4th of July Weekend

Spencer and I spent last week in St. George with my parents so Matt could get some serious yard work and studying in (he's studying for the CPA exam). It was so fun to spend so much time with my parents. Usually during Spencer's nap I frantically clean the house and take my shower but it was nice to be at my parents' because instead my mom and I were lazy and read books and took naps while the little beast was asleep. Then I could take a shower at some other time while my mom tended, oh what luxury! Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures. The one below is of Spencer playing with my mom.
On Thursday night Matt drove down to St. George and on Friday morning my mom tended Spencer while my dad, Matt, and I went on the Observation Point hike at Zion. Here I am before the hike, all "bright eyed and bushy-tailed" as they say...
and here I am at the top. Apparently pushing a stroller on mostly flat roads doesn't prepare you for hiking as well as I thought it would...
Here is Matt and I on the way, don't be fooled by my smile, I was dying!
My dad, me, and Matt at the top. The view was worth the hike!
So I guess I'm not a very good mom or blogger because I didn't take any pictures on the 4th of July. Spencer had a cute little 4th of July outfit but early on in the day Matt fed him a whole bottle of straight water which resulted in him peeing right through his diaper and all over his outfit in the car. Matt has now been informed that water goes in sippy-cups and not bottles.

But the most exciting thing that happened on the 4th was that these two...
got engaged! This is my little brother, Jaren, and his fiance, Callie. They are getting married on August 15th and we are all so excited! We love Callie and can't wait to have her in our family!

In other news...last Wednesday night Matt raked in all the seed for our yard. As I mentioned earlier, he left on Thursday for St. George. Well on Thursday some guys were working on concrete at the house being built next-door to us and our sprinkler system was spraying a little water on their work so they decided to shut off our water. I can understand them not wanting water on their work but after they finished they didn't turn the water back on so our new seeds, garden, and flower pots didn't get watered at all on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I called the county extension yesterday and they told me our seeds were pretty much toast. So last night Matt got to re-seed the entire yard. Needless to say, we weren't very happy about this. But on the bright side, the concrete company is going to pay us for the seed they ruined. Oh the joys of being a home-owner!

The Father's Day Post

What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't do a Father's Day Post/Ode to my husband, dad, and father-in-law?

Matt the model, husband, and dad

My dad, Jay, who Spencer is named after (Spencer's middle name is Jay)

Matt's dad, Mark, who recently retired so he could be a full-time grandpa
(the older boy is Matt's brother, Dave, and Matt is the chubby baby)

Happy Father's Day!

Walking

Spencer is starting to get the hang of walking. It's been a lot of fun to watch him learn; he's still pretty wobbly but we thought we'd post a few videos for the family and a picture for those of you who don't feel like watching the videos :) Enjoy!


P.S. Don't mind me in my pajamas and my high pitched annoying baby talk voice, just focus on the adorable little boy!

Gardening, Yardwork, and the Park...

It feels like all we have done lately is work on our yard. I had no idea it would be so much work to get a yard ready for grass. Here is Matt playing with his toy. We rented this machine (I don't know what it's called) for a few days and Matt pushed a lot of dirt back. Matt was in heaven, too bad he chose accounting instead of construction for his career.

After pushing the dirt back and putting in a rock retaining wall on the back line of our property, Matt was able to start on the sprinkler system. I want to give a shout out to all the family and friends who have come and helped him with it! Thanks so much! Matt's dad is in the picture above. Yesterday Matt's mom and dad came up and spent the day helping us with sprinklers and our garden. I am so excited to have a garden again! In our last house we did one the first year but last year after Spencer was born I was a little too crazy/emotional/overwhelmed/fat to do a garden (I'm sure all you moms out there understand). Matt's mom pretty much planted the whole garden because Spencer didn't want to sit in his stroller while we worked on it for very long(imagine that!). Along with some other veggies, we planted 12 tomato plants, about 10 pepper plants, and some onions; so hopefully I'll be making lots of salsa!

Now for the big news...Spencer took his first steps last week! The most he's done is about 4 steps and he doesn't do it very often but it's a start! He walks along behind this little lion toy that my parents gave him for his birthday. It's kind of funny because he's very serious about pushing it, like it's a very important job or something. When he's in our house if he runs into something he screams until I get it unstuck, so we took him to a park so he could push it a long way with no obstacles. Here's a few pics and a video (my mom will probably be the only one interested in the video, it's pretty boring).

Randomness

We haven't really done anything very exciting lately but I thought I'd post some pictures from the past few weeks...

This first picture is Spencer and his cousin, Marin. As you can see, they're very photogenic. This was the best picture we could get (you can only imagine what the others looked like).
I usually don't post crafty projects...because I don't do crafty projects. But I did help Matt with a project a few weekends ago. My parents gave Matt and I their old oak table; it didn't really match our flooring and cabinets so we painted it a creamy white color. The first picture is the "before" (the white leaf was the test to make sure the paint would stick). We used my sister-in-law's paint sprayer and it made the project so easy. I've spray painted old furniture before with cans of spray paint and it takes FOREVER; with the sprayer it was so fast! Even though Matt got paint all over himself and our night ended with me scrubbing his face with mineral spirits until 1:00 am, we are happy with the finished product. I probably wouldn't choose arrow-back chairs, but you can't beat free right?

Last week Matt was auditing in Salt Lake so Spencer and I went down and stayed with him. We went shopping during the day and after he got done working at night we hung out in the big city. Our hotel had a pool and Spencer loved it! I forgot to take my camera to the pool but I thought he looked so cute in his swimsuit...

We actually only stayed one night at the hotel because Spencer was AWFUL during the first night. He woke up and cried about every hour. For some reason it made him mad that Matt and I were in the same room with him and wouldn't take him out of his pack'n'play. Luckily Matt's parents live near Salt Lake so we went and stayed with them the next night. The little stinker slept all night without making a peep in their office.

A few weeks ago I tried to cut Spencer's hair (the mullet was just getting too nasty) and I totally screwed it up. Luckily my friend next door cuts hair and she took pity on me and fixed it. Spencer wasn't too thrilled but I love the new haircut, he looks like such a little boy!
Spencer gets some awesome bed-head most days during his nap...

In other news, we're working on getting our yard ready to put in grass. Last week I spent my precious time during Spencer's nap spraying weeds. I probably spent about 8 hours spraying weeds and I'll be super ticked if they don't die. So far they're still alive.

Well that's all I can think of to post about, I hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather!

Master Matt

WARNING: If you don't like "braggy" posts don't read this one.

On Friday Matt received his Master's of Accounting from Weber State University. He's been working full time and taking a few classes each semester for about 2 years now. Since we moved to Cache Valley he has been driving down to Ogden for his classes so we're really excited for him to be done! Here are a few pictures from the big day...

Spencer is 1!

Wow, today is Spencer's first birthday. I know everybody always says this but...his first year went by so fast! Maybe it's because the pregnancy seemed to last such a long time. We had a little party with some friends and family last night, here are a few pictures...

This is the first (and will probably be the last) layer cake I've ever made. I bought some round tin pans at the dollar store because I didn't have any round cake pans. One tin was inside the other one so I should have known they weren't the same size, so the bottom layer was slightly bigger than the top layer, it kind of looked like a giant white hamburger to me. Icing it was a nightmare, I have a lot more respect for people who make wedding cakes now...

Marin was a big help blowing out candles...

I think he liked the cake...

I think Marin and Scotty liked the cake too...

But he hated getting cleaned up afterwards...He had fun opening presents (with the help of Marin and Scotty of course)...Here he is with one of my best friends, Amanda Allan...

And here are my two little brothers, Blake and Jaren, and Jaren's girlfriend Callie...

Happy birthday Spencer Jay!!!