Bear Lake Pictures

Here are the pictures from our weekend in Bear Lake:

We had a great time. I think even Daxton is starting to like the beach! (He better, or he is going to be bored on a lot of our family vacations!!) I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend! We are lying low and staying in town since we were gone last weekend. I can't believe summer is over already!!!! Seriously, what happened to August??? Did it blow by anyone else, or was it just me?

Daredevil girl (sometimes) and crybaby mom

We took a trip to Bear Lake this weekend, but unfortunately my camera's batteries were dead (of course) so I will blog more about it in a couple of days when I can get some pictures from my mom. But in the meantime I have some little stories about Arden I want to write down:

Last week Preston was out of town again for the whole week, and so I called on my sister Amanda and her husband Matt to come and help me entertain the kiddies one evening. I get a little worn out by the end of the day so it is nice to have some help in the evenings when Preston is gone. We decided to take the kids (well, Arden) swimming. Daxton and I mostly sat around and watched Arden, and "MandaMatt" swim. (funny side note....Arden used to call both Amanda and Matt "MandaMatt." For example, when she was talking to Matt, she would say things like, "MandaMatt, sit right here!" or "MandaMatt, whatcha doing?" Same thing if she was talking to Amanda. It was "MandaMatt, play toys!" I was kind of sad on the day she figured out that they were two different people with different names...anyway...) Arden was pretty fearless when it came to the big waterslide at the indoor pool, and went down it a few times with me and with Amanda. I brought her "floaters" and thought she would be ok to float around in the pool with those, but she pretty much kept a death grip on Amanda's fingers as they went around the lazy river at the Bountiful rec center. I thought if I went in with her she would loosen up and start floating on her own, but the most we could get her to do was to "swim" between us if we were about 2 feet apart. Any farther than that and she wouldn't let go. She wouldn't believe me when I told her she wouldn't sink with the floaters on her arms.

My cousins Kati, Troy, and Autumn and their various spouses/kids came up to Bear Lake too, and Arden had a great time playing with them, especially with Gracie, who is 4 years old. They ran around on the beach all day, collecting sea shells, building sand castles, the usual stuff. Then I was feeding Daxton a bottle and I heard my sister laughing and yelling for Arden to come back. I looked up, and there was Arden, trustingly holding on to Gracie's hand, walking straight out to the deep water. Arden had taken off her life jacket, so she was almost up to her shoulders in the water, and still headed out. One of the nearby adults grabbed her and put her in her life jacket, but I wonder how far out she would have gone with Gracie, who is quite a bit taller than Arden. And, why does she trust Gracie to take her swimming with no life jacket or anything when she won't trust me even with floaters on???

Arden did go for her first ride on the waverunners too. She really liked it! I thought she might be afraid, so we went reeeallly slow at first, but every time I asked her if she wanted to go faster, she said yes. So by the end we were cruising along pretty good, and she would smile and squeal every time we splashed over a wave. It was so much fun!

Finally, today is Daxton's three-month-old birthday. (here are his teddy bear pictures) for those of you keeping track:

When Arden was little, we kicked her out of our room and into her own crib when she was barely 2-months old. But with Daxton, I have been a little slower letting him go. I am not sure if it because he is a much quieter sleeper, or if I am worried that Daxton may be the very last baby we will ever have and if I move him to his own room, it means he is already starting to grow up! But, the bassinet he has been sleeping in is only supposed to support babies that weigh 15 pounds or less, and I am pretty sure he is over that now (I haven't officially weighed him since his 2-month old checkup when he was nearly 13 pounds...mostly to avoid having to move him to his own room). So, I guess tonight is the night, I will try to let him sleep in his own room, clear down the hall (cry, cry) Wish me luck!!

Olympics and other stuff

We have been enjoying watching the Olympics a lot around here lately. Arden really likes to watch the "somersault girls" (gymnastics) and the diving for short periods of time. After a couple of minutes she gets up and starts waving her arms and legs around and jumping off of the furniture and doing somersaults on the carpet. Maybe we have a future Olympian on our hands! (sorry I don't have any pictures).

I like to watch whatever is on, but I have to admit I do get a little tired of all of the gymnastics. Do we really have to watch them all stand around and put chalk on their hands for 5 minutes? And do we really have to watch China's entire team do every single event? Can't we just get the highlights or maybe watch some neglected sport like judo or water polo or kayaking while we wait? Seriously. I kind of like to see some of the more obscure sports like that, it is kind of fun. Preston's favorite event to watch seems to be women's beach volleyball. I wonder why. Could it have something to do with the teeny bikinis that the poor girls have to play in? And while we are on that subject, why do the men's beach volleyball players have to wear shirts? Seems like it would be more fair if they were shirtless. Are you with me, ladies? I have to admit I do like to watch the men's water polo when I can find it, and probably most of it doesn't have to do with my love for the game of water polo:

Anyway, I think the most exciting thing I have seen in the Olympics so far (aside from watching the riveting coverage of the gymnastic hand-chalking) was that Men's 4 x 100 relay race a couple of days ago. It was so fun to beat those French guys after they were talking so much smack about how they were going to "crush" the Americans!! I was a little worried after the race that Michael Phelps' swimsuit was going to fall off during his victory dance though.

Arden and Daxton are both doing really well. Daxton is holding his head up pretty good, so we put him in his "bebe pod" chair this last week. He really likes it now, but he wasn't too sure about it at first...here is his reaction to the first time I put him in it:

You can tell from his expression that he is thinking "what the heck am I supposed to do with this??" Arden is doing great still and loves to play with Dax and read him stories:

And, we can now put Dax in our stroller without having to attach the car seat to it. I think he likes it much better this way because he can actually see where we are going:

We had a fun weekend and went to the baseball game on Friday night with Jason, Bre and Benson, and then we went to the demolition derby at the Weber County Fair on Saturday night with my sisters and their escorts. I love to go to the fair, it is almost like going to another country. It is fun to walk through and look at the animals, and we even went to a few minutes of the pig auction. It is weird to look around at the kids who are bringing in the pigs to be auctioned and at the farmers who are bidding on the pigs and to think how different their lives are from my life. But of course the highlight of the fair is the demolition derby. If you have never been to one, you should try it. My sister Amanda blogged all about it and even has some video of the dramatic finish, check out her blog here.

On Sunday we headed over to Preston's parents house for a goodbye party. His parents are off to New Delhi, India on their second mission. They just got back from their humanitarian mission to China in December, so we are sad to see them go again so soon...Arden was just starting to get used to them. Here is a cute picture of Dax and Grandma Zaugg.
By the time they get back he will be in nursery!

Car Dancing

Yes, I am a car dancer. What is a car dancer? Just what it sounds like.

My story begins around naptime today. Arden is turning into a true 2-year old, and will sometimes refuse to go to sleep at naptime just to prove that there is no way I can MAKE her go to sleep. Not because she isn't tired (she is) and not because she doesn't need a nap to function normally (she does), but just to prove that I can't control every part of her life. She is right. There is no way to force her to go to sleep. So, on days like today, she just stays up in her room, reading every book and playing with every toy and pretty much making a mess. That isn't the part that is the bummer, I really don't mind as long as I can stay downstairs and try to get some work done on my laptop. The part I do mind is the rest of the night, when she turns into Arden the grouch. Seriously. She breaks into tears at the tiniest little things and pretty much talks in her "whiney voice" nonstop until bedtime.

Anyway, knowing that this kind of lovely evening was ahead of me, I was counting down the minutes until Preston got home from work, when he called and told me he was going to be working pretty late tonight. Ohhhhhh crap, I thought to myself. I get to face 4 more hours of whineyness all alone. But then a brilliant idea struck me. I will take her to my mom's house! Arden likes my mom more than me, and so she will probably not even whine there! At the very least, I can at least deflect some of the whining onto someone else. So, we ate a quick dinner and joined the crowds on people on the I-15 headed towards Layton.

So, I am a mean mom, and I don't let Arden listen to "kids music" in the car. We do not own (and hopefully will never own) any music by the Wiggles, Barney, or anything like that. But, to make myself feel a little less mean, I burned a CD of some of the songs off of my iPod that Arden seems to like best, and that I don't mind listening to.

So we are in stop and go traffic, and our car was not moving very fast, but Arden and I were MOVING in the car. We were having a great time dancing around in the car. After about 10 or 15 minutes on the freeway, we had been dancing the whole time. I think we were listening to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" or maybe it was "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles, but anyway, Arden was waving her head from side to side and clapping, and I was wiggling around in my seat and occasionally clapping too (Hey, we were going like 10 miles an hour in a straight line!) and I am just singing at the top of my lungs, when I kind of sense that someone is looking at me. I immediately stop dancing and singing and try to oh-so-casually look out of the corner of my eye at the cars next to me. Sure enough, a car full of high school-age guys is watching me, and they are obviously amused by my little show. I am sure they were thinking something like, "This old woman has completely lost her mind. How sad." So, I smile an embarrassed little smile and try to keep my eyes on the road and pretend like nothing happened. Luckily, my lane was going faster than theirs and I was soon out of their sight, but my face was a little red for quite a while.

So, this makes me wonder how many other times have I done this and just not noticed the people watching me from the other cars! I am constantly "car dancing" and singing when I am driving around by myself or with the kids, so I am sure that I have unknowingly made a complete fool out of myself in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of fellow-drivers. Heck, I probably made a fool of myself in front of hundreds of fellow-drivers today alone.

Oh well, I guess it is too late to stop now. So, if you happen to see me looking like an absolute idiot at the stoplight next to you, just roll your eyes and please look away and never mention it to me again. I will try to go back to pretending that I am somehow invisible in my car and no one can see my wonderful car dancing.