The Baby Waketh

This is what we see at our house when baby Miriam wakes up (after we hear the crying/screaming):

Unfortunately, I have been seeing this in the middle of the night a lot lately.  :(

Bryce Canyon

In July, we went with my parents and grandparents to Bryce Canyon for a couple of days. It was gorgeous and the weather was actually pretty nice. I love Bryce Canyon and seeing the beautiful views, but what really stood out about this trip was spending time with my family. Ellie and Grandpa became best friends on this trip. She held his hand everywhere. While we cooked meals, she played in the car with Grandpa. It was so fun.

We went on lots of walks and hikes. Here is a shot of John and Eliza smelling the vanilla scented Ponderosa Pines. I am not sure it really sank in for Ellie because she said that every tree we passed smelled like vanilla. 

Gorgeous view at Inspiration Point!

The next day we went on a three mile hike down into the valley. We traded off who carried Eliza and who carried Miriam and the backpack. Carrying Ellie was definitely easier. Miriam has a fixation of trying to pull things off my like my hair, eyes, lips, nose, etc. It made for a somewhat uncomfortable walk.

I think this is the last year we are going to have Ellie ride in the back pack. Her legs looked about a mile long coming out of the bottom.

One fun aspect of this hike was going around in the formations. This trail actually goes through a couple of tunnels. According to Eliza, tunnels are ranked somewhere after stories but before gummy bears. So pretty high up there. Let's be honest, even adults think a good tunnel is pretty exciting.

My awesome grandma hiked the three miles with us. She turned 86 a week after this trip. I hope I am still able to hike three miles with that kind of change in elevation when I am nearly 86.

So many switch backs on the way up.

We drove to the south end of the canyon and stopped at all of the view points. Such beautiful views! It was so nice that everyone wanted to help out with the kids. They loved all of the attention.

Ellie loved to point out any arches that we saw. I loved her delight at the simplest things.

The last day we hiked up to a cool cave and waterfall.

The mist from the waterfall was deliciously cool! This was the only day that it seemed particularly warm.

This was such a fun trip and was only a few hours from home.  My entire life I have regularly visited red sand stone formations, and they just seem to get more amazing!

From my journal: 

A week or two later we went down to Bryce Canyon for 3 days and stayed 2 night in a hotel that my parents and grandparents paid for. It was nice to have some time with just them. Ellie was so, so sweet with my grandpa, which was nice because he doesn’t seem to think that his great-granddaughters like him. Grandma was a trooper and went on a 3 mile hike up and down the canyon at age 86. Wow! Both Miriam and Ellie did great on the trip and we had a nice time.

No Longer a Baby

Miriam is no longer a baby. She recently turned one year old! I have mixed emotions about this. It is so fun to see her grow and learn, but anyone that knows me knows that I love, LOVE babies, especially our babies. So, mixed emotions.

She didn't really have mixed emotions about her birthday. She loved opening presents and even kept on the birthday hat!

For her birthday treat we mixed two of her favorite things: bananas and graham crackers. We made a banana cream pie on a graham cracker crust.

Unlike Ellie's first birthday, Miriam loved playing in her birthday dessert and made quite the mess.

We love our little one year old. She has changed and grown so much in the last month. She learned how to really crawl and walk along furniture.

She loves feeding herself bread products, playing with a sippy, being held by Mommy, looking at books, and walking around holding on to someone’s hand or her walker. If we’re lucky when asked she’ll point to her toes and stretch her arms above her head.  She is such a joy in our life. Happy birthday sweet girl!

From my journal:

Miriam went in for her one year appointment, and our doctor had a lot of concerns about her. She just wasn’t where she ought to be developmentally. John and I have put a lot more effort into working with her and teaching her. I think it has been working too. She crawls, walks a long furniture, waves, points, and claps. We also took her to a pediatric eye doctor and a specialist from Primary Children’s Hospital and she was given a clean bill of health. We are so grateful for the blessing of having a healthy child.

            Miriam is such a cute baby. She loves feeding herself bread products, playing with a sippy, being held by Mommy, looking at books, and walking around holding on to someone’s hand or her walker. If we’re lucky when asked she’ll point to her toes and stretch her arms above her head.  She is such a joy in our life.

            Eliza is getting so big too. She says the funniest things like “Here’s the thing Dad…” “I don’t know what that baby doll’s name is, but I can guess.” She is getting more of an active imagination and tells me all about her baby’s (dolls) life. From her birthday to her food preferences, to behavior issues. It is so funny. She loves games, playing with friends, reading books, and playing with her baby sister. I swear I am the luckiest mom on the planet to have such a sweet girl for a daughter. I feel like sweet is the best way to describe Ellie.

            At the beginning of July we had the Pearson family reunion. We had dinner at Norma and Hema’s apartment. Harold and Cricket were in town which was neat. John’s father had a hip replacement surgery the next day so everyone fasted for him. He seems to be recovering well. As part of the reunion we also visited temple square and went up in a canyon and had a picnic.

            Unfortunately we had car trouble on our way home from the last activity so we were going to do some 4^th of July activities with my family, but ended up not going. Harold and Cricket came our house for brunch on the 4^th and my mom and grandparents came down for dinner and sparklers. It was still a really fun day.

            On July 7^th, Miriam turned one! She is getting to be such a big girl, which kind of makes me sad. She had a couple of presents. Her main one was a sleeping bag. Pretty exciting I know. I made a banana cream pie for her birthday treat which she actually really liked (although I was concerned she was having a slight allergic reaction to it). We had Glenn and Andrea and their kids over. It was a fun day! We love Miriam!

Baby's First Camping Trip and Concert

From my journal: John took his last final ever and of course aced it! To celebrate we went up Payson canyon and had a little overnight camping trip. It was fun to do it just us. We had a great time and I think the girls did too, despite Ellie wanting to play in the car most of the time. One cool thing was that because we went on a Tuesday night we had the whole campground to ourselves.  The next day we had breakfast and went up to canyon. We hiked to a little waterfall and grotto, which was surprisingly fun. Afterwards we went up to the Payson lakes, had lunch and threw rocks in the water. It was really fun! Miriam did really well for her first time camping. She had to have the binky put in a couple of times, which was funny because it would wake up Ellie and she said, “I am awake guys.” And we would say, “Okay, go back to sleep.” She was pretty tired the next day, but it was well worth it. 

We took Ellie to a speech therapist to get evaluated for stuttering therapy. It went okay, but we have to talk a lot slower and smoother at home, which hopefully will help.

Here are some great quotes from Ellie recently:  

Miriam is a itty bitty teenie weenie. I am a big teeny weenie. Daddy is a big, big, BIG teenie weenie, and Mommy is a medium.

Daddy singing, “Don’t go breaking my heart.” Ellie said, “I won’t. Don’t go breaking my tree.”

“There is hair on my arm!” said a very alarmed Ellie.

“D-D-double-you” (Ellie said trying to figure out the first letter of words. This was a funny joke since W is a different letter!)

“Miriam, don’t show my panties!” This was yelled during the middle of the Sacrament Meeting opening prayer, followed by, “Miriam was trying to show my panties, don’t do that Miriam.” (Said again and again.)

“Cords are not toys for babies. They are toys for laptops.”

“We thank Thee that I can sleep dry. We thank Thee that Mommy and Daddy can sleep dry and Miriam too.”

“We thank Thee for Jesus and how great he is.”

“Can I be a mommy tomorrow?”

“I went to the hospital yesterday and had a baby, and she went pee-pees all over and I had to clean it up.” 

Blog: Our baby went camping for the first time a month ago or so.  We went to the canyon by Payson.  Here are some highlights of our trip.

Hanging out in the tent is a fun activity.  Its also cool to go camping on Tuesday night.  We had the whole campground to ourselves.

Here is the manly side of the campsite.

Little Miriam needed some supervision when using the camp chair, but it was still a useful place to deposit her.

Some delicious food that we partook of.  Camp food is best if slightly charred.  Later, after the girls were sleeping, we ate some banana boats for dessert.  If you don't know what a banana boat is, just know you are missing out.

No fire restrictions yet!!  These coals were perfect for cooking delicious treats.

We went on the short walk to this nice waterfall the next morning.

We also visited one of the lakes so we could throw rocks in.  We may have made a few fishermen angry.  I can't think of an activity Ellie likes more than throwing rocks in the water.

Keeping clean isn't on Ellie's list of priorities on a camping trip.

We also went on two other camping trips this Summer. One with the Guinn's in a little campground by Squaw Peak and another one that ended up being just our little family near Tooele.

Journal: We actually went camping again, in theory with the Guinns. It did end up happening as planned because my phone ran out of battery, and there was a fire restriction in the area (with good reason, there have been fires all over the state). So when we got there we called them and only had time to say (before the phone died) that we couldn’t have a campfire (I was intending to ask them to pick up food that we didn’t need to cook on the fire), and Julie said she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go camping then and the phone died. Apparently they kept trying to call and text us (doesn’t work when the battery is dead). Anyway, they never showed up and we stayed cause we didn’t know if they were coming or not. Fortunately I was providing most of the food anyway. Ironically they ranger said that we really could have a fire, so we were able to cook our hot dogs and stuff. Yummy! It was a really great campsite out at Deseret Peak and we all had a good time. The next day we stopped at Pearson’s on the way home and gave Jeff his father’s day present. The next day was Father’s day. I gave John a racquetball bag and a card. I made him a big ol’ breakfast of eggs, sausage, fruit, and hashbrowns. He is such a great dad and deserves to be treated a lot better than I treat him. I am trying to work on that. That evening we went to Marc and Miriam’s for a father’s day dinner. It was fun and good to see Dad and Grandpa (who just got home from an African Safari).

            That week we took Ellie for a follow up appointment for stuttering and was told that she didn’t need to come back! Excellent news! We just need to keep practicing slow smooth speech with her. Last night John and I went on a fun date to Olive Garden and frozen yogurt. We went back to the place that he proposed (Rock Canyon Park.) 

 

John and I also got tickets to a Chris Cagle concert in Eagle Mountain! It was really fun to hear some live country music, although Chris Cagle was drinking an adult beverage from a red cup and was pretty emotional. It was funny, but I'm not so sure the chicks dig that!  We took little Miriam with us and she was delightful. I love her new little teeth! We had bad traffic going out there, and the concert took forever to get going, but it was really entertaining. We snacked on banana chips and played with Miriam while we were waiting. Uncle Matt stayed home with Ellie and fed her dinner and put her to bed. It was very nice of him.

            The next weekend we did a fun date too of going out to the Orem City carnival and getting food and walking around. It was really interesting to see all of the rides, since they’re collapsible. Next we got some frozen yogurt. One of our favorite things to do!