cousins!

Jessica and her kids drove up from their office in Houston to see us for three days. My kids were in heaven. Swimming, going to the Stockyards, and we even had a Pioneer Day parade. And Jess and I got to go to the Lady Gaga concert in Dallas! I wish we had better pictures from it, but concert pics are never great. Oh and don't mind the pink floaties, Cody is very secure in his manhood.

shopping

I'm really not much of a shopper, especially with kids. Though I do love a good Target run. But there are a few stores here that we found that we just keep going back to. Rachel found us two fabric gold mines! One is a wholesale warehouse (supposedly the biggest outside LA or New York) where we have scored fabric for 99 cents/yard! The other is called City Craft and is the cutest boutique with tons of oil cloth and plastic covered cotton (not sure what the term for that is). A post with all my sewing projects will come soon.


We also keep finding ourselves at the NorthPark Mall in Dallas. My favorite thing is to just walk down the halls admiring the artwork and the amazing plants. I took the pictures of the kids in front of a smoothie shop covered in tile on the day we went to pick up Justin's new iPhone - his 125 account incentive. And I got his old phone!

P.S. Ellie does in fact, own more than one dress - somehow that same one keeps appearing on my blog!

heritage village

On July 4th we ventured into Dallas to visit the Heritage Village. Absolutely my kind of thing. Justin kept laughing at me b/c he could tell I was in my element. Set against the backdrop of the downtown high-rises (see the logo - it's great), the village contains buildings from the late 1800's and early 1900's including businesses, hotels, a school, log cabins, a general store, mansions, farms, blacksmiths, etc. All of them are period decorated and someone is there to tell you about each building. Being the fourth there was also crafts, games, and root beer floats!

it's the fourth ya'll

Some lovely photos by Carolee Beckham of our Sunday evening bbq before fireworks.

Saturday morning parade and waiting for the fireworks to start Sunday night.

around the house

bankhead's visit

At the end of June, Justin's parents and two little sisters came to visit. We had a rare cold front come in and it was beautifully rainy and never got above 80 degrees. We visited the Cowboys stadium, mini-golfed, went to Toy Story, bbq'd with the office, swam, ate at Which Wich - our favorite sandwhich shop, visited the Forth Worth Stockyards, went running, and spent the entire time at the fabulous Northpark Mall in Paper Source gawking over wedding invites for Jaime's August wedding! We came up with a design for her invites and they are being letterpressed as I type - I hope they turn out!

happiness is...

having a "claw" (said like the martians on Toy Story), and becoming a mermaid. Second only to the scooter from last year, the claw is probably Cody's most favorite toy ever. So handy for carrying drinks to different locations, opening and closing cupboards, getting out cereal meant to be out of reach, and poking me from the back seat of the car.

in the meantime

Having an unreliable internet connection has been good for me. I have cut my blogroll down to about 10 (after realizing that life does go on even when I don't know what everyone in blogland has been doing in the last day, or hour). But my own blog is suffering. Anywho - here are some photos from last semesters Photo 1 class while I work on getting some more edited from our endless summer.

From a portrait assignment.

From a shutter speed assignment.

For my final project I photographed my Grandpa and Grandma Bagley's home. Their home is clean and bright. My grandma is stylish and an incredible homemaker. I wanted to show some of the beautiful and sentimental objects in their home, and show a little of their day to day life. There are quite a few more photos that I won't put up but I was very pleased with the results.

a worthy sunday

Last week explored Fort Worth again after church. We ended up hungry and really had no choice when we drove by Fred's cafe.

stockyards

The Stockyards in Forth Worth are a must do - so we did. It has a Park City Main St. feel to it and everyday there is a cattle drive down the main road. This is where the old livestock market met the railroad and all the old buildings that used to house animals have been turned to shops and restaurants.

log cabin village

One nice thing about where we live is that we are smack in the middle of Dallas and Forth Worth. So far I think I like Fort Worth better. It seems more Western/Cowboy. A couple weeks ago we toured Log Cabin Village which is just a bunch of cabins from across Texas where you can talk to someone in period clothing who tells you about the families that lived in each cabin. Erin and Jess, this is totally something I pictured us doing and LOVING.

Aren't the school rules for students and teachers awesome!?

dallas arboretum

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to some gardens near downtown. They were more formal than our favorite gardens, Winterthur, in PA, but still a lot of fun. I took them alone knowing that things might not end well as they had both been out of sorts - throwing tantrums, whining a lot, etc. Sure enough, we made it about half-way things started to unravel. First about who got to pull the wagon, then about the heat, then about wanting candy. Then about wanting to smell a Magnolia flower even though I said the flower bites off crying children's noses. For the love! Ellie has been much better and I think Cody just needs some good discipline - that kids gets away with everything.


They had Betrix Potter as the theme in the Children's area. Homes made out of flowers for the characters and this little house was Mr. McGregor's cottage. You can see Peter's coat that Mr. McGregor made into a scarecrow. Very cute. They did a puppet show in the back.


This waterfall reminds me of UVU's architecture - inspired by Bauhaus design (ha! I did learn something in school!). And Ellie is holding a chocolate carrot sent to us by Grandma Jannie - a treat we appropriately ate at Peter Rabbits house.

missing this

Despite the fact that I think Orem "City" is so ugly, I could never live away from the mountains. My dad took this last week right after that crazy snowstorm. I've been checking out the Alta photo of the day pretty regularly since.

warm summer night

me like-y summer

Our apartment pool is awesome! Until 10 p.m. that is, then the parties start and well, um, let's just say the cops have been called a few times. Kind of annoying. But during the day, before the Holy Ghost goes to sleep, it's a riot. Cody finally re-figured out the floaties and next month the kids start swim lessons. Inside, our walls are fast becoming covered with all the drawings. I decided to save all the kids work and tape it to the wall, at the end of the summer I'll take a big picture of it. Oh and those sparkly shoes are the object of Cody's desire. He begs for his own and wears them whenever he can sneak them away from Ellie's closet.

forth worth zoo

Last week we ventured to the very nice Fort Worth Zoo with Rachel and her kids Emily and Sydney and Whitney and her little Payton. Our favorite thing was feeding the little yellow and blue birds - the babies were so excited they were shaking!

i had no idea

These are from my bike ride last week around the lake. Very pretty - I wasn't expecting Texas to be so green and colorful!

mother's day

My goal for Mother's Day was to get somewhere where Justin wouldn't have cell service. His phone rings and gets texts continuously usually until midnight and starts again around 8 am. Makes for great dinnertime conversation. The thing I miss the most about our summers is not being able to have a fire and go camping. We just don't have room in our car for all the equipment. There there is a neat state park just a few miles away so I decided we would "pretend camp". We found an awesome site and made tin foil dinners, hiked and explored, picked wildflowers and took naps (or tried to) on our bed. The campgrounds here are missing one thing that Utah campgrounds have, dirt. Makes for very clean camping.

our first week!

Cucumbers at the Dallas Farmers Market in downtown.

So far so good! I think there will be a lot to keep us entertained here in good ol' Texas. Now if the wind would just take a chill pill I could go one of my many road bike rides I have planned. The kid count is small this year, only 6 kids and Ellie is the oldest, then Cody and another 3-year old Emily (her family lives in our basement in Orem so they are already great friends), and three 10 month olds, 2 of which are twins. I also just figured out that I can get fast internet at the pool! It's so nice this year to have kids that don't have to be held and followed all the time at the pool. We already found Cody a bike at a garage sale and two huge dump trucks and an F-150 - Cody is in heavy equipment heaven.

At Joe Pool lake. The water is warm and shallow.

spring!

Before leaving Utah, the blossoms were in full bloom, Timp had a ton of snow, and the days were sunny and beautiful. I had an extra roll of film from my photo class so I took the kids to the orchard by our home and of course, the ones of Ellie turned out extra cute. I promise I think Cody is cute too! It's just that a boy surrounded by white blossoms isn't quite the same.

...and in color

a few more from the orchard with my digital.

road trip

Driving to Texas with my dad was a great chance to spend some time together. We took the scenic route through Taos, and who knows where else. Up and over mountain passes covered in feet of snow, small towns tucked in green valleys - it really was worth the extra few hours. I'm sure my dad's head was ringing my the end of the first night - you have to build up a tolerance to the sounds of kids, the never ending sounds of kids. It was such a help to have him there and who wouldn't have fun sleeping next to Cody and his squishy legs?

Above: Stop at the sand dune in Moab, pretty scenery, Taos, Joe Pool Lake near our apartment. Ellie is showing me "Where the Sidewalk Ends."