A Very Nance Independence Day

We were pretty boring for the holiday this year. We didn't even go see the big fireworks! Paul was too cranky to keep up Saturday night, and we weren't excited enough about it to even try. :) Instead, we celebrated on Monday.

We roasted s'mores at the Waddoups house. Pudge and Grandma Waddoups both love s'mores...

I guess the person who loves s'mores more gets the most on his face? (and then is very sad that the marshmallowey chocolatey goodness is gone!)

Then we headed over to the Nances for Grandpa Pyro's Paul's fireworks show.

Paul didn't like the noise of the fireworks, but he loved watching! 

A pyro in the making. 

 He definitely didn't want to look away from the show!

 Thank goodness for daddies who keep little boys (and their ears) safe!

Three generations of pyros -- and look they all have eyebrows!

June's Kodak™ moments

We had such a fun June. Here are a few random pictures from our adventures...

This is the northeastern view from our front yard... The blue sky makes the rocky mostly brown mountain worth looking at!

We went on walks, mostly to the library. Isn't he just the cutest?

Paul loves to kick his feet up anywhere he can--his highchair, the stroller, sitting on your lap. But, no, he's not spoiled...

Tuckered out at Grandma Shelly's

Proof that Paul really does know how to throw:

Paul loves eating the food that we're eating, even if it means sucking the juice out of celery.

Isn't he just handsome? The facial hair did look good... but I can't complain either way. :)

More proof that Paul can throw (just because it's already here and I just realized that I had two videos of the same *amazing* feat)--

Paul sits in the grocery cart now! He loves it and I love that he doesn't even try to put his mouth on any part of the cart.

Paul loves the bath! Our bathroom is so poorly lit that I have a really hard time getting the right lighting to even get our camera to focus well, so this wonky-angle picture is all we've got...

Luckily, Paul has Mark's sense of rhythm and not mine. :)

This boy loves his daddy right down to his shoelaces!

The full picture of the one above... some father-son bonding time :)

Aunt Greta! Paul was finally able to meet my sister Greta, who lives in Oregon. We're so excited to go visit her again next week!

Paul loves having the fan blow on his face.

 And this is how quickly he turn from whining to happy... cracks me up every time how much he loves the camera!

 These are two of my nieces, Sarah and Megan. They love Paul and Paul loves them! They came with us to my mom's summer library at her school and we had so much fun!

Bethany, Megan, and Sarah take such good care of Paul. I wish I could have them all come live with me because they are sooo helpful!

 Paul is in training to become a librarian. Or maybe a library supervisor. He sits on the cart while I shelve books. :)

 And, to finish this marathon of pictures and videos, Paul's newest sound:

Pudge Reports: 9 months--already?!?

Hi everyone. Pudge here again. Can you believe that picture above was me just 9 months (plus about a week) ago? This is me now. Mommy says I am becoming quite the "cheese" for the camera. I'm not sure how that can happen since she won't even let me eat cheese yet.

The doctor last week said I am doing well, even if Mommy does sometimes worry because I am skinny. I weigh 15 lbs 13 oz (below 5th percentile) and I am 27.5 inches tall (25th percentile). My head is 45.8 cm (75th percentile) so Mommy figures I've got the brains instead of the brawn, like my lean-mean-machine Daddy.

I sure do love my Daddy, so I'm okay with being like him. Everyone says I look so much like him anyway. I love having Daddy home this summer. I get so excited every time he comes into the room... unless he startles me. I will miss him so much when he is back at school all day.

I love to stand (with help) and sit. I hate time on my tummy and I refuse to roll over. When Mommy tries to help me roll over from my tummy like I used to do so well, I plant my arms wide and cry. I prefer just sitting to play with my toys. I'm not sure if crawling will be all it's cracked up to be, so I figure I'll just get around to it when I feel like it. Why bother going on my own when I can whine and someone will give me whatever I want?

I love my blanket and my mommy. Add my pacifier and I am 100% content.

I love being outside because something is always moving! I watch cars and bikes and skateboarders go by, and I watch the wind move the tree leaves.

I love playing with my toys, especially the ones that make noise. I love reading (and eating) books, being bounced, dancing, and talking with my Mommy and Daddy. I am also getting a pretty good throwing arm, so Mommy spends a lot of time picking up things that I "accidentally" drop. 

I am generally just a happy kid. I sleep well. I eat well. What more can a kid (or a mom) ask for?

Ragnar: 188.2 miles of love

This was the big race Mark and I had been training for. Well, I had been training and Mark had just been running. :) The Wasatch Back relay is 188.2 miles (from Logan to Park City) split into 36 legs that are run by 12 runners in a 24-hour-plus time period. Also a whole lot of fun. Yes, we runners (I love that I can call myself a runner now, even if it isn't 100% accurate...) are crazy like that: there were around 1500 teams running this year. (Waaaay too many, if you ask me. We're all opting for a smaller relay next year.)

This is our van before we started. Each team has two vans, 6 people in each van. This allows each van to get some down-time, but this also means that you don't really get to see the people in the other van as much. This was a little bit sad for me since we had my large family split in both vans. 

Mark, me, brother Chad, SIL Lindsey, brother Jace,
and Kris (Lindsey's coworker and our anchor... she ran 21 miles total!)

Three of the four Waddoups sisters ran: me, Greta, and Joce. Our oldest (and best!) sister, Sarah, was signed up to run but her best friend was getting married that weekend, so she opted to attend the wedding instead. I suppose that was a good choice. ;)

We had 6 of the 8 Waddoups children running (3 sisters and 3 brothers), plus 2 spouses (Mark and my SIL Lindsey). This is my brother, Jace, barrelling down one of the hills he ran and also achieving one of his many kills. (Every time you pass another runner, you achieve a "road kill" that you get to mark on your van windows. Luckily for me, you don't have to erase the marks for the times that you get passed. :) )

Mark did so awesome on his legs of the race. Here he is, almost at the finish of his first and hardest leg:

He does look like he's walking, but he's not, I promise!

When the last runner finishes, the whole team is supposed to cross the finish line together. The other 5 team members in van 2 weren't able to make it to the finish line because of traffic, though :( so it was just the 6 of us and Ashley, Lindsey's sister, who was runner 12.

We finished in 29:17 (yes, that's hours and minutes!), which was 127the in our division (mixed, teams made up of both men and women). Luckily, you just have to finish to get the medal,which also doubles as a bottle opener...

Mark and I were both very happy with how we did. Mark's goal was to not walk at all, and he did it! My goal, well, my goal was to survive the weekend, and I did. :) I was sooo happy with how I did on my first and longest leg--I rocked that big hill and killed 12 people in the process, plus running faster than I thought I would. The last two legs were shorter and I did fine, but finishing didn't come with as much of a sense of accomplishment as just a sense of relief.

Just before running his last leg...
The last hurrah of the facial hair. :)

Take a look at Mark's shirt in the picture above... I designed it! You can't see it very well in the picture, but I was pretty proud of how it looked, and we even got a few compliments on our awesome shirts. :)

Cousins

One thing we love about living here is that we get to see cousins all the time! My sister and her husband were out of town for a weekend, so we got to have each of her three girls come spend one night with us because, as my sister says, "Two sisters can get along, but three sisters fight." (The other two sisters plus the baby were with my oldest sister, so we're not sure if she was referring to her children or to us Waddoups sisters... ;) )

Jocee came the first night. We played games, painted our toenails, and stayed up to watch a movie and eat popcorn. Life is good when you're a kid! The next day, we played outside and walked to the park to meet up with the other siblings.

She rocks that princess crown!

Laurissa spend the next night. She also wanted to stay up late to watch a movie and eat popcorn. This picture was just after she had teased me about something... she's such a tease!

The next day we were went to Mark's school to play the Wii on the big screen of his Promethean board, but we arrived just in time for Mark to remember that he can't get in the building on the weekends. Laurissa was disappointed and suggested that instead we go shopping... at the mall! A girl after my own heart. :) However, we decided that none of us had money, so we just went to a new place here in town for lunch instead and then came back home to play some more.

This is Mark's "but I haven't done my hair!" pout :)

Bethany came and spent the next night. She played the Wii with Mark (and even beat him a few times, which she gloated properly about), and then we stayed up late and watched a movie and ate popcorn (are you seeing a pattern here?).

The next day she came to church with us and got her first taste of Young Women. She answered all the questions correctly during my lesson and even read one of the longest, hardest scriptures!

The next week, we kept Dean for an afternoon while the girls and their parents went to the movies. He is just a couple months older than Paul, but, wow, what a difference those few months make! Dean makes Paul look even smaller than he actually is. :)

Dean is also crawling around and standing and sitting again--often right on top of Paul. :) Paul doesn't seem to mind, though, and doesn't seem at all encouraged to become mobile.

The tongue thing must come from Waddoups genes. :)
(See the last picture in this post.)

It was so funny to watch these boys watch cars go by... synchronized head swivels!

Demo'ed!

Mark's school is in the middle of rebuilding right now. They'll be in the old school for another full school year while the new school is being rebuilt. In order to fit the new school (and stay the necessary distance away from the power lines), they had to demolish one wing of the old school. We, of course, went to watch. :)

 Paul was a little bit concerned at first with the big trucks...

 ...but then he decided they were pretty cool to watch!

It was pretty awesome to watch. The operator of the digger (technical term, of course), was knocking the whole building down bit by bit, and then using the claw to pick things up and sort them into piles: scrap metal here, large pieces of wood there.

This is the start of the new school. We really hope it's finished in time!

What a fun family outing!