Summer Wrap Up

Wow, I just looked back on the last post I made from May and I'm realizing how much Gunnar has grown in the past 6 months since that time. He's grown not only in the physical sense but also emotionally - he is so smart and can understand much of what we tell him. He still isn't talking in complete sentences but he definitely says specific words (ball, plane, dog, truck, book, etc.). Next week he will be 19 months old and he is extremely curious and gets into everything!

We moved houses last week and the build up toward moving has been stressful the past few months. I'm also now 4+ months pregnant and am just finally starting to feel the effects of it (backaches, sciatic pain, fatigue). Now that we're getting settled into the house I'm hoping to be able to have more time to dedicate to posting pictures once again and keeping the blog up-to-date!

Here is a round up of my favorite pictures from the summer!

Gunnar goes to Aunt Tara's house on Tuesday's about twice per month. We bring an extra car seat for him in case she needs to go anywhere - he likes to get sit in it just for fun.

At Aunt Tara's Gunnar gets to play in their complex park - he loves it!

He also has a friend named Cayden when he goes to Tara's. Cayden is a bit older than Gunnar but they've definitely become buddies.

Gunnar loves watching a few select music videos - he gets entranced by the singing and dancing in them!

We had lots of boxes around the house before the move, of course they made great play toys!

Gunnar came with me and Grandma Marilee when we got our hair done. He only sat still while having his bottle :P

At the park again :P

Playing with Legos

One morning before I went to work Gunnar wanted to get in the basket with his stuffed animals. He took all of them out of the basket, got it in himself and then motioned for me to put all of the animals back in on top of him!

Our old neighborhood swing - he's getting close to outgrowing those shoes!

Over at Jenn's house (where he goes on Tuesday's he's not with Tara) he LOOOOOOVEs playing with the magnets from the fridge.

We usually eat out at a place called Costa Vida once per month - he loves the rice and beans and has recently started getting better at using utensils.

This is our morning routine. Get bottle, lounge in chair and watch Curious George.

Gunnar got his very own cell phone (play of course) that lights up and has music!

Happy face for when his music videos come on the TV!

Our official pregnancy announcement!

This was the day I packed up most of Gunnar's room. I broke out the "real" books and let him play for a little while. These are the books with paper pages - he doesn't normally get to play with these because he just rips up the paper...but he sure had fun looking through them!

All of us went with Chris and Tara to the Utah State Fair one Sunday. Gunnar absolutely LOVED seeing all of the animals and being able to touch them. He's definitely getting to the point where going to the zoo in the spring time will be fun!

Got a new basketball bath toy to play with!

Zoned out watching something on TV while eating dinner.

Last day in the old house Gunnar found the fooseball table. He spent a good half hour playing with the guys and moving the ball around. Of course, he had to climb on top of it too.

 On moving day Aunt Tara took Gunnar for the entire day and night (so we could move everything)...here they are taking a selfie together!

First couple of days in the new house, Gunnar found out he LOVES the railing/banister for the stairs. Don't worry he can't fall down and he hasn't gotten stuck :P

The new house has it's OWN playset with a rock wall to climb and a slide to go down. Gunnar loves climbing up! We have purchased a baby swing so he'll be able to swing as well.

Gunnar loves examining (and picking) flowers he finds - these are in our new backyard and he had fun exploring!

More photos to come over the next little while :)

Florida Trip Part 1

I realize it's been 4 months since I last wrote a blog post. Now that Gunnar is walking around everywhere, it's been hard for me to find the time (and energy) to keep up on blogging. I'm promising myself I'll get better going forward. I almost need to think of it like a job and hold myself more accountable :)

Over the coming weeks I'll be sure and post additional pictures I've taken in order to keep everything documented, including Gunnar's first birthday. However, I'm starting this post with the pictures from our trip that were taken with our cell phones. My next post will be the good camera pictures!

We spent May 8-16th in Florida and accomplished a few different goals. Tara and I visited the Magic Kingdom. Chris, Tara, Ramin, Gunnar and I visited Epcot on Mother's Day. We spent a few days with Grandma Ceil in the Tampa Bay area and then I attended a professional training seminar in Orlando for the last few days of the trip while everyone else visited various places like Daytona Beach, Downtown Disney and other things.

The airplane ride to Florida DID NOT go as we had hoped. We took the red-eye direct flight from SLC to ORL in hopes that baby would sleep. Well, because of all the fun new things to see, sleep was the LAST thing on his mind. He was quite entertained and we were lucky to have an entire row to ourselves. The return trip we weren't so lucky but thankfully baby did sleep for half of the 4-hour flight.

Once we arrived in Orlando and got our rental van situation figured out, we had to drive around a lot that day to burn time before we could check in to our condo - I captured Gunnar finally catching up on the sleep he missed the night before.

Around noon that first day we headed over to Downtown Disney for a stroll. We stopped by the Lego store and boy was it a hit with Gunnar :)

We finally checked into the condo and Gunnar passed out BIG TIME!

The next morning Tara and I took off for Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom. We literally stayed at Hollywood Studios for maybe an hour while we rode the Tower of Terror TWICE! I confirmed to myself that it was indeed my favorite ride ever (I'd never been on it before but I knew it was my favorite all this time).

I loved that first ride so much that I bought the picture Disney took of us on the ride. Tara and I are in the middle row

We then headed over to the Magic Kingdom. It was quite crowded but we were able to ride all of the rides we wanted to.

Sunday was Mother's Day and all of us visited Epcot. Baby did surprisingly well and it was nice because they had a Baby Center where we could relax inside and there were great changing tables and an area for babies to play.

We rented a stroller from Disney and the last half of the day we didn't even buckle Gunnar in because he was so fidgety - but he still did great.

On the drive down to Grandma's house Gunnar played with his toy I got for him at the Magic Kingdom - a little drum.

While having dinner with Grandma, we learned that Gunnar likes pickles! Who would have guessed?!?

Grandma played bubbles with him outside and he just loved it!

Grandma says she has breakfast every morning with Gunnar's picture - during our stay she got to actually eat with him in person!

She also played with him and read books

We also took a few walks around the neighborhood

Patty came to visit us too!

On the final day with Grandma, Ramin drove up as well to have dinner with all of us.

Back in Orlando we took an evening and went to the Pirate's Cove min-golf course. Gunnar had fun walking around making mischief

On our final night in Florida we took one last trip to Downtown Disney

I still have lots more pictures of the trip on our bigger camera. It has pictures of Gunnar's first time at the beach as well as some good shots of us with Grandma.