July (2011) wrap up

Our precious baby boy at 10 days old.


Love those little yawns.


Look how tiny he was in that bouncy seat. He felt so big at the time...I guess it's all relative!


My mom took Noah and Lincoln to the zoo where they enjoyed one of their splash pads...


Max sleeping in his swing. Two weeks old this day (and at this point he weighed 10 lbs, 2 oz)...


Max, July 8th.


At 2 weeks old those smiles (albeit involuntary) were a rare treat. Here I am trying to catch one...


Max (2 1/2 weeks old) and his daddy.


Our friends the Bittons brought dinner over...and played with the older boys a bit too. I got a chuckle over Josh's red eye in this photo, but didn't edit it since I think it adds to the affect ;)
By this point Star Wars had taken a strong hold on our house (through Noah). He would used hooded towels or anything he could find as props to act out various scenes...



Taking the minimalist approach to dressing up?...


Lincoln followed suit so he could play with his big brother...


I got a good chuckle out of this Star Wars fighting clip. They've come a long way in their "fighting skills" since I recorded this:


Daddy falling asleep on the job (not that I blame him).


Max headed out in the carseat...


Grandma Mary holding baby Max (3 weeks old)...


The big boys making some popcorn and enjoying the novelty of an air popper (and you gotta love Linc's tan line).


Mark and Max (4 weeks old).

I love how Max is looking at his daddy here...


On a little outing to an outdoor shopping center with a splash pad, Lincoln fell and knocked his head pretty hard. Poor guy was looking pitiful, but we got carameled apples and I snapped a photo anyway.


We brought our little peanut in for Mark to show off to the staff at his office, so I snapped this photo of him holding Max. Strangely enough, this was the last time that I ever saw this office.


Back in Utah the boys enjoyed some sprinkler fun in my parents back yard with their cousins Audrey and Ezra!



Linc.


Ez.


Noah - surely in some sort of elaborate make-believe-world at this moment...


Audrey.

Max's baby blessing

July 31 we blessed our sweet baby Max (at just 5 weeks old). We planned to do the blessing while in town for my brother's mission homecoming so that family could participate in the special event (nobody would have been able to have been there in Arizona otherwise, especially since both of our moms had just spend time there helping after Max was born). The irony of course was that Mark ended up accepting a job in Utah while we were there on vacation and the boys and I didn't even return to Arizona (Mark flew back and had a moving company pack us).

Anyway! It was a really special day. I am so grateful to have been able to have all of my brothers, Mark's dad and my dad, and both of my grandfathers stand in the circle as Mark gave our sweet Maxwell Grant his name and blessing. Max cried through most of the blessing (which was pretty normal for him at that age), but that didn't make it any less special for me. Plus, I loved being able to hear my "baby" brother speak during the meeting too.

So, I'll start out the pictures with a seemingly odd side-view of the cake we had!  I came up with the design for a two sided cake (instead of having both a baby blessing cake and a welcome home Elder cake)...and I took it to Jen Vesper (who I've used for several other parties) with Layers of Love and she pulled it off perfectly!

Our little family of five.

Mark & I with our sweet little Max in his blessing outfit.

Mark's parents with Max.

My parents with Max.

 Refreshments.

 Although I had been nervous how the black fondant would end up looking on the baby side of the cake, it was important to the continuity with the other side...and I think it turned out nicely!

Interesting side-note...the tie on the cake is even a replica of one of Josh's favorites (that I believe my dad gave to him):

Mark's brother Matt with Max.

Max's cousins: Ava, Jake, Spencer & Zach

Max's cousin Ezra and my uncle Brent

Great-grandpa Bennion & great-grandma Dorothy with Max:

 Great grandma Shirlene & great-grandpa Paul (my mom's parents) with Max:

We're so grateful that Josh welcomed baby Max sharing his special day with him, and we enjoyed being able to introduce him to so many family and friends that day.

For the sake of my record-keeping (since I didn't do a "1 month post", and this wasn't much after Max turned one month) here are what Max's one-month stats were: 12 lbs 3 oz (95th %), 23 " (91st %), head 15.65 " (82nd %).

Welcome home to my baby brother

 July 29, 2011 we welcomed my youngest brother home from his mission! He served 2 years in the Tulsa, Oklahoma mission (Spanish speaking). We made a road trip home to Utah (from Arizona) to be there to welcome him home.  I'm so proud of him for all the hard work and perseverance on his part, as well as all that he was willing to sacrifice in order to share that which is dear to him with people that he didn't know. We're so glad to have him home!

There were even 2 new nephews to meet at the airport (who were born while Josh was gone).  Ezra was a couple months shy of turning 2...

...and Max was just 5 weeks old:

Trip back to Utah

Here are a few pictures from our road trip back to Utah (on July 27th). We promised the boys to stop and see dinosaur tracks on our trip. Just outside of Tuba City, Arizona (which we're unfortunately familiar with since my mom was taken there after her car accident, before being flown to the hospital in Flagstaff) is a village called Moen-avi. There is a place there just off the road where you can see all sorts of dinosaur tracks. A local Native American (Navajo) shows you around, allows you to take pictures, and gives you all sorts of information for a donation. It was actually really interesting. Here are the boys pointing to a dinosaur foot print...


Our guide would pour water into prints as he talked about them, so we could see them more clearly which was really helpful.

Noah pointing to some petrified dino poop (seriously).

More tracks (I wish that I had written down the names of the dinosaurs and other interesting tid-bits that we were told)...

You can't hear much because of all the wind, but here is a clip of the boys walking around the dinosaur tracks...the best part of the clip is Noah in character as a dinosaur:



Noah & Grandma Mary (Mark's mom).

I thought the long shadows looked really cool too.

I think these were dinosaur eggs.

Since the boys had recently been to the Arizona Museum of Natural History (with several dinosaur fossils) Lincoln kept thinking that we were searching the rocks for dinosaur bones instead of dinosaur tracks. Honestly, as far as Lincoln was concerned we could have probably stopped at any random area on our drive and told him we were looking for dinosaur tracks/bones and he would've had fun with his imagination...


Trying to get a picture of the boys. Lincoln was happy to oblige. Noah not so much.

One last try at a brothers shot. I was really glad we made this pit-stop. It was good to stretch our legs, fun for the kids, and interesting for all of us. I'm not sure when we'll made that trip by car again with young kids, but if we do then I say that we stop again!

I honestly have to recollection where we were when we pulled over here, but it was just too much fun not to pull over and let the boys take a look...

Sleeping in the swing

Also on July 18th, I took this really quick video clip of Max sleeping in his swing. Since it's the only video clip we ever got of Max in his swing I'm going to include it!

Bubbles or paint?!

We're now to July 18th and at that time were lucky enough to have Mark's mom (Mary) come to stay with us for a while right after my mom left. One afternoon we were looking for an activity for the boys and we sent them out to use their colored bubbles. I had read on one review that even though they are washable that some colors are difficult to get out of some fabrics, so we stripped the boys down to their skivvies and let them loose in the backyard.

It was only a few minutes until they already looked like this...




...and not much longer until the activity changed from colored bubbles to colored body paint (much more fun of course).

Lincoln always takes things to another level...

...although you can actually see here that he wasn't enjoying being that dirty (like I thought he would) like his brother Noah was:

Here's a quick clip of Lincoln realizing that he isn't liking being quite so dirty. He's not happy that he got the colored bubbles on his undies:


Bath-time.

These pictures make me laugh out loud. I'm still trying to decide what he looks like...

...and I should have gotten a picture of what the bath water looked like after we were done!