months tops
12-24 months socks
size 4 shoes
size 4 diapers

How he’s sleeping:
About 9 to 11 hours at night from 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.- 3:30 or 5:00 a.m. I feed him once then he goes back to sleep until 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. which is a huge improvement from a few weeks ago!
Naps at around 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. for 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours.

His Favorites:
getting into the blinds and thinking it's a game when I come after him

crawling up the stairs

climbing on everything

turning the pages of books

opening DVD's

pushing open the VCR

chewing on the TV remotes
chewing on his toothbrush

antibiotics (he thinks it's a treat)

playing with socks and hangers

pulling out grass

eating everything in sight

Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree (he opens and closes his hands when I sing it)

opening cupboards and making a huge mess

chewing on my floss container

bananas and blueberries

hanging out in the pool

bathtime

playing and watching other kids

hair!

His Not-So-Favorites:
getting his bib on before a meal

getting cleaned off after a meal

having toilet paper (and other items) taken away after he's worked so hard to get them

getting his diaper changed

getting dressed

getting his teeth brushed

being held too much

Things I’m looking forward to:
Seeing him continue to grow and his personality to keep taking shape. It's so exciting to see all the new things he does every day. I'm excited for when he'll be able to have a conversation with me and have fun playing on playgrounds or playing games. At the same time I want to continue to enjoy and remember each stage he's in and I hope he won't be in too big of a hurry to grow up fast. I know that as he gets older I will miss the days when he loved me unconditionally as I do him.