Dennis The Menace

Taj checking to see if the lock still works after the middle of the door knob was hollowed out.


Today I thought we were actually going to be on time for church. I got up a little earlier, showered, did my hair, and even had Sunday dinner in the crockpot a half hour before church started. Taj however had other plans. Lately he has been locking himself in the bathrooms or our bedroom. He knows how to unlock the doors and we can get him to come out when we tell him we're leaving to go "bye bye." Today was different though. I was coming down the hall towards our room right as Taj bolted out of our room and slammed the door on his way out. I knew what he did before I got to our door. This time he locked our door with nobody inside our room. The other bad part was that my church clothes were locked inside, so we had to deal with the locked door if I wanted to go to church. No key, butter knife, paper clip, or hanger would loosen that stupid lock, so Brannon broke out the power drill and drilled the middle right out of the door knob. About three piles of metal shavings and 20 minutes later, we finally got into the room. We were only 30 minutes late to church, which my primary kids notified me of as soon as I walked in the room:) I just have to remind myself that someday these kind of things will be funny and I'd rather have a little excitement every day than the same old dull routine!

The Zoo is Hot!

Brannon and Taj with Wyatt (his brother) and Taj's cousin Alivia (who Taj absolutely loves by the way! He can't stop hugging her when she's around:))


This is the only picture we got of Taj with an animal and it was the first one we saw. I almost crossed the fence to share some shade with the camel!
Great minds think alike. Child harnesses are the best and Taj actually didn't mind his this time.



Every time Brannon and I take Taj to the zoo, we always leave saying, "I'd be just fine if I never went there again!" I have to admit I didn't have the best attitude from the beginning. My reasons: a) It was 95 degrees outside. b) It smells like ish even worse when it's hot at the zoo, especially the monkeys. c) I'm 30 weeks pregnant. d) I had to wait in line for half an hour just to get a drink. I thought I would die before it was my turn to order. e) Did I mention it was freakin hot?! We didn't even get to see very many animals while we were there, but we did manage to let the kids ride the carousel once. I think that I was crankier than the kids were. I don't tolerate heat well when I'm not pregnant, so when I am pregnant AND hot, I'm pretty much a pregnazilla. If there is a next time at the zoo in the near future, it will be either in the fall or the early spring. I think going to the zoo is a personal sacrifice because I think most parents don't enjoy it, but their kids do so that's why they go. Taj actually liked it this time, so I'm sure we'll be making more miserably hot trips to the zoo. Only watching him enjoy the animals made our trip worth it!

The Week in Monticello in Pictures

There are only four of these left in the world and one of them belongs to little ol' Monticello, UT. I used to play on this tractor when I was a little girl and it sat at the town park. On hot days my best friend and I would climb between the spokes on the wheel and rest in the shade of the giant wheel. We like to pretend we were driving it. I never thought this old tractor would move on its own again, but I was wrong!
The other coolest part of the parade. Isn't this miniature pony adorable?!
Taj bummed snow cone off of his Uncle Brian and....
His uncle Easton. Only Taj could get away with that. Apparently 2 year olds don't have cooties...if they only knew!

Enjoying the first spoils of the parade.
Besides not wanting to leave the four wheeler, Taj never strayed far from grandma's Diet Dr. Pepper.
He pretty much watched the entire parade from the four wheeler. Even though it was blazing hot, he refused to get off for more than five minutes at a time.
My dad on grill duty at Miss Marci's birthday.
Aren't they (AKA mom and grandma) hilarious? They think they are!
Easton was the only one with hips narrow enough to take Taj down the slide. Obviously Taj was loving it:)
My brother Matt and his wife Ali.
The centerpiece for my sister's tables at her birthday party. We made a handful of paper flowers under the birthday girl's direction and then drank almond punch with vintage paper straws out of mason jars.
The birthday girl and her hubby Brian.
Miss Marci's 21st birthday party. It was pure Americana: family, lots of food, lots of friends, even more kids, and a lot of fun!

Father/Son Bonding

Brannon's new weight loss plan: A 10 speed Huffy, circa 1980 something, extra large seat, fanny pack, bell on the handle bars, and 30 pound child on the back. They love going for bike rides together and I love that I have some time to myself at night. Not only do I get a kiss from Brannon before they leave, but when Brannon is home Taj does everything his daddy does, so I get one from Taj too:)
He did not want his picture taken, nor did he want me encroaching on his time with daddy!

Never mind all the grease from the bike chain down the front of his shirt and up his arms. He saw his daddy fixing the bike chain and decided he would give it a try as soon as daddy walked away. He looks like a little mechanic! Looking at this picture reminds me, sadly, that he is growing up way too fast!

Did I mention...

Before
Before
After
After
I didn't realize I smurfitized myself until after the fact. Good thing I was wearing old sandals!

Did I mention that I love KSL Classifieds? We needed another dresser for the baby's room so I hit the classifieds. We bought it for about $30 dollars and I spent about another $30 to shine it up a bit and I love how it turned out!

Fireworks

Instead of going to the late night fireworks, we did our own little fireworks show at home. I think this will become a tradition for our family. Taj LOVED the snakes/worms, sparklers, and pop-its. He could have cared less about all the other cool, expensive, fireworks we got for him. At least Brannon had fun lighting them and I enjoyed watching them:)

Happy 4th: Part 2

This was our favorite part of the parade. A fleet of vintage VW vans, trucks, and beetles was part of the parade. We've seen this rig around town and Brannon loves it. He says he would like one just like it, surfboard, rust, and all.

Not so sure about the saltwater taffy. He spit it out a few minutes later.
About the only smile we've gotten out of him today. I think the heat makes toddlers ornery. I know that it makes me ornery too, just ask anyone in my family;)
How dare daddy tell me to sit down!
You can tell by the look on Taj's face how exciting the parade was:) The only part he really liked was the Davis High Marching Band because he got the chance to dance to their music (he loves dancing).
He does have a flare for the dramatic. I think this fit lasted about five minutes (which is a long time in toddler time) and included a lot of whining, kicking of the feet, gnashing of the teeth, and rolling around. He finished by standing up and swatting me on the belly and running away. That's my sweet little angel boy!



We went to the 4th of July parade in Kaysville this year. I am sorry to say that it was pretty disappointing. Coming from a small town I expected that a parade in a big town would have a lot of floats and fanfare. I counted three decorated floats, countless vehicles with signs on the side, two marching bands, a lot of fire trucks and police cars (all blaring their sirens at full blast), and a ton of parade police that kept riding back and forth blowing their whistles and moving people back off the road. We made it through about an hour and a half of it and decided to leave because it was so hot and humid. We were lucky and had cloud cover, but it felt like we were in a sauna. Blanding and Monticello definitely have better parades! We spent the rest of our day in the coolness of our basement and plan on doing our own little fireworks show tonight. I'm sure we'll just watch the other fireworks from our backyard since they will be so close. It was a good ol' Americana weekend filled with good food and good people!

Happy 4th of July!

Taj sitting on the time-out stump. It was perfect because it was high up enough that he couldn't get down by himself;)




It only took us an hour to walk up this little stretch of road because of the water. Taj loves throwing rocks in the water and the runoff is so bad this year that nearly this whole road was flooded out with water. Look at all those rocks to throw! Taj of course thinks he has to throw every single one and when he got bored with the rocks, he just decided to walk through the water instead.



Taj's first fruit roll-up. He had more fun unrolling it than actually eating it.
Learning how to blow bubbles, only I bought the cheap kind and they didn't work, so Taj resorted to walking around chewing on the wand instead.

Here he is trying to hand me something yucky he found on the floor. I was too afraid it was a bug, so I wouldn't touch it.
Taj pushed this dump truck for miles. He ran it up the rocky dirt road by our campsite nearly all day. Once he got to the top of the hill, he liked to watch his dump truck cruise back down the hill by itself. On the way up the hill he kept pausing to hold his lower back. All that crouching down and running would hurt my back too!


Brannon always like a picture of "our campsite," so here it is!


Part 1 of our 4th of July weekend began in the Uintah mountains. Brannon has been dying to try out our new camp trailer and finally the perfect weekend presented itself. We stayed for two nights and I have to say that camping was A LOT easier in a camp trailer vs. the two man tent we used to use. For starters, I can actually sleep for more than two hours in a camp trailer because I'm not freaking out over every little noise I hear, worried that a monster bear or mountain lion is going to rip our tent and us to shreds any minute. It's a lot warmer and much more comfortable sleeping in the camp trailer too, which is a definite bonus for a big pregnant lady. Brannon planned all the meals for the trip and even made me a grocery list. I think he was pretty proud of himself because he had everything all planned out. I was proud of him too for taking charge of the cooking. Cooking in the woods he'll do, but cooking in the kitchen--out of the question! He did a great job. Hopefully I convinced him that he really does know how to cook so that he'll be willing to try out his camp chef skills at home:) I think it's safe to say that Taj LOVES camping. He spent the majority of the time throwing rocks, pushing his dump truck around, wasting our water (he liked pushing the spout), exploring the country side , and helping his daddy cook and build fires. It was tough getting him to go to sleep at night, but at least he stayed asleep once he was down and one morning he slept until 9:30! I consider this camping trip a success as I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would and we didn't blow an old trailer tire on the way up (we did lose a hubcap on the way back though:)). It was fun to watch Taj have a good time and to just spend time together as a family.