Skulls, Flowers, and Arches

Paul 3-D printed a skull for his sister's husband to give her as a birthday present, and Rawley REALLY liked it.

  This blog post probably won't be in the best order since I'm drawing from pictures off of both mine and Paul's phones, but here we go - the past few months in a nutshell!

 

We went to watch a Saturday session of General Conference (a t.v. broadcast by members of the LDS church leadership) at a member of our local church council's house, and they had a pool and bar-b-que which we enjoyed before the session. We also love their golden retriever, and so did Rawley! He loves dogs a lot, and we try to expose him to them (safely of course) at every chance we get.

Rawley LOVES feet and shoes, and he especially loves Dad feet. They always cheer him up!

We're really glad the semester is over and we can enjoy the spring and summer without classes! Paul is a great dad and Rawley enjoyed hanging out with him while I was in class this past semester.

We also went to BYU's annual Powow where various Native American tribes from nearby (Arizona, Idaho, Utah, etc. - mostly Navajo tribes) got together to dress in traditional costumes and perform their native dances in a big celebration. We really enjoyed watching the dances and eating some Navajo tacos they were selling as well. It was particularly cool since my dad served his church mission to the Navajo reservation for 2 years back in the 70's and even learned how to speak Navajo.

Playing a large drum and singing. We've always liked how a lot of their chanting sounds like coyotes in the desert.

Some of the traditional outfits with bells and feathers - we really enjoyed watching the dances and elaborate costumes.

We also went to a mineral and gem fair that was help up near Salt Lake City. We had a lot of fun looking at all the various specimens - I've always had a passion for rock collecting since I was a kid and it was quite interesting to see all the different mineral and gems there. We ended up getting a couple crystal pendants that were really pretty, and it's kind of fun to pretend they're lightsaber crystals.

Oooo, black sparkly rock!

Those lit up ones were literally $3000 each or more.

We'll make a rock aficionado out of him yet!

Rawley loves climbing all over his own personal jungle gym - Dad.

Bowls are pretty much the best.

He's pretty happy with hanging out on the floor and scooting around, even during Mom's class time.

 

 Here's a lump of videos because Blogger doesn't want to let me move them around easily.

Rawley loves scooting around (he doesn't truly crawl yet, but is pretty close.) My mom also taught him how to wobble his head back and forth, which he loves to do now with some degree of regularity.

YESSSS. DAD FEET.

He likes to pretend he's a battering ram at dinnertime.

Rawley was pretty psyched about being a zombie baby.

Head wobbles like his grandma taught him.

Tummy trumpet time!

Dad's pretty fun.

An important baby announcement.

The little head massager at Becca's house was pretty amazing in Rawley's opinion.

Laundry fun times.

Rawley's generally pretty happy when he's eating lunch.

Crawling attempts.

Vacuums rock.

"I'm finally getting that dastardly mobile!"

Tables taste funny.

Wooooow..... Dad has magical powers.

 

The crib's a good place to hang out and practice crawling, especially because our floors are really rough and hard.

Bath time! He enjoys playing with the octopus bath toy Debbie gave him at Christmas when we visited. Rawley will splash in the tub forever unless we take him out.

Paul liked it when I was in class too because he got to hang out with both of us in the middle of his school/work day on Mondays and Wednesdays :)

Rawley's version of studying - chewing on Dad's backpack.

Sometimes we marinate and grill shrimp, it's pretty good.

We went on a trip with my mom and sister down to Moab and Arches National Park! We had a lot of fun, and hiked the Delicate Arch hike which is probably the most famous Utah hike/arch. It was nice to go back to this particular park (which we visited spring of last year when I was really pregnant) and I could actually hike stuff this time.

On the way up to the arch.

Steps hewn into the stone.

We found a cool erosion puddle thing in the rock.

And Rawley found a dad with shades.

And I found my two favorite people!

We finally made it to the arch after a reasonable hike but a terrifying part of it was on a tiny ledge with a steep drop off on one side. I took that part really slow and clung to the wall haha.

I honeslty didn't really like being at the top because I'm super afraid of heights, and so is my sister Brooke - neither of us were having super fun by the top, but the view was pretty great!

Rawley loved it, though! He probably inherited his bravery for heights from his dad.

Clinging to each other for fear of the heights, although mom actually wasn't very scared.

A view from the ledge path. Man that was terrifying.

Baby break!

  

Saw some cool desert flowers.

Paul likes Native American flutes a lot, and is decent at making stuff up on them. We found some really cool ones at a gift shop in Moab.

We went to a cool rock shop afterwards owned by a fairly renowned Utahn paleontologist. He's found a lot of awesome stuff (including this real fossilized dinosaur nest with eggs) and has helped BYU out a lot.

Dead Horse point was pretty cool, but not as much of a hike as we had originally anticipated. Rawley loves being strapped to Daddy, though, so the trip was pretty enjoyable for him.

Dead Horse point - where for some reason the cowboys would gather all the wild horses in the area, select the prize or best ones, then for some reason drive all the others out onto a small precipice with a gate or fire so they couldn't get back to the main land and they'd die out there without food or water :/ They don't know historically why the cowboys did that.

A long and awesome trip!

Soon after we got back from that trip, Paul was flown back home to Virginia by his family to sing with William and Lizzy in a choir his mom was directing. I'm so jealous he got to go back during the summer! I haven't been back in VA during the summer or spring for a very long time, and I miss it so much.

Paul went shooting with his brother (in a kilt since their family has Scottish heritage n' all) and dad. I don't have too many other pictures from their trip but it went really well according to Paul!

We then took a camping trip since my Mom has been here to help watch Rawley - and he loves being with my mom, so we felt comfortable leaving him with her for a day. We drove to Antelope Island on the Salt Lake, which is connected to the mainland by a little manmade road surrounded by marshland. We drove in in the evening and it was a very, very beautiful sunset!

Antelope Island is named that because of the native antelope that live there and were seen when explorers first encountered the island. They also have buffalo there, which were introduced to the island later and today are raised there for meat.

They just wander around free - and on the road clearly. We're not stupid so we were def in our car when we were this close to them/they were unavoidable.

The island's namesake - antelope.

Super, super beautiful.

Nice half moon.

Morning! It's nice to wake up to the sound of thousands of birds. We soon discovered the unfortunate reason why there were so many birds there at this time of year, though. We went for a walk down to the lake and were quickly swarmed by hundreds of thousands of gnats and mosquitoes. We literally ran back to the tent and car and went for a hike we hoped would be free of the bugs at a higher elevation (we even were wearing bugspray, but apparently that didn't matter much.) 

View from the base of Bufffalo point. Way down on the beach we could see two buffalo chilling on the salt flats.

The view from this place was completely incredible - just snow capped mountains and lake all around.

After some research later we realized the reason there were so many birds was because it's breeding season for the gnats, no-see-ums, and mosquitoes that thrive on the lake. We have never encountered so many bugs in our lives, like literally they were chasing us wherever we went!

 

Literally running away from the bugs and constantly brushing them off - but still fun (enough.)

Fresh post-camping morning faces. If you look closely you can see gnats and mosquitoes on us. We only stopped for a minute at the top because the bugs were so unbearable if we tried to stop for even a second.

It was an amazing view though! (the scenery was nice as well ;} )

Paul found a yellow spotted lizard and kind of made friends with it.

Reflected mountains on the water.

The road out back to civilization.

In case you think we exaggerated the bugs - this was the front of our car from just the trip in and out. SO. MANY. BUGS.

May 4th was my birthday, and Paul got together a little surprise IHOP party with some of our friends and family which was super nice of him. We're sad we'll be leaving our ward soon because we're moving up the street to a bigger apartment, but we'll still live close enough to do stuff with them. IHOP actually has free kids meals for each adult entree purchased, so we got Rawley a free meal and he loved it - he ate half of it, and it was definitely made for a kid like four times his age, haha.

Eating or playing - food is good for both.

One of our friends gave me this bouquet and it was super nice of them - the lily is still is making our whole house smell great which is impressive.

So Paul 3-D printed this skull for his brother in law to give to his sister Becca for her birthday. It's super cool and realistic looking.

Rawley thought it was pretty much the coolest thing as well.

He kept wanting to touch his head to it initially? Hard to tell if maybe he realized it was kind of like a person or what he was thinking.

We set it on the table facing him and he started blabbering to it and Paul thought it was creepy so he moved it, haha.

Becca liked the skull and a visit from her nephew.

Becca had a different, less fragile skull which Rawley super loved. He's actually our little biting zombie baby it seems.

Omnomnom braaaainnns!!!!

We recently got Rawley a jogging stroller (he's really too big for his other stroller now) and he loves facing forward in it soooo much!!

Just hangin' out.

Mom feet are second best!

Sometimes I just see these two little eyes peeping through the crib <3

Things have been going well with my figurine business! I've sold at least one figurine each month since I opened shop in November, mostly to random people who found my stuff on the internet. It's been a fun little side thing although not super lucrative or anything.

This one just sold last week - a Sherlock Holmes themed otter which looks like the Benedict Cumberbatch version on BBC.

Love this baby!

He's so happy and cheerful pretty much all the time.

Blackberries are good, but messy.

Hugging the bottle while sleeping.

We went to Thanksgiving Point with Rawley, my mom, and my sister, which has beautiful and amazing gardens with a ton of tulips. I do really like going there in the spring.

Rawley liked looking at all the bright colors and being outside.

He's my little bud ;)

Cool fringed tulips.

Just a tiny sprout.

They recently added a really cool sculpture garden with amazing pieces by an LDS artist. Very cool, spiritual, and larger than life.

An infinity box of flowers with mirrors.

The last time we went to these gardens, Rawley was super little and I nursed him near these water falls.

A paper crane display.

We've been getting a lot of cheap or free furniture lately, which has been pretty great since we'll need it when we move!

Mom, Rawley, and I took a walk on the Provo River Trail which was nice with the big ole' spillway.

A quail on a rail.

One of Rawley's favorite games ever is getting trapped inside his baby laundry basket.

He's even learned how to drink out of his sippy cup now instead of just a bottle!

Paul's working on staining wood and building us a special shelf for our kitchen table.

So many dad feet, all to himself!

Things are going great, we're excited for the spring and summer, and Rawley is just as sweet, happy, and fun as always. Looking forward to more adventures in the coming months!