This is a Rated R post with (baby) nudity and expletives.

We sure have been lucky enough to do a lot of fun things this last month, and spend a lot of time with family.


We went to the Utah State Fair. It was the first time that Ryan and I have been in FOREVER. It was fun, but it was EXPENSIVE. The tickets for the rides were pricey, but she was so excited to ride the ferris wheel, especially since she is too short to ride the one at Scheels (we've tried....).

 First time on a ferris wheel. I think it cost us almost $12 for the 3 of us to ride. She thought it was pretty cool, though.

 Who doesn't want to feed a pony wearing a hat?

 She liked the bouncy house, but another little boy in there pushed her over. She was fine, but Ryan and I both had to restrain ourselves from climbing in there and teaching that kid a thing or two about messing with our little girl!

 Yay for giant bubbles!

 They had this thing that timed how long you could hold on. Girl has grip strength- thanks to all the time we spend at the gym working on our fitness. :)

 Goats!

Of course she had to ride a pony. She gets mad that I always try to take pictures, so this is what she does. Stinker.

 Our ride selection was limited because she was too short for most of them, and the ones that she could go on, she had to have an adult rider with her. Lucky me!

It is a tradition to ride the big yellow slide at the fair. She loved it!

We went to the Zoo with friends. 

 Of all the times we've been to the zoo with Ari, I think this is the first time we've gone into the ape exhibit. 

 I love this pic! She makes the funniest faces. 

Looking at her face, you'd never guess that she made a huge stink to ride the carousel, huh?

We did some more babysitting. 

 Ari was very excited to help babysit cousin Rose. She insisted on feeding her. Can you tell? I think Rose is wondering what the crap is going on...

 We killed some time at the park. This girl loves to swing!

We watched Utah games at Grandma and Grandpas:

 We stopped at Sonic on the way there. Ari thought the blue tongue from my blue coconut drink was the coolest thing ever. 

 Matching blue tongues.

 Ari and Rose in their (almost) matching Utah dresses. We tried to get them to both look at the camera and smile, but they're way too active for that to happen. Ever.  

We've found it's easier to just put the kids to bed for the late games, so they got to get a bath together before we put them down. 

We visited Papa Hawkes in Mesquite.  Nick and Oakley were even able to come up for the weekend. It's the first time that we've all been together in over 3 years! I was SO hoping to get a picture of all of us together, but it just didn't happen. We also got to see GG and some other family members that were staying in St. George. It was great timing, too, because it snowed at our place the day we left, so it was nice to drive out of the cold and into warmer temps for the weekend. We swam, ate out, and just chilled. Ari and Nick were smitten with each other. They chased each other, read books, and even fed one another while making airplane noises. In public. Here are some other things they did:

 Ari thinks that Nick's tattoos are pretty cool, so she had him draw some on her. Then she wanted to return the favor. She had a skull and crossbones, an elephant, a "weird" butterfly (her description), a monster, and others that I can't remember. 

Wearing Uncle Nick's cool shades. 

I am posting both of these video's so you can see the different angles. Nick has drawn a "monster" on his hand. Ari is then feeding her fruit snack to the monster. Then Nick has the monster "poop" it out, at which point Ari picks it up and eats it. Yep. We're all super mature in our family. 

I am so excited for Fall. Ari is SOO excited for Halloween time. We went downstairs together to get our 2 fall decorations out, and she has been ecstatic ever since. Now we just need her to make up her mind on what to be for Halloween. She is saying silly things all the time, but of course I can't remember what they are when I'm blogging.  Except for last night on the way home from grandma and grandpas. The conversation went like this (there is swearing, so those with tender sensibilities need not read):

Ari: "Shit"

Me: (not knowing that my sweet girl knows this word, I'm trying to figure out what she's REALLY saying)... "What?"

Ari: "Shit"

Me: "What?"

repeat like 5 times... 

Ari: "Did Abby puke? Dang it! Dang it!"

THEN it dawned on me that she REALLY was saying shit!! Guess we need to watch our language at our house. Oops. Wanna know the sad thing? She knows to say "dang it" rather than "dammit" because Mommy already had to go to time out for saying "dammit" when Abby puked on the floor a couple of weeks ago. Sigh. I'll take the hit for the D word, but I'm going to blame Ry for the S one. :)