how do you discipline a 9 month old

Mae has a new trick. She stands up really well in her crib. Well, one Sunday Jayson, Mae and I were taking a nap. We heard Mae wake up, but she seemed to be entertaining herself just fine so we let her play for awhile. When I finally ventured in there, I found out why she'd kept so quiet.


We found this really cute thing called a "wallie." It is essentially wallpaper, but its in the shape of something. Mae's wallie is a tree. Anyway, she found out that if she got her hands under it just right and pulled, it would rip. So she started ripping off her wallie.

Here is the result.

Here's the princess and her handywork. But really, how could you be mad at that? I guess the most frustrating thing was that I couldn't really do anything about it. It had been way too long; the moment to discipline her would have been right after it happened. And besides, how do you discipline a nine month old anyway?

Really, when it comes down to it, I could have prevented this from happening but just getting up. I guess I've learned my lesson. But everyone with kids, I'm sure, is just telling me that I had it coming. I'm not sure why I even intend on having nice things. But believe me, the sacrifice is worth it. Mae is way way way cuter than her wallie.

the other derby

After we had such a great time at the Heber Derby, we told everyone about it. Our friends all thought it sounded like a great idea, so we rounded up some people from our neighborhood and headed out to the Juab County Demolition Derby.

These kids were all about it. It was pretty cute, I think there were about 10 standing at the railing by the time the derby was done.

Here is some of the crew: Alisa Sumsion, Heather and Stan, and Steve Sumsion.

Chance and Chelsea, a new couple in our neighborhood came too. She's having a girl in a few months. YEAH for baby girls!

Mae really loves her dad. REALLY loves him.

But now she just wants him to leave her alone so she can watch. She did a little better at this one then the Heber Derby. I think its because these cars actually had mufflers.

Alisa caught a shirt. That's a keeper for sure!

Karrie and Jack were having a blast playing around. Jack has really become quite a socialite.


Seriously, social. For a few good months, he'd cry whenever he was around me. Now he poses for me and everything. I'm really happy with the progress we've made, Jack.


Unfortunatly for me, it looks like Jack has another female interest. He found this cute girl there and was playing with her all night. It was really cute, I just wanted to take lots of pictures. But the girls dad kept giving me dirty looks, so....

Gosh we're happy to be at another derby! We'll have to make it an annual tradition for our family. The Juab DD didn't have a herby heat, which we really missed, or a truck heat which we REALLY missed. Speaking of trucks, we saw a Ford F650 there, which I had never seen. It was GIGANTIC. The pictures didn't turn out, but the bed of the truck was taller then Jayson. I hope I see another one in my lifetime. Well folks, there really isn't anything like small town Utah and demolition derbies. If you haven't experienced it, please let us be a part of your first experience. We'd love to be there for the car smashing goodness.

Portland

Our adventures this summer took us to Portland for a wedding. Tyler, Jayson's younger brother and Jessi Leppert were married in the Portland temple on August 2, 2007. It was a great time, even though it was a quick trip. Here are some shots from our trip. To see the pictures from the wedding taken by Scott and Jayson, visit http://apertureartistry.smugmug.com.

The drive is a long one (I know there are longer drives, but it's long for me); 12 hours. The last hour of the drive is awesome; you drive through a beautiful gorge. It almost makes the drive worth it.

We arrived on Wednesday, and spend most of the day prepping for the wedding and the lunch. Joy and I also stole away for a bit to get our nails done.

Thursday was the day of the wedding...

Here are the kids at the temple. Mae found good friends in her cousins, Ammon and Kaleb. They loved to play with her and she loved the attention. Notice Kaleb is holding a gummy hot dog. Delicious....


After the wedding was the lunch. Tyler and Jessi wanted J Dawgs for their wedding lunch. So we brought the stuff and the crew (thanks Joy!) and cooked up a delicious meal (at least I thought it was delicious!). We made the dawgs, Sandy Boyd's coleslaw (mmmmmmm...), and these baked beans that have bacon and velvetta cheese and other delicious things.

Here was our table spread. Turned out pretty nice. Thanks Deb for buying such great decorations! It looked so great!

Many years ago when my sister got married, she had bottles of root beer. My dad feels like he's never lived it down. Something about a bunch of mormons walking around with long neck brown bottles. I thought it was hilarious, and a lot of fun, so we tried to get some bottled soda for their wedding.

Here we are working on the get-away car. Evidently there is such a thing as window paint? I just used shoe polish, but I think it gave them some trouble. Now I know for next time!


Here is the rear view of the car. We forgot almost all the decorations, so we made due with what we had. It turned out pretty sweet, I think.

After the wedding, we went over and spent some time at Grandma Marcella's.

Here is Mae and her great grandma, Marcella. Great grandma is good to us; and she had so many fun things to play with.

This probably was the funniest thing that happened on the trip. Jayson was playing with a big red ball, and somehow it ended up in this huge tree. So...it was an adventure getting it out. Here is a picture of the first attempt--3 rakes/brooms taped together. I believe a fourth one was added shortly after this picture.


Yep, four. Four brooms lassoed together. Alas, it was still inadequate, and the ball remained lodged.

Jayson decided to climb the tree. Adventurous, but successful.

It was quite a spectator sport. That ball in the tree held everyones attention for at least 3o minutes.

Finally, the ball! We had some good laughs about that ball.

Jayson didn't believe that I was capable of doing a cartwheel. I sure showed him! Jen and I had a competition to see who could do the most. I think we both topped out at 3. I've got some practicing to do!

Here's Haylee!

Mae found a chicken nugget on the ground and it, like everything else, went straight to the mouth. This was her first chicken nugget, and she LOVED it. Looks like we have a McDonalds junkie on our hands.


Friday was a relatively free day for us. We spent some time setting up for the reception (Saturday), but also got to spend some time together.


Whenever I am in Portland, I always try to do at least 2 things: eat at E-Sans and go to Powells books. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to Powells, but we did make it to E-Sans. Here is some amazing mango sticky rice. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this place.

Here's the crew: Jayson, Scott, Brandyn, Jen, Deb, Heidi, Joy. Do we look satisfied? After dinner, we went hit up opening night of the Bourne Ultimatum. Jayson had been reading the books and we watched the first two movies in review. As far as movies are concerned, it was probably my favorite I've seen in the theater this year.

Saturday was reception day. I spent some time helping the girls get ready and Jayson brought Mae a little bit later. The reception took place in a beautiful historic LDS Church building. It was beautifully decorated and a lot of fun.


Here is one of our reserved tables. You can see some guitar picks on the table. They had them engraved to say "tyler picks jessi" with their wedding date. pretty sweet.

Ty, the groom, and one of his groomsmen, Ryan.

Joy and the mother of the bride, Wendy. Bust a move ladies!

I have never seen anything like this. Joy is doing the hot dog dance, based on her career at J Dawgs. Right here she is putting sauce on the dawg. I was laughing and laughing. You can tell Jessi, the bride thinks she should learn that dance too.

Joy and I had a great time dancing.

Aunt Donna and Uncle Gordon were shaking a leg too!

Jayson and Grandma, looking extra sweet.

I wish I would have gotten more pictures at the reception; Katy looked phenomenal, and Grandpa and Grandma Edwards were there, and a whole host of other relatives I was getting to know. I was mostly concerned about Mae that night. She was pretty miserable, and we actually had to take her to the E.R. after the reception. She had some virus, which seems like it shouldn't be a big deal, but she was having an asthmatic reaction so she was struggling breathing. We were there until 4 in the morning. The good news is, Mae seems to be doing just fine and we haven't had to use her inhaler for awhile! Yeah!

Joy's classroom

If I could, I would go back to first grade just so I could be in Ms. Edwards classroom! It is so fabulous. Joy, my sweet sister in law is teaching first grade at Hill Crest Elementary in Orem. I was floored at all the requirements for her room...a library, a listening station, a writing station, a carpet area, a guided reading station, a welcome door, and on and on. She has worked so hard on her room. She just had her open house and met some of her 16 new favorite little kids.


Here is Ms. Edwards in her own room! Doesn't she look like she belongs there?

This is her "welcome door." We pulled it together in about 45 minutes right before the open house. It was quite a miracle, especially because Joy only got her class list that morning. All her boys are on apples, and her girls are on flowers. Yes, she only has 5 girls, and 11 little boys. Why does that just make me want to laugh?

This is the area right in front of her carpet area. She has to do the date every morning. She also has some counting things, and of course, her flag.



This is her desk area. She is still figuring out what to do on the wall beside her desk. Behind her desk is the "star of the week." This week is going to be Ms. Edwards. You can also see the adorable chair covers. Deb, our mom, made these for all of the chairs. They have a little pocket so the kids can put the books they're reading in them.

This is her library...my favorite part. It was so sweet, one of her little kids asked her "did you get those chairs from Ikea?" A first grader! We laughed and laughed.


This is the word wall, and the guided reading station, and the alphabet above the cupboards. Katy colored the alphabet. We should really get a close up, because she did such a killer job.


This is the view from behind Joy's desk. Her room has both a boys and girls bathroom. How sweet would that be? We're so excited for her to start school TOMORROW! wow!

Heber Derby!

Wow. That's about all I can say, is wow. We have found a new love. Demolition Derbies. Wow. Who knew it could be so much fun to watch cars smash the junk out of each other. The roar of the muffler-less engines, the stink of leaking gasoline, and the company of white trash. We felt so alive.

The Heber Demolition Derby is a fundraiser for the Wasatch County Search and Rescue. Since my incredibly brave and heroic brother, Kirk, volunteers with S & R, he gets wicked sweet seats each year. So this year, we met up with Tricia, Jake, Josh, Sara, Anne and Drew. Have I mentioned how amazing it was?

Drew looked oh-so-so-sweet. He wore his pearl snappy and borrowed Dad's stetson. He almost fit right in. almost.

Joshy and Mae played quite a bit. Joshy is so sweet with Mae and she adores him, as you can see from her smiling face.

So cute!
This looks like the proudest moment of this families life; picking up the cars off the track at the demolition derby. Look at them all jammed in the cab of this truck. So funny.

Drewby and Anne at the derby. They loved it.

Josh looks like he is in the witness protection program.

Mae's favorite heat was the powder puff heat. Or maybe the herby heat. She was a great sport.

Look how excited Dad is. Mae is more excited the camera's out again.
Anne, you look so dang sweet.

We were one happy family at the derby.

Just for the record, Jayson has already asked to reserve tickets for next year. So if you are sad you missed the derby this year, let us know and we'll try and find you a spot next year.