Temple Square

A bit of advertising before I get on to my post...We love love love our Chicco 360 High Chairs!  We bought one for Isaiah when he was about 6 months old, and borrowed a second one from my sister for Eliza to use.  Here's our smiley Eliza with her cousin Jocelyn attached to the island at Grandma Atkinson's house.  The chairs swivel in a full circle so that you can either have the kids facing the table to eat, or facing another direction to watch the action.  So fun!  Though I do have to note that Zay got lazy about using his high chair in Utah (Grandma has tiny kids' chairs for the kids that are much more fun) that when we got home he refused to go back in it, so now he's in a booster instead.

It seems like if you're LDS, have kids, and visit Utah you are under some kind of religious obligation to visit Temple Square, so we did.  This isn't a fabulous picture or anything, but it shows how much Zay loves to follow around after the big kids.  Here he is chasing after Isaac and Zachary.  There are always plenty of cousins around so the older boys don't mind and are really good about including "baby Isaiah."

This is what Eliza did for just about the entire Temple Square day--just relaxed happily in the back seat of the stroller.  She is such a calm, easy-going baby so it's never any trouble at all to take her places.  Well, not never, she's had a fit or two at the grocery store, but that's only because it's hard to sleep when you're strapped into a shopping cart.  If you feed her, change her diaper occasionally, and provide a semi-flat surface for her to fall asleep on, she's good to go.

We went up in the Church Office Building to see the view.  Here's my best shot of Zay gazing at the temple....I know, he's not gazing at all, and not even looking at it, but a good longing gaze at the temple was what I was going for.  As it turns out I have a bit of a weird photography philosophy:  I would rather have my children enjoy the moment and have memories of the event than have a perfect photo that took so long to pose that all my kids remember is that time when Mom made them stand still and smile for yet another picture.  So sometimes I don't get great shots, but I sacrifice them for the sake of my children having great memories and being able to enjoy being where they are.  When I was in college I used to scrapbook and I got so into it that after a couple of years I realized I would attend activities not because I enjoyed them but because I could visualize what a great scrapbook page I could make about it.  So I (mostly) quit scrapbooking and starting attending activities because I wanted to.  I guess I feel a bit that way about photography sometimes--its' easy to get caught up in capturing that perfect moment, but sometimes the capturing becomes the moment and the original experience is lost. I'm not explaining this very well.  I asked my photographer friend and former college roommate, Sarah, what she thought and she said "A couple weeks ago I was at the coast watching the sunset and a flock of herons flew over. It was beautiful, what with the lighting and how silent they fly. So beautiful that I put my camera down and just watched. I think it's important to just enjoy some moments and not try to capture them." 

Anyway, that is all completely off topic, but it does make a lovely excuse for why my photos aren't that great!  I did love how all the kids lined up together at the viewpoint.  Zay loved seeing all the tiny cars down below.  

The not-any-more-terrible-than-almost-two Twos

 I'm way behind on my blog, so here's my first attempt at updating.  We spent our annual summer week in Utah the first week of July.  On Independence Day we celebrated Zay's birthday.  The whole (Atkinson side of the) family came to Karee & Dave's for dinner, Zay's party, and fireworks.  Jerel picked this dinosaur cake for Isaiah.  He did better this year and actually attempted to blow out the candles.  It was cute though because he wouldn't lean towards the candles, he just sat straight back in his chair and did little puffs of air from there.  Afterwards he licked all the frosting off of his cupcake and then asked for more--he gets that from his mom!

I'm enjoying him being two.  It was getting annoying at the grocery store when people would ask how old my kids were.  I'd have to say "6 months, and almost 2" and that made it obvious that they are practically the same age.  Now I can say "8 months and two" and that allows people to think Zay could be almost 3, and thus there is a reasonable age difference between the two of them.  Should I stop worrying about this?  Yes.  Will I?  Maybe.

After the cake we went outside to watch fireworks.  Isaiah was completely uninterested but luckily found something else to entertain him...Just before leaving for Utah, we put our house up for sale.  So for the entire month of June all Isaiah saw me do was clean house for Vickie (our realtor).  Anytime I picked something up he'd say "Vickie coming?" and he always wants to help.  So he found this broom out on the patio and got back to his usual game of cleaning up.  (In the background you can see the normal kids watching fireworks while Zayderella does all the work!)

I asked Zay to make a mad face and this is what I got.  He was trying really hard, and he has a really good mad face--his eyebrows go down so far you can hardly see his eyes glaring up at you--but he knew he was being funny so his little smile is creeping in.  I love the way his eyebrows are fighting to push his eyes down but his smiling cheeks are fighting to push them up!

And finally, here's our manly-man riding a pink bike.  When Isaiah was born, I had wanted a little girl so badly that I think Jerel was genuinely concerned I would put him in dresses and make him play with Barbies.  Luckily I don't believe in cross-dressing, and I definitely don't believe in letting children of any gender play with Barbies, so Zay has been able to grow up boyish after all.  (Unless you count the fact that after cupcakes, his shirt was so dirty that I grabbed one of his cousin's shirts for him to borrow.  He closest-in-size cousin happens to be a girl and when he came out everyone laughed at the ruffled shirt he was wearing.  I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but in defense of his masculinity I changed him into his boy cousin's t-shirt.  I'm happy to report that he doesn't seem to have any long-term damage stemming from this brief episode of cross-dressing.  Wait, didn't I just say I don't believe in cross dressing?  I don't.  But in a pinch you just do what you have to do.)  As it turns out Isaiah, of his own free will and choice, happens to like pink.  If I let him pick the color of something at a store he frequently picks pink and I say "For Eliza?"  "No, me."