Playing in the Snow! (just pictures)

I'll try to add some text later, for now it's just pictures (:

My little TODDLER! (:

Justin started walking a few days after his first birthday.
I wouldn't actually call it "walking" because he doesn't go very far, but my mom said as long as he is taking steps by himself, it counts.

Soooo................HE'S WALKING!
And we're LOVING it!

I know the videos are all pretty much the same, but I mostly put them on so my mom can see.
(He's not much for performing in front of the webcam.)

It's so fun to watch his expressions, you can almost read his mind. Right before he gets to the couch, or to me, or to Jason he stops and looks and thinks "i'm close enough" then just kind of lunges forward. -he's usually not close enough though.

I think his record is 7 steps before he fell...which doesn't seem like a lot but we get so excited and there is a lot of clapping going on in this house right now.

(and yes, I realize he probably could walk better if his pants weren't too long. We spend most of our practice time wearing JUST a diaper and a shirt) (:

We sure love this little boy!

Jason's 24th Birthday

Justin's 1st Birthday - extended

My little boy is 1 already!!! Justin was still recovering from a yucky cold so he wasn't feeling quite up to par on his birthday. (that's why I look more excited than him in most of the pictures) We took him out to lunch at a Mexican place we've never been to and it was so delicious. He ate half of my chicken burrito and kept trying to eat the limes.


(We sat by the window and he loved watching all the people and cars outside)


Justin really loves his daddy and was so excited when he got home from school. He laughs so hard when Jason wrestles with him

and believe it or not he was laughing during this too, even if he looks a tiny bit scared.


You can watch the video of his smash cake in the next post. You can tell he wasn't feeling incredibly good, and I probably shouldn't have let him have sugar when he was getting over a cold, but you only turn 1 once!

Daddy liked it too. This is a WHOLE cupcake in Jason's mouth.

Justin loves baths now, and with the way he likes to eat they're becoming at least and every day occurrence.

Bath #2 after yummy ravioli!


Presents from Grandmas!


I wanted to make Justin a really cute cake, but school was so crazy that week, I decided to spend the time playing with him and just buy an ice cream cake from the store to share with everyone. Justin wasn't quite sure about all the people that came over and acted pretty shy, even though he knew and liked all of them. I didn't mind though cause it made him just want to cuddle with momma. He hid behind my legs most of the evening but started warming up to everyone when they offered ice cream cake bites. (:

It was a Little People Farm cake.


I still can't believe he's already one. Where the time has gone? We've loved every minute of it though and are excited for this coming holiday season with our little boy!

Justin's 1st Birthday (for David)

I'll do a whole post tomorrow, but just wanted to stick a short clip and a couple pictures on right now so David will know we love him; there will be more next week David, I promise (:



I made Justin a small smash cake that we gave him at lunch time. The video's not incredibly exciting, but it was really fun to see what he thought of the whole experience. He wasn't too sure about the flame on the candle, and had to be persuaded to try the frosting, but ended up loving it. I cropped the end off cause it was really long but he pretty much destroyed the cake.


We love you Elder Weech and hope you have a great week!

ARIZONA vacation

I never realized how much I love Arizona until I moved away. Idaho is so beautiful with all of it's rivers and waterfalls, trees and grass, and gorgeous mountains. It's made me realize how beautiful some of this country is, but no matter how much we love it, Arizona will always be HOME. Because BYU-I is on a trimester system and Jason is on fast grad, we're able to fit in 3 semesters a year and still have a 7 week "summer break" at the end of July. We had planned on spending some of it just relaxing in Rexburg but at the last minute we decided we'd rather spend all the time we had enjoying our families back in Arizona.
One of things I miss alot is Arizona sunsets. We had quite a few gorgeous ones down in Pima.

Justin with Grandma & Grandpa Weech

Justin and Mommy

As Grandpa Gardner says, Justin's definitely coming into his own personality and opinions about things. He just recently decided to let us hold his hands while he walks around and he's getting really good at it now. Uncle Spencer was such a good babysitter and helped Justin get wherever he wanted.

Justin also takes after his daddy with his love for anything electronic. We found this little toy laptop and he had a blast banging away on the keyboard without Mom or Dad pulling it away. He had the happiest little grin sitting on the couch with his aunts and his very own computer. It was pretty cute.

BATH TIMEJustin kind of has a love/hate relationship with bathtime. He does NOT like it when he's tired, and sometimes doesn't even like it when he's happy. He's just barely decided that splashing is actually pretty fun (he used to cry when he'd splash himself) and he loves that he can get to all of his toys when they float around now.

All Clean!

One thing Rexburg is incredibly lacking in is ANIMALS. Seriously the only thing you see are little golden squirrels. Pretty much everyone lives in rentals, which rarely allow creatures. So Justin hasn't had much experience with animals but he just discovered cats at my mom's house. Thanks to an incredibly sweet cat that loves any kind of attention (including poundings by little fists and tail pulling) he now loves kitties.

(i promise the cats not dead, she was actually purring while he crawled on her)

The MOUNTAIN!One of our favorite parts of visiting Pima in the summer is going up to beautiful cool Columbine. We drove down past the Bible Camp and picked a TON of rasberries that my mother so kindly made us rasberry jam out of. I love jam, especially homeade. Grandma and Grandpa took turns carrying Justin in the carrier so Jason and I would have our hands free for picking. It was so much fun. Justin also got his first taste of dirt and rocks and decided he's a big fan...goody thing there aren't too many rocks around Rexburg for him to eat (:

One of our last evenings in Pima we drove over to Hancock's and took some family pictures. It's the first time we've actually tried to take "family pictures" and I'm so glad we did it. Jason is NOT the biggest fan of getting pictures taken so I had to promise him it would only take 10 minutes. Even with the limited time we still got a few cute ones and I'm excited to see the ones my dad took when his film gets developed (:

Justin playing the piano with his Daddy. He loves pulling himself up to the piano and "helping" everyone play. It's pretty cute, he loves to sing along too.

Enjoying the end of Summer! Justin spent most of the summer afraid of the pokey grass, but discovered it's not too bad now. It helps that he can walk around (holding my hands) and chase after the kitties.

It honestly feels like summer just started, I'm not sure where all the time went. When we get back to Rexburg tomorrow I'm pretty sure fall will be waiting for us. I've really enjoyed the sunshine and being able to take Justin outside to play, but I'm also excited for fall and the changes it brings. The thought of watching the trees turn, wearing soft comfy sweatshirts and drinking hot chocolate is definitely something to look forward too. It also means Christmas is coming and we'll get to see family again and finally get to see Sara & Jeremy and the kids and meet sweet little Katy. I hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer and anticipation of fall and all the fun that comes with it.
(I already put most of these pictures on facebook, but added them to my blog also so my sweet little brother in Africa could see them-LOVE you David!)

Gardner's Hawaii Trip

We got to spend 2 beautiful weeks on the Island of Oahu with our sweet little boy and wonderful family (and Zach Taylor, a family friend:) It was a wonderful break during the semester and the weather was so beautiful the whole time.
Nice and warm.

So it's been over 3 weeks since we got back, but it took forever to go through the pictures and having to finish catching up on homework did NOT help. Actually I'm definitely supposed to be working on my finals right now, but decided blogging sounded a lot more fun! (:

I had a hard time deciding which pictures I liked best, so I just put them in collages. You can click on them to see them bigger.


We had a total flying time of 17 hours (round trip) and were really worried about Justin, but he did great. He slept for a lot of the flights and didn't even cry. We did become pretty good friends with the flight attendants though since they let us play on the ground in their serving area when he got restless. (:


This is the beach house we all stayed in (13 of us total and a couple pictures of the beach behind the house. It was so nice to have a relaxing place to vacation instead of staying in crazy Waikiki the whole time. It was also really nice with Justin because I could take him back to the house when he got tired, or slip out to the beach while family was watching him.


More pictures playing on the beach.


Dole Plantation. Justin LOVED the pinapple whip and cried when it was gone. Wish I would have got a picture of him eating it.


Catamaran Ride This is definitely my favorite part of Waikiki. You board a giant boat on the beach at Waikiki and go on a 1 1/2 hour voyage through the swells and over around diamond head. I feel like I'm on a relaxing roller coaster ride with a gorgeous view. (It's the perfect place to get a little bit of a tan too!)


Byodo-In (Buddhist) Temple This is a replica of the temple in Uji, Japan and was built to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. It's about 45 minutes from the house but a gorgeous tourist attraction in the Valley of the Temples. Jason stayed home with Justin so I could go with everyone else. We had a lot of fun feeding the fish and birds, and walking around the beautiful grounds.


Waikiki The days we spent in Waikiki were always long since nap time didn't really happen and we didn't have a house to go back and relax at close by. We still had a lot of fun though. Playing at the wall, going to the International Market Place, seeing all the sights and enjoying the crazy night life. Part of which was Jared, who brought his guitar and played for all the tourists. We ended up laying under the palm trees in the grass with Justin more than once though. (:


Laie Point Our house was right around the corner from Laie Point, and we took some family pictures the first Sunday we were there. It's a gorgeous spot!


Temple The temple was closed for renovations so we didn't get to do a session, but we went to the visitors center and enjoyed walking around and taking a few pictures.


Palm Trees Austin tied his feet together and climbed the trees just like a native, the rest of us decided to use the nifty little notches in one of the tree to climb it. It doesn't look like I'm that far off the ground, but it sure felt like I was!


Polynesian Cultural Center Actually, Jason and I didn't go the PCC this year, because we went last time and just wanted to relax in ocean that day, but we did eat at my favorite McDonald's in the whole world that's right next to the PCC. (= It was a lot of fun, we went there for breakfast and decided to have a "signing only" meal. So we all got to order in sign language (with an interpreter) and sign during the whole meal any time we wanted to say something, we only cheated a little. It gave me a whole lot more understanding about how much energy it takes for a hard of hearing person to communicate. Always having to watch everyone to see if they're talking or what they're saying. It was a lot of fun and a good experience.


Spear Fishing Haha. So Jason and his brother's got spearguns and decided they were going to conquer the wild blue sea and feed the family with their spoils. Turns out those fish are a whole lot faster than they look. Jason and Austin both caught one though and had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to gut and cook it. It actually tasted pretty good. (the little blue thing in the pink bucket is a jelly fish we found)


Honolulu Zoo We had a couple extra Catamaran tickets so Jason let me go out again while he took Justin to the Zoo with the little kids. I love the pictures he took and was amazed at how many animals they had there.


Our little Fishy Justin's never been incredibly fond of water until just recently, and for most of the trip he was a lot happier to chill on the beach than actually get in the water, but the last few days Jason took him out in the water and he actually seemed to like it. It was so cute to see him out in the ocean with these huge waves coming in and Jason holding him.


Well that was our trip in a nutshell. There's about 700 more pictures and many more memories but if you haven't already fallen asleep we won't push it.

Justin can now say he's been to Hawaii even if he won't remember any of it. Here are a few things he learned while there though: airplanes are fun, the ocean is cold, family is noisy, ice cream is delicious, sun screen is a must, days in Waikiki are long, tile floors are not conducive for rolling, you only cry for mom if you can see me, baby signing time is a cure all, popsicles are yummy, Karly makes you laugh, and family is wonderful! (And you know exactly what's in a haagen daz sundae cup and will through a fit if you don't get your share.)