bff's. they really are.

gracie: oh look at zoey sleeping so nicely. i think i'll grab her ear but look super non-chalant while doing it.

zoey: you let go of my ear!

gracie: hahahaha!
zoey: if you don't let go, i will sniff your face & possibly lick your nose.

gracie: oh no you didn't!
zoey: mom, please get her away from me.

garage in progress.

we're (finally) building a new garage! yayyyy!!!

see, our current garage is essentially caving in on itself. after years of our driveway flooding any time it rains and that water running well into the garage too, it's a very sad yucky rotting mess. well, with our new neighbors building their new house and putting in curb and gutter, it's only going to make our situation worse than it already is (and it's pretty bad!). plus, our garage is really our only good storage space and you can't even hardly use it because it floods. meaning nothing of value or that could be water damaged can sit anywhere within inches of the garage floor. pretty tricky!

so after dealing with this for over two years now, we decided it was now or never. time to build a new spacious, storage-filled, FUNCTIONAL garage!
(on the opposite side of the house from where the garage is now, as to prevent a lot of the current issues.)

so over the last few weeks.....
we started here:

then to this big hole:

 footing & foundation:

and now the garage floor is where we're at (!!!!):

this week we should be getting all our lumber and trusses delivered, and next week the framing goes up! then, of course, electrical, windows, doors, exterior, etc etc. but the plan is to have it all done by the time snow hits.

i can't even tell you how thrilled i am about this.

the cost? not so thrilled.

but the space (it's an oversized 3 car garage) and storage (YES!) and parking cars in a covered space and not hauling babies and dogs in and out of 5 inches of standing water just to get to the car.......it will be so wonderful.

dessert date night.

jae and i had tickets to go to the bee's game the other night. well it was a night that turned out to be super rainy monsoon weather. originally i was planning to take gracie with us, but then with the forecast, got jae's mom to babysit for us instead, but then when it was so crazy rainy, we didn't really want to go anyway. but we already had jae's mom to watch gracie, so we decided we'd still go do something. we had already eaten dinner so we couldn't go out to get food, so we decided some fancy desserts would be perfect.

i wanted TWO desserts!

raspberry cheesecake and a chocolate ice cream pazookie thingy. whatever they're called.

(i literally tried to take a selfie of us like 4 times. this is what i got every single time..)

we ended our date night with a trip to home depot (naturally) and took turns drilling stuff. cuz what date is complete without that?

derby.

a few weeks ago we went with a group of friends to the davis county demolition derby. i've been to one or two in the past, but it always seems new & exciting to me. well, usually only super exciting when they're crashing into eachother and rolling other cars around. and then there's the people watching...

anyway we all had a great time and were on the second row, so a clear view of all the fun vroom vrooming going on. at one point, we even had some dirt come flying at us from a crash right on front of us, and jae got a mouthful of it. he was not expecting that at all and it was pretty hilarious.

it was all fun and games, that is, until this happened...

it was the truck round, and they were doing there demo derby thing, when one truck hit another on the side and rolled it over to it's side. this is all very exciting and everyone cheers and the crowd loves that stuff. but then, just as one of the derby worker dudes was over to help the rolled truck's driver get out and shut off the gas to ensure no nasty spills happened, the weight shifted just enough that the truck that pushed the other truck over rolled back off of it, making the truck that was rolled, roll back down flat onto it's side. that probably doesn't make much sense, but basically the derby helper guy got landed on by the truck that had been rolled over. we weren't really sure what all had happened until swarms of people were running over and working together to try to lift the truck off this man. we could then clearly see the man laying flat on his stomach, not moving.

long story short, the fire truck came, the ambulance came, they worked for a good 15-20 minutes to get the guy stable and onto the gurney and into the ambulance. then life flight landed in the field behind the arena and they worked another few minutes just to get him transferred over to the helicopter.

at that point, we left. most people had or were leaving.

it was pretty unreal.
we found out the next morning, the man died from his injuries to his head.

just makes me realize more and more that you never know when tragic things like this can and will happen. it's totally out of our hands, and when it's someone's time, it's their time. it's all part of a bigger plan and we just have to try to live our life as fully as we can and never take anything (or anyone) for granted.

august photo dump.

the last month in (phone) pictures!
{ps - i just scrolled through all of them and realized 99% are of gracie. what can i say, she really is the center of our world}

first time wearing a little clippy! she ended up choking on one of these clippies on the way to church the other week, so i'm not hesitant to use them if i'm not right there to watch her like a hawk.

our new "naptime".....standing up in the crib and crying because she's tired. it's so fun. but i must admit, her little tiny self does look pretty cute standing up in there :)

TONS of pulling up and standing! all day, every day.

first (tiny) ponytail!!! i think i pulled out about 5 hairs just trying to get this ponytail in.

swimming up in park city. finally, she loved the pool! it was nicely warm water so i'm sure that's why.

she's had a really hard time with naps lately (i think because of that darn tooth that finally popped through) so this was at about 6pm one night - just completely zonked out in dad's lap.

of course, as soon as we tried moving her into her crib so she could just go to sleep for the night, she woke up.

as soon as she see's the fridge even cracked open, she is determined to get in there and explore.

SUPER helpful, ALL the time now! (and yes, those are boy jammies with sharks on them. i think they're adorable)

she loves duckies, and she has these little mini duckies. she decided she'd stuff the entire body of the duck into her mouth with the head hanging out to make it easier to crawl around while still having easy access to a duck! genius.

we visited aunt kellie one day, and she had a fun balloon that kept her entertained (and a bit frustrated) for a good 10 minutes.

lots of neighborhood walks with zo. she now demands to hold onto zo's leash when we're out. she can't say much more than dad but she can demand to hold onto zo on our walks. it's magic.

painted our front door yellow!

she loves to stand at the window and watch what's going on outside. and with all the moving and crawling lately, a diaper and some baby leg warmers are the perfect outfit.

and then there's zo. she cozied herself up like this in an effort to get away from people (ie gracie) i think. she loves gracie, but she also really loves her naps.

motherhood right now, part 2.

motherhood right now looks like...

..baby girl "crawling" everywhere! i'm not sure it should really be called crawling, but whatever it is she does, she most definitely gets around anywhere she pleases.

..it's official. i am done breastfeeding. (enter sad face & big sigh). it started off pretty rocky but has been amazing and i really have loved it. (although i am NOT sad about not pumping at work anymore). but the last couple of months my milk was just getting less and less and she's almost 11 months now anyway (i kind of had an unspoken make it to one year goal for myself), so i decided to make it easier on both of us and just be done with it. now that i think about it, that's probably why she was still wanting to nurse so often...there was hardly anything in there each time. duh. anyway, it's been easier and quicker to wean than i expected and i'm both relieved and a little sad about it all.

..on that note....i am beyond grateful that gracie has always taken a bottle and formula so well and without any complaint. a blessing, i tell you.

..and another note...gracie is almost 11 months! which basically means she's almost one year old! mind blown.

..since gracie is now on the move all the time, i am realizing how dirty and dusty our house really is. i am a poor excuse for a housewife, i'll be the first to admit it, and i am very open to taking any good cleaning pointers you all have. (especially for dark wood floors. i swear they're never clean.)

..gracie is a bit bipolar about bathtime. she seemed pretty meh about it at first, then hated it and screamed bloody murder til she was out of the tub and wrapped in her towel, and then she was loving it and splashing and playing and life was butterflies and rainbows, and now she seems to be hating it again. she gets excited, mostly because bathtime means she gets to play with her beloved favorite pink rubber ducky (it is strictly for bathtime), but once she gets ducky and gets in the tub, if i even think about pouring some water on her to rinse her off, (heaven forbid wash her down with some soap), she is trying to claw her way out of the tub. it's mind-boggling, really.

..honestly, motherhood is so very sweet right now. someone in an elevator the other day told me that the 8-12 month stage is the best. and i am totally agreeing with them. she is becoming miss independent more and more but still wants momma and daddy and loves to give hugs and (very) slobbery kisses and follows us everywhere. or if she doesn't follow, she'll yell "dad??" really loudly til we answer. and then we just kind of yell back and forth "dad?" and "gracie?" a few times til we're back in the same room again. it's adorable and she's adorable and fun and full of life and personality!

..finally we have 1 tooth! and by we, i of course mean gracie. but it kind of feels like a family effort, ya know? almost 11 months old and she finally has one tiny tooth poking through those slobbery gums.

..being the parents of a baby and a young puppy at the same time and raising them together is so much fun. they are just learning to love each other. they can even play tug-a-war with a rope sometimes (well, zo is playing, gracie is usually mad that zo is trying to take the rope away so forcefully). they give each other kisses (sometimes open-mouthed kisses which is just so gross) and they totally rough-house and push each other around. sometimes it's obnoxious, but most of the time it's hilarious and i completely love it.

..being a mom is still pretty daunting and overwhelming a lot of the time. which i think is something that won't necessarily go away any time soon. which i also think is probably a good thing. it's definitely good to feel like a good mom and like you know what you're doing most of the time, at least, but i think there's a sense of caution and second-guessing that is actually beneficial sometimes.

what can i say, at the end of the day, being gracie's mother is the best gift i've ever gotten!