Milestones and Miracles

As soon as Reed was on his hands and knees he was pulling up on things, but Max never really felt the compunction to get vertical until a couple of weeks ago. It was morning time and I heard him crying in his bedroom. I went in to investigate and found him standing and looking down over the side of his crib. I'm not sure how his pacifier ended up outside his crib since he would never do anything intentionally that would separate him from his pacifier, but that may be the only thing that could have provided sufficient motivation to get him to his feet. He's an addict.

I called Lindsay over to see, but I had given him his pacifier back so by the time she got there he had settled back down to a sitting position. All it took to get him to stand again was to take the pacifier and hold it in front of him, which got him to pull up to his knees, then drop it on the ground and presto! The picture above is obviously not the same moment, but we had to have something to document it--even if it is a couple weeks late.

Now for the miracle. Last time we went to Costco we got two gallons of milk, but of course we already had some milk left and we don't go through it fast enough so we put one gallon in the freezer.

Friday morning we ran out of milk, so when Reed was begging for chocolate milk that afternoon Lindsay had to tell him he couldn't have any because the only milk we had was still frozen. His suggestion? Pray to ask Heavenly Father to melt it.

Lindsay tried to explain that Heavenly Father still has to follow certain laws and whatnot, but Reed was insistent so they prayed for divine assistance in melting the frozen milk. As soon as he finished, the doorbell rang. Reed's good friend Sophia was at the door and the milk was completely forgotten. Several hours later when Sophia left Reed again inquired about the milk. By that time it had melted and he could have his chocolate milk and was more than convinced of Heavenly Father's ability to answer our prayers. We were too.

I don't know why we think we're so much smarter than they are.

Watch Out! Time Flying Below

Sam and I had our first date 10 years ago this past Labor Day. Our first date was jet skiing at Deer Creek in Utah. We appropriately (and accidentally) celebrated the 10 year anniversary of this date by jet skiing again at Lake Badin. We all enjoyed a great day boating and jet skiing with the Connor family at their lake house. The first photos below are from our first date. We didn't take a photo together then (busting out the camera on a first date for a couple's photo would have been a little too embarrassing for me.)

1997



2007


Sam says this picture makes him want to go running right now. I still think he looks great.

Below is one of two of the best changes that have come during the past 10 years


Yes, Reed is skiing inside the boat. He hung onto the rope for dear life the whole time and told me, "I think this is a rocket boat".


Reed loved being crazy with Julia. They spent most of the time running in circles and jumping off the dock. Thank goodness for life jackets!

The Great Outdoors

It has been one blazing hot summer---the kind of summer you want to spend inside standing under an air conditioning vent counting the days until fall. Today was the first decent day in quite a while so we enjoyed the more mild afternoon appreciating the outdoors blowing bubbles and rolling in the grass. We all had a great time-well worth each and every grass stain.