Independence Day!

In the morning, the boys washed our cars.

Dallin and I made 4th of July food.

Fruit Platter

Fruit Pizza- strawberries, blueberries, kiwi and pineapple.

Taco Salad

We went to a party with friends from church. We got some good pics of Tanner being Mr. Observant. In new situations, he always observes for about 20 minutes before getting out and socializing. He is quite the observer (which I think is great because as a teacher I notice the observant kids end up being more successful in reading, writing, science, sports, dancing, singing, and creative play).

On our way to the firework show at the park.

At the playground with hundreds of kids.

A bunch of people from our ward (church) sat together. They all bring glow sticks and the kids like for everyone to wear them. I brought bubbles for Tanner, and soon a huge flock of kids were chasing bubbles with us. I also brought sparklers, and surprisingly, most of the kids from church had not played with them ever before, so they loved it! I spent the week training Tanner at home on how to hold the sparklers without getting burned. He is really good at holding them and for some reason likes to make the sparklers touch grass, bushes and trees. Don't worry, we've had way too much rain here for anything to catch fire from his sparklers.

Jeremy and Dallin rested while I took Tanner to go catch fireflies. It was our first time really being outside late enough to see them. He loved them and now he looks out his bedroom window at night and can spot them down in our yard and across the street.

Here is the band shell where the symphony played during the firework show. The fireworks shoot up right above the shell! Tanner LOVED the fireworks. (We talked with him about it lots and lots to prepare him). Throughout the 30+ minute show, he shouted, "Wow! Loud! Yay! Loud, loud! Big fiyawuk! Up in sky! Loud, loud! BIG one, dada! Pretty!" I covered Dallin's ears while he laid in the carseat. He only flinched a little at the end during the finale.

To sum it all up, our fourth of July was AWESOME. It's my favorite holiday (other than Easter). The best part about it this year was being with all 3 of my boys! I felt a lot of joy because I realized that without American freedoms, I wouldn't be able to enjoy my family as much as I do. America allows our family to live peacefully, to own our own land, to seek our own wealth and happiness. These blessings mean a lot more to me now that we have our own little family on our own little land with a new job and new adventures ahead of us. We are so blessed and proud to be American!!

Zollman Zoo

Jeremy took work off on Mon, July 1. So we went to a little zoo about an hour drive away, near Rochester. The place was beautiful, the weather was perfect and the admission was free! All the animals there are native to the area and have been injured or sick. The variety of animals was impressive: eagles, owls, snakes, porcupine, badger, otter, fox, coyote, wolf, and black bear just to name a few! 

They had a little visitor's center with hands-on learning stations and children's books.

And free wagons for each family.

The park was so tranquil, we took our time with everything. We watched the black bear for a good 20-25 minutes. He was pacing back and forth. Tanner tried to follow him, but with his little legs he had to run to keep up with the bear.

The zoo was spacious with lots of pretty trees and plants. At one point, I hid in some bushes to feed Dallin. It was so nice to be out in nature! Jeremy carried Dallin on the bjorn.

Can you spot Tanner watching the donkeys? Tanner was thrilled about the farm animals. He's been into his farm books and farm toys, so he was in heaven. He is also obsessed with making everything into family units. He appointed a dada chicken, mama chicken and baby chicken; dada sheep, mama sheep, baby sheep; and so on for every farm animal he saw.  Finally, Jeremy told him, "You know, Tanner, not all animals are monogamous." But that didn't stop Tanner. He also does this for nonliving things, too, like buckets, trains, and pieces of food.

There were two baby calves (which Tanner insisted were not babies, but were BIG dada and Big mama cows). He was enjoying them until suddenly the brown cow moo-d right next to Tanner's head. Tanner leaped out of his skin, screamed with terror and bolted straight to me. It was hilarious! Too bad I had stopped videoing about 20 secs before that! 

When Tanner calmed down, he said "Mean moo!" Jeremy explained, "He was just sayin' hi to you. He was trying to be friends, but you got scared and ran away. You wanna try being friends with him again?" Tanner hesitantly said, "Ya." Jeremy brought Tanner back to the cow. They listened to him moo several more times. Tanner seemed to gain confidence by saying, "Wow, loud!" instead of crying. But he clung to Jeremy the rest of the time that they were near that cow!

My favorite part of the day was when our little family relaxed on a bench under the trees. (This gets corny, but I don't care!) The humid breeze carried the freshness of earth that I could almost taste. Dallin's cheek pressed against my arm, his sweaty body sprawled across my lap. Jeremy's golden hair and turquoise eyes glimmered in the sunlight. I rested my head against his neck and breathed in my favorite smell- aftershave mixed with sunscreen. In the distance, I could hear the chickens cluck. The peaceful humming of flies and grasshoppers were accompanied by Tanner's inquisitive questions "what's this, dada? what's this, mama?" It's amazing how joyful ten minutes under a tree can be!! Corny? Maybe. But these are the moments worth living for! 

Our Cutie Pa-TWO-tee!!

Tanner is getting cuter and cuter. Every time that I think he can't get any cuter, he does! He turned TWO on June 28. It was such a happy day!

I told Tanner that on Friday it was going to be his birthday. We talked about what we should do on his birthday for someone else. Tanner loves muffins, so I suggested we make muffins for our new neighbors that had been so nice to us. He liked that idea!

We spent several days making muffins. Tanner poured the mix into the bowl and on the counter, cracked two eggs in the bowl and smashed one egg on the counter, and he attempted to stir the mix, which was flung onto Mama. We came up with a good system for getting the batter in the tins. I scooped and he scraped with a knife. We were accurate about 90% of the time! I put rhubarb from our yard into each batch of muffins. The blueberry rhubarb were my favorite because they came out red, white and blue! They were SO yummy!

 The night before his birthday, I told him "Tomorrow is your birthday!" He said "I eat cake and eye-keem. And buhday hat." Who told him about birthday hats? I guess he learned from either TV or his daycare babysitters. They had several b-day parties at their houses while I worked. I am surprised that Tanner knew about birthday hats. It's a good thing I got some from the dollar store! As soon as he woke up on Friday, the first thing he said was "I wanna wear my buh-day hat!" He chose the "gween one" and was so excited. He ran all around the house.

 And even though the elastic string bothered him, he kept the hat on all day long. Sometimes he would say "Hat, ouchie." Each time that I suggested he take it off, he would emphatically reply "NO!"

We delivered the muffins to our neighbor. 

She was really excited that we brought her something and came to visit. When it was time to go, I said, "Hope you enjoy the muffins!" and Tanner remembered that we had brought them. "Oh no! My muffins!" He ran back into the neighbor's kitchen and started pulling the plate of muffins off the counter. He obviously missed the whole part about making them for someone else. He wasn't too happy when I "reminded" him that they were not his muffins.

Tanner also had his 2 year check-up on his birthday. Dallin had his one month check-up the same time. Tanner was so well behaved. He stood on the scale after I showed him how. He watched the nurse and Doctor check Dallin and listen to his heart. When it was his turn, Tanner laid down and looked faithfully up at the doctor while she checked him. Both boys are as healthy as can be! Tanner weighed 26 pounds and was 34 inches tall. He's still pretty small for his age.

Dallin was 10 pounds, 13 ounces and 21 inches tall. At three weeks old we decided to get his tongue clipped because he was still having trouble staying latched on while breastfeeding. Also, all 4 pediatricians that saw it said it was pretty tight. At this check-up, he was doing so much better at feeding. I had almost forgotten about us clipping his tongue until the doctor was looking in his mouth. She said everything looked good!

For the birthday dinner, we ate at Perkins, which is kind of like a cross between Denny's and Marie Calendars. Tanner ate most of Jeremy's hamburger. We had fun.

Then, we went home and gave Tanner his cake. He says cake the funniest way. He elongates the vowel like a southerner so that it sounds something like "cuhhhaaaeeek." He was really excited about it until we added the candle. "No candle on cake!" We said, "This is what you do on birthdays, Tanner. Just wait and see how cool it is when we light it!" As soon as we lit the candle and turned out the lights, he really got mad. He bawled through the entire Happy Birthday song because he wanted that candle OFF of his cake! As soon as we told him to blow it out, he blew with conviction and was very glad we finally took it off. This got me thinking, why do we put candles on cakes, anyway? I don't blame Tanner for getting upset, it seems like a pretty odd place to put a candle. I wonder if he thought we were gonna make him eat the candle. Because that would be pretty crazy.

Once the candle was out of sight, he picked up his fork and chowed down. 

Tanner is an enormous blessing in our lives. He loves singing, drumming and making music with anything that makes noise. He loves to shoot hoops, run, dance, mow the lawn, work out with Jeremy, and ride bikes. He also likes making train tracks and playing with anything locomotive. He will leave his mark with a pen- not a pencil or crayon- all over the house. He will "fix" anything with his tool set. He "helps" with dishes and trash and laundry. He entertains his little brother and always wants to play with him. Tanner is loving, observant, creative, hard working, spiritual and silly. We love our little Tan Man!!

Two weeks with Gma Nana

MomR stayed with us at our new house 2.5 extra weeks to continue helping out. I am so glad she stayed this long! We would still be living out of our suitcases without her help. She did all of the cooking and cleaning, which allowed me to take care of Dallin. We took turns entertaining Tanner. And we just kept really busy with unpacking and getting the house settled. 

Thank goodness Gma Nana took lots of pictures!

This is our first time eating on the back porch for dinner. It was really sunny so Jeremy put a blanket over his head to keep from getting sunburned. Even though it was 7:00 pm, the brightness of the sun made it feel like it was only 3:30 in the afternoon. I guess because we are so North? 

Tanner and Jeremy were begging to go back inside because of the heat. I was the only one who didn't mind; I LOVE the heat and humidity!

Jeremy found these new Sunday shoes for Tanner! Tanner wore them to his Nursery class on our first week at church, so now he calls them his Nursery shoes. Tanner loves his shoes and he loves nursery! I was worried he would have a hard time at his new nursery, especially since it was hit and miss in our HB nursery. (Some weeks he would walk right in and be super happy, other weeks he would cling and cry. No apparent rhyme or reason to it). So far he has been really good and loves it! He does the best when Daddy drops him off.

At one point, we all went to Target to get some toys for Tanner. He didn't really have much to play with since he went to Daycare in HB everyday. Now that I'm home fulltime, we need to stalk up on more kid things! We all ended up with our own shopping carts. Grandma Nana had her own, too!

Here's a bunch of cute random shots from Gma Nana's camera:

Because Gma Nana helped so much, I got to spend time doing this...

And this (at the city pool)...

And this...

And this...

And this! 

Notice how Dallin's hand is hanging onto my collar? He tends to do that a lot. So sweet! 

With Gma's help, we got the living room to go from this...

 

 To this! She babysat both boys while we shopped for this new furniture.

 Gma watched Dallin so that Jeremy, me and Tanner could go on some bike rides. We've discovered that our neighborhood is SO beautiful!!

 

Tanner spent lots of time with Gma. They took lots of trips to the park across the street from our backyard...

 

They baked cookies and muffins...

 

And Gma had lots of little toys and projects to do with Tanner!

Together, we went on some outings, including the quilt shop, Costco, and a big street fair in Rochester called Thursdays on First Ave! Yay, there is a city less than an hour from our house!

 

 To say thank you to my mom, we took her out to eat at the best place in town. It's called the Old Mill. We had the most delicious steak dinner and this was our view!

 We got a special room in the wine cellar. That was a big mistake with a two year old, haha.

Throughout her visit, I got to spend a lot of quality with my mom. We were able to strengthen our relationship in lots of ways! I love her. I am so grateful for all she did for us this visit and for all she has done for me in my life. We miss you, "Gohma"! Come back soon!!