Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben with his birthday desserts

Today is Ben's 28th birthday. We got his little sister from Idaho to come down for his birthday. A bunch of us all went to play laser tag for his birthday, which was a blast. Then we came home and had Ben's favorite birthday treat, lime curd tart with raspberries topping it with raspberry sherbet and lime sherbet and lemonade with frozen raspberries in it. If you couldn't already tell Ben loves raspberries. It was the perfect treat for a hot summer's day. Then we have been just hanging out at the house with friends and family, and Ben might go catch a late movie, so a pretty fun day.

The lime curd tarts topped with raspberries with a cookie crust

Ben being the King that he thinks he is

Prairie's steps and camping

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On friday we went camping. I thought if we just drove up American Fork canyon we would up able to find a campground and get a spot. I didn't think that we needed to make a reservation or anything. Well we couldn't find a campground with empty spaces so we ended up camping in an area where there isn't designated camping spots, so we didnt' have running water, a picnic table, but there was an out house close by, so we didn't have to go in the woods. It was actually a decent spot except for that is where all the four-wheelers go, and it is off a dirt road, so there was perpetually dirt in the air. But since it isn't a campground we didn't have to pay, yay!

Our tent was set up about 5 feet away from a creek and Autumn loved it. She spent a long time throwing rocks in the creek. Then when Ben and I were finishing dinner Prairie and Autumn played in the tent and we could hear them chasing eachother and just giggling. It was a lot of fun ... until we went to bed.

Prairie was a little horror at night. We learned our lesson, Prairie needs her port-a-crib when we go camping, she wouldn't calm down, wouldn't stay in the same spot, wouldn't fall asleep and then when she did, she woke up a number of times and it was just as difficult to get her to back to sleep. Finally early in the morning, she ended up just exploring the tent while the rest of us slept. So besides the sleeping aspect we had a great time, and camp food is soooo good.

Our campsite

Prairie eating in her highchair while we cook dinner

Autumn setting up an obstacle course for her and Prairie

Autumn going and snuggling with Papi in the morning and both of them pretending that they are still asleep, Ben actually wishing he still was

A vist from Grandma Ciccotelli

My mom came out to Utah for 5 days for my cousin's wedding and of course to see her daughters and granddaughters. We had sooo much fun. All the girls (Me, Jennie, Autumn and Prairie) all went to pick up my mom from the airport, and the party started then and didn't stop until my mom flew home. On the way home we stopped at the fabric store and picked up some fabric and started working on fabric. I will have to say that we did a good job and didn't buy more than we could sew in one weekend.... but then we went to a fabric store that we don't usually go to and we found sooo much good stuff, that we went a little crazy and me and Jennie are going to have to have LOTS of sewing parties to finish everything that we got, but we are really excited about it and the new clothes we are making.

Jennie got this very beatiful blue fabric with embroided flowers on it to make a skirt and fabric to make a shirt, and we were able to be creative with the scraps so that Autumn got a matching outfit. The colors really complement both Jennie and Autumn.

Autumn and Jennie in their new outfits that they both weared last sunday

Autumn refusing to keep her eyes open for the picture while she eats an ice cream sandwhich

So we didn't just sew the whole time. We did go to my cousin's wedding which was in memory grove park in Salt Lake city which is a very lovely park. Autumn, Prairie and I went exploring through the park while we were in between the luncheon and the reception and we really enjoyed it, except that Autumn's jelly shoes gave her a blister.

We then all went to Seven Peaks on Friday (the boys came too as in Janardan and Ben). We had a lot of fun, but some of us forgot to reapply our sunscreen so we got burned kind of bad, as in me and my mom and Jennie a little. Luckily both of my girls were fine.

On Saturday I ran in a 5k race, which was a first for my. I finished the race in just under 33 minutes, which I was really happy about, because I don't usually jog that fast of a mile normally and I don't run that far on a daily basis, so I was really happy. It was really fun to my family at the finish line cheering me on.

Autumn cheering me onn at the finish line with her sign

I am the one in front of the white van finishing my race

This is what Autumn did while she was working on the sign to hold at my race, while my Mom was in the shower - I think she was channeling her uncle Brian Oviatt

So we also all went out to breakfast one morning and got to Jason and Christy and baby Ty. Autumn was very excited about this because she misses her cousin living in Provo. She has already talked about that we need to invite Jason and Christy over because she didn't get to see Ty very much at breakfast. Autumn and Prairie were both really excited to see Ty.

Grandma with Ty

cute baby Ty

Autumn holding Ty

Jennie in her new shirt that she made, keep a lookout for this fabric, Jennie and I have some wild plans with entire outfits with this fabric

Bath Time

Autumn was getting too big for her bucket baths, and I had the idea that we could use one of our sterlite containers, so Autumn upgraded to a large sterlite container, the same size we use for recycling. I had been giving baths most times to Prairie either in the bathroom sink or in the bucket on the counter, but she likes to splash, so we upgraded Prairie to bucket baths in the shower stall. There is enough room for both of the buckets. I had actually had both of my kids bathing at the same time, it was really nice, and they had so much fun playing together. We also have some crayola bath crayons, so they were coloring all over the walls. It was a lot of fun, maybe I will actually bathe my kids more, we will just have to see.

Autumn and Prairie in their respective buckets.

Autumn and Prairie playing together

Autumn relaxing in the tub with her feet up

Prairie splashing

Autumn up close

Autumn and Laura in their dress ups

Laura requested that this picture make it on the blog. Autumn is pretending to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, wearing her apron, and nothing under it except some panties. Laura is wearing the wedding dress. Laura is very good natured about playing along with Autumn. Laura is Autumn's official nail polisher. Autumn was very disappointed when her nail polish was coming off, but then she realized that Laura could come over again and repaint them.

Weekend at the Vacation House

Autumn with our twin mattress on the couch for a special movie time with Papi

Jennie and Janardan playing Carcassone online, Kyle watching tv in the coveted comfy chair, and Prairie begging for chips

This weekend my Unlce Kyle and Cousin Nick came down from Spokane, Washington and rented a vacation home for the weekend. Kyle really enjoys cooking so he cooked meals for all of us the whole weekend, and we got to relax with my some of my extended family. My cousin Nick loves my girls, so they got spoiled by him. Even when Nick didn't want to do something, if we got Autumn to ask him, he would totally cave in and do it. Janardan and Nick spent a lot of the weekend playing some bloody Playstation game. We also played a lot of card games, and played carcassone online. We got all four of the laptops there with us, and would play carcassone online. Anyways we had a lot of fun, it was kinda sad to get back to my apartment and have to clean and not have so much fun happening all around.

Prairie snuggling with her great-uncle Kyle

Nick

Pigtails and First Words

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This is Prairie saying her first word, Autumn. We think it is really cute that her first word was her older sister, and she is always calling Autumn now. Autumn doesn't want Prairie to call her Autumn, she says it makes her heart bouncy, she really wants Prairie to call her Audie.

*(By the way I got high speed internet this weekend so I am so excited because I can actually upload video clips, and it is soooo much faster to upload pictures, yay!)

Prairie asleep in her bed

Autumn in her pajamas with the eye cover as a head band

Prairie asleep in the grass, notice the close up of her dirty mouth from eating dirt

I am doing a shared garden with my upstairs neighbor and we finally got our garden put in a week and a half ago. It took us a while though and we were trying to get it done before my girls needed to take a nap, but it took us way longer. Prairie was playing in a dirt bed, eating dirt, crawling through it, etc. She was so tired she finally just conked out in the grass, she is so cute.

Autumn posing for the camera

Autumn has been going through a dress phase. For a while she wanted to wear skirts everyday, which was great because she has a bunch of really cute skirts with the built in shorts, but now she is wanting to wear dresses, and she has been wearing them everyday and will change a number of times everyday. She has also been taking Prairie's dresses and squeezing into them, but they are so short on her.

Autumn after going to the bathroom the other day came out wearing a diaper instead of her panties. She thought it was very amusing, it hardly covers her, reminds me of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad.

Prairie in the rocking chair

Prairie is quite the climber. The other night the rest of us were sitting in the kitchen and Prairie was just crawling around the front room. Then she amazed us by climbing up into her rocking chair all by herself and then sitting there rocking looking so proud of herself. She has also figured out how to climb up onto our couches, we think she is amazing.

Prairie with pigtails!

Emily and the girls (as a side note, Priarie doesn't use a pacifier anymore, but found one around the house and was just playing with it -- it looks funny to me to see Prairie with a pacifier because she never uses one)

Prairie snuggling with her mommy after her nap

5 Year Anniversary

Emily and Ben at the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park

So on May 24th was my and Ben's 5th anniversary. I really wanted to do something special, and we have been under so much stress like the last 9 months with Ben in his second year of graduate school, that we both just really needed a break, and a break together. I arranged it with my dad, and he flew into Utah, and my sister, Jennie, and her husband, Janardan, all stayed at my apartment and took care of my girls for 4 days and three nights.

Ben and I decided to go to Bryce Canyon National park, and as a gift to ourselves bought a year pass to the National Parks, so we are planning on going to atleast 3 other parks this year. We had a really good time, and it felt like this was our big opening for camping this season. We are really excited to take our girls for one night camping trips more locally all summer.

Bryce Canyon has some pretty specatuclar rock stuctures called hoodoos. They were pretty incredible. We did a lot of hiking and got to see a lot of the canyon, and just really enjoyed all the time to talk, read books together, makes meals together, and just relax. Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip.

Ben cooking dinner at the campsite - Ben did all the dishes on the trip YAY!

Emily out hiking

Ben at an overlook

Bryce Canyon with the hoodoos

Emily and Ben taking a picture of themselves with hoodoos in the background

Ben in an eroded cave in the rock

Bryce Canyon Amphitheater

Emily at the trail marker

The trees are amazing, growing right out of basically rocks for soil

Different colors of rock formations at Bryce Canyon