Happy Friday!

It's friday!!! So glad. Not only is it friday, but it's girl's night tonight - yay! I never thought that I'd be so excited as an adult to be on the verge of a weekend. Even if that weekend will be full of cleaning, grocery shopping, changing poopy diapers (cuz the kid isn't at Beth's, making her change the poopy ones...) and wrestling a tired, whiny, child through three hours of church.

I'll still take a weekend anytime! Bring on the fridays, just keep the mondays away.

Catching Up

Okay - so here's the rest of the stuff from October that I haven't gotten around to posting yet.

While Matt's parents were in town over Conference weekend, we visited Thanksgiving Point. It's a pretty cool place and they have a ton of different stuff to do, but each attraction has it's own price tag so I can see it getting really spendy pretty fast.

Posing with the Pumpkin Scarecorws. While eating cheese. Pepper Jack cheese (he loves it!).

First, we watched the glass-blowers at the Art Institute. They were working on a massive project for a man's home (ala the Bellagio's main lobby ceiling in Las Vegas). It was very interesting to watch, but I didn't get any pics. :(

All bundled up on our way to the Art Institute

Then we headed to the farm and Bryan had a blast there. He loved the animals and giggled in delight when he was able to pet a baby goat.



The farm had goats, all types of birds, llamas, horses, cows, almost anything you would expect on a farm, and we had a lot of fun making all the noises and trying to call the baby cow over. Matt's dad, Wade, finally suceeded in coaxing the baby cow over so I rushed over with Bryan to have him pet the cow. He was so cute and B would reach out and touch him, then pull his had back as fast as he could. That was until the cow bellowed about 6 inches from B and me. There were no tears, but Bryan wasn't going to touch him anymore!

At one end of the farm there are a few child sized buildings for kids to play in. Bryan's favorite was the jail. I know, scarey. We had to pry his fingers off the bars to get him out!

He's way too happy behind those bars!

After the farm, we headed to the dinasoar museum. It was on the spendy side, but well worth it - it was pretty cool and there were a ton of dinosoars and some great hands-on exhibits for the kids.

We wouldn't really throw him to the sharks....

Digging up some bones

Swimming with a giant turtle thingy

This is Matt's favorite pic. It's a "human" about to be squashed by a mammath

And my favorite pic - Bryan was crackin up because I had to lay on the floor to get the mammath in the shot. :)

And probably the best picture that whole weekend! Wade posing in front of his special parking sign :) Love you Dad!!

So Much Stuff

So it's been a few weeks since I've posted and those few short weeks were filled with stuff. We've got lots of pics (sorry - that's pretty much all you get today). So here goes:

Kind of a boring pic, but I put it in here cause he looks so old!

This was his first Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, dragged through the dirt as he crawled under the tailgate of Papa's truck during our picnic lunch in the Uinta Mountains

Trucks are cool :)

Bryan loves to climb into anything and everything he can. For example, Grandpa McClurg's chain saw case...

...and the dog kennel.

We celebrated Bryan's birthday on Sunday, the 4th, with my parents, Matt's parents who were in town for conference weekend, Beth and Andy with their 4 boys, Joel and Brianna, and Matt's brother Jake and his wife Jamie. Matt was in charge of taking pics, so we don't have any with all those other people in them. Just Bryan. :)

Bryan started off just picking the frosting letters off the cake and eating them one by one. He then scooped the frosting off the cake. Finally, Matt shoved his hand down into the cake so he'd know there was something other than frosting. Needless to say, I was changing green playdoh diapers for two days afterwards. :)

Note the frosting in his hair - this happens every time he eats. No matter what it is, it ends up in his hair.

Okay - I'm out of time, but there are more pics to come...

He Knows What He Wants

Bryan definitely knows what he wants when he wants it. Shortly after waking up, he wants a bottle, but you can't force it on him - he will hold it until he feels like giving up the binkie to make room.

He knows what snacks he wants and will dig in his diaper bag to find the right ones (they are in baggies, not just loose). He knows what toy he wants, and although he hets a little distracted along the way sometimes, he riffles through his toy baskets until he finds the right one.

Last weekend he wanted peaches.

It's peach season here in Utah and my parents had been up to Brigham to get a few boxes to freeze for pies and such in the winter. One of said boxes was hidden behind the kitchen table, waiting it's turn to be skinned, sliced and frozen. The problem was that Bryan quickly found them and instantly took a big bite out of one.

I wasn't ready for that size of mess, so I quickly took it away and put it in the fridge to be eaten later, closer to bath time. Well, he found another one. Imagine that. So, I decided, why not? It'll keep him occupied and he obvoiusly wants it bad enough to climb over and through chairs rungs to get it.

He tore into that peach like he hadn't eaten in days! When the pit got in the way, he didn't cry to have me fix it. Oh, no. He ripped that thing out, tried to bite it, and when he found that it wasn't so good, threw it aside to resume devouring the rest of the peach.

It was pretty fun to watch. Once he was done, I mopped up the floor while Matt took him right down to the bath.

I hope in later years, he'll have that same drive to go after what he wants until he gets it...as long as he wants good things!

Enjoying the fruits of his labors....with so much in his cheeks that he almost can't close his mouth!

Let's go to the Movies

One of my favorite memories as a kid was pulling our big blue van, Bertha, into a prime parking spot at the Drive-In. We would pull out the back seat of the van, and, armed with plenty of sugary snacks and drinks, hunker down under plenty of blankets for our lovely double-feature.

We were able to take Bryan to the drive-in with us a couple weeks ago and for the most part it was great! That's because he slept most of the time. He did have fun before the shows started, playing with our candy and in the road. No, I don't normally allow him to play in the road, but he just wouldn't stay on the blanket. He is subject to no one. He knows no boundaries.

I'm so glad we have a drive-in close by. It brings back a ton of memories and, of course, saves us big bucks on the whole theatre experience, which is always a plus. Besides...who doesn't want to get two movies for the price of one. (Although if you stay for both shows, you end up getting home at two in the morning, but so worth it.)

Little Things to Make Me Smile

As Bryan is getting older, I find it harder and harder to leave him every day to go to work. I love that Bethany is watching him (Thanks Beth!!) and couldn't be more comfortable with the arrangement, but I feel like I'm going to start missing more firsts. I got to see his first real smile, even if it was for Nana, the first time he rolled over, started crawling and, last weekend, his first camping trip.

He's so grown up now! He took over Drew's chair and was quite content to chill by the fire, hanging with the adults. He got his first jelly sandwich, a big hit by the way, and probably got smoke inhalation poisoning from his first campfire. It was great!

But, best of all, this morning as I was leaving Beth's house he waved at me for the first time and said "Bye-Bye". I just wanted to pick him up and squeeze him tight. As much of a pain he was this morning, all the irritation and frustration was wiped away in that one moment. I love being his mom and could not have imagined the amount love he gives me back.

I know there will be other firsts that I will miss, but I can always say it was his first for me, and I'll love it just the same.

Whoo hoo!

Today I will be leaving work as soon as I am done training new sales reps, driving home, getting into Matt's fully loaded (and not with car accessories) car and making the 1.5 hr drive to the Uinta mountains for a weekend of camping.

As much as I am looking forward to getting out into nature and breathing fresh air with no hint of the lake stench, I am very nervous about Bryan and his restless sleeping, lack of warmth, and getting into the fire opportunities that I'm sure will be endless and require even more constant watching than he gets at home.

Wish me luck and sanity...and hopefully a few good memories to bring back along with many pictures of a dirty ornery boy!