Sedona & the State Fair

So a couple of weeks ago we went to the AZ state fair (Chase and Finn's first time) with our friends. It was fun... But not quite as fun as it was in junior high. Haha. But we bought lots of fried food, went on one ride that made us sick, and played with Finn in the petting zoo - by far this was the best part. He loved it and was running around like a maniac.

Trying out a fried Snickers.

He was very concerned about this turkey.

Cory & Em, bein' all awesome.

Cory *trying* to be all awesome by "jokingly" sticking his head outside the ride as the speaker system announced for everyone to keep the heads straight... he got smacked so hard when the safety bars came down. Poor guy... but it was pretty hilarious. 

Fried cheesecake. This thing about killed us.

Anyway, we had a fun time! Don't know that I'll go next year though... those rides are more like a good way to simulate getting rear-ended by someone. 

Moving on, we also went to Sedona with our other good friends Casey and Aubs! My mom watched Finn for 2 days while we went and just did whatever we wanted in Sedona - with the help of Groupon of course. 

We ate a lot of junk food, watched a lot of Downton Abbey, went shopping, and went on a jeep tour with a crazy old Indian guy that swerved on the main road so much we thought he was going to hit oncoming traffic. Instead, we survived to listen to him tell us about all the natural health remedies in the dessert - cures for cancer and birth control and a lot of other questionable remedies. Nurse Aubrey had to bite her tongue a lot. But we had such a blast with our good old college friends! We are so lucky they decided to follow us to AZ. We missed the Finnster a ton though and immediately went to pick him up when we got home - along with a quick stop by Walmart to pick up his early Christmas present we had ordered a few weeks before.

Dippin' our toes at Slide Rock with all the nice Koreans. It was too cute - we were there with a bus full of Korean tourists and all of them went straight to put their feet in the water. They even brought towels to be prepared. :)

Why yes, we did buy matching wolf shirts. Even got one for Chicken Dinner.

It is a little Jr. High-ish to take photos trying on things, but what else do you do when you go shopping in Sedona?

I love Chase's smile here. He's like a goofy little boy.

At Slide Rock.

Annnnd Finn's super cool early Christmas gift: a trampoline! This kid is in love. He NEEDS something to bounce out all his energy. We jump on it every day... about 5 times a day.

Little scamp

Hey you, little trouble maker. I have a bone to pick with you. You are really testing this mama's strength, you know that? It's a constant, daily battle I've been fighting and it's wearing me down.

What with the never ending flow of hand prints that magically appear on our TV screen - only accessible by climbing onto the TV stand that you very well know is off limits. I swear I clean it twice a day, yet I never catch you at it.

And then there's the stickiness - all over the floor I just cleaned. From melting pop-see's that you ask for every 5 minutes by standing at the freezer door and pleading in your fake close-to-tears voice. And from day-old cups of yogurt that you drink out of the trash can when I'm not looking. And when I do look?

You give me that face. Those squinty, crinkled eyes paired with the tiniest and most mischievous grin known to man... Topped off with your shoulders hunched upward in a guilty sort of way and your head cocked to one side.

I try to discipline you - or at least sound upset that you drank and smeared yogurt all over yourself. I really do try... but it's only halfhearted because what I really feel like doing is laughing. Most of the time I DO laugh and then groan in frustration at my lack of parenting skills.

And you know what else? You passed your hearing test in the hospital when you were born. So why is it that whenever I yell, "NO FINN! GET OUT OF THE SINK!" or some similarly dramatic shriek, you just keep going like you don't hear me? Well okay, sometimes you do hear me. But it's worse, because you calmly take the time to grin at me, then giggle, then hurriedly continue your trouble-making before I sprint to you to pull you down from the table/counter/computer desk/piano/shelf/toilet, etc.

The few times dad or I do sound angry enough to even register with you - where you actually feel like you're in trouble - you quickly cut off our stern words with a panicked, "Eyes?!" and you point to your eyes. We always stop and look confused for a second. I think it's your sneaky way of distracting us.

Today you broke the watch daddy gave me when we were first dating. It has a picture of an otter on it and says, "I'm an otter, not a beaver." I had let you play with it and had sized it just right for your tiny wrist so you could wear a watch like your papa. You didn't mean to drop it.

Just like you didn't "mean" to throw my phone across the kitchen and shatter it's glass back. Surely it should have bounced like your toy cars do? And like the lamp you smashed at grandma's house, or the glasses you broke at a friend's party...

Every morning when you wake up, you yell for me to come get you. And always, as soon as I open the door, you fling yourself to the opposite side of the crib and hide your face in your blankets and then peep one eye open to look at me, that little mischievous grin always there. You insist - every morning - on taking Mr. Quack Dealer, Elmo, and three crocheted blankets with us into the living room. No lovey left behind.

Then when we arrive to the living room you promptly dump them all onto the floor and forget about them.

Our house has become a tangle of weird old wires and cords. You carry dad's headphones, old chargers that no longer work, guitar plugs - you carry them all around the house, shove them into small spaces and drawers for us to find later or else leave them on the floor so I trip on them.

You REFUSE to make diaper changing simple. It has been a year since the last time I changed your diaper with you laying down. Seriously kid, you cannot sit still. You have to know how everything works, what every button does, what every piece of trash feels like, how every stranger will respond to your waves and shouts of "Hi!"

You DO love attention (like your dad perhaps?). You stare at everyone with a big smile until they acknowledge you. And if they don't, you'll double back and walk right up to them and say "hi" until they glance down at you in surprise and return your greeting. At which point you shuffle your feet shyly and run away. At church... Oh, you are the talk of the town. Everyone knows your face, even the other wards that just remember you from us wandering the halls during sacrament meeting (ha, because when was the last time you sat through one of those?!) The famous Finn, with his charm that never fails to bring smiles to the youngest, oldest, happiest, and saddest. That's you buddy - if only they saw you when the charm is turned off!

And then there's the fact that you must have some kind of death wish. Pulling swords onto yourself, knocking heavy amps over and nearly smashing your legs, jumping off of tables without a trace of fear, climbing on anything no matter how tall or precarious. You have so much energy too - moving from one trouble-making opportunity to the next before I even have time to blink or clean up the last mess.

You forgive so readily.
You smile so quickly.
You love so easily.

It's impossible to be angry with you. It's impossible to think that for one moment I would ever want to live in a house without sticky floors, smudged furniture, crooked chairs pushed up to counters, and tangles of wires at my feet. It's ridiculous for me to wish that you were calmer, slower, perfectly obedient, less of a dare devil and a clown and a people lover - because you wouldn't be you. You wouldn't be the perfect little boy who runs to throw his arms around my neck when I stupidly lose my temper with you. You wouldn't be the crazy ball of energy who suddenly stops and stares sweetly when the other kids at daycare take your toys and jostle you out of their way. You wouldn't be the only person on the planet who could make me giggle uncontrollably while grabbing my face and forcing your sticky, snotty nose against mine and staring into my eyes with your beautiful ones, so full of life and love.

So my bone to pick with you, baby boy... toddler now... is that you need to stop this growing up thing. I don't think I can handle another day of it. I'll miss these moments with you and even though I know I can't freeze them in time or stop them from passing... I will treasure them forever. I love you, little scamp.

Always,
Mom

4th of July

We went to visit Chase's family up in Idaho for the 4th and loved it!

We drove. We drove 14 hours. We drove 14 hours straight through the night with a dog and a toddler who had molars cutting through his poor little gums. But the drive up went surprisingly well - there was a lot of audio-book-listening, Sesame Street-watching and Cherry Pepsi-drinking. But we made it and Finn really did pretty well, sleeping for a good chunk of the drive.

Once we got there, we had blast just spending time together. Dan and Courtney, Chase's bro and sis-in-law were there for Dan's med school rotation so we had the whole Child family all in one place! Well, Liz was only there one night because she had school, but still. We went boating and I water skied for the first time ever and it made me so sore! Finn even went on the tube, sandwiched between Chase and I. He loved it! He just had this scared little smile on his face the whole time until the water started splashing into his eyes. Then he was done. It was so fun though!

The night before the 4th was when we actually watched fireworks. We found a big empty field next to the restaurant we ate dinner at, so we just laid out our blankets there and played capture the flag until it got dark. I had so much fun! I think I could have played all night. Unfortunately everyone else is a lot more mature than me, so that didn't happen. :) It was great for the grandkids because they could run all over without being too close to the road.

We ran a 5k the next morning, the 4th, which made me even sorer because I haven't ran in almost 6 years. I was almost last, haha. Well, actually, I did pretty great because Chase and I got our racing numbers mixed up, meaning he did pathetically bad, when you compared my time to all the manly men's times. Then we watched the parade. Finn loved picking up the candy. And eating it, of course.

Later we set up the tripod and took some family pictures, since we had everyone together. The Child's are one good-lookin' fam. Too bad Finn was having a meltdown the whole time. Hence the popsicles.

Later that week we went to some ridiculously too-beautiful-to-be-real glacier-fed lakes in Bloomington. It was so gorgeous. I wanted to just live there, forever. Chase said that's what Alaska is like, so I'm really excited that our next big vacation will *hopefully* be an Alaskan cruise. I'd love to see where he served his mission. Anyway, after the lakes we went to Bear Lake, which is equally as cool! It was so fun because it had a sandy beach that went out in shallow water for over a mile. We went so far out and still it was only just above my knees. The kids LOVED it! Finn kept standing up and then jumping and landing on his bum (he does the same thing on the trampoline). So fun.

The drive home wasn't quite as smooth as the drive up. We stopped in Provo to have dinner with our BFFs Adam and Amanda. Then we went the rest of the way, but Finn had a much harder time sleeping and Chase and I were so exhausted... like, not thinking clearly... like, not clearly enough that we made a wrong turn that added 90 DANG MILES to our trip. We had to switch drivers almost every 2 hours. We listened to Ender's Game and ate Sour Patch Kids, but it was still so hard. When we finally got home (after realizing our stupid hour and a half mistake) we all crashed and slept for 7 hours! Even Finn!

Anyway, it was a great trip, we looooved being around family and being in cooler weather. But I think what I loved most was just spending time with Chase - without either of us having to worry about work. He is the best fellow I know. :)