snowbird...

This weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday evening we had a night at the Snowbird Lodge. On the way up we decided to stop off at the Cheesecake Factory to grab a little dinner. On the way the canyon Eleanor started fussing a little bit and to keep my insanity I told her we'd go swimming right when we got the the hotel. Little did I know that she would understand "right when". Before we got to the room her clothes were basically off and she wanted her swim suit on! Unfortunately, we couldn't take her into the adult only pool and had to swim with a dozen other kids. John got grossed out and said he felt like he was swimming in urine. Nice, I know. After swimming we were planning on going for  a walk but it gotso dang cold we ended up watching Lary King.  The next morning we were shocked to wake up to 4 inches of snow! That's correct, 4 inches of snow in JUNE! We were a little bummed we didn't bring our skis up with us! I'll just be glad when summer finally gets here. I love the snow and I've really enjoyed this winter, but I'm REALLY looking forward to some HOT weather!

view from my room...

With Spring comes great rain storms and amazing rainbows. When I pulled open my blinds this morning this is what I saw. I LOVE Spring!

eleanor's got her boots...

I know I get it from my mom, but I love little kids in cowboy boots. The other day I had to go down to the local Reams Western store to pick up our tickets for the Lehi Round Up. While I was buying the tickets Eleanor went shopping and picked out her very first pair of real cowgirl boots! Of course she had to take off the shoes she was wearing and put her boots on immediately. I was shocked when she looked down at her boots and said, "pink boots". I've been telling her all the colors, but this was the first she actually got it right! So yeah, its official Eleanor is a true Lehi Girl. Speaking of Lehi, John still gets so embarrassed when he as to tell people we live in Lehi. He grew up in the neighboring town, American Fork, and never really liked Lehi. As for me, I actually like our little town of Lehi.

john, flowers, eleanor and underoos...

I am so glad summer is finally here! The past few days/evenings are been beautiful! We've been spending a lot of time outside. Last Wednesday I hosted book club and the weather allowed us to have it outside on our patio. Then on Friday night we had a group of friends over for a BBQ and smores over the fire pit. Saturday John went over to the Highland Nursery and picked up some flowers for our flower pots. John has such a great talent for gardening! He put together seven pots of flowers and they are all stunning! I tried putting a few together while he was at work but they looked so bad John had to fix them. If he could, John would love to quit his job at Goldman Sachs and open a nursery. Maybe one day! 

Of course Eleanor has to be right there next to John helping with the flowers (aka pulling off pedals or digging in the dirt).



I had to include these photos of Eleanor in her first pair of underoos! I was lucky to find some with ponies on them. The first pair lasted a whole hour and before the "horse peed". I'm not quite sure why Eleanor is so obsessed with horses and peeing. 

eleanor...

tea party...

This afternoon Eleanor had three cute friends over for a tea party. It was so much fun seeing all the little girls dressed up in their 'beautiful' dresses and 'pretty' shoes. Of course the tea (pink lemonade) and the cookies were about all they ate. After the tea they all hit the sprinklers! Again, they were so cute in their little diapers, or bare buns! It really was a fun afternoon. I'm so glad Eleanor has such great friends...and great mom friends!! Of course we all took a thousand photos. There were so many cute ones. I quickly wen through and found a few.

farm land

I met up with Tiffany, Paul and Addie today at Farm Land. I went with Mindy Johnson a few weeks ago and Eleanor loved it!! It is Eleanor's dreamland!  She loves feeding all the animals and loves the pony ride. Since our first visit, every time she talks on the phone with anyone she tells them about how the horse in front of her pooped. We even had to come home and put diapers on all her horses because she was positive they were going to poop. She cracks me up!! Well, after todays visit I decided we need a year pass. I'm sure we'll be down there at least twice a week...

memorial day

We had a great memorial day weekend! Saturday we spent most the day doing yard work. We laid down weed guard and put in new bark between the fence and curbing.  We were beat so we just ordered in food and spent the evening at home. 

Sunday was a huge milestone, Eleanor stayed in nursery the entire time! The trick was having Lori drop her off with Evan. I do the nursery singing time and would take her with me before she was old enough for nursery. By the time she was actually in nursery she was used to be being in with her.  I get the biggest kick out of watching her sitting on her little chair participating in nursery. She doesn't really sing, but she's got a lot of the hand actions down. I think her new favorite is Book of Mormon Stories.  

Sunday evening we had Jay and Scott over for a BBQ.  It was such nice weather and Eleanor, Zack and Bear had a blast playing out in the yard. Eleanor loved chasing Bear and Zack to give them hugs and kisses. I don't think either really enjoyed it! After the BBQ we went over to Jay and Scott's to get some Johnny-Jump-Ups starters for our flower garden. While we were over Zack took Eleanor on a long ride in his little motorized truck. It was hilarious, it was like they were on this little date! On the way home Sara called and said they had a lay over in SLC and because Jeff's back was hurting they were able to change their tickets for the next day at 3pm.

Monday morning we met up with Sara, Dick, Jeff, Elyse, Dick, Janet and Kara and her kids at Ruth's Diner. It was raining all morning and was so beautiful in the canyon. It was fun getting to see all of them and it was a great excuse to go to Ruth's. We LOVE Ruth's!!! After breakfast we stopped by Westside Nursery to pick up some more creeping thyme for our walkway. We were going to try and build our pergola over the weekend, but the rainy weather didn't allow us.  The weather warmed up a bit and we were able to have another BBQ with Scott, Michelle, Jay, Scot and Lori and Ryan. I made my famous beer-batter fries (i don't really think they are famous, they just take forever so I'm going to claim they are famous!) and everyone else brought some great food!! Of course we had to end the night playing a little game of ticket to ride. So there you have it!!

cookie weather...

it was cold, cloudy and rainy again yesterday. on my way home from picking up eleanor, i decided it was a good day to make cookies. this is a rare occasion, i hate making cookies. the truth is while in nyc i bought the magnolia bakery cookbook and really wanted to try it out. i made the toffee pecan cookies and yes they were GOOD! of course i had my little helper...

spring...

dang, it was cold today! yesterday it was 93 and today it was 50-something. what a joke! of course i've been letting eleanor play outside these past few days and of course she HAD to be outside again today.  she was so mad i would not let her play in the 'water' (rain). i swear if we bought her a little dog house she'd prefer to just live outside. hopefully this week john and i can finish our pergola and gate so she can have free range out on the patio. 

arizona...

Eleanor and I just got back from a two week vacation. We flew down to ari

here comes the sun...

finally, a warm day!! it felt so good to have my windows opened all day and look out to see the sun shining and everything so pretty! john and i bbq steaks and ate outside tonight. it was so nice. i'm looking forward to spending most evenings outside. 

7:30 pm....

today we took a quick trip to ikea and found a few toys for eleanor. one being her new horse. she's loving this new toy and has been playing with it all day. tonight after her bath (i had to fight her to keep the horse out of the bath) i let her take the horse out for one last ride. i'm loving that she's wearing evan's halloween pjs. 

and its done...

ahhh...i finished my second semester last night. what a wonderful feeling!!! it's really nice being in art school because you don't have final exams, but you do have big final projects. i'd much prefer projects over exams, at least you get to have something to show for all your hard work. i'm looking forward to my three week break before summer classes begin... 

*i wanted to put my flash project on here, but it won't allow. here is just a frame from it...

one more...

i know, i know. i'm obsessed with taking photos of eleanor and bear together. they are just too cute together to not share!

project...