July 2015

We got to Omaha just in time for the 4th of July, and we’re so glad we did! It was awesome! Omaha celebrates like nothing I’ve ever seen! They have about a billion fireworks shops all over town (like literally you can stand on a street at a fireworks shop and see two others as well), and these shops sell every kind of firework- including mortars, firecrackers, and Roman candles. Most people here don’t go to a fireworks show, you just gather with friends or sit on your driveway and everyone is setting off fireworks- like the real ones at fireworks shows elsewhere! This display goes on for hours, since everyone, everywhere is doing it. It is just amazing. I think everyone should experience it once

See Hyrum? He’s hiding in his pajamas:

My parents came to visit us in July, and we took them to UNO campus and Ryan’s office to check it out. We also ate at Jones Bros. cupcakes- which actually has awesome cupcakes, unlike many other cupcake shops I’ve tried.

Later that day we had some ribs, corn on the cob, and watermelon as we ate out in our gazebo:

Grandma and Grandpa also had fun pulling our kids around on big blankets:

That same weekend we got a visit from friends from Utah and a friend from Texas. It was great!

Zane likes to twirl his wrists and kick his legs when he really  wants something or is getting unhappy. He also loves solids, with pizza crust as his favorite. Here, he’s trying his first strawberry!

Zane is a little monkey, and he likes to use his feet like 2nd hands, or sometimes instead of his hands! In this bouncer picture, Zane kept half-waking up and bouncing a little, then falling back asleep. So cute!

Zane loves baths! He has also become super wiggly and not very cuddly since he likes to see more things and explore more.

Here’s part of the view from our backyard! I love it!

Zane has decided that Daddy is his favorite, and will always reach for him when he comes in the room.

The kids and I made a summer bucket list. Theirs: be pushed on the swing, go to our neighborhood’s park, do a water balloon fight, and go to a baseball game. When we’d do one of the things, they’d say, “check” or when they added something they’d say, “add!” It was very cute. We did do all the things though! And many more. Here’s the water balloon pre-fight pose (we “surprised” Daddy when he got home from the store, and left him a bowl full of his own balloons while the kids had their bowl on our play set in the backyard. If I had to declare a winner, I’d say Ryan won):

Cora loves singing in the car, and it’s mostly random songs that she makes up as she goes.

We got some birds stuck in our gaxebo before we bought a door for it, and Hyrum asked how we were going to get them out. I didn’t know, so I asked Hyrum what he thought we should do. He went away for a little and was quiet, then when he came back, he had a picture he had drawn and showed me the whole plan of how he thought we should get them out. Way to go buddy!

When I see Hyrum and Cora playing on the stairs long after we’ve put them in bed, Hyrum tells me, “we accidentally got out of bed.” He also told me that when he grows up he wants to be an inventor, so he can make toys for his and M’s kids (our old neighbor’s little girl who he is set on marrying).

We told the kids we were going to watch a Star Wars show, but when Ryan pulled up Clone Wars (the cartoon) on the TV, Hyrum whined, “that’s not Star Wars, that’s fake Star Wars!”

We went to Mormon Night at the Storm Chasers stadium in July, and we had a blast! There was a grassy hill for the kids to run around on, they had fun music between batters, the game moved at a pretty decent pace, and there were actually a few home runs and plenty of hits. It was a really fun thing for our family to do here, and we will definitely be doing it again!

This month Zane learned to get up on his hands and knees and started to stick out his arm for a wave.

Cora’s cute words, “merdaid”= mermaid and “hot gog”= hot dog. She also likes to pretend her food are characters, like one day she stood up her hot dog and said, “I’m Nya the hot dog!” and wanted her hot dog to play with Hyrum’s hot dog.

Our washer broke this month (and again in August) and since we were completely out of clean clothes right then, we had to go to a laundromat. We took the kids and made it a family affair, so the kids watched Big Hero 6 on Ryan’s phone while we used up a ton of washers and dryers. Not sure we’ll ever do that again…

The kids took swimming lessons this month! They both did great this time! No tears at all, and totally happy to put their faces in the water and everything. Hyrum can now float on his back by himself and even do small glides by himself. And his backstroke is great! Cora just lvoed playing in the water and may have gotten a little too comfortable in it (she got a little daring sometimes when her teacher wasn’t looking). Her favorite thing was when it was her turn to swim and she’d look at me with a big smile on her face and yell, “Hi Mommy!”