orem summerfest baby contest

we (we as in i) registered pace for the orem summerfest baby contest today! he was judged on his personality (he jumped very well for the judges), and then we got his photo taken. the photographer had a duster she tickled his feet with, and he just loved it!

so there were probably 180-200 children participating in this little contest, and although pace did not win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in his age category, his did win a specialty category: most beautiful eyes. and we all know in pace's case that means biggest...i mean widest...i mean alertest...i mean...

pace's little prize: a bucket full of baby toys. david was actually pretty proud of pace winning a specialty category--he felt like this was a much higher complement than a place holding because it was the one baby out of all 200 that was the most memorable.

bed head

pace is getting much more mobile. he's sitting up on his own, starting to frog hop, and rock back and forth on his knees. i caught him doing a full-body plank the other day! he will actually push himself backwards instead of crawling forwards--very funny.

being more mobile also means i find him in all sorts of different locations in his crib other than where i initially put him. i love finding him all over the place! this also means finding some pretty good bed head atop his little noggin!

he did not start out with this many blankets in his crib! i guess i can't leave them draped on the side anymore...

modeling the new 'do:

non-vacations 1 & 2

david had 3 vacation weeks this year. he ended up having nearly all of may off, the way the calendar worked out after the other drivers got their vacation weeks. we normally get vacation weeks in the months other drivers don't want, like march or february, so we were looking forward to some good weather while vacationing. we planned to go to montana to see david's parents, camping in moab, and my mom come for a visit. we were excited for the month of may!

ok, so vacation #1: montana. we planned to drive up on friday and come back on monday. the more i thought about it, i wanted to break up the driving and do half of the 13 hour drive on thursday, and finish the drive on friday. that's a long drive for two adults, and there was no way pace would be able to do a 13 hour drive in one day. david wasn't interested in staying overnight in a hotel, so he wanted to just see how it would go.

i woke up friday morning around 3am to feed pace, and ended up staying up to finish packing and get stuff ready for david to load into the car. pace is an early riser--he's up for the day usually by 6am. we thought if we got on the road by 4, we'd have at least 2 hours of driving with a sleeping baby. as things go, we didn't get on the road until 5am, and pace had woken up as we were getting out the door. we drove for about 30-45 minutes and pace started getting fussy. we drove for another 30-45 minutes and stopped so we could feed pace. he sort of snacked, we walked around to calm him down, and back in the car.

he immediately started screaming as soon as we buckled him in the car seat. from slc until pocatello, we drove with a screaming baby. i sat in the back with him, singing songs, playing with toys, trying to feed him...but by the end, i was frustrated and in tears myself, not able to just pull my little boy out of the carseat and hold him until he calmed down. pace is super sensitive. if someone around him is giving off unsettling vibes, he'll pick up on it and give a meltdown himself. i'm sure i was part of the trigger that set him off--i was just so frustrated and upset, and the more he cried, the more i cried. the other trigger, looking back, is that pace was confined during the time he's used to being up and active. he's a morning person, and the first thing he does when he gets up is jump around and play for at least an hour. we thought it'd be easier to be on the road early, but it was actually harder for him to be strapped in a carseat, sitting still.

we stopped in a rest area outside pocatello and david called his parents. they were so flexible and forgiving--they told us to just turn right around and go home, that it was ok that pace wasn't able to travel yet. as soon as we told pace we were turning around and going home, he promptly stopped crying, settled into his carseat, and fell asleep. he slept until we were outside of slc, woke up, and started fussing again. it was a long 45 minutes to orem.

so...vacation #1 down the drain. we spent david's first week at home. he got a few good bike rides in, and got to spend some good quality time with pace.

vacation #2: we were going to go camping in moab with some friends. were being the operative word. the whole second week david was home ended up being about 40 degrees and raining/snowing all week long. we called down to the ranger stations in canyonlands national park, where the guys were planning on riding white rim, and they said it had been raining down there all week, too, and the river was flooding so bad they had closed the entire west half of the trail. we decided to postpone the camping trip 2 weeks out, thinking we'd see better weather the first week of june.

instead of sunny moab, we stayed inside all day every day and looked forlornly out our window at this:

and this:

and more of this:

here's what timp looked like once the clouds lifted. it's been so cold this year--our spring was more like november/december. there is so much snow on the mountains, and there has been so much rain, everyone's worried about flooding once it does warm up.

anniversary

may 22: celebrating 12 years of lds goodness

babushka came for a visit

my mom came out for about a week. she wants to be called babushka (the czechoslovakian name for grandma), and we'll see how pace shortens it. she loved every minute of feeding pace, changing diapers, playing with him on the floor, being there first thing in the morning when he wakes up, and doing other general babushka fun. pace was reaching for her by the end of the week, which was fun to see.

pace began sitting up on his own a week or so before my mom came out, so we inaugurated his little booster seat instead of using the bumbo on the floor. he's loving growing up and getting to do new things. one of his favorite toys--the spoon! i always give it to him to play with after he's done eating, and he loves it. he lights up when he hears the word.

when we were all little, the grandma thing to do was smocking. i don't know about my brothers, but i still have all the smocked dresses my grandma made for me. here are a few examples:

my mom wanted to pick up smocking and make an outfit or two for pace. while she was at my grandma's learning how to smock, they actually found a couple panels my grandma had made, but had never placed in an outfit. so my mom took the panels and made the most adorable little rompers for pace-boy. this panel has little sailboats on it, and another outfit (that pace probably won't fit in for another 2-3 years) has little bicycles on it. so cute!

my mom also noticed pace will pick up any toy and play with the tags. he's very detail-oriented, picking up a single blade of grass and fingering it or passing it back and forth between his fingers, careful to not pull it apart. he has a couple toys that have antennae on it, and he'll just play with the little antennae instead of the whole bug. when my mom saw he like playing with tags, she went and cut off all the tags from her clothes, and we found some more soft ribbons, and she sewed up a little tag toy.

we also invested in a hiking backpack for pace, knowing we had a few hiking vacations coming up. the little teddy bear came with the backpack. pace loves all things stuffed and fluffy, so he immediately fell in love with this bear that was smaller than him!

pace's favorite spot is on da-da's shoulders! he loves being up high, and will laugh and giggle when david jumps up and down with pace on his shoulders. when david gets home from work, if pace is still awake, he'll go outside with pace on his shoulders and check out the flowers and the garden. pace will see himself in the windows and smile and laugh.

canyonlands in a day

this was our 3rd attempt at a vacation. we were planning to drive down on monday (memorial day), play all day tuesday, and drive home on wednesday. we'd booked a hotel room and rented a jeep for exploring/driving to hikes. pace did really well on the drive down thanks to my mom entertaining him in the back seat. we made good time on the drive, and decided to stop in and hike around canyonlands before heading to moab, as it was too early to check in to our hotel.

we drove around the park, had a picnic lunch, and did a little hour-long hike. we inaugurated the hiking backpack, and pace loved it! he was so happy being above everything and able to look around. it was actually very windy, and sort of chilly and overcast on monday. the park ranger said there had just been a snow storm in the la salles on saturday. the green and colorado rivers are already flooding, and the run-off from the snow pack hasn't even hit yet!

happy little camper!

the white rim trail is down there--daivd was eyeing it.

more happy campers!

that night david and i went on a jet boat tour up the colorado river. it was a fun date! we had a dinner and then loaded the boat when it was just getting dark...and a little cold! we rode up river, with the guide pointing out faces in the rocks, and fun features. on the way back down river, it was completely dark, and they had music choreographed to go along with a light show, showcasing the cliffs and rocks. they had a driver on the road next to the river, with lights in the back of the truck. it was really very pretty.

we got back from the show around 1030, and pace had just woken up crying, and my mom was uncomfortable in the hotel. i'll admit, it wasn't a 5-star place, and it was definitely a lower quality than i was expecting. there had apparently been a scuffle with a cockroach while we were out; you could hear the other hotelers on the other side of the walls/walking around above us; my mom wasn't interested in the jeeping excursions; once pace started crying, it just escalated into a full out meltdown (screaming from 1030pm until 1am--i was sure we'd woken up every other resident within a 3-mile radius); i'd had probably a total of 6-7 hours of sleep the past two nights (pace was up a lot for some reason); in the middle of pace melting down, he threw up 3 times (i'm pretty sure he can't tolerate apples, and that had been on the dinner menu for him)...there were a lot of frustrating factors that night.

so at 1am when david said, "michal, we can go home if you want to, but we'd have to leave now, i can't do it later," i jumped at the chance and said, "yes--let's bag this whole thing and just go home." pace screamed while we were loading up the car, driving down moab main street, and for probably a good 30-45 minutes more in the car before he finally fell asleep. we got home at 4am, and pace woke up screaming. he finally went down and i think i was in bed by 5am. we all slept until 10. except for pace, who was up and ready to go around 630/7. crazy kid.

3 weeks of vacation crammed into 3 days

attempt #4 at a true vacation. we went back to moab to try and do the vacation we'd gotten rained out of three weeks prior. we went down with brian, heather, and their daughter katelyn, and jake (his wife lisa couldn't make it this time). brian loves dirt biking, so he brought the bikes and helmets. jake does canyoneering tours professionally, so he brought his expertise and gear to see the inside of moab. david was set for some fun!--keep going to check out the next two posts about canyoneering.

we got there thursday night, had all day friday to play, and planned to leave saturday afternoon. we stayed at slickrock campgrounds, which are pretty nice, considering we were camping! they have large bathroom buildings with flushing toilets, running water, and showers. campsites range from full rv sites, water/electric hook-ups only, or tent sites. we rented a water/electric site for brian and heather's trailer, and the rest of us just set up our tents on the same site.

successful ride down--pace slept for probably 2.5 of the 3 hours. he loves this little hippo.

the west side of white rim trail was still closed due to flooding, so instead of riding that, the guys planned a full day of fun. first: mountain bike ride along slick rock trail before sun is up. they came back for breakfast around 930. second: do the slot canyon with repels down to morning glory arch. third: dirt bike to gemini arches. david had wanted to get another bike ride in, but they didn't get back from dirt biking until 930pm--shower and hit the sack!

pace's pack-n-play doesn't fit in our tent, so we brought his little hamper as a "crib". he was slightly too big for it, and although i brought a ton of blankets to be comfy cozy for him, he sort of squashed the blankets and wasn't comfortable at all in the set up. so we rolled up a sleeping bag for him so it'd be fluffy on top, and it worked. of course, david and i were a little chilly that night, minus one sleeping bag. and i kept waking up to make sure pace hadn't turned over or gotten suffocated by the fluffy bag. heather found they had accidentally packed 6 bags total, so they lent us one the next night, and everyone slept much better.

pace's new favorite song: itsy bitsy spider. he especially loves when we do the little motions.

on saturday we had to check out by 11, so we spent the morning de-camping, and then brian and heather took off to price to see her family, and jake and david wanted to get one more ride in. we went to dead horse point and they did a 9-mile ride, and pace and i walked around the visitor's center, and then did a little walk out to the colorado river overlook point. he got another good nap in.

overall a great trip! pace did really well--slept well at night, napped well during the day, handled the car rides pretty well. the ride down was great, as he slept most of the way. the ride back was a little rough on him, but we made it. he's done after about 2 hours in the car, so if he's awake for any of that, and if it's a longer ride than 2 hours, it's a little hard.

you know a vacation is good when it's hard to get back to your normal life, instead of wishing for your normal life to start again!

a few reasons to fall in love with southern utah