Face Series

One second I'm fine...

Wait a minute, I'm mad...

I'm really mad, can't you see...

Mmm...maybe more sad than mad...

Okay, I'm happy again!

Vernal Trip

We took a quick trip to Vernal last weekend so John and Brad could bid on a goat tag for Jeff at an auction. We took out favorite traveling buddy with us...Emma. We love to take Emma with us for a lot of reasons. First, she keeps Johnny happy and occupied and never gets frustrated. As he was coughing (he's had a cold) and crying in the back seat, I could hear Emma saying very softly to him, "Oh poor baby." Emma is going to be a great mom. Second, she never whines! She's happy to do whatever we are doing and doesn't complain. Isn't that amazing in a child her age? We ate at JB's and the food was truly horrible. I didn't say anything about it until the next day, when I said, "Didn't you think that food was terrible last night?" And she said, "Yes, but I was too embarrassed to say anything." Lastly, she gets me out of things I don't particularly want to do. For example, when John says to me, "Do you want to run up that hill (or in this case, the side of a mountain) and see if that is a petroglyph or not?" Then I can reply, "How about we let Emma do that?" Thanks, Emma!!

Johnny has this habit of forming an "O" with his mouth and making monkey sounds (whoo, whoo, whoo) when he is excited about something. Pretty much anything can elicit this response, picking him up when he wants to be held, being able to press the buttons on our cell phones, etc. This time, he was most impressed with John's sunglasses.

I hate to have pictures of myself right now since I need to lose weight! I'm working on it, though. If you look closely, you can see petroglyphs in the background.

Steps leading to a petroglyph display. Pretty amazing that these were done thousands of years ago.

Close-up of a petroglyph

This is the one John wasn't sure was a petroglyph and he "invited" me to run up the mountain to see.

Johnny is One!

It seems like yesterday that Johnny was born, but we woke up last Sunday and he turned one! We had a little party at our house with family. Johnny gets very solemn around crowds. We knew it was going to be a night for shyness when he would barely crack a smile for Aunt Suzy.

It got worse when I accidentally snapped the little elastic strap when putting on his birthday hat. He sobbed and sobbed. It was so sad!

Emma made him one of his favorite gifts. She bought these wooden beads at a garage sale, washed them in the dishwasher to sanitize them, then strung them on a ribbon to make a necklace.

John models the bead necklace.

Balls were a hit. Johnny can actually throw a ball with surprising accuracy. He has also started tossing his empty bottles from his crib into his dirty linen basket. Yesterday, when I emptied his linen basket, I found 5 empty bottles he had thrown in there!

Thanks, everyone, for celebrating with us!