Chalk Art Festival

Last weekend was the Chalk Art Festival.  It is probably one of my favorite Bountiful City traditions.  I learned this year that it is something they use to showcase young artists in the area.  I love walking down main street and looking at all of the AMAZING  art, all on the sidewalk!

Here are just a few of them:

I think this one is funny.

Very clever...

There were quite a few with the "imagine/book" theme.

This one was drawn by the featured artist.  I think he was a teacher who passed away recently.

I like this idea.

This one was a first place winner in the adult age group.

Several "Avengers" themed ones...

Lots of movie themes...

I am always so impressed.

Bryce Canyon

One of Craig's friends that he worked with down in Brazil had been dreaming about a motorcycle road trip in the southwestern part of the United States.  This year, he let us know that he and his wife were going to do it!  The farthest north they were going to be stopping was in Bryce Canyon. We decided that 4 hours away wasn't too bad, so we made an overnight trip out of it to go down and meet up with Fernando and his wife while they were in Utah for a day.

We went down Thursday night, and left a little before 8 (Calder's bedtime) thinking that he would just sleep the whole way down.  Well, we were very wrong in our assumption.  He only slept 1 hour (maybe?) the whole way down.  Sorry little guy!

We stayed in a little motel that night, and left the next morning to go hike in Bryce Canyon.

 I had never been there before. It was stunning!

 Calder got the easy ride.

He even got a little nap in, which was fabulous.  (probably because of his lack of sleep the night before. He was exhausted!)

 Family picture!  (Calder is in awe at the cliffs maybe?)

 We let him get out to climb some stairs - one of his favorite things to do.

 We stopped by the museum after we were done hiking, and had changed out of our dirty clothes.  That was probably the longest we have ever spent in a museum, just because Calder LOVED walking back and forth between all the little animals that were on display.  (He is walking like crazy now!  Sooo fun!!)

We found out Fernando and his wife would actually be coming into Cedar City that evening, so we headed over there to meet up with them.

While we waited for them to arrive, we found a fun park to play at, walked around a few stores, waited to hear from Fernando, walked around the SUU campus, sat in the grass and had a snack, waited some more to hear from Fernando, and then drove around - which is when the next monumental event happened: 100,000 miles on our car.

So, it turns out that Fernando and his wife got a little lost on their way, so they turned around to backtrack and find the right road.  They didn't get into Cedar City until pretty late.  We ended up (finally) eating dinner without them at 8:30 pm, and drove by their hotel once more to see if they had made it.  And they had!  So we spent a little time chatting with them. It was fun to meet them (for me) and fun for Craig to see Fernando again and catch up.  They were loving their trip, and had taken almost 500 pictures every day! 

We headed back home between 10:00 and 10:30 pm.  We had to make it home that night because Craig had a commitment the next morning. We had to pull off a couple of times to get a quick 10 minute nap in to re-energize.  Thankfully, Calder slept the whole way this time and we made it home safely.  

We decided a couple of things:

1. We are going to plan more day/overnight trips because they are super fun, pretty inexpensive, and planning isn't too hard.  

2. We probably won't start to drive home that late.  We are just grateful we made it home.  I guess we are just used to going to bed pretty early these days!  

We've been busy

We've been busy around here lately.

Craig's second CFA test is a little over a month away, so he has hit the books hard studying like crazy (most days :)) He also had a birthday (Happy Birthday, Craig!  26 years old!).

Calder has been busy practicing walking! (again, most days. Some days, he hasn't wanted to walk at all.) We are proud of him!  (sorry for the flipped video, I don't know how to fix it...)

And while Craig has been studying, I have been working on a quiet book for Calder, and I finally finished it!  It took longer than I anticipated, but it gave me something to do, and was worth the effort. (I got ideas for the pages from a pattern my mom had, from quiet books my cousins recently made, and pinterest.)

Front Cover

First page.  The fish are stuck on with velcro, so they can be moved to different "bubbles" in the bowl.

Dog and frog pages.  The dog can be pulled out of his house, and the frog's tongue can snap onto the flies.

Corn and Barn page.  The corn husk unzips, and the barn doors open up to show finger puppets!

Shoe and Overalls pages.  Practice tying a shoe and buttoning buttons.

(Not sure why it is flipped...but I don't want to spend time to figure it out!)  Gumball Machine page - practice matching colors, and the number page.

Match the shapes to their outline.

13 Months Old

So here is a little update on the things Calder is doing lately.

He has just recently (like, the last couple days) been brave enough to let go of our hands and try to walk!  He has been super sturdy for a long time, I guess he just wasn't ready to do it by himself yet. It has been so exciting!!  He can go several steps consistently by himself, but a few times he has walked as much as 10 steps (maybe a few more) all by himself!  We are so proud of him.  I think it is just a matter of time (like a week or so) and he will have it down. 

He is a bottomless pit!  Calder eats 3 full meals and 2 snacks (sometimes 3) a day. (although most of the time, his snacks are just as big as his meals) He LOVES peanut butter, loved canned green beans (he ate them almost every day for a month!  But he is over that obsession), loves bananas, and will eat pretty much anything we are eating.  

Calder is officially weaned!  Hooray! We were worried for a little while, because he wasn't drinking very much fluids.  But he is doing a lot better at that, too.

He is a climber.  We still have his toy saucer out (mostly because I don't know what to do with it), and the other day he climbed up onto it, and proceeded to sit down in it!  And then yesterday, the dryer door was open and he stood by it, reached all the way to the other edge (like into the dryer), grabbed a hold, and pulled himself up onto the dryer door.  Lately he has been trying to climb onto the kitchen chairs, but can't quite do that yet. (Thank heavens) The nice thing, though, is he knows how to get down from most things now.  We taught him how to get down from the couch by himself, and now he knows how to go down stairs, etc.

He loves the park!  He giggles every time we push him in the swing, and likes the slides, but I think he really likes seeing the other kids and playing outside. (plus, there are lots of things to climb there!)

He still loves books.  He will find a book somewhere, hold it up, and bring it over to me so that we can read it together.

Calder still only has 4 teeth, and I keep thinking another one is going to show up any day by the way he keeps drooling and chewing on things.  But I have thought that for a while, so we will see.

He can touch his toes on command, his belly, and mom and dad's noses.  Most of the time when we are reading, he is able to point out the picture of the dog or lion in the book.  One of the books we have has some bible stories in it, and so he can also point out baby Moses and Daniel in the lion's den.  

He will dance when he hears music (bounces up and down while standing, and shakes his head) and he thinks it is hilarious!

He is getting quite the personality.  We sure have fun with our boy!

Happy Birthday Calder!

I cannot believe our little guy turned one last week!  Time has flown!  I will update about his stats later, this post is long enough just about his birthday...

 One year old!

 We kept things fairly lo-key, and just invited our parents and siblings over for dinner and cake and ice-cream. I did, though, make a cake that I am quite proud of.  It is my first "sculpted" cake. I took pictures of part of the process.

This is 3 cake mixes, or 6 9 inch cakes all stuck together.  I used the pieces that I cut off for the tail, legs, and muzzle.

The next layer of frosting was to make sure everything stayed where I wanted it to, and to trap down any crumbs.

And voila!  A little puppy!  I am pretty pleased with myself, I am going to admit.  Calder loved it, too, which made all the work worth it!  

Here is is the first time he saw it.  He was pretty amazed that there was a little dog sitting on our table! And then for the duration of the week that we had cake left over, he kept excitedly pointing to it.  

He liked opening his presents and seemed to get the hang of ripping the paper.  

And we have had such a fun week playing with all of his new things.  He is fascinated with his new toy barn, and plays with it CONSTANTLY!  It is a very nice break for me, I have to say!

And he loves to cruise around with his new walker.  He always is so proud of himself!

He didn't really try the cake at his birthday party, but he loved the ice-cream!  (and he loves trying to use a spoon. It's adorable, and while he can get the spoon to his mouth really well, he has a harder time getting the food on the spoon, and makes a huge mess.)

He learned how delicious frosting and cake are later that week, though.

We had his birthday party on Sunday, and so on his real birthday, Tuesday, I took him to the dollar store and bought him a mylar balloon.  He was so pleased!  He wrestled with it all day.

Happy Birthday Calder!  It has been such a fun year!

Outside Adventures

It has been uncharacteristically warm this winter, especially the last couple weekends.  So we took advantage of them, bundled up Calder, and headed for the great outdoors.

Weekend Number One: Antelope Island
We went for a hike on Antelope Island.  Craig had never been there before, and I had only ever been there to step in the water (which is kind of gross.) It was beautiful!

Definitely a different kind of beautiful than lush green everywhere, but it was a Utah-desert-in-the-winter beautiful.  We had a lot of fun!  We took the stroller, which was a little difficult at times, (most of the time there was a fairly smooth trail) but Calder was able to stay warm in it.

We even saw a Bison!  I am just glad he didn't see us, too!

Weekend Number Two: the Park
We took Calder to the park for the first time.  He LOVED it!  He couldn't get enough of the swing or the slide.   He had the biggest grin on his face, and would just giggle.  It was so cute!

I guess I know where we will be spending most of our time this summer!

Recap

Well, since it is now February, I figured I ought to write a little about our Christmas.

It is so much fun having a little kid on Christmas!  Calder didn't understand what was going on, but he did love the lights and ripping the wrapping paper, and he does love his new toys. 

 We got to spend the night of the 23rd at my parents' house, and most of the 24th there as well.  All of my siblings were there.  We had a little "Christmas morning" on the 24th.  It was great to spend time with everyone.

We were able to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our apartment, which was so much fun!  I am so glad we got to spend a little of the holidays with just our little family.

On Christmas, we drove up to Mendon and enjoyed church with Craig's family, and were able to talk to his sister who is on a mission.  We stayed that night, and most of the 26th at their house.

We were spoiled, and loved spending time with family, but I think the best part of Christmas is just the feeling you have all season.

Craig was super busy with work all through the holidays.  They had a project that they had to do for the Federal Regulators, and so he spent long, long hours at his work.  Some nights he didn't get home until 2 am!

The project was due on January 9th, so when they finished, he got a whole week off of work! So we took advantage of the time, and went to San Diego!

We stayed with some of our friends who live there.  They were amazing hosts, and we had such a good time!

Calder loved playing with their little girl, who was 7 months old, and we loved to watch them play together!

 We got to go see the ocean, which was beautiful!

 We drove around San Diego.  I couldn't believe how beautiful it is there!  It is seriously perfect.  Green, mountainous, ocean view, and perfect weather.  We watched the sun set from some cliffs overlooking the ocean.  (Calder has discovered how to stick out his tongue, and he (we) thinks it is hilarious.)

 Calder loved pointing at everything.

We walked around part of the old town in San Diego, and saw the Mormon Battalion museum.  It was really neat!

 We had a great trip!  Calder even did well on the drive to and from.  On the way down, we broke the drive into two days, stayed in Mesquite for the night, walked around Vegas the next day and then finished the drive.  He really struggled on the last half hour there, but other than that he did great.  On the way back, we drove straight and I sat in the back seat with him for about 4 hours, but he did so well, I was so impressed.

Thanks again to our friends who let us stay with them and treated us so well! It was just what the doctor ordered. :-)