"Tah!" or as you may know it "Utah"

We had such a good time in Utah with all of our family.  I knew we would have fun but I was expecting that I would be about ready to come home by the time the trip was over, but we had so much fun I definitely wished for a few more days with everybody. 

The first part of the week we spent at Gramma and Paca's house and so here's a bunch of pictures from then:

Zeke is a monkey.  I call him ChimpanZeke.  (on a side note, Zeke is really confused about monkeys and chipmunks.  He thinks they are synonymous.  After all there is monkey and chipmunk and chimpanzee and chipmunk.  It is very confusing.  So now when we play on the swings or he hangs from playground equipment he still says "eee eee ooo ooo" like a monkey but he maintains that he is not a monkey, he is a chipmunk).

Our climber in action.  He climbed this thing several times and Trustin and I stood by to catch him just in case.  I'm waiting for the first broken bone.  I feel it has got to come soon (because he's a crazy daredevil) and I confess, if it has to come I really really hope it happens while Trustin is around too.  I'm not ready to handle such things. I don't think I can master the "calm persona" that mom is supposed to exude to keep the kid calm.  I'm more prone to tears and freaking out...I better work on that, and maybe put some padding around prime disaster spots.

 These next several pictures are of our bubble party. Soap water on plates + straws = lots of fun.

Zeke has already learned the cheesy too big camera smile.

 This is Zeke right after his favorite part of the bubble fun: popping Daddy's bubble.  Trustin liked to make giant bubbles and Zeke liked to make that difficult.  He thought it was hilarious every time he snuck his straw over and POP!

 I love these boys!

 Just say "WOW" because that puppy is huge. 

 Zeke and his cousin playing with basketballs.

 Zeke meets Maximus the horse.  He loved the horse (really two of his cousins) but he was not happy when we tried to get him to ride it.  However he has been talking about Max ever since and is so proud that he "touch nose."  He likes to pray for "white Max."

 This is our bow making party for Ashlynn.  I like this picture because a) my belly looks so big and b) Trustin is laughing as he is reading his "manly" book.  He did not want to be included in the girly festivities and fled the room entirely soon after this was taken. 

 Me and Trustin's sister and the millions of bows we made.

 Ya, she's gonna be cute.

This is Zeke's method of eating his "Ice Tone."  He ate the bottom first...

 Which resulted in one hand of ice cream and one hand of cone, and a lap getting continuously more dripped upon.

 But it just might taste better that way.

For my side of the family we all had a reunion up in Park City.  It was so much fun having the whole family together with nothing to do but have fun.  Unfortunately, almost no pictures again.  Something about my family makes me forget to get out my camera.  But here are a few we did take.

 Zeke and Daddy splashing (I label this like you can't tell.)

 I love that Trustin is such a fun Dad.  He is amazing. Yep. Love him.

 And here we are playing something.  Most of the trip was spent playing games.  The best by far was Mafia which we played a ton of.  It was so hilarious!  But alas, not much to write about except to say that Jonathan's advice is always wrong, but he sure can be persuasive.

Zeke and his cousin Syri (or Syria as Zeke calls her).  He would follow her everywhere everyday if he could.  When he'd wake up in the morning he'd call Mommy or Daddy and then the second we would open the door to his bedroom (the closet) he would smile and say "Syria?"

 Syri, Zeke, and Kaylee traipsing through the forest.

And that is pretty much it for pictures of that part of the trip. (lame, I know).  We were so sad to leave and Zeke has been missing everybody like crazy.  White Max isn't the only addition to his prayers.  Practically every prayer has to include every cousin, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or pet he can think of.  It is pretty sweet.  He loves family so much!  Oh, he also has decided that it is so funny to call the baby in my tummy Airi (my brother's little daughter's name).  He knows that her name is Ashlynn but he gets such a kick out of insisting with a mischievous grin that her name is Airi.

And just for fun, here are a few pictures of Zeke playing "Bask shoot" another  favorite pastime of his.

Check our that air!



Well I have gotten quite behind in the documenting of our lives, especially considering how much we've been up to lately (and are still going to be up to over the next little while).  Zeke is being spoiled rotten with family time.  My mom, sister and niece were here one weekend (shame on me, not a single picture), then the next weekend Trustin's folks came to visit, then two weeks later we went up for over a week vacation split between practically all our family.  And there is a lot more adventures to come.  And did I mention that I'm going to have a baby in 5 weeks?!!! Yahoo!!  But time is flying, I can't believe she is almost here.

So here are a few cute pictures of the weekend with Gramma and Paca, and we'll see how much more I can get to soon.

 Gramma and Paca have the coolest hats!  For a week after they left Zeke kept saying "Want Pac hat"

 And no surprise there, but that kid is pretty darn cute in his Pac Hat

 Zeke also got to do some finger-painting for the first time.  He is like his daddy in that he doesn't really like to get his hands dirty (even though he loves playing in the dirt he always wants to wipe off his hands, and he often requests that I carry him over muddy spots).  Thus, fingerpainting was a really tentative experience, and not nearly as messy as I was secretly hoping for. 

Here we are at the Hoover Dam on top of the new bridge.  It was crazy crazy windy (bad day for the loose shirt, but I wasn't quite in such a pickle as the multitude of tourists in windblown miniskirts, oops).  Zeke hated the wind (he's like his Mom in that one but he liked looking out at the dam.

And last of this batch, our little future missionary.  He wouldn't smile for the pictures but he was so proud of this badge.  Trustin and I had to try hard to not crack up during sacrament meeting when Zeke started flashing his tag at the missionaries rather smugly. 

Big Grins, Messy Hands, and a Flying Zeke

So this post is just a mix of several fun days or moments over the past month.

First: Welcome to one of Zeke's favorite spots in the house. Zeke is pretty easy to please and one thing that has always made Zeke so excited is the dump truck. It comes twice a week in our neighborhood and everytime Zeke hears it he runs to the window and makes me pull of the blinds so he can sit and watch. He especially likes it when we are already outside and he can make me run to the front yard and see the dump truck up close (I'm a little less fond of this as I always feel a wee bit awkward waving to the garbage man and he loads up our smelly trash for the week). When he was a kid Trustin used to want to be a garbage man and apparently this ambition is genetic.

And here are a few of our Easter egg dying photos. As expected, Zeke loved it! Miraculously he only squashed 3 eggs. (which left us with a grand total of 9, but luckily Zeke had no qualms about dying and redying the same eggs again and again).

Mommy showed him how to do it nice and careful...

Daddy was quite skilled with the wire dipper...But...

Zeke quickly found a much more efficient way to drop and retrieve eggs. Just shove his whole hand into the cup. His hands were still unfixably blue for church the next morning. Secretly this made me really happy.

Zeke had fun with the egg hunt, for about 15 eggs and then Trustin and I had to help gather the rest of the the 48 pack I'd tossed around the yard. Zeke did however love tossing them all into his kiddie pool which was full of dirt and jumping in himself. And ever since then he's discovered the joy of squeezing the eggs and making one end pop off and fly into the air.

This is Zeke's face after the wind blew dirt in his eyes.

And this is Zeke Lightyear! Last night Trustin and I decided to chop up a piece of cardboard and let Zeke fly around the house. Zeke was thrilled. The wings were the first toy he requested after he woke up again this morning.

"Don't You Just Love Las Vegas in the Spring?"

Well aside from the wind Vegas has reached the wonderfully pleasant time of year (right before it consigns us all inside). So we are loving being outside as much as we can. Trustin put in grass about two weeks ago and it is heavenly! While we still have to remove shoes, clothes (If you are Zeke), and extraneous accessories before re-entering the house (the yard is still a lot of dirt) it is so great to have a way to play besides digging. Zeke has never said he wants to go outside he always says "Dig". Dig and Backyard are synonymous around here, but maybe not for long.

So here is our grass! Don't you just want to roll around in it? I do.

And last week Trustin found this sweet swing that a neighbor had set on the curb for the garbage truck. Zeke is a fan. He doesn't like to just swing on it though. The word associated with the swing is "big" as in "big push" He wants to swing big wide fast circles and if the ride starts getting too mellow he says urgently "BIG."

This is our jerryrigged garden death-prevention system. Again installed by the Trustin handyman.

These next few photos are from a hike Zeke and I went on today with a bunch of friends from the ward.
Zeke is quite the hiker. He rode in this backpack thing for a lot of the time which was certainly faster but I'm not certain it was entirely safe. It makes him sit so high up my back that I was completely top-heavy, (on top of being "middle heavy"), which made me feel rather un balanced as we walked along rock strewn, skinny footpaths lined with pointy rocks, drops offs, and cacti. I was literally praying "Please don't let us fall, please don't let us fall". Prayer answered!

Why am I holding that hat there? Ashlynn is looking pretty cute, and pretty big these days. (Wahoo, only three more months!)

Zeke did do quite a bit of the hike on his own. He was very into it. He didn't want me to lift him over difficult parts but would do them all by himself (with a lot of grunting and sound effects).

We made it to the waterfall at the end and a strange thing happened. Zeke did not want to get wet or even splashed.

You can't totally tell what this picture is but I will tell you. He found this dead tree with the uprooted funky looking roots.

Me "Oh, did you find a tree?"

Zeke "No, ROAR!"

Me "A monster?"

Zeke "Ya, ROAR"

Silly mom thinking that monster was a tree.

Basketball

Zeke loves to play basketball! He was playing with Trustin the other afternoon (using golfball sized wiffle balls) and he decided to make it a little easier. He found a little chair, and put it right under the basket. Slam dunk every time!

Just like Mom and Dad

Zeke was such a big helper getting ready for church yesterday. He watches Mom and Dad get ready so he knows just what to do.

The first step is to find Daddy's gel and go to town.

When you have as much hair as Zeke, it might take a few scoopfuls of gel.

And shoes are a must for church.

Mommy's will do nicely!

Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers

So I was going to do a quick catch up blog but I realized that we have practically zero new pictures. Trustin's new phone has a decent camera, which is nice except that I never remember to download the pictures off it. So our catch up post will have to wait. I will say for those who I haven't spoken to, our baby girl has a name! Ashlynn Kaydean Anderson (A.K.A. our daughter, or as Trustin and Grandpa like to say AK47). We are naming her after her two grandpas who we love and admire so much. For today I decided to share the joy of "The Bradley Method." So I have decided that I would like to try natural childbirth with Ashlynn. I am telling myself that the plan is to try natural but to not be disappointed if I don't succeed (but we'll see how that goes). With Zeke I thought that maybe we would try natural but I naively went into it without any preparation whatsoever. I had a friend who said it is super easy I believe her description was "It is just like a really really hard workout, but the secret is just relax." I like working out and relaxing that sounds pretty easy. Apparently I wasn't used to "working out" my uterus in the hardest work out ever, and relaxing on cue....not so easy. So we want to prepare a bit better this time. We don't like any of the methods out there. We decided to go with The Bradley Method because I like the idea of "husband coached childbirth" and having Trustin totally helping me along the way. However, reading this book is totally hilarious and you definately can't class us among the avid Bradley promoters. We are taking what we like and laughing at the rest. The title of this post "Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers" is practically a quote from the book and I'm pretty sure this is the overall message. It is so ANTI medicine and never mentions medicated childbirth without included words like "maniac" "zombie" or "miserable." According to the Bradley Method "Bradley mothers" are laughing and walking and joking and loving their baby while medicated maniacs are resentful, tired, poor mothers. Hmm... Here are a couple of my favorite lines

• "Women have babies; that's their job" (Hmm Mr. Bradley, I guess you can get away with that because you practiced in the 20s)


• "The placenta is a magical organ" "What's the main physical difference between these animals(cats, dogs, horses, and cows) and your wife? Somebody taught your wife at a very early again to walk on her hind legs, that's what" (are you kidding me? is he really trying to say that we are meant to be quadrapeds but some silly person taught us to walk?!)


• Speaking about women who get epidurals and other medications during childbirth "Would they let their kindergartner have similar narcotics?"


• "we have found by actual esperience that there is a 'background music' that beats all others and there is no substitute for it. It is th familiar, beloved voice of a husband, a lover, gently, softly, endearingly whishpering in his sweetheart's ear that same line of love gobbledygook" (gotta love love gobbledygook!!)

So maybe these are only funny to Trustin and I as we've been reading them, but I hope you have enjoyed them too.