life lately.

it's time for a little catch-up post of the last few weeks.

summer is already flying by, i mean we're days away from july for heavens sake. and it has been a HOT one lately. i don't know that i'm exactly complaining though - i mean, summer in utah is generally pretty toasty. gracie and i are trying to soak up all the sunshine and summer goodness while we can. i'm not documenting everything as perhaps i should or would want to, but sometimes life is just too fun in the moment with a toddler, it's hard to take two seconds to pull out the camera.

(ie, we've been to the pool at least once a week the last few weeks, and i haven't taken one picture while there. it's kind of become a staple of our summer so far, but i have nothing to say for it except gracie absolutely LOVES splashing and jumping off the side and it's just a good time.)

and actually, my phone camera is struggling at the moment, so that only makes it less likely that i take photos of everything. 

anyway!

here are a few randoms from lately.

came out one day to run to the grocery store and found a very flat tire on my car :(

the tire place found two things stuck in it. i blame all the dang construction around right now. not cool!

i was making gracie something to eat and came out to find her, and she was just sitting on the rug reading her thomas the train book. it was just so sweet & quiet & cute. i had to take a picture. 

then i told her her food was ready and as i walked away i watched her get up, walk over to the toy/book bins, and put her book away (even in the right bin!) before coming to eat. she makes me happy.

this is a terrible picture, but i had to take it and post it. we are working on getting a walk in every day with zo (she needs to lose a few lb's), and most days, even though we go in the morning, it's still hot already and zo is totally over-heated by the time we get home, with that black body and all. as soon as we get to the garage, she plops down in that corner in the shade & gracie goes to sit by her and pat her back. it's as if she's giving her a pep-talk and telling her job well done, zo. they're funny.

just watching mom fold my laundry while i squish myself into this basket. because, why not?!

CHEEEEEESE

our first zoo visit this year. and this is the only picture i took. she wasn't so sure about sitting on that elephant trunk, and the sun was also blinding her. we'll take what we can get.

finally a date night for jae and i. it was simple - temple and dinner after. then we drove around for a bit with windows down, enjoying the summer evening and made a quick stop at the grocery store for last-minute sunday dinner items. i can't remember the last time we went out to dinner without gracie. and let me just tell you, it was so nice to eat my meal without little fingers grabbing or little girl yelling or jae and i taking turns to eat because we had to control the little person. 

love her, but man, that was a nice, relaxed dinner without her.

these last few are actually from our father's day celebration at my sisters house. my nephew has a drum set and gracie took a crack at it. i think it goes without saying, but she seemed to enjoy herself  ;)

(she would blink every time she'd hit a drum, it was pretty funny)

a birthday celebration in the park.

we celebrated jae's mom's birthday a couple weeks ago. it was a nice evening - we just got together at a park and all pitched in potluck-style, and it turned out to be a really fun time. i think karen enjoyed herself.

we just love karen, and gracie especially has such a great relationship with her. i don't know what we'd do without her. she takes care of us and is ALWAYS willing to step in and help out or watch gracie so we can go on a date or whatever it is. she is so good to us and we will forever be grateful for her!

here are a few photos from the fun evening. of course, i didn't get any that are actually with the birthday girl....(sorry karen!)...they're all of gracie. figures, right? she had an absolute blast.
(and those videos at the bottom!!!)

lava hot springs.

we officially survived our first camping trip with a toddler. let me tell you - there were times during it that i really didn't know if we would!

we went up to lava hot springs in idaho. i knew we needed (ok, i REALLY needed) a weekend away, so i booked us a campsite a few weeks ago and off we went. i should've known from the whopping 15 minute nap gracie took on the entire drive up there that the weekend was going to be interesting.

we basically just ate, swam, hung out at camp either in the tent or by the fire or watching the river that was right next to our camp. it really ended up being a nice little getaway and something i'd do again, with a few minor tweaks.

the first night was pretty horrific. of course since it's still bright out and we're sleeping basically outside, gracie wasn't ready to go to bed until around 930 (normal bedtime is between 7-730). she went to sleep pretty quickly, as she should've since she hardly napped the whole day and spent lots of energy swimming and it was so late. but she only slept soundly for maybe an hour and then it was up and crying every...half an hour? hour? honestly i had no sense of time and no desire to look at the time to actually see how often we were getting up. she is quite a mover in her sleep normally so that mixed with the confines of trying to keep her covered so she'd be warm in a sleeping bag in between her parents in a tent........well it didn't all pan out. go figure. she kept inching her way up so her head would run into the tent wall, and she'd freak out, hitting the tent and wake up and cry and be uncovered so i'm sure she was cold. ugh it was no fun! she even ended up with about 4 little blisters on her thumb from sucking on it so much that night. that's how bad it was! at some point during the night, i was about 99% sure we'd get up the next morning and pack up and go home and say screw it to the second night. i really thought we would. but we didn't. we enjoyed our day as much as we could being fairly sleep deprived. we actually were all able to take a couple hour nap that next morning after an early morning breakfast, so that helped.

the days were fun, swimming and just being with our little family and not having any cares or time restraints or anything. i loved that part of it. the weather was a little on the cool side for most of it (of course it was beautiful the day we left), but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. the hot pools were a major bonus for the cooler weather. gracie was a very scared, very timid swimmer last summer so i was a little worried about it, but she LOVED swimming this time. totally had a blast splashing. no fear or reservations about it at all, so that was way fun.

and after all that, the second night, she went to bed again around 930, went to bed pretty quickly, and actually slept pretty solid through the entire night, hardly even moving an inch. i think she was just soooo tired. i can't complain about that. although my body is not made for sleeping on the ground, that is for sure. hello sore hips and shoulders and knees and neck and back!! good times!

it must not have been that bad, since a day after we got home, i started looking into planning our next camping trip. what am i thinking??!

a few pictures...

new elmo sippy on one side, bottle of milk on the other, toys, blankie, and shoes off...she was ready to go!

setting up the tent: all she was worried about was the (small) amount of sand/dirt on her feet. 

she's a little OCD, have i mentioned that before?

early morning play time with dad in the tent, and saying CHEESE for a picture

just some randoms from camp.