Swingin' and Slidin'

We live very close to Pioneer park and have taken Ariah there a few times. This was the first time that she actually enjoyed going down the slide.

More birthday

We had a double celebration at the Peavler's house for Heather and Ariah.

I can remember when I was doing this with Miss Heather!

Ariah just loves wearing bibs. Just as much as she loves wearing bows.

Heather got a swanky camera in this hip Hawaiian bag.

She can feed herself with a spoon (sorta).

Ariah got a cute little shopping cart from my parents that she likes to walk around with. Yay for birthdays.

The Babe is 1

I can't believe it's been a whole year! At the same time, looking back at her newborn pictures, it's hard to remember what that baby was like.

She got some darling clothes, a baby (giving babies to babies...), a pop-up book, a singing bear, a balloon, giant legos, a shopping cart, and a cute turtle that you put shaped blocks into. She was intensely intrigued by opening the presents, as you can see in the picture above. Talia was more than eager to help open and play with the presents.

I wanted to do something cute but simple with cupcakes, so here it is.

We love you Ri! Many more happy years to come.

Many thanks to Heather for being the photographer :)

Looking for Dinosaurs

We were feeling adventurous and wanted to go searching for dinosaur remains. We went in agroup, but we disagreed on searching tactics, so we decided to divide and conquer.

Ariah's tactics were to ignore any written clues and work completely hands on. Any time I stopped to read something, she reminded me her opinion on that method.

This is us touching fossilized ripples.







Ariah kept reminding me that this was serious business, but I couldn't help and try to loosen her up. She was working really hard brushing up sand.

Meanwhile, Steve and Eric found the miniature breed of dinosaurs. Instead of thoroughly studying them, they wanted to reenact history, sounds and everything.









Will and Katherine did some deep searching for our prehistoric friends, but had no luck for a while. Finally, they decided to try a traditional raptor mating call along with the necessary claw gestures. Unfortunately for them, it was a little too successful.

After minutes of brushing away sand, I realized that Ariah had more interest in the sand than finding bones. She even had a taste when I wasn't looking. That's the last time I choose to have a baby on my team when doing serious paleontology work! Except she was very cute.







Through his investigation, Eric found a never discovered species of dinosaur. By holding onto the creature's nose in this fashion, he was able to keep it still long enough for a picture. This is the picture that would make him millions....








...if only he had learned something valuable from documentaries like Jurassic Park or King Kong. Not only did he find the same raptor that took Will and Katherine, he insisted that one picture was not enough. Poor Eric. We will use the money from these valuable pictures to buy a Wii in his honor.







Ariah discovered some ancient hieroglyphics. They translated saying it was too scary to look for real dinosaurs. So we decided to end our adventuring...














And just pretend to be scary dinosaurs ourselves. A lot safer that way. The End.

Our summer in a somewhat large nutshell

These past couple of months have been really crazy for us. Here's what happened in a nutshell:

1)We were both involved with New Play Project's show Mixed Up. I wrote a play called "The Man Who Cried Woof" and Steve acted in it. It took 2nd place :) I acted in a mini musical called "Gotta Be Happy" by Lyvia Martinez. Steve directed it. That took 1st place :) We will place a link on this blog to the recorded shows in case you want to see them for yourself.

2)We've been job hunting, as the business gives us jobs in waves. Steve got a job as a web design teacher at Maeser Preparatory Academy and as a freelance web designer through Heritage Web Solutions. Woo-hoo! And, the business has picked up a few big jobs. I'm going back to work at the library tomorrow. Steady income = relief.

3)I am wanting to finish my degree at BYU. The problems have been a)choosing a degree and b)being able to register for classes due to holds on my account. I have "decided" to be a Theater Studies major, though I'm still having second thoughts. It took me forever to get my registration woes taken care of, but I have finally figured out who to talk to and who NOT to talk to in BYU Collections and Financial Aid. Some people told me my case was hopeless. I finally found a guy a couple of days ago who actually wanted to help me. I am forever grateful for him.

4)Ariah was in the 4th of July parade for getting 1st place in the baby contest. As I walked, I tried to get her to wave and smile, but she decided she would rather arch her back and cry. I'm pretty sure the spectators were wondering how on earth she won. We got to go see Stadium of Fire. I was quoted in the newspaper about it.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705315966/Stadium-of-Fire-flag-burning-was-fake.html

5)Steve wrote me a very fun song for my 22nd b-day. He wanted to plan something more elaborate, but I told him before my b-day that we are too poor and didn't have time for anything elaborate. The song was an amazing gift. I couldn't ask for more.

6)My parents gave me a season pass to 7 Peaks for my b-day, so this whole summer we've been having a lot of fun there. Ariah's favorite thing to do it splash like crazy - making it hard for her and the victim holding her to see. Steve got me to go down all the scary slides I said I would never go on :) Now I'm queen of the world.

And now, pictures.


One day we ran out of diapers and didn't have money to buy any, so I made a diaper out of a towel. You can imagine how well that worked. Luckily, we got a paycheck the next day.





Ariah is hard to keep up with! She is on the verge of walking and is into EVERYTHING. So, I try hard to keep her entertained. We like to pull her around in this basket. She finds joy in it, though her facial expression doesn't seem to show that.



She won't wear bows! I was lucky to get this picture. As soon as I put them in, she takes them out :( Sad day.





She's eating solid foods. She does not like to eat baby food. She wants what we're eating. Even if it makes a face, she wants more. She just wants to be like us.





I can't get enough sleeping pictures of her.


If you read through that whole thing, you are awesome. Go reward yourself with a candy bar or a cookie.