Happy 24th of July and other photos!

Emma and I had a great 24th of July while Dad was off with all the boys in his family running the river in Moab. Emma and I went to the Handcart Days at the Bountiful Park with Grandma Lavender and Cousin Nicole. Grandma let them do whatever they wanted and even bought them a nice treat to eat.

Riding the train!

Emma didn't want to get off this ride, we had to do it twice. She love it!

Playing at the playground.

Nicole got to ride a pony!

What a great Grandma to even pull these two in a handcart!!

Later that day Grandma took us out to eat at El Matador! It was so good. Thanks for a fun day Grandma Lavender.

Quinn was still gone the next day so Emma and drove up to Bear Lake to spend the day with my family. We had a great time at the beach for a few hours. Emma and I got to watch Aunt Annie water-ski and wake-board. Emma even learned how to say Annie's name. It is so cute. The we just had fun up at the property with everyone. And thank goodness she was great in the car. On the way up she watch 101 Dalmatian and then we say songs. On the way home she slept most of the time. It was great. Quinn made it home safe and sound that night after a fun river trip.(Sorry no pictures - Grandma took them all and I haven't gotten them from her yet)

Emma grows and learns so much every day. It is so much fun to just sit and watch her play. Here are some pictures of Emma exploring her world.

Emma loves corn on the cob!

Emma loves stuffed animals especially Winnie the Pooh and we can hardly get out the door with Baby now a days. Once in a while after she wakes up she will place her friends like this and talk to them. It is so cute!

Trying on Daddy's shoes.

Chalk!

Testing out the sprinkler.

Going for it!

Time for some serious water - stealing the hose from the garden.

Play-dough!

As you may have noticed Emma does not look at the camera very often anymore in her pictures - so this one is very rare!

Daddy / Daughter Evening

This past Tuesday, Lauralee was at a wedding shower, and I was left home to baby-wrangle that little ball of energy that we call Emma.

I needed to run a few errands, so I took Emma with me. We went to Smith's Marketplace, where I am always obliged to check the menswear clearance racks for deals. I didn't find any, but I did learn two things: 1) the clearance racks always contain a large number of those skin-tight workout shirts (Under Armour style but with some knockoff name like Energy Zone) in sizes XXL, XXXL and -- yes -- even XXXXL. Now what on earth would an XXXXL man need with a skin-tight workout shirt? And really, if an XXXXL man wanted a skin tight shirt, couldn't he just buy a Medium? The second thing I learned was this: Emma has a razor-sharp ability to identify, grab, and pull price tags off of any article of clothing. It's like she locks-on with her little laser Terminator eye and won't stop until that price tag is ripped off the little plastic price tag holder thingy. We left a wake of them behind our shopping cart. It was embarrassing -- but there is just no way to reattach a ripped price tag to the little plastic pricetag holder thingy.

You know the old comedy routine where somebody is holding a ski or a broom or something on their shoulder, and when they turn around, the ski whacks somebody behind them, and then when they turn around to see what they just whacked, the ski whacks something else on the other side of them? Well, picture a child pulling price tags off of their little plastic pricetag holder thingies and dropping them on the floor. Picture her dad moving the shopping cart so that she can no longer reach those items. While the dad bends down to pick up the pricetags, the child -- undeterred by her father's well-meaning but obviously inadequate attempt to stop the carnage -- coolly reaches over the other side of the shopping cart and begins pulling pricetags off of the clothes on the other side of the aisle. I'm not saying that that's what happened. But I'm not saying that it didn't.

We went over to the shoes to see if I could find some cheap sandals. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did get to hear Emma say "Shoes!" 981 times as she pointed to each and every pair. She sure has a thing for shoes lately. Later, when we were in the Electronics section, I wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine by shouting "Playstation game! Playstation game!" and pointing as we walked by each one. But I didn't. There were too many people there.

We went home and found that Lauralee had left for the wedding shower. I have often stated that there is an apparent correlation between Lauralee leaving me home with Emma in the evening, and that evening being bath night. The last time these two events coincided, there were some near-disasterous results (click here for a refresher).

Bathtime actually went well. Emma usually enjoys her baths -- except when we pour the water over her head to rinse her hair. She still goes into panic mode, holding her breath and wiggling a little. It kind of makes me feel like a CIA agent using a questionably-legal method of torture interrogation technique.

After the bath, I pulled the drain plug and took Emma into her room to dry her off and get her ready for bed. She kept pointing at something across the room and saying (what I thought was) "hat." This is another word that she has learned recently, and she takes great pride in pointing out who is wearing a hat. I didn't see any hats in the room anywhere, so I didn't pay much attention. I set Emma on the ground and started looking for her pajamas. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her run out of her bedroom. I knew I had pulled the plug in the bathtub and that enough time had passed for it to drain, so I wasn't so concerned about her if she wandered into the bathroom. Still, after a minute, I walked out to see where she was, and I discovered three very important things: 1) the washrag had fallen into the tub and covered the drain, so that the bath was still relatively full 2) Emma must've had her Winnie the Pooh in her arms when she fled from her room and 3) Emma hadn't been saying "hat".... she had been saying "bath". Yes, Emma -- no doubt invigorated by the bath she had just received -- had decided that Pooh needed a bath, too, and *plop*, she had dumped him in the bathtub.

(I apologize for using "Pooh," "plop," and "dumped," and "bathtub" in the same sentence. It seemed less graphic when I wrote it than it does now, looking back.)

I snatched it out of there and began thinking of how best to dry this thing, when I had a serious case of deja vu. What had happened last time, when Emma dumped her bear in the bathtub? Well, first, I grabbed the bear out of the bathtub, then while I was trying to figure out how to dry it and had my back turned, she ran away, came back with an armful of books, and dumped them into the water. As soon as I realized this, I spun around to see that old predictable Emma had, indeed, fled the scene of the crime. I wasn't going to be fooled again, so I stood there by the tub and waited for her to return. And right on cue, she came toddling back into the bathroom with her baby doll, ready to throw it. But I would not be outsmarted by a 1-and-a-half-year-old this time! I grabbed that baby doll right out of her hands, finished draining the bathtub, and took Emma back to her room by the arm to read books. Yeah, I pretty much saved the day. I'm not so dumb as I look, or at least how dumb I imagine I look to my toddler.

The moral of the story? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice.......you're not gonna fool me again.

Happy 4th of July!

Well as usual we spent the 4th of July up at Bear Lake. The weather wasn't very promising but it turn out really good. We only had bad weather on Friday night. We had just gotten Emma settled for the night in our tent and we went back to Grandma's trailer because she doesn't usually fall asleep when we are in there. We were only there for a minute before the thunder and lighting started. We waited another minute but did not hear her crying. So we sat down to visit. Just as we did this we hear it start to rain. And boy did it start to rain, within another minute the hail started. I started to worry about Emma all alone in the tent. We hurried and got ready for the night and then dashed out the trailer through the hail and into the tent to find a very frighten little girl. I felt so bad we had left her alone in that if only for a minute or so. There was no way she was going to get back in her playpen so she slept with me on my twin air mattress. Let me just say that Emma is a bed hog. I did not get much sleep that night and what I did get was not restful because I tried not to move so as not to wake Emma. I also tried to keep us both covered with the sleeping back but Emma does not like to be covered. Oh well, I survived.

Here are a few pictures from our first day. We just relaxed and then went letter boxing for Quinn.

Reading books in the car with Grandma while Quinn hunts for his letterbox.

Emma learned to pick her nose this past week. Yeah! I was real cute when we went to dinner at the Olive Garden a few nights before.

Quinn found one of his letterboxes in this rock wall in Raspberry Square.

Emma thought this was the perfect chair for her.

Emma loves corn on the cob!

The next day started off overcast but once we got down to the beach the clouds started to clear out and the best part was the wind did not come up and drive us off the beach. We had a great time. Emma fell asleep on the boat and got a little nap in. She loved the freezing water and playing in the sand. I got to ride the wave runner for a minute. And we all got to eat junk food the whole day. It was also nice to have Emma's Aunt Carly and Aunt Annie there. They were so willing to play with her that Quinn and I got a little break. Thanks Guys!!

Beach Bums!

Our last day was Sunday. It was very beautiful and we had a nice quite day. We were also very lucky that Emma took a nice long nap and then still slept the whole 2 1/2 hour ride home. Quinn was so worried about the drive he actually bought a portable DVD player because I had forgotten to borrow one, but we didn't end up using it.

Grandma and Emma having some quiet time Sunday morning.

What a cute family!

We love you Grandma and Grandpa!

The Fam!

Emma decided it was time to go and packed herself while was packing everything else!

Catch Up!

The last Friday in June Emma and I headed up to Melissa's house for a play date with all our friends. We had a great time even though it was a bit crazy as 6 adults and 9 kids who were all trying to get ready for some fun in the pool. The kids were all great and Emma just loves the water. She still loved jumping and riding in her boat. Thanks Melissa for letting us come and make a mess.

I forgot to take pictures of the whole group but I did get this cute one of Emma wearing my sunglasses.

On Saturday Emma was invited to her first birthday party. Quinn and I were also invited. The birthday boy, Jacob, is in our ward and Quinn and his dad used to be home teaching companions. Emma had a great time playing in the pool and swinging. There was so much going on that she would not sit down and eat but would only come for a bite now and then.

Emma playing with Dad and rocking out getting pumped up for the party!

The birthday boy and his cake!

This is Emma's friend Brook who was born the same day she was.

That night we headed to another party. One of the Doctors at the Surgery Center that I work at throws an annual barbecue for everyone at his huge house in Bountiful. Again we had a great time. I enjoyed the magician show even though would not sit still for it so she and Dad played outside. She would have spent the whole night running around and around the trampoline. It is one of those that is in the ground so she could get on and off every easily. She was really upset when the big kids came out and started jumping because it knocks her down. She doesn't know how to jump yet.

They also had this fun slide and we thought Emma would enjoy it but she had had enough water for the day and this water was freezing!

A few days later we headed to Salt Lake for a Wedding Reception at the Lion House. We didn't spend much time there but afterwards walked over the the Temple. Emma went crazy for all the water. She wanted to get in and go swimming, dress and all. She got so mad when Dad would only let her put her feet in.

A Japanese tourist thought this was so cute he went ahead and took a picture as well.

The Lion House

The flowers were so beautiful!

And as always the Temple is so pretty!

Just let me go Dad!

We compromised by letting her throw pennys in the pool instead.

I Am Your Father...

(This is not a picture of me. Not yet, anyway.)