Off to St. George...again!

Paul traveled to Florida for the ISPA tradeshow this last week. It was almost a week long trip so the kids and I packed up and headed to St. George to save our sanity. As always, we love visiting Grandma and Grandpa Stewart, playing out in the hot sun, and just lounging around for a few days. 

Stewart got really confident on the wiggle car and went cruising down Grandma and Grandpa's backyard sidewalk. He had a whirlwind of emotion on his face with sheer nervousness and terror on his face at the top of the hill but as he managed to turn the wheels and end up on the patio instead of tipped upside-down in the grass, he was so proud of himself and showing a ginormous smile. I love watching my little guy grow and do new things.

Lily was so sweet to help her little brother when he did get stuck in the grass. She is an amazing sister and Stewart is so lucky to have her. She is always taking care of him and making sure he is safe and having fun. I hope their friendship continues to grow as they get older.

Grandpa has some lively, terrifying Halloween decor including a hooded, skeleton man that rumbles and glows if you walk by him. Stew was trying to be as brave as he could be. Whenever someone was holding him and would walk by, he would growl at the skeleton and show him he wasn't scared. But the minute you would put Stew down by it, he would turn and run as fast as he could and start bawling trying to find someone to save him. It was the cutest thing!

Grandma and Grandpa bought a pumpkin for Lily to carve. She was so excited. As much as I always try to be a good festive mother, I don't always get around to doing all that I should with the kids. I think that this was Lily's first time really carving pumpkins. She thought it was pretty awesome. And of course, being the slightly twisted girl that she is, she wanted a mean, angry pumpkin. (So weird that she is fascinated with the scarier things of life, in every movie or show, her favorite parts or characters are always the dark villians - funny girl, hope I shouldn't worry too much about her).

Stewart loved that he got to sit on the counter and watched Grandpa carve away as he devoured the pumpkin lid of our Jack-o-lantern. 

Once our pumpkin was all carved and scary, we added a flickering light and enjoyed him out on the porch. We all loved our visit to St. George but were glad to get home to Daddy. Plus, Paul had a great show, meaning he will have lots more business trips to come so it won't be long before we pack up and head to St. George yet again!

Elder Heslop Comes Home!

After two long years, the Heslop's all gathered (minus Brian who we missed terribly due to some more schooling) Friday night at SLC Airport to pick up Nic from Thailand! It was so exciting waiting and watching at the terminal to see who could spot him first. There were a few other missionaries coming home as well which made for a whole lot of anticipation in the air. Another family who already saw their missionary, gave us this sign to use for little Annie, Hazel, and Stew who Nic had never met. 

Luckily everyone made it in time because his flight was about 20 minutes earlier than we had expected. But, there he is!

I think he was so overcome with emotions that he grabbed the first person he could, which happened to be Lily, and gave her a giant hug. It was really sweet because, even though Lily is incredibly shy around Nic right now, I know that she missed him. She was only about 18 months when he left but she loved him and he was the greatest uncle to her. During the two years she would pray for him at night and I am so excited for them to get to know each other again. AND Stewart, it will be so fun to see Stew have another uncle around to play with.

We are so glad that Elder Heslop made it home safely and I know that Paul is excited to have another brother around to play basketball with, boss around at the warehouse, and just hang out with.

Another Year Older...

and hopefully getting wiser :) Paul turned 27! We love our husband and daddy and couldn't ask for anyone better.  It's a Sunday so we spent the day at home, going to church, and had a nice dinner at the Heslop's. We one giant celebration for Nic coming home, Annie turning two yesterday, and Paul's birthday today. Paul was the lucky one who got to pick the meal menu, so to no ones surprise, he wanted Mexican: sweet pork tacos topped with garden tomatoes, cabbage, and "grinch ranch", mexican rice, sweet corn cakes, black beans, and no birthday of his would be complete without an ice-cream cake! Sara made a sweet TinkerBell cake for Annie too. It was a great day and I hope that Paul has a great year!!

Dear Daddy,

since you've been gone on an airplane me and Stewar' and Mommy are trying to keep busy...

 making soap clouds to use in the tub every night to make us squeaky clean after a dirty day of playing,

playing hide-and-go-seek,

shopping at City Creek, with a stop at the dinosaurs,

a walk to share a yummy smoothie at the park,

multiple movie nights watching second-hand turtle and kitty stars - complete with popcorn and a visit from Grandma & Grandpa Stewart,

nummy homemade french bread french toast with "tella" and raspberries,

a stop at 'Get Air', our new favorite energy-releasing place full of foam pits and trampoline slides,

 lots of milk to keep us happy, and that sad ouchy on Stew's hand (we don't even know how that happened poor baby),

and last a fun cousin breakfast with german pancakes, blue milk (apparently from a cow that turned blue after he jumped over the moon) and banana treat. 

"we had fun and cousins over, umm, be good to Stew, play with him, play with cousins. I love him hap, umm, that he wears his hat safe, that Stewart bleed his hand. I love you Daddy!" We've had fun but we are sooooo excited you are coming home today!!       LOVE LILY

Friends Cabin Party

Last week we had our Salt of the Earth work party and right as our employees were leaving, our friends were arriving. So we had a fun FILLED weekend at the cabin. We really were trying to soak up every last ounce of summer. But I've already convince Paul we are going to spend lots of weekends at the cabin this winter drinking hot cocoa and playing in the snow. 

Worlds colliding... friends, employees, family. Although I guess our worlds are always one big jumble.

(Jenny, little Liam, Andy, Danny, Holland, Nic, Janette, baby Max, & Sam)

Matt, Abbey, Mya, Everett, Jenny, Andy, & Liam came up Friday night. After the always entertaining stories about Matt's awkward childhood and upbringing, we played a game of BONANZA, planting and harvesting beans. Someday, Paul and I will invest in this game because we love it. Side note: I totally won! Anyways, the next morning we headed down to the lake for some boating.   

Andy & Matt tryin' out the wakesurf looking timid and awkward as ever :) And Abbey showing her stuff on the wakeboard representing us girls!

Taking the chilies out on the tube was the highlight of my weekend. I was looking forward to it the whole trip. When it actually came down to it, I wasn't sure if Lily would get on, but she hoped right on and was so brave! I'm already looking forward to it next year when Stew realizes what is going on and can be excited. 

This could have been such a cute little family picture, but what are friends for!

Salt of the Earth Work Party

Remember how I like to make things simple? Well HERE is little about our Salt of the Earth summer work party. Thought I would take advantage of the two birds, one post deal again!

These are some of my favorite pictures from that day that didn't quite make the "professional business" cut for the work blog.