Tally ho

William and I spent the weekend in Utah to see Daniel off to the MTC.

Seeing a missionary leave is the definition of bittersweet. Daniel is going to be a great one.

Other highlights:

- JUNE FINALLY CRAWLED, and then hasn't crawled since. But at least we know now that she can...we were slightly worried before.

- Corn Hole Tournaments (I teamed with William, who sported a tight yellow turtleneck and a gold medallion. We lost.)

- Utah weather (it was warm, then it was cold, then it snowed, and then it was warm again)

- Walking with sleeping babies around the neighborhood with Laura

- Board games

- Name Game (specifically the round of charades where we saw Laura's impression of Big David and Little David's impression of Elton John)

- Hunger Games (the movie and the meals)

- Man in the theater repeatedly objecting to Katniss' victory. (NO!)

- Hunger Games Tailgate Party (it's just eating Little Caesar's pizzas in the parking lot)

- J Dawgs and Sammy's

- Watching June and Andrew playing together (and by 'playing together' I mean staring awkwardly and trying to take each other's toys)

- Tillamook Cake Batter Ice Cream

- Tintin, the movie (surprisingly good)

- Learning to crochet (HARD.)

- Bradford Boys Final Epic Wrestling Match Brawl (specifically Big David jumping in to fight this time)

This is what I look like all the time when I'm with the Bradfords:

And I love it.

A slight problem.

I'm not sure how it happened, but there's no turning back. I blame myself... I just love food too much.

And now June seems to have taken on this trait of mine.

Her demands:

1. As soon as she's sitting down, there better be food in front of her right away.

2. She feeds herself. She holds her spoon and fork, sometime one in each hand.

3. Do not hold her bowl or plate.

4. If there's dessert within 10 feet of her, she MUST have it.

If you don't meet these demands, you might get reactions like this:

I guess I would react that way too if you didn't let me try your milkshake.

A post

Last night William and I saw an 8pm showing of Hunger Games. The movie was very much like I pictured it would be, when I read the book. It was divine. I'm going to see it again with William's family.

My mom and dad watched June while we saw the movie. Even though her bedtime is 8pm, I walked into their house at 11pm with June squealing in excitement and spinning herself on their floor. She must have a ball while I'm gone. (Thank you again, mom and dad!)

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Eating: toast. In honor of Peeta Mellark?

Reading: If I Stay. Sad, but really good. Thank you, Debbie, for letting me borrow it. Oh and I just finished Matched. That one was really really good, I put the second one on hold at the library before I even finished the first one.

Recovering: from June's party. Seriously, I don't know how people can throw parties more than once a year. I still haven't taken the decorations down.

Listening to: Band of Horses. William, buy me this album.

I should be: packing and cleaning. My plane leaves in a few hours.

A Fiesta for June

Plinko, prizes, nacho bar, IBCs, cupcakes, and family... the formula for a marvelous time.

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!

I think June had the best time. That night she slept like a... baby?

June turns 1

I hope June had as much fun celebrating her first birthday as we did. We literally spent all week celebrating. Family came over, plentiful food, desserts delicately eaten, lovely gifts given... but more about that later.

June's birthday celebrations ended with a baby-friendly pinata. Instead of filling it with candy, we filled it with her favorite snack, Gerber Cheetos.

Thanks to Oh Happy Day for the idea... TOTALLY worth all the work.

Walk before you crawl. - June

I haven't been posting as much as I'd like. Things are really busy here, and will continue to be busy until next weekend (but the good kind of busy).

June is still not crawling. While most parents would be a little concerned about this, here are some things I tell myself:

- She is content with her little space around her, which makes her a grateful person.

- She is in no hurry to grow up. She is enjoying her childhood too much.

- If she was crawling, she wouldn't need her mom as much, and she just loves her mom too much to let her go.

- She doesn't want to ruin her knees. She has seen her mom's ugly knees, and they look like they were crawled on a little too much.

- She knows her mom loves her little chubby legs. Crawling would burn calories, and therefore make her legs more toned. A baby with toned legs?

- She's an over-achiever. She wants to skip crawling, and go straight to walking.

Look how much she enjoys not crawling:

Also, this photo made me and William laugh. She looks like she's judging us in some way.

Speaking of Easter candy... I'm not one to talk about weight loss on the internets, but I'm just too giddy: I've finally lost all my baby weight (54 pounds!!). It took 51 weeks... just in time for June's 1st birthday, I guess?

"But all I got is a photograph..."

Even though it seems like we've taken thousands and thousands of photos of June in her first year, I still feel like it wasn't enough. Sometimes I regret not taking enough "pretty" photos of her when she was an infant, the kind that look like they were done in a studio. I can't believe we only got a few pictures on her first Christmas morning or first visit to the woods. June has plenty of adorable Sunday dresses that I missed taking photos of her wearing them, and now they're too tight.

Bottom Line: I need to handcuff my camera to my wrist.

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Eating: celery and peanut butter. There's no raisins to make them 'Ants on a Log', so I guess I'm just eating logs. Oh and I'm 5 years old.

Listening to: Death to my Hometown by Bruce Springsteen. I don't listen to much Bruce, but that man has enough energy to rival any punk rocker.

Reading: 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'French Women Don't Get Fat'... a fine mix of genres.

Obsessed: with stripes. It didn't occur to me until late this afternoon that I was wearing a striped shirt, my purse was striped, and June was wearing stripes.

Watched: 'Moneyball". I tried counting the number of scenes Brad Pitt looked cool without even trying. I lost count.

Simple.

It's apparent when I'm in the middle of a project, because the rest of my house is a complete disaster. Today I'm spending the day quickly cleaning the entire house, just so I can work on my projects some more. Has anyone else ever done that... cleaned the house just so you can mess it up again?

My project is June's party. I really thought it was going to be simple. And by "simple" I mean that we're just inviting family and we're just having a dinner. But like everything I plan, it takes more time and effort than I think.

I also wanted to keep it simple (and cheap), by making all of the decorations with things I already have.

Again, NOT simple...

...but really fun.