Lars's Baby Blessing

Greg and other members of our family blessed little Lars on April 30, 2017 in our sacrament meeting at church. It was a beautiful blessing. He prayed for Lars and offered some wisdom for his future life. If you've seen the episode of the Office when Pam and Jim get married, whenever they have a special moment they stop and take a mental picture by pretending to hold a camera in their hands. Seeing my husband carry our sweet baby boy to front of the chapel and having our dads and brothers and uncles and friends join them in a circle and say a prayer for Lars was one of those moments for me.

I wanted to get in on the legacy making, so I woke up hours before the boys and I wrote Lars a long letter. I included all the general life advice I have for him at this point and how much we love him and wanted him in our family. Then I emailed it to the email account I set up for him the week he was born. I thought it would be fun to email him throughout his young life. Ha! Hope he appreciates it. 

I'm so glad we got to share the day with many people that are close to us. After sacrament meeting, everyone came over to our house for brunch and got to take turns holding Lars and taking pictures with him. He was quite the entertainer! He wore the same white outfit and shoes that Greg wore on his blessing day. And the white blanket he was wrapped in is a blanket I bought in Bethlehem on my study abroad.

After everyone left, we took naps and then I set up the camera to take some pictures of our little boy. He's just the cutest!   

 

  

   

   

  

 

 

    

   

  

Capitol Reef May 2017

The weekend we got home from the hospital after having Lars, both Greg and I were pretty fried. We'd waited for 9 months for his birth and now that he was here, we both felt a longing to resume our other activities we like to do. I think we were both in shock mode. So we sat down with the calendar and planned some tentative trips for the year. We decided Capitol Reef would be fun with a new baby because we could stay at the camping cabin at the RV park which has a heater and electric outlets. We were probably also feeling deprived from friends so we invited a bunch of friends to come down with us. It was a really fun thing for me to able to plan out the trip and have something to look forward to during those first couple months when it was really tough.

We went the first weekend of May. Sadly, I only have a few pictures because we were holding Lars a lot of the time and didn't have free hands. We had great food, visited the Gifford House for dessert, Greg and his friends played a few games, and we went on a hike. It was great to catch up with our friends we hadn't seen in awhile (6 of us have had babies in the past 6 months). But I think my favorite part of the trip was being with Lars outside. It was his first time being outside for long periods of time. We go on walks quite a bit, but he usually is asleep or the sun is out so his cover is on and he doesn't actually get to see what's happening. But when we were camping, we took turns holding him, just sitting on the camp chair and it was like he was a new baby! He was so calm and content and was happy as a clam to just sit up right and take it all in. I don't know if we can technically count it as his first camping trip since we were in a cabin, but it was fun!

One other little tidbit I want to remember. In this photo above, you can see that there are some dark clouds nearing. As we approached the end of the trail it started pouring rain with strong winds. The trail was really sandy so as the wind came, it whipped the sand in our face and eyes. It was a little scary since it came so fast. I was carrying Lars and I just hugged him and tried to protect his little face so he wouldn't getting any sand in his face. Greg was ahead of us trying to block the wind, but I felt like I had one of those "fierce mom - stronger than she looks" moments. I moved faster than I expected and I didn't care about anything but keeping my baby protected from the elements. I felt like  we were his protectors. And even though I don't really want to get trapped in a canyon during a storm with a small baby, it was a special little experience for me to see Greg leading the way for his wife and baby and finding us shelter. 

Birthday Week in St. George

Greg's last week at Skullcandy

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

The heavens smiled upon us for a 3 week break! Greg starts a new job today but he ended his job with Skullcandy at the beginning of April. His new employer knew we had just had a baby and so he told Greg that he didn't need to start the job immediately. So we ending up having him stay home for 3 weeks in between jobs and since I've been on maternity leave still, we've had lots of free time and it's been absolutely glorious! We knew we wanted to tackle a few home and personal projects, but we first wanted to make time for a vacation. My parents have a lovely home near St. George and they kindly said we could use it for a week, so we packed up and headed down! 

We had to pack quite a few more things than normal, now that we have a baby! We also had to make a few more stops so we could feed him and change his diaper on the way. But it was super chillaxing once we arrived. Every day was pretty much the same. We would both sleep in and play with Lars in the morning for an hour or so. He's so happy in the mornings after he's eaten so we like to just dote on him and take videos of him. Then we'd put him back down to sleep and eat breakfast and get ready for the day. When he woke, we'd go up to Snow Canyon and go on a hike with Lars in the carrier. After the hike we'd drive around the canyon and surrounding neighborhoods (we're working on a remodel, so we like driving through older neighborhoods and getting ideas for what we can do to our house) and then drive into town to get lunch somewhere. When we got home, we would take turns taking naps. One person would take a nap while the other would watch Lars and their favorite shows on TV. We usually watch TV together which means we have to find shows that we both like. But this was a nice change to have alone time so I could watch lots of Keeping up with the Kardashians and he could watch Top Gear and Grand Tour (auto shows). Then we'd go on a walk or run an errand. Then we'd make dinner and/or a baked good, puts Lars down to sleep, take the video monitor out to the hot tub, and then watch a movie. It was an absolute dream! We've been to my parent's house many times but it's usually for a long weekend so we don't get as much time to just chillax. 

A few other notable fun things. Greg had a good time driving the Razr around. The car seat wouldn't fit so he had to go on a solo trip. They are street legal down there so he had fun driving around and finding dirt trails to visit on his dirt bike at a later time. I enjoyed taking some walks with Lars while listening to my podcasts and trying to show him my favorite desert flora. He prefers sleeping right now, but I'm sure he'll be into it next time! We also re-watched some of our favorite episodes of Great British Baking Show and he some of our own baking. Greg made biscuits using his own starter, I made focaccia bread, and we made eclairs together. He also smoked some pork that was delicious! 

We celebrated my birthday while we were there and it was lovely. We got some tacos for lunch and then went to Neilsen's custard. Greg kindly took care of a fussy baby and a major diaper change in the car while I went in and got our order. We also celebrated my birthday earlier in the week with my parents in Lehi. We got sushi and Lars was a dream baby while we ate. And then we bought some Vans slip-ons for me at the outlets. Greg loves his slip-on Vans so now we're matching. :) When we got home from St. George, my mother-in-law made a lovely dinner for us to celebrated my birthday and Easter. Another wonderful year of life with the people I love!