Life in June

It's about time I did a post! This post begins way back on June 5th and covers clear up to the present. Yeah, its a wallop of a post. Hang on to yer britches! For our birthdays (J's is the 5th and mine is the 6th) we went to Richfield and spent time on the farm with J's family.

Eric got a fancy new farm machine for lifting hay bales and so the boys spend a considerable amount of time playing with it. Jason's on the top waving his hat like the big birthday boy he is.

And then we went to brand a cow. This photo was taken at the moment of hot iron and cow skin contact. It's a smelly business. The cow gets pinched in between metal rails like we're going to toast him in a large toaster. Then, when the branding iron has been plugged in long enough and is super hot, the cow gets a tattoo. And, to make sure its a really good brand, you do it two or three more times.

Nothing says "Birthday celebration" like a freshly branded cow.

This is the Utley brand. I'm not sure how far back this brand has been used in the Utley family, but I know Grandpa Utley uses it too.

Then we went fishing (it happened to be free fishing day in Utah). This is Grandpa helping Addie touch a fish that was just relaxing at the edge of the stream. She was so brave and pet that fish multiple times.

Addie and I caught nothin' but weeds. Grandma Utley is in the background waiting for her pole to be ready. She loves fishing and I could tell she was disappointed when the only thing she caught was a little fish too small to eat.

Megan (Eric's wife) turned out to be a champ fisher, which is funny considering she hates fish. She caught nearly all the fish that we took home. All in all it was a fun birthday. It felt like we both celebrated our birthdays on Jason's birthday because we didn't really do anything on mine. It's tough to have a birthday on a fast Sunday.

Jason's hair finally reached the 10-inch mark and so he got it cut and donated it to Locks of Love. His hair was really bugging him and so he was relieved to finally get it cut. He has pictures on his phone of actually getting it cut, and what he looks like with little braids all over his head. I'll try and post them later. It was such a drastic change to go from such long hair to nearly buzzed hair. People don't recognize him and I feel like I switched out husbands.

At around the same time I decided Addie was ready for her first hair cut because she looked like this. I took her down to Bobbypins (where I get my haircut) with a bag filled with toys, suckers, pipe cleaners (very entertaining) and basically everything short of a portable DVD player (which I only didn't bring because it wasn't charged). I was worried she would cry and have a fit halfway through the haircut and I'd come home with a kid that looked like she cut her own hair, except that I paid for it. But she did awesome. She sat on my knees with a sucker in her mouth and sat perfectly still while Mary cut her hair. She was busy watching a lady get her nails painted across the room and cars go by the big window. I didn't take any pictures of her getting her haircut, sadly, because she was on my lap. But here she is after, beaming with pride and joy over the fact that she can now see without hair in her eyes:

And she found a rock. Her hair probably looks about the same to you, but that's only because most of the cutting occurred in the mullet area of her hair with some taking place in the bangs. She now has a cute little bob that is so much easier to do (or not do, rather).

I bought popsicle molds this year and it has been awesome. I like being able to make up my own flavors and use up things in my fridge, like mushy watermelon. This one was Pina Colada and it was scrumptious! I think we eat at least one popsicle everyday to keep cool, so it's good that I make them with just fruit, no sugar, or our teeth would fall out.


Addie loves popsicles, or maybe she just loves to hold them while they melt. That's why we only have them outside.
She would live in the pool if I let her.

We bought Addie her first paint set so she could paint while I paint. She LOVES it and takes it very seriously (as you can tell by her face).Lately she's been into coloring on her arms and hands, so I have to keep reminding her to "paint only on the paper, please."

I put her down for a nap on Saturday and then sat down to work on my lesson for Sunday when I heard someone rattling the doorknob on her bedroom door. I was completely puzzled and shocked since I had put Addie in her crib where she wouldn't be able to reach the door. I opened her door to find her standing there. Apparently she figured out how to climb out of her crib, so Jason and I switched her bed from a crib to a day bed. What a big girl she is now! She loves being able to climb in and out by herself and put her toys on her bed to play.

I couldn't get her to sit in her new bed for me because she was being to silly, so this is as close as I got. This kid has got quite a lot of personality in such a little body.

Addie was hanging out with Grandma on Sunday while she was getting ready to go to a viewing. Grandma put a little lipstick on her and she thought it was great. A little while later Addie found her way back into the bathroom and pulled out grandma's lipstick. This is how she emerged, feeling very proud of herself and carrying the nearly-destroyed lipstick in her hands. We all had a good laugh.

Here's a timeline of events from the time I started this post up until now: Put Addie down for nap. Start typing. Thirty minutes later Addie is up and crying. Poured her some orange juice. Went back to typing. Addie is crying again, spilled some on the kitchen floor. Clean it up. Addie wants strawberry milk now. Make her some strawberry milk. Go back to typing. Addie crying again, wants more milk. Make her more milk. Back to typing. Addie crying again, wants more milk and brings me the strawberry powder that she's taken off the kitchen counter by standing on her chair that she has hauled in from the living room. I try to finish the sentence I was typing but Addie is too impatient and ends up pouring half a gallon of milk on the floor and is crying again. I start to clean up the puddle before it heads into the front room. Addie decides to run across the floor while I am still cleaning it and ends up slipping and falling back on her head. Crying again. I pick her up and cuddle her. We watch an entire episode of Fraggle Rock on the couch. I decide to try and finish the post now because she feels better. She wants more strawberry milk. I make her a little cup of milk. I hand it to her, she starts crying because she doesn't want it anymore. I put it on the counter. Cries again because she decided she really does want it. She drinks some and then happily goes to play with the toys in her room. I finally finish the post. She usually isn't as crabby as she has been today. It must be the pressure of turning two on Monday.