Parker turns three

her manipulation face

go 'merica. we played it super lazy all day after the ward breakfast and worked on refinishing the kitchen table, naps, and then later went to Janene and Aaron's to let the babies sleep while we strolled the toddlers down the street to watch the fireworks. 'twas magical

 I probably shouldn't be feeding my child raw cookie dough, but I have never seen anyone so anxious and intent on getting as much of something in her face as soon as possible. Insanity.

girls dinner and birthday celebration for Britt with the sisters! holla like ya don't have any kids whichya!

 there's not much I won't do for free food that I don't have to prepare or clean up after, especially with Steve now checking my credit card so that we can, ahem, 'budget'. psh. pft. and ESPECIALLY when it means we can all dress up and take pictures and giggle at the babes and their reactions to overgrown fake cows (Parker and Savannah were terrified, Grant said bring it on). Mom came to join in on the fun and wore a cowhead too!

behind the scenes...ya know, the usual.

 and you know we went for dinner and made the missionaries dress up for their meal too.

 poor grapes didn't stand a chance.

Parker's favorite pastime is sharing. Nailed it.
(6 months: Lyla is little but developmentally on cue, Parker (3) is rolling with the punches like a boss)

 Birthday Boy! Little man is 3 and definitely knows it! Per tradition, we went out for doughnuts for breakfast. Parker loooooves him some doughnuts. "Is the doughnut too good for Parker and so special?"

Then a quick visit to the dentist to see Aunt Becky. He was SO 'cited to see Becky at the dentist and get a Cars toothbrush, get his teeth counted, and play with allllll of the instruments. Not so 'cited to let her do anything else to his mouth. It's OK, you're 3 and it's your birthday. You can do whatever you want. We picked up Sonic on the way to the splash pad (chicken and fries, what else?!), naps at home, finished his biiiiiiig green truck cake he's been asking for for months, and staved him off with a stick until everybody got there. He ran around with cousins between bites of pizza and cheetos and airheads, blew out candles and clapped while everybody sang Happy Birthday, dug into his prized cake, and got to open some of the coolest bulldozers, excavators, cars, monster trucks, and puzzles ever. Sigh. What a day! You are sweet, opinionated, goofy, smart, and very loveable. You were our first and broke us in. You count to 23 using 'eleventeen', randomly tell me you're glad and hug me, giggle like a little girl when daddy comes home, and I don't believe your obsession with cars, trucks, and tires can be matched. We love your soul dearly, little man. Happy Birthday!

 books on the menu today

 talk about a little bundle of joy

 potty-training and checking traction. who says men can't multi-task?

 the arctic blast in August in Texas called for a fun day with friends and man-made nature. PS Lyla hates the stroller

 Smashburger, Groupon Studio Movie Grill Guardians of the Galaxy, and Target date night.

 Our good friends Eric and Ilene moved here (yay!) so they stayed with us for a few days while waiting to get into their place. Steve is excited to have a 'real' friend here (aka someone he knows) and I'm excited to have one of my oldest friends here, it's nice having bits of your history with you to ground you and kinda pull everything together. And to think, 5 years ago we spent our Saturdays bombing down Utah's mountains on our bikes...times have changed a bit.

One of his new favorites is to help me 'make it'. Especially when I whisk the eggs every time I make it, he must come over and give them a couple of whirls. As of last week, he will drop everything he is doing, bolt over to the microwave, and wait for it to beep so he can push the button to open it. I'm talking major meltdown if you push it before he gets the chance to. Hot dang.

 It's kinda nice Steve having Tuesdays off. A couple friends were going to the zoo for $1 days so we packed up and headed out only to be greeted by some pretty horrendous traffic. SO we opted for the somewhat ghetto children's aquarium instead. Both kids loved it! Parker refused to touch the stingrays 95% of the time, but I saw him sneak a touch a time or two.

 Our new temple. I wondered if Lyla would end up getting married here one day...

 Not her finest moment...maybe a little out of it, eh?

 'Can I watch trucks wif Daddy? Please?' One of their favorite things to do. When he's not playing cars or watching truck videos on YouTube, he's at work, figuring out how to increase his patients, figuring out his place in the office, taking care of the lawn (totally new to us), watching tennis, intermittently working on our dresser we're refinishing, budgeting, lesson-planning for our 14/15-year-olds that we teach Sunday School to, going to physical therapy and icing his knee (from the motorcycle accident--yes it's still a problem, and yes the vertigo came back but is not nearly as bad as it was immediately after the accident), and basically being awesome.

 Another one of Parker's new favorite things is bolting out the door as soon as it's cracked, giggling his little head off the whole way. Front door, back door, especially if his pants are missing. It's our favorite too.

 FIVE cookies! He thinks everything is five. Him, how many cookies he gets, everything.

 For some reason, he has absolutely taken to this little felt owl I sewed for his mobile years ago. He thinks it's the sweetest thing, and likes to gently pat it and hold it. He especially likes to tuck it in to sleep with his blanket and snuggle with it. Seriously beyond me, but seriously beyond adorable.

 She's just dying to crawl. Baby girl was 8 months here, and had just started getting up on all fours and rocking. It's 2-3 weeks later and she's making teeny tiny movements with limbs, in addition to some pretty sweet army-crawling/slithering motions. She's basically teething or sick all of the time, and we have yet to nail down the sleeping all night until 9 am thing that we had with Parker. Sigh. I've begun to accept it. She's lucky she's incredibly cute. And again, a tiny little thing. She's standing, and as of a couple days ago has really learned how to belly-yell at us to get our attention and grin and snicker as soon as we look her way, flashing her three and 1/4 teeth at us. She eats mostly anything you give her, generally it's oatmeal, fruit/veggie smoothies I make and freeze into cubes, bread and hummus, refried beans, avocado, pasta and sauce, bananas, pears, mango, gnaws on cucumber, apple, or carrot sticks, blueberries, grapes, cookie dough, it's whateves. If she's exploring something new, I love how she sticks her little pointer finger out first to feel it, then grabs it with her fist and shoves it in her open mouth, hoping it ends up in there. It's a success about half of the time. That's what moms are for, yeah?

 In the last couple of weeks, they've started to play with and be entertained by each other more and more. It absolutely melts my heart to watch them. I also love when I get genuine smiles from Parker on camera.