Summer has been so nice here this year. Unlike last year in which we tried to set some absurd 
record for days with temperatures over 100, this summer has been quite pleasant. We’ve had some nice trips to the park or just shopping on my days off and it has been wonderful. We took a short hike around Silver Lake with the two boys a few weeks ago. William ran the first 1/2 mile and Christopher smiled throughout. William is sporting a shorter buzzed haircut these days as a result of me breaking down and finally buying a clippers. We had been taking him to a kiddie haircut place but it wasn’t helping much with his dislike of haircuts. I figure for $20 I can sit on him and cut his hair while he squirms and fake cries instead of making a hairstylist go through it–besides, it saves me $20. Another fun summer adventure is that I got some fake tattoos to play with. William calls it his “tatta-two” and sometimes
when he takes his shirt off he exclaims “it’s back!”. So cute! He’s been quite the excellent big brother and helper. I’ve been impressed to see his softer side. (Mind you it doesn’t come out very often, but occasionally he can be really sweet). Then there’s the little one. Christopher continues to be the most mellow smiley child on the planet. He is such a breath of fresh air after surviving William as a newborn. I had no idea Will was so difficult! Christopher is now spending his time gaining a good understanding of how his hands work, watching big brother and all the kids at daycare, and trying to roll over. He has successfully made it from back to front, AND from front to back, although he isn’t very consistent at either. You just leave him someplace on his back and return to find him magically on his tummy (usually smiling!). Christopher is doing really well in the sleep department. Last night he set a new record and slept from 9pm to 6am with just one trip to his room for a binkie replacement. It dissapoints me a bit that he hasn’t learned to suck his thumb. Thumb sucking was so easy with William. On the other hand Christopher is mellow enough sucking on something for comfort doesn’t seem like as much of a necessity.
Along with all the happy smiles we have had our share of challenges this summer. Even with a drop in price, the old house hasn’t sold yet. The $500 dollar crown on my tooth has yet to fully resolve the problem (I will admit the Valium made the whole ordeal at least bearable). The week after I wrote my last blog post one of our air conditioners died. The cat still needs $500 in dental work (supposedly), and the cars still need new tires before Christmas. Recently our house also had the pleasure of experiencing something called “hand, foot, and mouth”. You parents might be familiar with this bug. It’s a viral infection common in schools and daycare and mostly in children under 5. Kids get a fever and then a rash on their hands and feet and in their mouth. Luckily neither of my kids ran a fever, but they were rather crabby and had a few sore spots on their hands/feet and mouth. I think Will’s mouth was especially painful, and he woke up multiple times each night for about a week. Christopher’s sleep wasn’t interrupted quite so much but he nursed constantly for a day or two and it was unusually difficult to coax a smile out of him. Jason seems to have dodged this particular disease, but I managed to come away with a touch of it. With all the dental stuff I’ve had going on the last thing I needed was a sore mouth! Thankfully things are looking better.
In brighter news Jason and I got out for a summer date–our first real date since Christopher came along. It was a trip up to Deer Valley Ski Resort to see Ben Folds perform with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. All of you Ben Folds fans can be jealous as I can now boast seeing him 3 times in the past year! I hope he continues coming to Utah. His shows are always SO good! Thanks to Grandma Marion for watching the boys, it was really nice to get out.
I’ve had two fun projects this month that are still in process. One of them is an advent calendar I’m making. Once it is finished I will dedicate an entire post to the process. The other project 
was commissioning some new dish towels with the help of my mother. My sister-in-law made me the cutest set of dish towels for Christmas several years back, but she just had twins so randomly sewing me new dish towels is probably not terribly high on her priority list. The ones she had made were starting to look pretty beat up, so I asked my mother if she could replicate them. All I was in charge of was mailing her the supplies. Simple enough right? Well she ended up with the right amount of fabric, twice as many towels, and half as many buttons as she needed for the number of sets I was planning on. We’ve got it all straightened out now, but what a fiasco! The good news is they are super cute, but I will have to think twice about changing my kitchen colors for the next decade once they are all sewed.
We are looking forward to a trip to WI in several weeks. The extended family hasn’t met Christopher yet, so that is our main goal for visiting. William is already talking about riding on the airplane, and Grandpa is excited about tractor and 4-wheeler rides on the farm. Mike doesn’t even know he will have a dedicated tennis ball thrower for a week. There is also be a picnic on the farm for everyone to hang out and visit. Retiring from milking has been SO GOOD for my parents. They are already planning their next trip to Utah. Visiting the grand-kids motivates them to be more adventurous and we sure like having them visit!
Take care everyone! (OK a few more photos)
S.~
PS: Condolences to Jason, as he finally let me re-home the moose-lamp on his nightstand so we have now have matching lamps. 😉