kate's first major owwie

today I was sitting on the couch watching ryan and kate out the window having fun swimming wishing that I was out there too instead of waiting for my visiting teaching companion to pick me up. (don't get me wrong, I like visiting teaching, but I LOVE swimming with my husband and my kate!!) I turned away from one second and then I hear kate crying. not unusual...she's teething and has been throwing some back arched tantrums quite frequently these days. but I look out and she has blood all over her lips. I ran outside and asked ryan what had happened (he was so calm, I knew it wasn't serious so I wasn't panicked) and he said she was standing on the top step (like she likes to do all the time) and she was walking and she slipped and bit her lip!!

she only cried for a minute and then I got her some ice and she had fun sucking on it and totally forgot about anything else. randomly she started copying ryan and sticking her lip out like this (even before she had bitten it). but it looks like she's showing it off!!

now, I sure hope she doesn't have a big fat lip in all of our washington/oregon pictures!!

wii

lately devin's friends have been bringing over their wii's to play at our house. saturday night zach left his and so sunday the whole family was playing it all day. kate was just fascinated by everyone so intently moving this little wand around as we played tennis and bowled. the boxing was especially intense. she just loves to mimick us in every way and we love it!!

she also got a package in the mail today from aunt jenny and uncle bill. they got kate this cute dress as a belated birthday present!! we absolutely love it!! thanks guys!!

fancy toes

today I took my mom to get a pedicure for mother's day. I know mother's day was a heck of a long time ago, but I had an ingrown toenail during mother's day and then I decided to save it until right before our vacation. since mom leaves on friday and I leave a week from wednesday we decided it was time.

now I just hope it lasts for oregon!!

tubac

this weekend marks our 3 year wedding anniversary and to celebrate, ryan surprised me with an overnight trip to tubac, arizona. its only about an hour away from tucson, but it was nice to get away for a night.

tubac is a famous little art town. there are all of about 4 streets in tubac, and most of them are filled with galleries and art shops. they had lots of interesting sculptures all around like these

( we went with just our small camera so pardon the picture quality)

we spent the first night looking around tubac ryan got me a pretty tourqoise ring as a souvenier.

then we ate at a little mexican restaurant that had delicious homemade chips and salsa. the next day was our golf day. ryan had gotten the golf package (resorts have really good deals down here in tucson during the summer months!) the golf course is where the movie tin cup was filmed.

they built this lake just for the movie. (we thought that was pretty funny when we saw it because it looks like a small and insignficant lake.)

ryan was kind enough to hit his tee shot right next to this marker of the lake so I could get this wonderful shot.

okay okay okay, it had gone into the lake, but it was REALLY close so we counted it. pretty amazing shot, actually. both of us could benefit from some lessons and more practice, but we had a lot of fun doing it and its nice to find things we can do together.

by the end of the 24 hours I missed kate like crazy and was excited to take the hour to get home and see her.

its been a great 3 years.

happy father's day

happy father's day to all the dads out there!!

we had a good day yesterday. it started in by kate sleeping in until 9!! (for mother's day she was up at 6!! guess she's choosing favorites!!) we had waffles for breakfast and then ryan went back to sleep for his nap before church becuase he works sunday nights.

kate looked especially cute this father's day in a shirley family hand me down dress! it was adoreable!! unfortunately I didn't take any full length pictures so you'll have to settle for a fish face picture!

after church dad took the day off and I got to man the grill outside for shishkabobs. when its 106 outside and you're standing next to a grill it gets HOT. thats how much I love them.

I was blessed yesterday to have to 2 most important men in my life with me.

ryan is SUCH a good dad! he is so fun and kate is definately a daddy's girl. he gets a lot of taking care of kate time when I'm working (and when I'm not working) and he cares for her so well! I am so lucky!!

my dad also had all 4 of his kids here for father's day!! it is just so much fun when we get together. we can always get each other laughing. (we were playing this game called time's up last night where you try and get people to guess the person on the card by saying things like what they do, did or you can even say rhyming words. dad said "sounds like 'yes sir, you are fat'" and we were all really confused....until later we saw it was Yassar Arafat. we laughed about that one all night!)

dad is not easy to shop for and the one thing he asked for was a pair of slippers to wear in the car for his 45 minute commute. michael (via the phone, since he wasn't here) had the hilarious idea to get him a smoking jacket and a pipe to match!

jen added in the hat!
oh man, we had fun!

fun at the splash park

last week kelley (the other hygienst I work with) told me about this free splash park in tucson that someone told her about. its just a regular park that has playgrounds and grass and then it has this fun little splash park. she wasn't quite sure where it was so on saturday we looked it up. (for any tucsonans who may be reading this, its called fenton park and its at river and kolb) when we got there, we got out of the car and kate saw it in the distance and was jumping up and down in daddy's arms, so excited!! it wasn't really very crowded but the kids there were having so much fun. so we took kate in and I think it was a little intimidating. she LOVES water and swimming and she wanted to jump in the fountains at temple square when we were there last month, but she was a little scared of this at first. she warmed up to it a little bit, but we think it might be more fun for her when she can walk. we'll see. but we'll definately be hitting that park often this summer.

shd did love just the good old fashion slides after she was all dried off!

check that off our list!

ryan is done with the GRE!! it seems like its been a constant in our life for forever...flashcards and studying math and having this book everywhere I turn:

but he did well and I'm so proud of him!! now we're one step closer to going back to school!...wait, that doesn't sound like any fun!

kate loves to clean!

anytime kate gets her hand on a rag, she likes to pretend she's cleaning. I really don't know where she picked this up from because she definately doesn't see me dusting every day! when she's in the bathtub, you have to have 2 rags, one to wash her and one for her to scrub the bottom of the tub. she could sit forever at the table with a washrag cleaning the spot in front of her. and yesterday she found the wipes and started pulling them all out. (this time I noticed after she got only 6 out. that was much faster than the time I found the WHOLE box all over the floor...of course, thats a different story!) so she had these 6 rags and she starts by wiping her mouth. then she starts wiping the coffee table. she moves on to auntie dani's nose and then the tv stand.

a baby clean freak?!? I'll take it!

baby movie star

auntie jen and dani took kate to the mall yesterday while I was working and they think she's a good shopper. auntie jen couldn't resist these sunglasses at old navy. she said she put them on kate and she wore them all through the store (which is suprising, because she has always taken off sunglasses before) and she said that people were commenting left and right on how cute she was so she had to buy them for her.

today kate and I drove to the gym and she wore them to and from in the car. I kept looking back and giggling at how cute she was!

I love cherries

i love rainer cherries





mom bought a high priced bag for us at safeway and they were gone in a flash. (by the time I thought to take a picture for my blog, this is all that was left!) we're used to huge bowls of cherries at grandma townsend's house in yakima, washington.



you know the one thing I hate about cherries? everytime...and I mean every time I grab a big handful of cherries and settle down to eat them someone mentions what happens if you eat too many. "be careful, you know what happens if you eat too many of those!" they say. it never fails!


but eating cherries tonight made me so excited to go to washington in 3 weeks and eat all the cherries I can!!

wedding preparations

no no, its not dani! we're doing a reception for the young women as an activity as a kind of "temple prep" night. we're having a wedding cake and decorations and a photographer and maybe even a chocolate fountain. I was in charge of the invitations and I was really excited because I went to joanns to get some ribbon for the time consuming, lots of work one I had envisioned and I found these in the wedding aisle...50 for $9!! we only have 25 girls, but it was a steal of a deal and much easier!

it says :

the young women's presidency is pleased to announce

the future marriage of

(young woman's name)

a daughter of her Heavenly Father

to

her future husband

a righteous son of God

for time and all eternity in the Holy Temple

you are invited to step into your future

and atten a reception to be held in your honor

(time, place, etc)

I'll let you know how the actual night turns out!

who needs their gall bladder anyway?!?

my mom is getting her gall bladder out tomorrow morning. she had a few painful attacks after her diagnosis a few weeks ago that convinced her she wanted it done asap, especially before our vacation to washington at the end of the month. she is confident that its going to be smooth sailing and we sure hope so!

when I was in 8th grade my utah studies teacher made us watch a movie of his gall bladder being removed...which had absolutely nothing to do with utah studies except for maybe that his gall bladder had resided in utah at the time. I closed my eyes through a lot of it, but I remember that as it was being cut it looked like relish was coming out of it. mmm....relish. so thats the picture I have in my head for what my mom has in store for tomorrow. I asked her if she was going to bring home the full length dvd and she said no.

thats probably for the best!

HOT

today we were swimming for a while and after kate got a little cold we sat her beside the pool to warm up. she started playing with the rocks at the side of the pool. they can get really hot in the middle of the day so I said "hot!" and kate said back to me "hot!" okay...not exactly, but it sounded really close. I just thought it would be so fitting for this tucson baby to have her first word be "hot!"

kate loves everything about the pool. she loves jumping in and watching other people jump in and she LOVES to have people throw her up in the air and then she splashes into the water. this is her sign for "I want to jump in" or "throw me in the air"

because before anyone jumps in we always say "one...two...three....jump!!" so she puts her little one finger up. she is my little fish and she is making this summer so much fun!

miss potter

my mom saw this movie and told us it was amazing. she heard about it from her aunt who said it was amazing. I had never heard anything about it until my mom told me about it and said we should go see it. so today we finally did.

this movie is absolutely amazing, have you seen it?

auntie jen is here!!

jen got into town on monday night and we've been having so much fun with her. (doesn't kate's face look like she's having so much fun?!?) tuesday I went to the gym, then jen, devin, ryan and I golfed 9 holes, then we swam, and then I went to mutual and played water baseball where home plate is a slip n slide!! I told her I had to go to work today to take a vacation from her vacation! my back was a little sore. she's going to be here for over 2 weeks and we're so excited.

but we miss uncle michael!! (thanks for sharing her with us!)

baby steps

kate has started to get brave and take a few steps! she has been cruising like crazy for a long while now and she has been able to balance on her own for a little while and now daddy has been practicing with her and she is taking little baby steps! its usually about 3 or 4 steps before she falls into daddy's lap, but it is looking even more balanced than it was 2 days ago! we think she might be walking on her own before jen goes back home!

baby farmer's tan

ever since kate was born the question everyone asked us has been is she a redhead. I think she has enough hair now to see its strawberry blonde at best. I always wished I had strawberry blonde hair because it sounded so much prettier than dishwater blonde. anyways, now the question is if she is going to have fair skin like her daddy or have my skin that burns but is able to get color.

(don't you love the cheeseball grin?)

I think you can kind of see her farmer's tan in this picture. her swimsuit (well...one of them) has a short sleeve surfers top and then just a bikini bottom. everytime we go outside we slather her with sunscreen and she always wears a hat, but you can kind of see where she has the color on her arms and legs. ryan still thinks she might have his skin because he gets color too...but his is more of a red/freckley color.

what do you think?

do you ever wish there was a camera in your head?

today I took kate to the movies for the first time since she was a month old and she slept all through superman. (sigh, those were the days!) I had her diaper bag filled with all sorts of treats and we went with my mom, dad, dani, devin, and nana to see shrek 3. we walked in with kate in her stroller, looking cute as can be in her new flower headband. after we got our tickets everyone was holding theirs and my mom was passing them out to dani and devin and kate held her hand up like she wanted one. I gave her my receipt that was printed on a ticket stub so it looked the same as everyone elses. she got so excited and she held it in her little hand all the way up to the theater, just like the rest of us. I just love it when she looks around and sees what we're doing and wants to do the same thing. as we were sitting waiting for the elevator to take us up to the theater floor, I thought she made the cutest picture and I wished that I had a camera to capture the moment.
I wish I had a camera in my head.

another first with kate

last night was the first time ryan and I were up with kate while she was throwing up. she hasn't thrown up ever in her short life (just baby spit up and thats not quite as bad.) it was so miserable. everytime she threw up I wanted to cry. since I've only done it myself a few times in my life, I haven't been around it much. it sounded awful, she was so sad....and it was really really gross. she did it everywhere when we were least expecting it...in the kitchen, in our bedroom, in her bedroom, in her bed, in my arms and all down the front of me. ryan was good to clean it up while I would try and comfort her. he went to sleep with her in her rocking chair and once she was asleep she had a good night. she woke up this morning happy and hungry.

now I have a lot of laundry to do.