Birthday Week

Earlier this week Sam and I celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary.  We're marriage pros now.  Almost to the silver! :)  As you can see, Douglas didn't want to be left out of the photo.

On Thursday Sam and I participated in some sealings at the Payson Temple while Mom and Sara watched Douglas.

Thursday evening we celebrated the July birthdays.  Papa Murphy's gave me a 40% military veteran's discount on their pizza.  Don and Judy came by to celebrate with us.

I have to thank Dan Urbina for the following sequence of photos.  He started snapping photos as we made our way through various birthday songs, and boy did he get some awesome facial expressions.  After looking through all of the photos I realized that Dan is not in a single one.  Sorry about that, Dan.

Mom's birthday was the 23rd, mine was the 24th, Jarem's is the 26th, and Dad's is the 30th.  Lizzie would have been in the photo if she lived in Utah.  Her birthday is the 15th of July.

Do you see the fifth pair of eyes?  Hint:  look under the cake.  Maxwell was tired of waiting.

Speaking of the cake....Mom made a fabulous, healthy carrot/apple cake topped with whipped cream, all made with coconut sweetener.  So yummy!

Thursday night Dad told us about a temple-to-temple walk/run taking place the very next morning - Pioneer Day (my birthday morning).  For those of you who know me, I love making my way from temple to temple, so this was a perfect way to start my birthday.  Sam joined me and we walked the 5k, along with over 10,000 other people, from the Provo Temple to the soon-to-be-completed Provo City Center Temple.

"Pioneer" women getting ready to begin the walk/run.

Gathering at the starting line.

Pioneers with their wagon.

Missionaries from the Provo Mission were providing support all along the route.

Last night we attended the Deer Valley Music Festival concert.  The Utah Symphony and two guest artists (along with a country band) performed various country music songs.  We had a great time.  Douglas absolutely loved it, and he made quite a few people laugh with his dancing, clapping, and "singing" during the performance (see videos below).

We brought some "Mormon wine" (Draper Valley Vineyard grape juice), Sam's delicious corn salad, and some homemade hummus.  Twas a great way to end my birthday.

What sign?

Douglas loves his Mama.

First Birthday

This doesn't have anything to do with his first birthday, but it's something I like to do with him when he's being goofy.

 I had to leave town two weeks before Douglas' first birthday, so we decided to do the "cake and presents" thing the day before I left to see if we could get those coveted "1st Birthday" pictures that most new parents want.  Douglas got to open his presents before singing "Happy Birthday" and eating cake.

One of his birthday presents was a box of tissues.  He loves pulling them out of the box. . .

 . . .and putting the tissues in his mouth.

 Sam made a nice little chocolate cake for Douglas' first birthday.  As new parents, our expectations were high that we would have a perfect day with lots of cute pictures.

 We did get some good pictures. . .

 . . .and then this happened.  Call it teething.  Call it anger at having to sit in his chair.  Call it whatever you want.  Perhaps we haven't allowed Douglas to feed himself enough times, so when we wanted him to dive into his cake and put it all over his face, he refused.  Nay, he rebelled!

 "I don't want to get old!"

Eventually we gave up trying to get him to eat the cake.  Instead, we put it on the floor, gave him a fork, and watched.

Hey, we made memories.  Nobody said they had to be perfect ones. :)  Honestly, I think we will laugh about this for years.  Little goober.

 A few days before Douglas' birthday, Sam went down to Provo for a visit.  Granny (Mom) made him a little cake and they tried again.  I was told that while he did eat some cake, he loved the blueberries more than the actual cake.  Stacie was down there as well, making many happy feet.

Gideon:  "What a waste of perfectly good sugar."  He probably would have kept going, but Mom stopped him so that everyone else could enjoy a piece of cake.  Gideon, I'm sure, was very grateful.

Yesterday, Sam went up to Paradise........huh, I sure enjoy saying that....."went up to Paradise."  Anyway, Douglas got a third, 1st birthday party with Grandma and company.

 Woohoo, more presents!

Krew........funny little man.

"Oh boy, they're putting another one of those things in front of me."

"And they're pointing the camera at me again.  Nope, I'm not going to give you what you want."

And THAT, my friends, is what we were looking for a couple of weeks ago. :)

Happy birthday, little Doogles!

Chastised by an eight-year-old

 I took Douglas and Ari up to the Y this morning.  It turned out to be quite miserable for Douglas, but the beginning of the hike was great.  Ari was handing rocks to Douglas (I was carrying Douglas) and Douglas would throw the rocks and laugh.  Ari even shared his protein bar with the little man.

 During one of our breaks on the way up the trail Ari looked out over the lake and asked, "Is that Cantaloupe Island out there?"  I replied, "Um, you mean Antelope Island?"  We got a good laugh out of that one.

 Things turned bad when I set Douglas down on the ground so he could play with the rocks and wander around a bit.  He took one wrong step and face-planted into the trail.......hard!  He had a nice bump on his forehead, lots of dirt up his nose, etc, etc.  This picture was taken a few minutes after his fall.

The temperature was cool, but I thought it was great because I was carrying Douglas and a backpack. Little did I realize that Douglas was freezing.  I thought that with him strapped to my chest he would stay nice and toasty.  As we approached the top of the hike he really started complaining.  I thought he was hungry so I put him down to feed him, which is when I noticed his entire body shaking and his lips turning blue.  Oops!  I covered his head and held him close the rest of the way to the Y, but by then it was too late.  He screamed whenever the cold wind came through the cracks in the baby carrier and hit his face.  I apologized to Ari and told him that we couldn't spend any time on the Y, and we began our descent.  Douglas quickly fell asleep as he warmed up.

Ari must have heard me complain multiple times (in the past) about not having any patience and not wanting more children due to the fact that I can hardly handle one, because on the way down the trail (and out of the blue) he told me, "Uncle Daniel, you always complain about not having patience and not wanting more children.  You should stop thinking about yourself and think about my mom and Aunt Elizabeth."  Wow, was the Lord trying to tell me something through my eight-year-old nephew?

 This afternoon Sam, Stacie, Douglas, Jude and I went to the Payson Temple open house.  Oh, what a temple!

 There were some strong winds bringing in the storm we're expecting this afternoon.

 Right after we put the little, white, disposable booties over our shoes in order to enter the temple, Jude walked inside and stated, "These are like the things that girls put on their heads to keep their hair dry......just on our feet."

 Little Harry Potter.  You can see the result of his spill up on Y Mountain.

Once again, the Lord provided the scenery and all I had to do was push the button on my camera.

Douglas being Douglas

I haven't taken very many videos lately, so I decided to get some footage of Douglas during one of his funniest (if you're not trying to feed him something he doesn't want) times of the day..........eating.

This one obviously doesn't have anything to do with eating, but he was being goofy out at the basketball court.

He picked a tulip from the temple grounds?!

 Saturday evening I took Gideon and Ari to the Mt. Timpanogos temple to get some pictures.  I was so focused on getting a good picture that I didn't notice Gideon helping himself to one of the tulips on the temple grounds.  I laughed when he showed it to me and I quickly explained that we do not pick the flowers at the temple.  Funny kid.

 There are two things that can keep Douglas occupied for a while:  the microwave and the blender.

 He LOVES to play with the lid on the blender.

 Today we visited the tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point Gardens.  What a gorgeous day!

 Sam made her delicious stuffed peppers for dinner this evening.  Mine had mushrooms in them. :)