My baby turns ONE!!!

While we were in Utah, my little baby Devin had his 1st birthday! 

I still can't believe he's already one.

We had a major birthday bash in Utah with everyone, including Matt-via FaceTime.

Here are some cute pictures of my little baby, taken while we were fishing in Michigan, walking with Gma Clark.

Devin is such a good boy. He sleeps through the night and is a good sleeper during the day too. He is my cuddly baby, he likes to snuggle. He loves to give kisses, mostly to his daddy. He waves, blows kisses, and signs some words. He's a great eater, still (whew!). He loves his big brother Luke and wants to do everything he's doing. He makes so many cute sounds, like he's singing. He has 7 teeth, we think he has the Johnson curse of not getting all of his teeth! He isn't walking yet (and I'm still okay with that), but is eager to any day now.

He's not much of a traveler. I think vacationing for 3 months made him permanently grumpy. We're hoping he gets over it once we're back to a normal schedule. 

He is such a sweet, mellow boy and we love him so so much!

Even if he had some what of a mullet or "old man hair" I loved his little locks. However, we chopped them and gave him a big-boy hair cut while in Utah. He looks so much bigger now. 

A year ago he joined our family (and blessed me with the easiest labor and delivery.) We're thankful for Heavenly Father sending him to us!

We love you little man! 

Happy Birthday to you!!!

Ann Arbor

I have so much to blog about! We've had such a great time these past few weeks traveling, I'm excited to share. We tend to "cluster" our vacations together. I don't know why, it just always works out that way for some reason. 

Destination #1: Ann Arbor, Michigan (about 3 hours north east of us).

Doug (Matt's bro) and Katie live in Ann Arbor, both getting their MPH at Michigan State. They had their first baby girl, Paige, only a couple of weeks before. My in-laws were in town to help out and be there for the baby blessing. They were kind enough to invite me and the boys (Matt had to work all weekend...boooo) to join them. So I took off on my first-ever road trip without Matt. I know, I'm a baby. The 3 hours wasn't that bad.

Paige is so tiny. I love how small she looks in her car seat.

Even though Michigan is so close, it seems like a different country (well, maybe just Canada) to me. It's so much different than Cleveland. There were lots of foresty areas, it's all spread out and just seems so much more Northern, if that makes sense. 

Doug took us fishing one morning. No such luck.

It was a first for Luke. He thought it was fun and was a little creeped out by the jumping fish in a bucket that some other guy caught.

He spells his name everywhere we go.

Gma Clark and the newest grand baby.

She's so sweet!

Later we decided to go canoeing! And it had to have been the HOTTEST weekend of the summer. Holy cow. And of course my AC didn't really work either.

We left the small babies with Doug and ventured out on a little less than 4 mile river run. It was really mild and not very deep most of the way (maybe 3.5 ft at most). Me and Katie teamed up, while Anne and Rob and Luke went together.

Katie and I got harassed by this duck. We also got stuck on a rock for quite a while. Then Rob and Anne crashed into us, while we were stuck. I was about ready to get out and push us, and finally some kid tubing with his girlfriend went by and I asked him to help us out. 

It was fun.

Saturday was the big game day. I think the first football game of the season. And Michigan sure knows how to party, I guess. They are nuts. Apparently the drinking and partying starts at 8 am. We drove around campus and past all the sororities and fraternities around 11 am and pretty much every lawn looked  like this. It was crazy.

The men went to the game, which got rained out, while the women and children did some shopping. 

We also visited Matt's aunt and uncle who are the new mission presidents in Lansing. We had dinner with them in their huge mission home one night. Luke got to swim in the pool at the hotel. I listened to a great book on tape on the drive and didn't even make one stop on the way home. Overall, it was a great weekend. Matt sure was missed.

The highlight was definitely the baby blessing. Doug did a great job. I'm so glad that we could be there.

Aren't they the cutest?

Pagie's beautiful dress was sewn by Katie's mom and it was made out of her wedding dress!

And you would never guess she just had a baby. Seriously, Katie.

The Clarkies. I do love them...even though I'm standing 3 feet away!

Some of Katie's family made a long trek down from Canada for the  blessing.

Where in the world are the Clarks?

ALOHA!!!!!

We have been vacationing for almost a month, whahoooooo!

We're with Matt's parents soaking up the sun at Sunset Beach, Hawaii. It is AWESOME!

Be back soon, with lots more pic to come!

Last days of Summer

Some things never change....

He has a fun, big boy bed, but for some reason the floor or our bed is much more appealing.

On a side note: Luke has been potty trained for almost a year and has never peed the bed either. Well, this morning we wake up to him in our bed (he's very sneaky and we are so tired, most of the time we don't notice-he climbs from the end of our bed and sneaks between us). Well, this morning he wasn't wearing pants and when I asked him why he wasn't wearing pants he said he took them off because they were wet. So yeah, he wet our bed. Oh and speaking of being pantless. He also (on the same day) decided to take his pants off in nursery today too. Great.

Last weekend when Matt was running on 2 hours of sleep, being post call, we decided to have a picnic at Sulfer Springs, that isn't too far from our house. It's a fun, shallow stream that you can play in. Luke had a blast.

And this weekend Matt was off and Friday night we went to an Indian's game. It was sold out, we sat on the VERY VERY back row, next to the wild, shirtless college kids that had "THOME" (toe-me) painted on their chests. Oh and can I just say that baseball players have the weirdest names. I swear some of them are made up. We have a true Spanish Forkian name, Grady Sizemore. And we seriously have a COCO CRISP on our team. Not even kidding. 

Apparently, the Indians are doing quite well this year. We don't really follow MLB, but we enjoy the experience of being at a game. It was Dollar Dog Night and they said they sold almost 50,000 hot dogs. Blah. 

We got there during the 7th Inning. I'd say perfect timing for us. The Indians won and they had an awesome firework show after. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday morning I learned how to can peaches and tomatoes at an RS activity! It was so awesome!

Later that afternoon we took Matt with us to this awesome new Splash Park. We went last week and had so much fun we had to go back before summer was over.

Matt went down the "big" slide with Luke and it was pretty hilarious...It seemed to be taking them a long time to get down and then I hear a whole lot of squeaking....and then see Matt trying to climb out. Apparently, it wasn't wet enough and he got stuck.

Dev with lunch all over his face...

It was a little too cold for Devin last time, but he seemed to have a lot more fun this time.

I told Matt he need to take more pictures, even though I'm the photographer for the family, so I can be in some of them....well, this is about as good as it gets!

Afterwards we headed out for some soft serve ice cream and went home to have a BBQ with the missionaries. Took the boys on a walk to get them to fall asleep and watched a movie together. It was awesome. It's the best when Matt can be home with us!

Deliciousness in my kitchen

Peach season = A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

We have been eating so many peaches.

Peach cobbler.

Peach parfaits.

Peach smoothies.

And for the first time ever, peach jam.

 

A little confession. I didn't can this. It's freezer jam. I ran out of my freezer containers, so this one is for our fridge and it looks so much cuter in a can, than a plastic container.

Other bit of deliciousness...these bad boys. 

Peanut butter goodness, smooshed between salty pretzels, dipped in chocolate.

Wowzers!

Here's the recipe.