I got a dollar! I got a dollar! I got a dollar, hey, hey hey, hey!!

While we were at the Utah Arts Festival last weekend we ran into our old friends from home, Jon & Steffany. They are now living in Idaho and had caught a ride to Utah on whim! The story starts where Steffany made her first mistake as a [future] wife and declared Saturday, "JON DAY!" A day Jon planned all by himself and got whatever he wanted. Big mistake Steff! 

Well, Jon planned this much-- Hitch a ride to Utah with a friend. That was it.

Lucky for them the Arts Festival was in town, so they had something fun to do while in town for half the weekend... and even luckier-- we were there! 

[And as it turns out, "JON DAY" ended up being quite the 

lucky day for the two of them...]

We met up after the BORINGDALOOP DANCERS so we could catch up and they could meet our little guy. 

Okay, I can't say Harrison's attitude was all their fault, 

he had been cooped up in his stroller all day. 

We asked an older man to take our picture... 

It's actually pretty funny. 

I mean, he did get the most important part in the shot after all! 

Attempt #2. 

After the festival we met up at The Cheesecake Factory to share some dessert. And the story of Jon's ill-planned weekend getaway continued... he had planned for them to stay at his cousins house, but had not actually spoken to him before getting to town. Or at all since they'd been here. Lucky ticket number two-- we were happy to have them crash in our guest bedroom. 

Luck by chance number THREE-- Jon and Steffany are recently engaged, broke, college students who have no car. We happened to have just bought me a new car and hadn't sold me old beater yet. We were only looking for about eight or nine hundred for the old Corolla and were really just looking to unload it.
We've been married, broke, college students before so we understand the struggle. We have definitely had a helping hand cut us a break here and there. We got the Corolla for only $300 when I bought it from our Bishop before we got married [and didn't pay him until about a year into our marriage.] So we thought it would be reeeeeeally nice to PAY IT FORWARD and help out our friends with a FREE CAR! For tax purposes we sold it to them for a whopping DOLLAR!

They really didn't believe us when we said they could have it, but the few hundred bucks we could have made off it will hopefully be better paid back in car-ma.

The proud new owner with quite the story to tell! 

So the moral of the story is-- never let your fiance plan a whole weekend without any input from you or you wind up... wait, well, okay-- only let your fiance plan a whole weekend without any input from you if you have great friends like me and Jordan! 

What a story to tell. Jon and Steffany hitched a ride into town with an apparently unsafe-lunatic driver and ended up finding themselves free room and board for the night with a free car to drive themselves safely home! Talk about luck of the draw!

...and I guess we saved their honeymoon since they wont have to spend honeymoon money on a car. I only ask that in return that you name your first born after me and hubby-- Jamber, Jordamb, Amban... all great names!  

Utah Arts Festival

Last weekend, with all our visitors gone, we decided we wanted to spend some nice time together as a FAMILY; so we spent the afternoon at the Utah Arts Festival for a little culture and fun! Luckily Harrison was a very good boy and slept in his stroller out of the sun most of the day. 

First thing when we walked in the gate, there was a booth for the kiddies to make homemade hats for $4.00. 

Umm, rip off! 

My grandma thought this up years ago to entertain a handful of bored grandkids on a rainy day stuck indoors. 

$4.00 pssh! 

A milk jug, some leftover buttons, yarn and a little creativity goes a long way! 

Unfortunately we didn't see a ton of artwork that was our style, but there was one guy whose canvas work we loved... Justin Hillgrove does great parody work! 

This lady kept getting her head in the way when Jordan was trying to sneak pictures. 

Here is our favorite piece from the whole fair.

Courtesy of: http://www.justinhillgrove.com

Sadly there wasn't great "fair fare" [ha ha, get it!], not enough fried foods... mmm. I couldn't even find a corndog so I settled for a hot dog. Big mistake. Bleh. Sadly my desire for a churro had to be filled later at Sam's Club Food Court on the way home. 

I can't say the festival itself was worth the $12 admission, but thankfully the arts museum was open to the public so we were able to spend an hour or so enjoying the air conditioning while we enjoyed some hands on art activities. 

Working in "Paint" with a real paintbrush. 

According to my own talent, maybe I'm not the best person to be judging fine art after all!

Jordan is a HUGE fan of Green Screen Technology [not really] and he finally got to act out his dreams of terrorizing a big city like Godzilla, although I don't think that's Tokyo there in the background. 

The wall of dreamed up technological, scientific and medicinal advances of the future! "Permanent Puppy," now I could get on board with that! One read, "A phone that is 2mm thin, but works as well as any other," because you know who needs a cure for cancer when you can have a tiny phone, right?!

I'm not sure [at all] what this exhibit had to do with "art," but here is me looking at life as an amputee.
"Liutenent Dan, you got new legs!"

And then there was this.

Just creepy. 
What is with that horses eyes!? 

We stuck around after lunch to see the BANDALOOP Dancers, which were sadly not super impressive. There was a lot of too graceful, flowing hand dancing like those contemporary dancers do on "So You Think You Can Dance." Which is nice, but when you're hanging off the side of a building, your ballerina swan arms are a little lost in translation. 

I wanted to see some crazy flying trapeze work or lets get the JABBAWOCKEEZ crumpin' and jumpin' on a wall! 

Even if we didn't find anything [affordable] to brighten up our new house, it was still great to get out of the house with my boys! 

Outtakes!

Here are some pictures from our 2 month photo shoot that didn't make the cut. 

My baby is so cute and funny, so you get to see the outtakes Daddy took! 

Harrison's BFF is Carl the Crocodile.

Yeah, he doesn't get out much. 

Telling jokes. 

Funny baby!!

...and telling SECRETS! 

"You better not tell Mom or I'm gonna punch you!" 

He is always threatening to punch people with those little clenched fists of his. 

My little bully.

Not looking to happy with Carl 

[...or Daddy behind the camera?] 

Uh-oh, TKO...

and looking very satisfied with himself. 

Awe, but there's a happy ending-- friends again! 

My eager little snug bug!

Harrison is already two months old. He is growing up too fast! He is so active and does not like to sit still because he wants to be moving already. He's gonna skip straight from crawling to walking with how eager he is. 

Where did my little newborn baby go already? 

[Click to enlarge]

H is a pretty serious little guy, very mellow. Mama can't complain. 

He loves, loves, loves when Daddy rocks him-- it is like baby catnip to him. 

He is instantly soothed.

He also sucks on his hand to soothe himself when he doesn't want his binky [which he can live without.] 

If he's not sleeping in his crib [which he is most nights], then he's snuggling on top of Mama or Daddy, keeping us awake with his cute little baby snores! 

And he's a smart little guy, sometimes he'll wake up and stare directly at the camera for his video monitor, just waiting for us to come get him. It really creeps me out, especially at night when he's all lit up with night vision. Daddy realized he isn't staring into our souls, but the bright green light on the monitor. 

He is our little angel baby and we love him so much! 

Motherhood [for real this time]

Being a parent is hard. 

        Very hard. 

I never expected it to be easy. I knew it would take dedication, patience 

and love. Did I say patience? Lots of patience. I know my own mother 

and probably many mothers out there are laughing to themselves 

saying, "What did you think you were getting yourself into, kid?" 

But the truth is-- you just don't know. You sign on for this lifelong / life-altering job and you really have no idea what to expect. Because no matter what others tell you, no two experiences are going to be the same. 

Jordan and I knew we were in for a wild ride, for sure. Something intense. But until you are in it. And I mean the thick of it. Well, there's just no way to wrap your mind around what is to come. I can't even say that tonight I am particularly tired. [Because I always am.] I am exhausted... beyond the point of tired. I am simply beat. Mind, body and spirit. H is sleeping in his swing now, at 11:30 at night, but for the past 2 hours or so he has been fighting sleep.
                                                                                              Wiggling. 

                                                                                                  ....and man, can this boy wiggle!  

He's asleep in his swing right now and I'm buying time until I am confident enough that he is deep in sleep so I can move him to his crib and go to bed. In my own bed, not the couch. For all of what will be 3 hours until he wakes again. And then he feeds. I say that the same what they talk about the velocoraptors in "Jurassic Park" because he is a mini savage in sheep's clothing. I love him. I do. I absolutely do. But Baby Boy is a wild one sometimes! 

I love him. 

I love my baby boy.

Nights like this, every move I make is like tip-toe-ing on eggshells. The hardest part is not NOW. It's knowing that I will not get a full nights rest, knowing that I will almost never sleep in again. Knowing that the nights when you fall blissfully asleep knowing you have no responsibilities the next day, nothing for which you need to wake. 

I will never have one of those nights again.

If I never sleep through the night again, 

If I never have that 'face-planted-down-in-the-pillow-body-sprawled-out-each-limb-spread-a-different-direction-dead-to-the-world' kind of sleep again...

                                                        I'll be okay with that,

because this little boy of mine 

                  is what dreams are made of.

Motherhood...

...is something beautiful. 

Fathers Day

Happy First Fathers Day to my Love! 

Look at H hugging Daddy! 

He's got his little arm wrapped around him. So cute.

Sunday was Jordan's first Fathers Day and I hope it was special because he certainly is a special Daddy! 

We found out we were pregnant the day we got back from our second anniversary trip. We stopped by the convenience store on the way home from the airport and picked up two pregnancy tests. It only took one for me to know for sure. When I showed Jordan, he was so happy! I knew he'd make a great father and over time as Harrison grew in my belly, Jordan prepared himself for fatherhood. He took such good care of us throughout our pregnancy and he was more ready than I was as we drew closer to Harrison's birth day. 

Everyday I am shown how deep Jordan's love for our son and our family is. He is eager to come home from work and play with Harrison. I am excited for the days that Harrison can actually play back and I get to watch my boys go out in the yard and be boys.

I could not have asked for a better husband and father than what I have been blessed with in Jordan.

xoxoxo 

***************

And now some pictures from Fathers Day. 

We went to church in the morning and spent the afternoon at Jordan's Grandpa's cabin bbq'n with family.

Looking at Abuelito real funny-like. 

Pulling at the hairs on his chinny chin chin!

The old people taking a picture of us taking a picture of ourselves..

My special Father Day cupcakes. 

Although I probably ate more than all the fathers combined!

[Happy Fathers Day, Papa!] 

Still getting used to being passed around, but he really loves his GG. 

Look at that handsome boy and his big beautiful smile. 

Mama knows how to cheer him right back up! 

And then it's lights out for this little guy. 

The first of many to come... 

Happy Fathers Day Daddy! 

We love you to the moon and the stars and back.