Pumpkin Spice is in the Air

Fall is just around the corner. We're heading into that time of year that zooms by. School is back in session. The evenings have cooled down. The leaves are starting to change. September really is the best month. We're 8 days away from my birthday. This time of year is just awesome.

Patrick seems to be growing and changing so quickly that time is blurred. As I type this, I've just put him down for his nap and after 30 minutes, he's still just up there in his crib hanging out. I can tell he's trying to fall asleep and he's not crying but the poor little guy is so tired. He just goes and goes and goes from about 6 AM until his nap at 11. Sometimes that nap is 1 hour. Sometimes it's 3 hours. On Friday, it was FOUR HOURS. Bless my soul that was a productive day for me. Working from home on Fridays has it's challenges but when the child sleeps for 4 hours I'm like BAM! This works! Maybe if I keep him up past 10 PM every Thursday he'll take a nice long nap...I'll consider this strategy. Patch is so loving lately. He runs up to complete stranger's kids, mostly ones his size, and hugs them. He gets this grin on his face as he's hugging and everyone goes "oh how sweet" and, my little performer, he just keeps hugging and milking it. Sometimes he ends the hug with a little push sooooo we're working on that.

Scott and I have really been working hard on house projects lately. Last weekend, we cancelled our annual Labor Day trip to Tahoe. It was closing weekend for Shrek and all of our friends we were going to meet up with bailed on us. Lame-o. We decided it wasn't worth it and stayed at home. We did some serious weeding and pruning of the yard. I caved and we purchased a gas powered lawn mower (we'd been using a push mow and neither of us really made it a priority to cut the lawn since it was so dang difficult to do with the push mow.) I re-caulked the downstairs shower so now our guests can use it.  It seemed like we had a leak in the shower and there were little mold flowers growing in the carpet just outside the bathroom (SO FOUL!!!) and I figured I'd re-caulk it to see if that was the problem. It appears to have worked! We welcomed a new Airbnb guest and therefore had to move Taylor upstairs into Patrick's room and therefore had to move Patrick into our room...it's a long story but, it's working out! Two weekends ago we started building our deck. We didn't get very far but, we started!

The following weekend we celebrated my birthday with a bike ride down Provo Canyon. The fall colors were just starting to pop and it's STUNNING! It was mostly family there but, about half way down our ride our friends Evan and Annette joined up with us. We all got to the bottom and my dad rode ahead to start the trip-tip bbq. When we arrived at the house Aunt Carol joined up with us and brought her son Adam with her. Adam is a cousin I've never met so, it was cool to have him there. Taylor joined up with us later and we all ate and laughed. Patrick was loving the new jungle gym. This reminds me, the weekend before my closing of Shrek, Scott and I drove down to Provo to snatch the old swings from Shadowbrook and took the whole thing down just the two of us. Luckily, Patrick napped through almost the whole process. Any who, that was to make way for the new jungle gym. It was a fun birthday. Mark got me a favorite gift: the Shower Wow....LED lights for your shower. SCORE. On the box it reads "fun for the whole family" and in Mark's card he said "We're looking forward to coming over to enjoy it". Now I'm determined to get the toilet bowl light, the squatty potty, a shower speaker, and Poopourri. Maybe we could get a seat heater too.... pure luxury. Annnnywaaaaaay....

So my birthday...On Sunday, I continued the birthday celebrations by wearing one of Taylor's tiaras to primary and dubbing myself the Queen of the Primary. The kids competed to sit in my "throne"....a chair with a really fluffy blanket on it. SUCH fun.

Monday was lovely. Scott made me Swedish pancakes and I got to FaceTime with Ted. The second half of the day was a little rocky because I got a rather harsh email about work BUT, I had free Firehouse subs for lunch and joined up with some family at Gardner Village in the afternoon. We did Texas Roadhouse for dinner and it was fun, as always. I especially love to sit on the saddle...I planned poorly and wore a pencil skirt to work that day so, I had to ride the saddle side saddle. It's ok though...I made it look good.

On Tuesday we drove up Millcreek canyon to take some pictures of our little family and the setting was GORGEOUS!!! Patrick was such a delight too. All smiles most of the time and we captured some winners.

Last night, I got to float down the Provo River with some members of the team from work. It was perfect weather and we had a bbq by the river's edge at dusk. Lots of laughs. I work with some good men and women and it's always nice to spend quality time outside of the office with those folks. It was also a chance to enjoy the fall colors again. I cannot get enough of Utah's canyon's in the fall.

Dreams Come True

I saw Shrek the Musical in 2013 and loved every second. I decided that if given the opportunity, I would audition for the show. I could not help but see myself in Fiona. She's quirky and loud. She's a morning person (or so one of her songs says). She's sassy and silly and I love her. It has been such a dream to step into this character and, if I'm being honest, it's not that difficult to do as I basically am Fiona in real life.

We have had some fun times on the stage. Notably, when something goes wrong and we have to cover each others mistakes. On opening night someone took a prop of mine that I had placed and ready to go. This left me improving some sweet dance moves in Fiona's tower...not a problem at all. Another time, Shrek dropped a couple of lines in our scene comparing how crappy our childhoods were. I fed him a quick line and we were back on track. The moments when I can save a scene like that are gold and make me feel like a half way decent actress. It's thanks to these last 2 years doing lots of dinner theater and handling all the improve there. One more show to go and then I'll probably take a small break from performing life.

Here are some pics from the show:

Memories Dipped in Sunshine

I LOVE the summer time. No matter who you are or what you do, Summer time represents something. I think for most people it means sunshine, relaxation, family vacations, outdoor adventure, water sports, etc. Summer always brings me back to the care free days of childhood when school was out and we spent endless time playing red rover on the lawn between my house and my friend Lindsey's house. When the neighborhood kids would all come over and jump on the trampoline and eat Otter Pops. When my brothers would convince me to put on roller blades and hold a sheet as a sail and try to roll down the street or put me in a box on the trampoline and jump me as high as I could go or strap a milk crate to their skateboard and put me in that crate for a ride down the street. Summers were spent outside being free and slightly reckless. It feels as though those memories were dipped in sunshine.


This is my 5th summer since finishing my school days. Summer doesn't mean freedom from work anymore (dang it!) but it still represents adventure and memories.


In mid June we discovered a leak in our basement. Just before heading out on a weekend road trip (more on that below). We decided that the problem was bad enough that we should go ahead and tear down the dry wall ourselves. That night we had Airbnb guests staying in the room just down the hall but lucky for us, those guests were two young guys that were just in between houses and locals to Salt Lake so they were comfortable with our late night demolition. We had to wait until Patrick was asleep to take care of the demo as we didn't want him to come into the room and chance inhaling anything dangerous. It was actually rather fun to hammer away at the soggy drywall and yank large pieces of wood away from the studs and into pieces. Scott and I were a little overwhelmed to uncover more problems than we began with (of course) and our house seems to be falling apart slowly. Weekend projects and home improvement...I guess this is what we signed up for. We knew it was coming and here we are. We now have big renovation plans for the basement and plan to make it into a more comfortable living space. It will be expensive but SO worth it to have a play room (YES YES YES) and some extra space to entertain/ host Airbnb people.


In spite of that fiasco, we have had such an excellent summer thus far. Just after tearing our basement apart, Scott and I travelled to Montana for a Salty Dinner Theater charity event. This year, they put us up in a hotel rather than the college dorms. We travelled out with Ricky and had quite the eventful journey. We headed out around 5:00. I drove a leg and then Ricky drove the next leg. We stopped for gas and dinner between the two diving shifts and Ricky used the gas card provided to us by the charity to fill up the tank. Too bad he didn't realize how much fuel he put in the tank because as we were driving down the highway, Ricky was stopped for speeding. It was then that he realized we were almost on an empty tank and we were a good distance from the closest fuel station. We mentioned our problem to the highway patrol guy and he basically said, "good luck" and sent us on our way. Well, shortly after that, the car did indeed die. Luckily, Patrick was asleep by this point. We were sitting there for about 2 hours trying to come up with a plan. Scott hitch hiked to the next stop with a truck driver and brought my credit card to purchase fuel in the hopes of hitch hiking back to us. We called our Salty friends who were already there in Helena to see if they had any way to send a rescue party out to us (we were about an hour and a half away from Helena by that point). We called Geico (our insurance provider) to see if we could get coverage for a tow truck to come out. I did not come prepared to sit in the car in the middle of the night and was rather chilly. Patrick was all snuggled up under a blanket and I just hoped that he would stay asleep during this whole fiasco and he pretty much did. Well, $160 and 2 hours later the tow truck came, filled up the tank with the most expensive gas I've ever seen, and we were on our way. We spent two days in Helena and had a blast performing a "revival" of "Altos", our mafia murder mystery show. There were a handful of things that were better this time around. 1: my finger waves were WAY better 2: my dress was way more comfortable 3: Scott was involved in the show by helping drum up funds through the raffle and such. As compared to the last time we performed in Montana, there were improvements too...namely the venue. We performed in this gorgeous church that had a fun little playground that Patrick played on before sound check on the first night. This church was so amazing. They had the most awesome nursery room I've ever seen. Books and toys and plush carpet. That's where I hung out during the last act as I was the one "killed" in the show so, I just hung out there. I wish LDS churches still built cry rooms into their chapels. Why did they stop doing that???

While in Montana, I was able to hit the town one night and do some karaoke at a bar in Helena with some friends from the show. It was such a fun night. We ordered sodas and played pool and of course we sang. I brought the house down with "Don't Stop Believin" and then of course Tony closed out our group's performances with "Somebody to Love" and really blew everyone away. He definitely vocally outshined most of the other performers. We had a blast watching the other performers. Some were really...special. Since we went to this place right after our performance on Friday night, I was still in my costume makeup and hair. I forgot to put my wedding rings back on (seriously....forgot...honest mistake) and there was this young guy who was a pretty decent singer who got friendly with our group. Joseph teased me that he was coming on to me but, I think he was just being nice and making friends. We headed out at about 1:30 AM...or at least it seemed like it was 1:30. It was totally worth the lack of sleep.

The day we returned to Salt Lake I started feeling symptoms of a cold and came down with the worst cold I've ever had in my life. It lasted for 15 days and I felt like crap. It was horrible. I always felt better when I would pick Patrick up and then we'd spend some time outside in the yard. I let him play with the hose while I pulled weeds. Or I would fill up his little baby pool with water and we would splash around together for a few minutes and have some apricots for a snack from the tree whose branches hang into our yard. Patrick has made a habit of walking over to that tree, pointing up, and grunting at it as if to say "I want some Mom. Get me one". My boy knows what's good in life.

At the end of June we were able to make it to Taylorsville days. Neither of us had rehearsal and conditions were perfect. It wasn't too hot and they had the Abba tribute band again which I LOVED. Patrick has recently started pointing to things in the sky like the moon, planes, birds, etc. He was very excited to point out the skydivers at Tville Dayz. It was just such fun, the whole night.

When my parents are in town we always enjoy doing "try-tip Sundays" where we get together with extended family and have a meal outside in the common area at my parent's home in Shadowbrook (in Provo). It's been so fun to revive that tradition. A few weeks ago, we were at that event and Patrick and Mason decided to play with Patch's Thomas the Train toy. It's one of those little scooter things for babies/ toddlers and they were having a ball. Mason was riding and Patrick was pushing him and they were both LOVING it. Then my mom brought out this awesome bubble making set and we made gigantic bubbles for the kids.

For two years in a row now, we've spent the 4th of July at Bear Lake. We rented a skidoo this year and it was so much fun. I'm glad we sprung for it. Split 3 ways, it wasn't that bad of a price. The beach was windy on the 4th but that made for the best sailing I've ever done on Sweet Bananas, my father in law's Hobie catamaran. There was a moment when we were sailing Steve, Kait, and myself and we nearly flipped over. What a thrill.

That Friday, Scott's opening night of Little Mermaid, we went to see the new movie "The Secret Life of Pets" at the drive in theater. We got some of the Warren cousins to join us and it was SO MUCH FUN. The movie was ok but the company was superb. We loaded the truck up with blankets and pillows and snacks. Kathie was there with her family and some friends too and she had goodie bags made up for the kids. She's the world's best nanny and we're so lucky to have her. She's always organizing fun events like that.

On Saturday night we saw Scott perform as Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid and he did SUCH an excellent job. I'm lucky enough to hear him sing around the house all the time so, I know he has a beautiful solo voice. Many of our family and friends who went to see the show didn't realize what a good solo singing voice he has so, I know that made Scott proud to hear all the compliments he was getting. The show was a delight and Patrick was glued to the stage almost the whole time. He loved pointing to his daddy on stage and was nice and quiet in the audience.

My show opened on Monday and it was lucky that my parents were in town for the week we had performances that overlapped. Scott had a show every night and I had either a show or a rehearsal every night except Tuesday. That day was fun. We went to Bruges for dinner and then took Patrick to Fairview park right next door. He loved climbing up the stairs and sliding down the slide all by himself like a big boy. He kept landing at the end of the slide on his bum but didn't seem to mind. What a cutie.

During the first week of Tarzan performances I left parts of my costumes at Joe Morleys on Friday night and didn't realize it until Saturday night when I needed them at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Orem. Lucky, I was able to find a dress in the mall VERY quickly and it worked perfectly. $60 later and I'm hoping I can actually return it. I thought I would love it on me and it turns out that I don't. It has an empire waist and I just don't love that design on my frame.

On July 22, I didn't have a performance or rehearsal so Scott and I were able to see the Pioneer Day concert presented by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and guest artists, The King's Singers. It was lovely with the exception of these new special lighting effects that they're using at the conference center. They've placed these LED lights all along the banisters that surround the choir space and they were blinking all these bright colors in time with the music. Not on every song but certainly on the real flashy numbers...pun intended. I hated it. It seemed too contrived. Outside of that, the concert was lovely.

We celebrated Pioneer Day with a BBQ in our back yard. Taylor, our Airbnb roommate, invited her brother and his girlfriend over and we had a truly lovely time.

This past week has been full of rehearsal and performances for me. We've gone back to the schedule where I start working at 7:30 and Scott takes Patrick to Kathie. I feel that if we must get Patch at 3, this schedule really is best. This means that I have a few hours with him at home at the end of my work day where we can play outside together, have a snack, tidy up the house, prepare dinner, play on the piano, take a walk with Dinah, play with blocks, read stories, etc. One day this week, to escape the heat but also to avoid having to lather up sunblock and fill up the kiddie pool, Patrick and I just took a bath together. It was actually really fun and I could tell that he was all jazzed about being able to play with Mommy in the bath.

For Tarzan's second weekend of performances, we were at the Pizza Factory in Orem. It's a brand new venue for us and we got to try out brand new mics too. It was fun to perform in a new place that seemed to bring in new crowds. Since I have a few costume changes, it was also pretty exciting to try and find a place to make those costume changes happen quickly and discreetly. I also had a good idea for the "mingling" time where we go out, in character, before the show starts and greet all the tables. I wanted to get some real good laughter from this one large party. I decided to have them play along with me and fake laugh on the count of three to make all the other actors and other tables jealous. It worked perfectly and everyone did get a hearty laugh out of that.

The following Monday, our show manager didn't show up until late and Mary, in a panic, asked Scott to show manage. It was chaos and Scott didn't really get to see the show but, nevertheless, it was nice to have him there. The remainder of the shows went well. No major costume mishaps. Lots of good laughs. It was probably one of my better performances with Salty. I think I got to play my most comical character thus far and really enjoyed it.

We are also now in full swing with Shrek rehearsals. Surprisingly, I didn't have to miss too many even with the Tarzan performances conflicting with Wednesday rehearsals. It worked out rather swimmingly.

On Friday, Scott headed out for the Saints to Sinners race with the cycling team of England Logistics. I made him some food for the journey and sent him on his way knowing that I was going to fly solo for the closing weekend of Tarzan. Luckily, I had some help from family and friends. Lauren watched Patrick for me on Friday night during my performance. Afterwords, I drove down to Lehi and stayed the night at their house. The next morning, Patch slept in past 8 AM!!! It was a miracle. Finally, at about 8:30, I had to go wake him up so we could head to rehearsal in Draper. I packed a bunch of snacks at Lauren's and got to chat with Dave about being a business owner as we munched on cold cereal. My rehearsal with Patch was really fun. It was a full day at the theater but, again, I had lots of cast mates and my friend Karin from BYU to help me keep him happy. Most of the time, when I went on stage, Patch was a trooper. He made friends with all the kids rather easily and during lunch break he charmed his way into mooching from several people's plates. He got pretty cranky around his nap time and luckily, I was able to take him for a drive where he was able to fall asleep. I got back into the theater and put him in the green room. I sat right outside the door and memorized lines. Making. It. Work.

Rehearsal was done at 3:30 and I headed home to get some costume pieces ready and then drop Patch off at Dan and Mary's for Dan to look after him. Dan sent me pics of him playing with Scarlett and Lucy and their new bounce house. ADORABLE. I'm so glad that he gets along with other kids. Our final performance was a good one. Here's to hoping I don't have to strip down to my bra and undies in restaurants for a while. ;)

I found out during that performance that Scott's truck was having transmission problems and that he was going to have to stay in Cedar City. Major bummer. His cell phone was also running low on battery and he didn't have his charger so, he didn't want to talk too much. He called me in the morning and we formulated a plan to have his Mom, who was already in Southern Utah, bring him back home until the truck could be looked at. He had a rehearsal in Lehi for Consortium and I decided, after dinner with Logan and Aubri, to rehearse with Karin for our broadway review number for the Shrek fundraiser. We were both sleeping in the same bed by Sunday at about midnight. It was a crazy weekend.

Lucky for us, we've had last night and tonight home together. No rehearsals, no performances, no plans. Just chilling, getting stuff done around the house, harvesting veggies from the garden, and enjoying time together at home before August picks up again.

We will be taking a break from shows for the rest of the year. We have to get a lot of projects done at the house and it's time to take it easy for a bit, once again. As tough as it is to say no, Scott and I are holding strong so that we can really make some dramatic changes to our home and yard. Stay tuned.

One Day at a Time

I've been thinking about how it is I'm managing to juggle everything in my life right now. All my goals at home and at work, doing the whole Airbnb hosting thing, being in two shows (and JUST added a third-I'll be playing Fiona in Shrek the Musical in August), and keeping my little family happy, healthy, and sane. Well, sanity is actually thrown out the window. We're a little crazy and that's ok. So, I'm feeling pretty good about things in general and while I'm behind on my reading goal this year...the other things are in place. How am I managing it? One day at a freaking time.

I wish I could say that I'm so super organized that Tuesdays are countertop/ surfaces days and Wednesdays I do floors, and Thursdays I do shopping errands. I'm not super organized but I have found myself doing some things on the regular that have helped me:

I dedicate time every day to just play with Patch. No distractions. Just toys/games/ a book/ exploring outside together. When I've gotten in that concentrated play time, I feel more at ease to pursue other tasks.

I do my makeup in the car most days and I've started timing myself. Not while I'm driving people. I just do it real quick in the parking lot or maybe at some red lights. I don't allow myself to take any longer than 10 minutes.

I take my phone in the shower with me to check in on our finances and bills while my shower warms up/ while I wake up. Patrick has come to accept the time I'm away from him in the shower and I try to not be on the phone in front of him so, these 3-5 minutes allow me to send off a quick bill or two/ check into my bank account.

I shop for groceries once a week. I'm toying around with using the Walmart app to have my groceries picked up for me so that I can just drive by and get on my way. Patrick does seem to enjoy sitting in the cart and people watching though. He especially loves Costco because we often get extra samples. Since we shop at about the same time every Friday, some of the sample ladies are starting to recognize him.

If I use the restroom at work, I look up recipes for dinner on my phone and don't allow myself to piddle around on Facebook. This forces me to spend some time planning for meals and thinking about what groceries to buy later in the week/ what foods to make with what we have on hand.

I get out in the garden with Patch at least 3 times a week to pull weeds. We're trying to stay on top of that as much as possible.

I put EVERYTHING in my calendar on my iPhone as soon as the appointment is set. I look at my calendar twice a day to make sure I'm not forgetting things. While I'm not perfect at this either, I'm improving and doing a much better job of not over scheduling myself.

I never leave a room empty handed. This is critical to keeping the house picked up for our Airbnb guests. Patrick has even started to learn about cleaning up messes. We've got a long way to go with him. hehe.

The fact of the matter is that I also got me an awesome husband. He works so hard to help balance our life and is the perfect man for the job. He's an amazing and involved dad. He's super handy around the house. He is an excellent chef. He's always engaging me in current events and conversations about politics. He's just absolutely wonderful.

I guess these are my tricks/ tips. We're making it happen and this is the life I've always imagined. It's every bit as crazy and fun as I'd hoped it would be.

Lately

If this were a travel blog I would talk about our trip to Miami.
If this were a beauty blog I would talk about how for the last two months I've done my makeup in the car Monday-Thursday.
If this were a gardening blog I would tell you about how I've enlisted the help of my parents and Scott's parents to weed the garden and finally get some starts planted.
If this were a family finance blog I would announce that we've reached a huge savings milestone and now have over 3 months of funds sitting in an account ready for a rainy day.
If I even knew what "kind" of blog this is, that would be cool.

Sometimes I post long lists of "we did this and then we did this and then we did this" which is a way for me to quickly document what my family is up to. Sometimes I write about something specific from one day or one afternoon.

Tonight I put Patch to sleep and then I got to tidying the house. We have another Airbnb guest coming in tomorrow and that is always motivation to keep the house clean. It's amazing how quickly we destroy cleanliness. I was busy with cleaning and dishes etc for about an hour before sneaking into Patrick's room to put some things away. Usually I just leave things at the top of the stairs but tonight, I walked in. He was resting along the front side of his crib; sleeping on his side. He's started to insist on having fuzzy blankets with him in bed. When I put him down, he pulls the corners of the blanket under his chest and usually breathes a deep sigh as he sinks into sleep. He's a sweet little thing.

Work is going well for me. I've got to stay focused so that I can hit my goal this quarter. I'm dangerously close and there is a chance that it will slip between my fingers. Eye. On. The. Prize. Say some prayers. Burn some sage. Hug a tree. Whatever it is you do, do that for me will ya?

Scott and I are both in rehearsals for more shows right now. He's playing Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid this summer. I'm doing a benefit show in Montana and I'll be playing Jane in Tarzan. It's a busy busy time but so far, things have worked out perfectly. I've only had to bring Patch to one rehearsal. We've had a surprising amount of time to be together in the evenings and on the weekends. So much so that our yard looks half way decent this year. We will be laying more sod though and arranging it so that maintenance is even easier :D

In March, we started welcoming guests into our home from Airbnb. My cousin was living with us temporarily and we got Patrick sleep trained in that time so we figured, having someone stay in the basement wasn't bad at all and now Patrick won't wake them, lets try it. We'd toyed around with the idea of Airbnb for a while and just never pulled the trigger but after having a little extra rent come through from my cousin living with us, we liked the idea!!! I believe that humanity is generally good and decided to give "strangers" a chance to prove me right (and try to make some extra money). We started off pretty slow. We had a guest who was in town for ComicCon with her mom and she gave us free passes for the event (SCORE). We got a few more requests and a few more reviews and now, we're booked pretty solidly through September.  It has been AWESOME. One girl stayed with us for 5 days and we even went country dancing one night. I'd HIGHLY recommend it. Unless of course you live down the street from me and will compete for my business. :)

On Motherhood

Today we celebrated mothers. We got to church and Patch was dressed all dapper in suspenders and a bow tie. I wore a dress that I haven't worn since before Patrick was born (yay for almost having my body back) and Scott was in all blue (my favorite). We sat in the back section where there is room for Patch to play on the floor and such. That boy was practically running up and down the aisles at church; coming back to me only momentarily to grab handful after handful of dried blueberries. He would take a handful, stuff them in his mouth, and walk off to explore again. He was smiling the biggest smiles and greeting everyone. Meanwhile, talks were being given...whoops!

I finally felt it. That thing where my heart is so full that it felt like it would burst. Don't get me wrong; I've had joy and love in my life beyond measure since welcoming Patch to our family but, I hadn't felt that overwhelming joy just yet. The kind that you hear mothers talking about all the time. Today it happened. Tears started to well in my eyes. I looked at my sweet boy who is just so full of life and already such a reflection of me and his amazing father.  I can't wait to have that feeling wash over me again and again as he grows and I get the pleasure of being his mother.

Spring 2016

I've been spending a little bit of time in the garden almost every day. Patrick practically begs us to go outside so, I'm happy to encourage that behavior and take a few minutes to catch up on the weeds/ pruning and make way for all our pretty perennial flowers to bloom. Someone planned our garden very well because everything seems to bloom in stages so that all spring, summer, and even into fall we have something new and beautiful popping up. First we have the tulips, then the mulberry tree, then the big purple round flowers, then the clematis, then the peonies and finally the roses. It's lovely.

This afternoon, Patrick and I went outside mostly because he was being grumpy and he seemed a little cold. I just finished making a berry (and chocolate) smoothie for the two of us to snack on and he got the shivers. Initially I took him upstairs and we sat in the rocker with a blanket on him. That took the chill away and he was LOVING my stories with silly noises. He hardly ever sits still but, for the stories and the noises...he didn't move a muscle. He just looked up at me and giggled. When I brought him downstairs he got a chill again and was acting rather upset about it so, that's when I decided we should go outside. We started sitting on the bench with a blanket and the book Skippy John Jones. He was a little distracted by all the people walking by etc. So, he popped down onto the grass and was just catching some rays. I sat still for a moment soaking in the sun myself. I watched the wind blow through his fuzzy baby hair. I admired my overgrown grass, the small patches I've gotten weeded, my over pruning, and my boy.

This is Patch getting into things...everything. I'm ok with it. I mean, how can I not enjoy that Mr. Sweet Face?

Also, Patrick is officially walking as of this week. Like, very regularly. Heaven help me.