At long last! The pictures, they are here! Dusty did such a great job, yet again. It's a major perk being related to a photographer. :) We did three poses, in two takes! Really, I should start paying this girl because she has been a lifesaver. Not only does she do our family photos and my baby's portraits, but she comes to watch Paul while I go running in the mornings so that I don't have to push the jogging stroller for 6 torturous miles (which I happen to have run in 60 minutes, a personal best). Thanks, Dusty! (She is available for hire, might I add. If any of you need portraits done, let me know and I will totally hook you up. I'm not sure if you could hire her to watch your kid, but she might do that too because she's such a sweetheart!)


We sure love him. Can't believe he's already (almost) 8 months old!

I, Pudge, am back! I know you have all missed me immensely. I have been very busy in the last few months, and all of my activities have kept me from blogging.

I am helping Mommy train for her relay race in June. I make sure she stretches properly after each run. Sometimes she does not want to, but I take my trainer responsibilities very seriously.

I make sure that Daddy gets outside in the nice weather so that he gets plenty of Vitamin D.

I had to pose *twice* for my six-month pictures. (Mommy says she will post them soon.)

I visited Daddy's school twice, too, for a carnival and for a pizza party. Thanks to one of the students' moms, I even got to try a chocolate-dipped banana! Yum!

I am preparing some scintillating discussion topics for my next book group. This month's selection is Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton. It's one of my favorites.

I tried out the whole sippy cup thing. I prefer just a regular cup, but since Mom won't let me hold a regular cup by myself, I guess I'll settle for an inferior cup that I can hold myself. It's an okay way to get my juice pear-flavored water.

Auntie Sarah let me try out the swing at Grandma and Grandpa Waddoups' house. This is why she's my favorite. :)

Did you know that there are straps like this everywhere? In this swing, the stroller, my high chair--everywhere! It's like never-ending entertainment.

I made my first trip to the mall. There were plenty of people to watch, so I was okay with Mommy's window shopping. (She says she can't buy anything because nothing fits anymore. She acts like that is *my* fault somehow?) Then she plopped me on this couch all by myself. I wasn't really sure what to think...

...but when she came to sit by me I decided it was okay. :)

I discovered that rolling over is for suckers, which I am not. Why should I roll over when I can just scream until Mommy picks me up or rolls me over? As a result, Mommy decided that I need more tummy time. I'm okay with it as long as she's there with me taking pictures.

I finally figured out this thingy. Mommy will put bananas and apples in it so that I can eat them without choking. Sometimes I do just like to chew on the handle, though.
 I helped Daddy apply for LOTS of teaching jobs. I supervise and check his spelling. We may or may not also look at ESPN while Mommy thinks we're doing official professional business.
Anyway, all that hard work paid off, one way or another, because Daddy has a job for the fall! He will be back teaching 4th grade and the same school and we are all very excited. (Even Mommy who was hoping that the fantastically awesome resume she put together for Daddy would get some time in the spotlight.)

And I have spent a lot of time practicing my voice. I am going to be a singer someday like Daddy. I even sing in church sometimes. I have also been practicing my dance moves. I'll show them to you sometime.


We have an exciting summer planned, too. I get to go to the swimming pool and to the beach -- Mommy just bought my swimming suit online. She was so excited made me try it on over my clothes! We'll be doing some hiking and maybe some biking and definitely some running. Daddy and I are going to win our stroller division in the Art City Days 5K, so we need to get going on our Saturday run! Bye!

For Mark's Spring Break (way back when... now that we're almost done with the school year!) we headed up the canyon here. Mark wanted to fish, and Paul and I just wanted to be outside since the weather was so nice!
They have a great paved walking/biking trail that we followed for a bit. Thanks to the rusty metal gate for taking the above photo for us. :)

We found some remaining snow, which offended Mark very deeply (since he was on Spring Break and all) and the snow paid the price...



But all the excitement was just too much for the little guy...

One thing I am loving about living here so close to family? Dragging them to random events and on random excursions with me. And they even pretend to like it, like it was their idea to begin with. I love family. :)

Our trip to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point was quite an excursion. We had a BLAST. I was a little bit worried because we spent $8 each (which is still better than $10, thanks the coupon here) to go walk around a garden and look at flowers. And when we got there the bloomometer (a piece of paper stuck to the wall) was only at 35%. I decided that so long as we could at least enjoy the gardens for the same amount of time as a movie, it would be worth it. We stayed for 4 hours. :)

Even with only 35% of the flowers in bloom, the gardens were gorgeous. We did say, "Oh wow, that will be so beautiful... once everything is in bloom..." quite a bit, but that didn't stop us from enjoying it. I went a little bit crazy with my camera. If you want to see Dusty's fantastically awesome *professional* pictures, check them out on her blog here. Seriously, the girl has talent. But she's stingy. She took only about 8000 pictures and posted only 5. I, on the other hand, took about 100 pictures and will show them all to you. Just kidding, only half. Ish. In a photo collage. (I love that I know how to do these in Picasa now!) If you want to see the images in the photo collage larger, just click on the collage.

Isn't that pink one so dainty? These flowers were so pretty and so perfect to start spring for me.

We took a bunch of pictures of Pudge, too, of course. It's a good thing he's so ruggedly handsome and squishily adorable.

Check out the drooly chin in the top right...

And this one is my favorite (thanks, Les!).

To see some of the prettiest flowers, we had to hike this humungo hill:
Which of course wore this little trooper right out so he needed to kick up his feet and relax:





Yup, a horned owl and a Canadian goose, nesting (not together) on the (probably artificial) rock cliffs in the middle of the gardens. There was a very nice man who we hoped was an employee pointing them out to everyone who came by.

Leslee and her good eyes found this little fella:

And aren't those waterfalls pretty?

But the bagpiper wasn't too hard to find. I had fun finding these little plaques all over the park too. One from the Book of Mormon, one from the Bible, and one from the Irish. Quite diverse. :) Oh, and I thought the Jimmy sign was funny because that's what Mark's family still calls Paul...
In the clubhouse part of the garden, they were having Daffodil Days, which is really just a competition to see whose daffodil is the prettiest. I was surprised to see so many different types of daffodils. It makes me want to cultivate something (other than mold in my refrigerator... yuck).

So, Pudge, what did you think?

(The tongue is like a thumbs-up.)