Eubanks Visit Part 1

Jake's sister and family drove out from Indiana to visit us here in Salt Lake.  We had a great visit.  I love it when you can not see someone for such a long time, and then when you get together, it's as if no time has passed. 

Family is awesome.

Jake fixed spaghetti for dinner and it was fun to have Emmaus sitting at the table with everyone.  It's funny how you don't realize things you need until...you need them, like short plastic cups for 3-5 year olds to drink out of.  The girls did just fine with our glass glasses, but ....We should probably get some plastic cups in the future, just to have on hand/for when Emmaus starts drinking from a cup.

Jake really wanted the girls to help pick some veggies from his garden to take up with us to Yellowstone.  So before we left for our hike, he took them out and let them pick some cucumbers and squash.  Sage grabbed at a squash and the whole root system came out. 

I wanted to show them what we do for fun around here...we only had one day so we went hiking.  We had planned on going up Little Cottonwood to Secret Lake, but as we were driving I got nervous and second guessed myself as to which canyon was Big/Little, so we turned up the first one...which in reality is Big Cottonwood. 

It worked out...we hiked up to Twin Lake near Brighton ski resort.  It was rocky and steep and hard, but we got to the top!  The younger girls were troopers...rather we all were...but they have much shorter legs than the rest of us.  Well done Eubanks.  Come to think of it, I don't think I remember Alyssa complaining at all either.   That says a lot for a teenager. 

This is at silver lake...you start here, then take the trail up.

Just about 3/4 of the  way up we changed Emmaus' diaper and decided to take him out of the hiking backpack.  I carried him for a ways...and he was sooo tired..he fell right to sleep on my shoulder.  It was hot and I was tired...but we made it up too...Jake kept asking if I wanted him to carry Emmaus, but I held out....until just about to the top..then I gave him back to Jake.  It was nice to see some water.  I don't like hiking just to hike, I like to hike to a point, some kind of designation and feel good about reaching that goal, then going down hill the whole way to the bottom.

I wasn't the only one who picked up some extra weight.I got a telephoto lens from a GREAT friend of mine...it was fun taking pics with it on the hike.  it's easier to get candids when you aren't right in people's faces.

We headed back to the house for some naps and baths.  I dropped Emmaus off with Grandma and the rest of us headed downtown for some Greek Souvlaki and Jake's Play!  I think anyone and everyone that comes to visit gets Greek.  It's just one of those staples that I think everyone needs.  So we ate nummy food, and dropped Jake at the theater. Then we walked up to Temple Square to give the Eubanks a visual...a short visual...we were running short on time.  We literally had less than 5 minutes to take a pic of them in front of the Temple then booked it back to the theater...JUST in time for the show to start. We got front row seats...it was a great audience, and I'd say the best show they've put on so for for HMS Pinafore.  

Jake and I hadn't packed for our Yellowstone trip, and jake agreed to bake the chicken wings we were bringing for one of our meals...so we stayed up and played a couple of games...monopoly card game and a scrabble card game....then I had to crash.  Jake stayed up till almost 2am getting the chicken cooked..He is...as I like to say, Amazing.  We woke up fairly early to get packed and loaded into our respective vehicles.  We didn't get ON the road to Yellowstone till 10am due to an explosive diaper, feeding time and a quick grocery stop. 

6 month shots.

TROOPER.

So I think it was more painful for the parents this time.

The doctors office took 30 minutes to get us into the room...weighed in, measured...then the chatty doctor took another 40 minutes to get into the room to look at Emmaus..who he said looked wonderful..a little thin but....so are his parents.

Plus we'll be starting him on solids this month, so that should help him get more meat on his bones, but the kid is so active, it's hard to keep him in one place.  Changing his diaper has become a crazy ordeal...currently we're using one of his bulb syringe to keep him happy, so far it's working (thanks andrea for the advice.)

So he weighed in at 16.8 (birth weight was 7.15)
length 27.5 (at birth 21)

he cried when the shots were happening, but by the time they had the bandaid on he was fine.  He was asleep by the time Jake dropped me off at work. 

What can I saw he's amazing...then again, I think I've said that before...once or twice.

I was looking at the pics from my last post and the kid already looks tons older than that. I need to take some more pics...guess it's a good thing jakes family is coming into town/our trip to yellowstone. More pics next week.

as always, thanks for reading.

(note: emmaus isn't just crawling now, he's crawling over things. He has such a grip..I introduced him to stairs the other day...he was very intersted, but not quite ready to tackle that obsticle yet.)

what's emmaus up to?

I have pics, but not exactly the time to load them up.

Emmaus will officially be 6 months old in 11 days.

He is already:

Sitting up (still falls over, but he's sturdy"

Crawling...(not completely on all 4's more of a worm crawl.)

Crawling over things...like this morning when he finished eating he decided he wanted to crawl over me.

Jumping (we bought a doorway bouncer thing..he loves it...such a cute giggle he gets.)

Eating (we haven't officially started solids yet, but monday we were out with a friend and jake offered emmaus his pickle spear....emmaus had about 1/2 of it eaten by the time jake got bored of holding it. We are planning on really starting when we get back from yellowstone mid august.)

Hair growing....it's still fuzzy, but it's filling in and getting longer and redder
Talking...nothing really clear or distinguishable really, but....he's getting the hang of it.
Singing...specially in the morning, and in the car.

Sleeping..(we put him down between 7-8:30 and then he sleeps till anywhere from 6-9am)

Teething...(we can see at least 2 teeth on the bottom coming in ..i think one or 2 on the top too.  He's dealing with it well. If he's fussy I bought some teething things...supposed to be homeopathic...they seem to do the trick.)
Being all around the best baby ever...(sorry for the prejudice.)
Grabbing his feet (for awhile now...not in the mouth yet, at least I haven't seen it...I think Jake has.)
Spitting...Raspberries
Clicking (my vickie mom taught him on her recent visit.)

I could go on.....but i'll leave it at that for now.

tootsie pop wrappers

Do you still look for the star on the wrapper?...You know that ones that "used to give you a free sucker?" I do.  Maybe that is where I found my love for stars....then again maybe not.

This is a cry out for comments.

If you are reading this, could you please comment, just so I know people are reading this...I don't always blog for others, sometimes I just do it for myself, but I am curious who is reading this. Please and thanks.

jake's eyebrow

I don't have a picture yet, but this is sooo funny.

Jake's shooting a webfilm.

He's a superhero.

He filmed last night.

When he got home he had some kind of glue on his face from the mask.

He went to the bathroom to get the gunk off his face.

When he came back he was missing several chunks from his eyebrow.

For those of you who don't know, he has pretty thick brows.

Everytime I look at him I giggle.

I'll post a pic soon, so you can join me in my fun.

He asked me for an eyebrow pencil or eyeliner just in case he has more filming before it grows back. 

giggles.

being a photographer.,,

So Emmaus has been very sweet about letting me take all the pics I want. Here are some from the most recent photo shoot. (for those of you on FB, hope you enjoy seeing these again.)RoarEmmaus is trying to crawl, he has the leg part down, but insists on using his face instead of his arms.

He has a great profile, just ilke his daddy

This was actually the second to last picture...I was sad it was blurry, but...oh so cute

This was the first pic of the shoot. He had just woken up, and is always so smiley..such a happy babyHe's been grabbing his toes for a couple of weeks now. I think the long legs help with that!

My favorite. I changed to my wide angle lens after I saw a cool pic online. This is how it turned out. reminds me of the Matrix, or Mission Impossible...future actor?

I like this one where he's holding his feet. He has a great smile, but I also like when we capture his personality too.

Can we be done with pictures mom?

Page, AZ

I've been wanting to see antelope canyon ever since I saw a picture of it...over 10 years ago.  I wasn't always sure where it was, and then Susanna went to Page with a friend of hers, and voila, the desire to see this beautiful canyon was reborn. On the way there we stopped in Beaver, and I had to take a pic in this chair . It was windy and cold, but, I got it!

We left relatively early, and decided to drive my car (not a lot of leg room.) Jake sat in the back with Emmaus, and took advantage of this diaper change stop to try to catch a snooze.  My mom took this pic while I was nursing.

When we got to Page we had dinner at a local mexican restaurant, and then headed to this "art walk" that andrea found for us. It was really cloudy/possibly showers, so a lot of the artists chose not to bring out their work. It was still a fun time though. Jake had Emmaus in his coat just in case the water started to come down.

Thanks to my friend, Corey, I inherited a telephoto lens...so here are some pics from that. I'm standing pretty far away at this point..I find it's easier to get some natural faces. Emmaus is so photogenic...I love his different expressions.

Mid yawn...thought it was cute. His mouth doesn't get too big....makes me laugh.

Yea for blowing bubbles... Emmaus is staring at our friends baby..I have some cute pics of them together, but didn't get permission to load pics of their kids.

The big day. We were driven out to the canyon in a suburban...I think cause of the kids needing to be in car seats. It was an interesting drive. To get out to Antelope Canyon, you have to be escorted by a tour guide..the canyon is on a Reservation...the road once you get out there...is all sand...we were gliding...sort of fun. Here's the entrance.

You can see why I wanted to get down here. I wanted to do the longer tour for photographers, but they were sold out...I think we still got some nice shots.

do you see the eagle?

It's  nice traveling with other people, that way you can get a family pic...and take theirs too! Love it.

Sunset

Wolf

Had to use the flash to avoid pure blurriness...but here's our group..our friends older son is being blocked...if I would have known, I would have moved. Sorry friend.

I wanted to drive in this cool open truck, but I'm still having a lot of motion sickness problems, it's probably a good thing I wasn't riding in this.

Next stop for the day (after a PBandJ lunch) was Horseshoe Bend. Only when we got there, it started pouring. Instead of hiking in that misery...Our friend suggested waiting it out in the car. Emmaus was a trooper....he's sooo cute.

and then the rain stopped.

3/4 of a mile.

The walk out there...the rain actually helped pack down the sand so it was a nice trek out there.

and this is horshoe bend. not sure if you can see how far down it is. It was very intimidating looking down over the edge. I wasn't very brave.

and then the sun came out

awww...isn't he precious.

I love how this shows how little Emmaus is compared to his daddy.

mom and dad brought some steaks, so we had a cook out in the park. (keep in mind this is all happening in one day.  we got a lot done...and the weather changed quite a bit too!)

I'm rarely in the mood for ice cream, but there was a local ice cream place across the street from our hotel...I got something incredibly chocolatey and jake got something with peanut butter. Emmaus was jealous.

When wewere packing for this trip, I thought to myself, pack light, it's Page Az in June, I don't need pants. (i've never not had pants with me on a trip.) POINT being: it was chilly the whole time. I found these awesome black adidas pants at the thrift store...it just so happened that I had brought my adidas jacket to.  This is Lake Powell in the background.

Welcome back to Utah. I love these signs that show you are entering a state...I like getting pics of them...as you can see.

As we were driving to and from Page, we saw these Sheriff's cars on the side of the road. (I can't remember the name of the town we were driving through.) Poing Being: They put dummies in the car! no kidding. we saw them both times. I was going to take a pic up close, but there were so many rv's and campers driving back to Utah on Sunday I didn't want to get behind the ones we had already passed.  So here you have it. Don't speed through small towns on road trips, their dummy cops might get ya!

as always, thanks for reading.