Herway Togetherness 2013

At the end of May we loaded up and headed out for 10 days of Herway togetherness. We drove half-way the first night and stayed in Phoenix with friends from Seth's intern year. While there, the boys got on their trampoline and we realized it was probably the first time they'd jumped on a tramp (parenting fail). I guess that's what happens when you live in a place where nobody has a backyard bigger than a patio.  

Next stop was in Farmington, NM. Seth's grandma turned 90 and her children organized a party and reunion for her. All of Seth's siblings and nearly all of his cousins (and their kids) were able to make the reunion. There were a LOT of people. It was so much fun to celebrate such an amazing woman. We spent the weekend visiting with family and hearing stories of Grandma Packer's life. Seth's brother-in-law made a wonderful video about her that had both Seth and me very choked up. (surprise, surprise)

Once the big reunion wrapped up, we (Seth's immediate family) headed to Durango, CO for Colie and Jed's wedding. The wedding was beautiful and super fun. Durango is GORGEOUS and I want to move there. As usual, Taft had the time of his life with his cousins. Every time we leave these things, I feel guilty that we don't live near family. Cousins make the best friends ever. I know Seth had the time of his life getting in bike rides most mornings with his brothers. I had a great time too, even though I think weddings give me anxiety, regardless of how much or little I am involved in and I have no idea why. I am terrified for wedding planning if I ever have a daughter. 

Post-Farmington, Pre-Durango. Mesa Verde-I love this place. 

Pueblo cliff dwellings.

Pretty sure this one ended with a belly flop.

Sorry we're all half naked.

Just all the Herways, basically taking a bath together. 

The morning before the wedding we had a girls morning. Yoga taught by Grammie followed by brunch at a French bakery. 

The boys on their mountain bike ride. (Remember how they were gone for like, EVER? I'm glad they made it out alive.)  

Daphne, Zane, and Grammie

Grandkids with Grammie and Pop. (missing Scarlet, Levi, Brauer, and Tori)

The buddies attempting a jumping shot. Good job Tommy :)

Taft, the cutest and most serious ring bearer there ever was. I also have to share how excited his cousin, Brauer, was for him. He was pumped for Taft. At the end of the ceremony Brauer came up to Taft with a huge smile and said, "Good job Taft!" It was the sweetest.

The AMAZING backdrop.

We tried. 

I wish we had pictures of the actual bride and groom....The photographers got amazing shots, so...just take my word for it that they looked stunning.

Four Corners on our way out of town. Woop woop!

We stayed a night with Seth's parents in Sedona, AZ at the end of the week. Sedona is incredible. Most gorgeous desert scenery I've ever seen. 

Lately...

Now that Instagram has taken over my documentation, blogging never happens! Instagram is like a mini blog every day and it's so much easier. Regardless, I think I should document things here too because I still want to print this blog into one of those blog books.

Anyway, here's what we've been up to, according to my phone. 

1. Disneyland with Friends. My good friend and former roommate from my Provo days, is living in San Diego for several months. She has two boys super close to Taft and Luke's ages. We've had lots of fun meeting up with them. 

I only bring our single because neither of them hardly want to sit in it. In this case, they were both exhausted.

Future BYU roommates

2. Outings around town:

Even though I've said it a million times, I just love, love, love that we can easily walk anywhere in our little town. We're just a couple blocks from the park which makes it easy to just go there for a few minutes in the evening when the boys still need to burn some energy.

"I fyyyyyin!!"

Sometimes we walk to the candy store for a special treat. It's super overpriced so I usually just let the boys pick a few pieces. This time I was craving chocolate covered cinnamon bears so we headed out one evening when Seth was at work. 

Sometimes when Seth works nights I go on a walk to get the boys to sleep. In my mind it's easier than the bedtime routine, but in reality I do most of the routine before we leave for a walk (jammies and teeth).  It's always such a beautiful time of night and it's nice to go for a quiet walk.

The boys love the library almost more than anywere else we go. They love to find the little nooks to look at books in, play with puppets and puzzles, watch the train go round, and choose from hundreds of children's movies. 

3. We bought too many annual passes. We have passes to: the zoo, Sea World, Disneyland, the children's museum, and Legoland. Sheesh. We figured it was the best year to do it all because Luke is still free. Surprisingly, we are still able to fit in trips to these places on a fairly regular basis. 

The New Children's Museum. This museum is really cool. Their focus is on how we can reuse common household garbage. All the art exhibits are made of trash and other recyclable items. It amazing to see the creativity. 

Legoland is not my favorite, but their waterpark is super fun especially for Taft and Luke's ages. 

Seth talked Taft into this ride. All those people of the bridge are about to get completely soaked!

We went out for burgers and fries after Legoland's waterpark. I'm sorry, but I love In and Out.

Dinner date with my little boys while Dad was at work. (He's had about 4 weeks of night float recently)

 4. Palm Springs. My mom was kind enough to come down to watch our boys for the weekend while we had a wonderfully relaxing and lazy mini-vacation to Palm Springs. We slept in until 11:00 this first morning. ELEVEN!!! I couldn't get over it, I didn't think we'd be able to sleep past 8:30!

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 5. End of School! Taft had a great first experience with school. His teachers were Mrs. Kelley and Mrs. Cuthbert. It was easy on the academics and heavy on the play, but I figured that was okay, I mostly wanted him to have a good first experience with school. I think we accomplished that, despite what the pictures might portray.

Grammie and Pop Came to Town

Grammie and Pop (Seth's parents) were in Monterey, CA for a week and popped down to see us for a long weekend before they headed to D.C. for  Seth's youngest brother's wedding. Taft loved having them in town for his birthday. 

Taft and Luke wasted no time having Grammie and Pop play with them. We headed out for breakfast before Taft's party. 

Ever since a waitress here recognized Taft from a day at the beach, he thinks he owns this place.

Last night together, Greek food.

A random guy was making the BIGGEST bubbles after our Greek dinner. Taft took chasing these suckers down and popping them very seriously. 

Really. Both these boys LOVED having Grammie and Pop in town. 

Whenever Taft and Luke were fighting over something Seth's mom would say,  "Here Taft, I have a plan." She'd whisper something in his ear to "trick" Lukie into giving the toy back. It worked like a charm to calm Taft down. Ever since he'll ask Taft or I to "make a plan". 

Blue eyed dreamboats. 

Thanks for coming Grammie and Pop!

Taft is FOUR!

Taft 4 Year Interview from heidi herway on Vimeo.

All of the sudden, this kid is four. Taft has personality. He will talk to anyone who will listen (ask Colie and Jed how long their "quick" birthday call ended up lasting). He does not hide his feelings, the good and the bad. He will randomly squeeze you and tell you he loves you, and it will come out of nowhere. He is super sweet most of the time. He is a typical first child and thinks he runs the show. Seth (and maybe some others) are convinced he has inherited this unfortunate trait from me, but I think it's an oldest child thing. For the record, I think my bossiness has really come down a notch or two or five. I know other grown ups who are WAY more bossy than me. Ahem, back to Taft... He has a really busy imagination. He would watch tv almost all day long if I let him. If he watches more than an hour though he gets really grumpy. On the flip side, he loves books and loves being read to.  He loves to ride his bike. He's a very sweet older brother and has recently started mentioning he wants a baby sister.

We made it home from St. George in time to celebrate his birthday. We started the morning off right with a bike ride to the donut shop. I think I'm going to request that for my birthday too. Donuts are deeelicious. Later that evening when Seth got home from work we opened presents. Taft got a new two-wheeler (he's been riding a balance bike) so he and Seth took it out immediately. Unfortunately it was a little too small so we're waiting for a new one to come in the mail. Taft requested Chuck E Cheese to celebrate his birthday. We were happy to oblige on the video game part, but talked him into something else for dinner. I told him Chipotle had chocolate milk and Chuck E Cheese did not. He was sold. I felt a little guilty but Chuck E Cheese food is NOT good, nor cheap. This was not my bossiness stepping in, Seth didn't want to eat there either. We came home to do cake. Taft requested a Spiderman cake, but since we picked it up last minute they only had a Batman cake or a Spiderman "puh-cake" (cupcake) so we got both. There's a new Mexican supermarket near us and Seth wanted an excuse to buy a Tres Leches cake. We thought that's what we were getting but I think it ended up being kind of soggy regular cake. Oh well. Taft liked it.

Although I swore last year that I would do a low-key party this year, it still ended up bigger than I had expected. Taft requested a "quinata" and a bouncy-house. I'm not kidding when I say that literally every birthday party we've been to since living here, with the exception of ONE, they have had a bouncy house. Since we're living in an apartment, there isn't really room for a party, so I knew we'd be having it at the park. The problem with the park is the city makes you get a $200 permit just for the bouncy house. I didn't want to dash Taft's birthday dreams of getting a bouncy house (although it is completely ridiculous to have children EXPECT that at a party!) so I convinced him that a baseball party would be way cooler than a bouncy house. Again, he took the bait and didn't mention the bouncy house again.

Taft was lucky enough to have his Grammie and Pop in town for his birthday party! Taft had lots of fun with all of his friends from our street, church, school, and other friends of ours. I think we had about 20 kids. Yeah...The thing here is that it's not just the kid who shows up to the party but the entire family. It ends up being a lot of fun, but kind of stresses me out mixing social circles and wondering if we'll have enough food. It all works out and we always have leftover food. We had t-ball set up with lots and lots of balls, some yo-yo balls -- whatever they're called, Pin the Ball on the Bat, baseball tattoos, a baseball pinata, baseball snacks, and of course Big League Chew as the party favor.

About to see his gifts...

Happy...

Very happy!

Testing out the new ride

Birthday call from Colie and Jed

Pirate costume from Nana and Grandpa

I wanted to mention Taft's "Pee Wee Sports of All Sorts" rec center class he just finished. We've been working on sportsmanship at our house and this was the perfect activity to have Taft learn more about it. His first day was rough, the second day was good and we celebrated with a treat afterwards, and the rest of the session was smooth sailing. He had a blast.  Excuse the pictures. I had to take them through glass and he was super far away.

Workout fuel. This class was 30 minutes after school so he always had to scarf his lunch on our walk over. 

Clean-up time. Look how efficient he is. 

Working hard

Cracker Jack, Popcorn, and Red Vines.  It wasn't around a meal time, so we opted for snacks. Oh and I threw in some veggies for good measure. And for all the hippie parents here who only feed their kids food that comes from the earth.

Don't judge. I'm clearly not a perfectionist. 

Grammie with Luke. Pop was here but I failed to get a picture. 

The pinata broke off the rope after about half of the kids went. Seth risked his arm being knocked off for the the sake of the party. 

Feeling a little embarrassed about the attention. 

We love our sweet birthday boy.