Attack of Puke-a-saurus

It's strange to report, but little Aria loves scooping the kitty litter. Don't ask me why, because I can't explain it. However, she is not very fond of washing her hands afterwards. Yesterday, I had to grapple with her and force her to wash her hands, but before I was successful, she managed to stick her fingers in her mouth and lick them (sick!). Now today, during her nap, it appears as though karma caught up with her and her hand washing rebellion. During her afternoon nap, a peaceful sleeping Aria was transformed into the mighty puke-a-saurus, and totally throttled our bed. Curses!!! I have spared you the pictures of the carnage. Luckily, ever since, she's been feeling much better and by the end of the day, was acting like this never even happened.

On a more cheery note, little Zade is smiling more and more each day. Here's a pretty lucky shot of him pulling the classic baby smile as he falls asleep.


Here's some more footage of Zade just being his little self:


And a clip of Aria being silly:

Colossal Mountain Cave

We went as a family to Colossal Cave Mountain Park this weekend. One neat thing about it is that it's apparently a "dead" cave, in that there is no water in it anymore, so the formations are no longer growing. The one benefit this has is that they allow you to take pictures inside, because they don't have to worry about camera flashes disturbing the formations. Thus, we were able to get a bunch of good pics. The only unfortunate thing about the cave is that is has been severely vandalized, because many people have broken off pieces of the formations (to take as souvenirs).







Afterwards we had a picnic outside and were able to get some shots of little Zade smiling. He's quite a jolly little fellow:



Here are just a couple more fun misc. family pics:

After the weddings

Mother's Day

Since it's Mother's Day, I thought I'd put together a short tribute to my dear wife, the best mom in the world:

She brings a great sense of humor into our home (though sometimes at the children's expense) :)



And she's always up for adventure. She should be the poster child for on-the-go mom's. Camping, hiking, skiing, etc, man, nothing stops her.





She is literally a 24-7 mom, playing with the kids all day, feeding babies at night, tending to their endless needs, and giving her all until she's got nothing left.



She's so patient with them, and encourages them to learn new things, even when they're stubborn.



And she's even working hard to instill environmental awareness in them.


Not every moment of motherhood is glamorous, and tasks can become mundane.


Yet, she manages to do it all and still look so good.



Happy Mother's Day Tara. I'm so glad your my wife. You do so much more than I could ever compile into a collage like this. Since being a mom is a thankless job, hopefully this small token of gratitude will help you know how much we all love you.

Zade's baby blessing

Since we were out in Utah for Shara and Stephen's wedding, we got permission to perform Zade's baby blessing in Tara's home ward in Sandy, Utah. Tara's immediate family (excluding the honeymooners) were there, along with several members of her aunt Marjorie's family, even my father was able to made the trek up from Oregon to be there as well. Since I'm not a fan of long prayers or blessings, I tried to keep it fairly short and to the point. Since this is basically our family journal, I thought I'd list some of the things that were said in the blessing, should he care to know someday:

- That he'll have a sharp mind, optimistic outlook, and uplifting sense of humor,
- That he'll have health and strength so that he can fulfill his mission in life,
- That he'll discover his talents early in life, so that he can develop them to bless other's lives and his own.
- That he can also have many spiritual experiences at a young age so that he can know independently of all other people that God lives and loves him, and of His plan for him.
- That he'll be a good example at home, school, and church, and be a light in their lives
- That he'll be able to serve a mission and be married in the temple, so that he can experience the great joys in life that God wants all of his children to have.

That's the general gist of it. These are many of the same things I blessed Aria with. Because a baby's blessing is truly God's to give, I prayed about each of these points before giving him the blessing to ensure the Lord was on board with them, and I felt a sense of peace as I went through each one, so I feel confident that they were in accordance with his will. And as always, I ended the blessing with the open ended statement that we were leaving him these blessings, and any others that the Lord sees fit to bestow on him. He was a good little boy and waited until the blessing was over before he started crying. :) Aria only made it about half way through the blessing before she was done and began crying. I don't blame either of them, since those little babies get bounced so much during the blessing.

Anyway, since both of Zade's grandpa's were there, I got a picture of them holding him afterwards:

Shara & Stephen's Wedding