July

July's been a busy month for us, and as I haven't had a chance to blog in awhile I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything I wanted to write about! So I decided to simplify and not worry about including everything. There will, however, be several pictures, which for some reason aren't uploading well and look super pixel-y right now.

1. Fitt family reunion! This is for my Grandpa, all his brothers, and all their descendents.

Our side of the family all wore matching red t-shirts.

Even Livvy had a little mini t-shirt

It was a lot of fun to visit with everyone, but this next picture is an unfortunately accurate depiction of the trip.

(She really did have fun...but she had to be told NO an awful lot, and being out of her routine and all made for a tired baby--and mommy.)

This next picture I love. Here's Livia thorougly enjoying her great-uncle David.

Playing with her Great-Grandma. My Grandpa Fitt is there in the back, with the camera.

Some highlights of the reunion include old family videos (the really old kind, with no sound), 3 live snakes being brought into the area by some distant cousins of mine, one blissful nap under a tree taken by Livia, and a rattlesnake that was caught, killed, cooked, and subsequently eaten by almost everyone there--including myself! Yes folks, I ate a wild rattlesnake. Not bad...but not all that great either.

2. Two days after I got back from my trip, my little brother and sister came to stay with me for a week! Livia was in absolute heaven, and was so excited when she woke up each morning and they were still here! I always think it must be strange as a baby: to often wake up in new places, to never really know where you are, where you're going, why you're in a car for 6+ hours, and whether or not a person is going to be there for any length of time. I guess that's why so many have separation anxiety: their parents are the only real thing they can count on!

Anyway, we had a great time together, going to parks, the zoo, and swimming. Here's Livia enjoying her first frosty from Wendy's. Once she got one sip of it, she seriously would not let go of the straw until she had finished every last drop!

Here's Emily and David at a park near our home.

We went to a cute little zoo and children's museum that they all really enjoyed

We don't have tons of room in our apartment, so they got to sleep on an air mattress in our living room.

Wait, what's that you say? There are THREE people in that bed?? Yup. Chase got to enjoy some good reading time with his brother and sister-in-law.

We had so much fun with Emily and David, and hope they'll come visit us again sometime in the future! Livia sure misses having people in the house who have as much energy as she does.

3. I had a birthday, shout hooray! My main present was going to a Coldplay concert with Chase, which was a lot of fun. We planned on going out to dinner on my actual birthday with Emily and David, but as we walked up to the restaurant three different fire engines and several ambulances came screaming past us. Seriously? Our restaurant was on fire! We watched for awhile as they put out the fire, and though there wasn't any serious damage, we decided not to wait until they started seating people again, and got dinner at a little soup and sandwich place across the street. Not quite what I had hoped for, but it was still fun to be with family. My mom's so sweet though: when she heard what had happened she sent me a gift card to the restaurant so that Chase and I can go back sometime and try again.

Here are a few more pictures from my Utah trip:

The Oquirrh mountain temple. We went through the open house, and it was simply gorgeous!

Austin helping Livia strum his guitar.

Just loungin'

Livia and my sister Laura

Well, that about covers it! Sometime soon I'll have to post a video of Livia "singing" songs. She can make the hand motions to three different songs, and though she's a little camera shy and hasn't yet done them all for the video camera, I'm going to keep trying. It is so cute!

An ode to the King

When Michael Jackson died we (like practically everyone else) listened to some of his songs, and it turns out Livia's a fan! So despite the laundry on the couch and the shaky camera, I couldn't NOT post this.

P.S. I don't have any good pictures from the 4th of July, but trust me, she loved it. Even though it was way past her bedtime she didn't cry once, and was positively enchanted by the fireworks, murmuring "wow" periodically as they went off.

Livvy lately

Bathing Beauty:


First time swimming with Daddy (somehow he's never around when we go. Or he's feeling too wimpy to get in. I don't know) Mountain climber

An attempt at sun protection that never made it out of the apartment

Like Mommy:

I guess Daddy is not the only person she copies--here she is with my shoes and keys.

And now with a "purse" and keys. I also caught her grabbing the dustpan and trying to sweep the floor (like I do every time after she eats). Getting into mischief.

I guess every kid has to unroll the toilet paper at least once, right?

I let her hold a pen while I was grocery shopping, and looked down a moment later to discover that we have a budding artist on our hands.

Good times.

Eat, Livvy, EAT!

So Livia hasn't been wanting to eat much lately. I think it's a combination of teething and finally being weaned, but regardless...it has been a huge battle getting her to eat anything. And so I've been trying to come up with new things. She's always loved straws, so I stuck a straw in her yogurt and voila! Suddenly that yogurt she'd been refusing to even take a bite of all day long tasted awesome and she ate the entire thing within a couple of minutes. Encouraged, I made her a smoothie for breakfast, popped a straw in it, and she loved it! Hooray! Hopefully more successes will follow, and she'll be back to her normal, hungry self.

This, ironically enough, is a picture of the last time she let me feed her yogurt with a spoon. Yes, that means she got that messy when I was feeding her.

And with summer in full swing, we let Livia eat a popsicle. Slightly baffled at first, she did polish the whole thing off, and was upset when we took away the popsicle stick.

Oh, the joys of feeding a toddler! (And the many accompanying baths)

Why we love our little Livvy

I love her two little teeth on bottom. She got them first, at six months, and then got 6 top teeth. I can see two more on bottom starting to poke through, and it makes me kinda sad.

She sleeps weird.

She wants to be just like Daddy.

She gives me a good reason to go to the zoo and get really close to lions. She's such a funny little girl--she managed to switch our television settings into Spanish today--and we love her so much!

Road trip!

Last week Livia and I hitched a ride with my grandparents and headed down to the wonderful and blustery city known as Apple Valley.

During the drive we actually had a lot of this:

Definitely some of this...

And a ridiculously small amount of this:

Livia had an absolute blast at my parent's house! Not only was she doted on by aunts, uncles, and grandparents, but there was a DOG to play with, FISH and pet MICE to look at, STAIRS to climb, and a big HOUSE to explore.

She watched her Aunt Emily hula-hooping, and decided to give it a try herself. I was out of the room at the time, but apparently she held the hula hoop around her middle and spun herself around in circles. Ha!

She loved playing outside in the yard with this toy lawn mower.

She had her very first bubble bath, and had fun "painting" with the bubbles

We all went to the park one day and Livia learned how to use a bucket and shovel (kind of)

But of course Livia's not the only one who had a good time. Here's a picture of my mom and Uncle David

And now we come to the whole reason we were there! To celebrate Jon's graduation from high school! Congratulations, J!

Jon was one of the valedictorians, and we are all so proud of him and excited for him to head off to BYU this fall!

Have I ever mentioned I'm the shortest one in my family??

Since you've been gone...

Last week we--well, really I--decided it would be a good idea to do a little experiment. "Let's turn off the tv for an entire week, Chase," I suggested, hoping it wouldn't occur to him that the NBA finals started later that week. He did remember, of course, but not one to back done from a challenge, he agreed.

I wanted to see what we could accomplish in our evenings if we didn't have our trusty ol' television to turn to when we were tired or bored. And here's what we did:

• Went on a long walk one evening and spent some time playing at the park with Livia
• Played a board game
• I made throw pillows for our couch
• Chase played soccer
• Read (John Adams for Chase, and Mayflower for me. Chase has gotten me on a history kick)
• Planned our primary lesson in advance
• Listened to past airings of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
• I went running for the first time in two years. Here's a little piece of advice: if you're out of practice, don't think you have to prove anything to yourself. I only ran a mile, put pushed myself so hard to get a good time that I very nearly vomited all over some bushes.
• Made cookies
• Went on another walk to Krispy Kreme to participate in free donut day Ü

Did we miss our TV? I wish I could say no, but there were a few times where one or the other of us really just wanted to relax on the couch and watch a show. Luckily we had each other to report to--peer pressure can work wonders. Plus I hid the remotes.

Overall though, it was nice to do other things with our time. We talked a lot more, accomplished more, and our apartment is cleaner. So while I don't think we'll be getting rid of our tv anytime soon, I do think we're going to be more selective about when and why we decide to turn it on.