May Graduation and Floors

At the end of May, Brad graduated from Dental School at Midwestern and so the family that was able to all came to town. My parents got a couple units at the Worldmark spot in Phoenix and we had a whole week to party together. They arrived on a Sunday, so I scrambled around to find something adequate to feed everybody. Luckily I had just hosted book group so I had some yummy leftovers. The chocolate hummus was a big hit, especially with Rory who kept sneaking into the kitchen to help herself to more. We introduced them to the movie Coco and had a nice time all catching up. 

The next day, Kristy, my mom, and I headed to Arizona Mills Mall to do a little shopping. Kristy rented a race car stroller to contain Declan, which Rory found much more interesting than her own stroller. We spent most of the time trying to keep the kids in said strollers and happy. I always come prepared with bribery candy, and so at one point I told Declan I would give him a piece of candy if he stayed in his seat, but he had to keep it a secret. He asked me for "secret candy" the rest of the day and kept trying to check my pockets and bag for any treats I might be holding back. They did a pretty good job and Declan even helped push Rory around in the stroller a little bit.

While we shopped, the boys golfed (of course) and afterwards we all met up at Cafe Rio for lunch. Rory loves Grandpa and she especially loves him best when he has food, so she was a pretty happy girl. After lunch we headed over to my parents place to swim in their pool. Since it was memorial day, Stephen actually had the day off so he was able to join in on our festivities, which is a rare treat. Rory LOVED the pools of course, and it was fun showing off her skills to my family. The hotel actually has three or four different little pools all right next to each other so Rory would hop in one, swim to the edge, climb out, and hop right into to the other- ALL. DAY. LONG. This girl just cracks me up. 

The next couple days were spent over at Brad and Jules place because very pregnant Jules is supposed to be on a bit of a bed rest, not that that is actually feasible with two kids under three years old. We weren't able to make it out to Glendale every day because of other things I had going on, like mutual, but when we did Rory loved playing with the cousins and trying to copy everything the little boys did. 

I've buried the lede a little bit here because I failed to mention the biggest monster of this week together. A few weeks before everyone got together, I mentioned to Kacey and Jon Wayne that Stephen and I had some projects around the house we were wanting to do and if they were interested in trading baby sitting for help again, we would be too. Fast forward to a few days before everyone was set to arrive and Kacey calls me to confirm that Jon is coming with them to Phoenix this weekend specifically to start on these home projects, so get ready for him. The Nielsens rolled in late Thursday night, crashed at our house, and then Jon literally worked the rest of the time he was there. Stephen went to work on Friday, but came home as quickly as he could to work with him. And my dad, superhero that he is, sacrificed his entire weekend as well. While these guys tore up carpet, leveled floors, made countless home depot trips, mixed mortar, cut tile, etc... Kacey and I took off with the kids, met up with everyone else, and played and swam and ate to our heart's content.  

Jon didn't even make it back to the hotel to crash on Friday night, he just slept at my house so they could work late and start early. While they worked we also completed several more escape rooms, because Earls have priorities. One of them we did was a room where you are separated into two teams and you are each put in the exact same room at the exact same time so that you can see who makes it out first. Brad, Jules, and I beat mom, Kacey and Courtney but it sounds like it was maybe due to a technical difficulty in their room so the world may never know who is, in fact, smarter. 

The men really did work around the clock, only taking breaks to eat. I was especially touched by my dad's hand in it. He is not the "handiest" 'of men and I've rarely seen him take on projects or work like this, but he was so into it and Stephen and Jon Wayne said his help was invaluable. His one condition for working was that, in spite of the summer Arizona heat, the house was to stay a cool 65 degrees, any less and he was walking. When I came home Friday night (and let myself into my bedroom through my window since I couldn't actually walk anywhere in my home) it literally felt like I'd walked into the refrigerated room at Costco. I could not believe my house could even get that cold! 

By the end of the weekend, they were not able to finish the floors or start on some of the other projects we had in mind for the house, but the work they did do was incredible and saved us so much money that I believe our next child will need to be named Jon Wayne David Stephen Marsh. 

My Baby Growing Up in May

In May, we had the chance to watch my friend's four-year-old daughter once or twice a week while she finished her student teaching for her master's degree. Clara is a precocious little thing, and she and Rory have the funniest love/hate relationship. She often said to me, "And that's why I don't like your baby." 

We got to do a lot of fun things with Clara, but the two of them really loved swimming together the best. Clara has a pool at her house and has been taking swimming lessons for a long time, so she swims like a fish. Rory, with her newly purchased floatee, was SO STOKED to have a big kid to follow around the pool and wanted to do everything as soon as Clara did it. I think that Clara is the reason that Rory is so fearless in the water and why she actually has become a pretty decent swimmer; she was just so desperate to play with her! Here are the girls sharing an orange julius after an afternoon at the splash pad. 

I bought Rory a little princess tea set at Ross (vicariously living my childhood dreams through her? maybe.) and she LOVES it. All day long she begs me to fill it up with water again and again. She comes running up to me with a cup (or a plate) and says, "Mo? Mo? Mo?" until I do what she says. I figure with the weather getting warmer it is an excellent way to stay hydrated. 

Like I said, thanks to our play dates with Clara, Rory is complete obsessed with swimming. You can't say "water" or "pool" around her without her running to grab her floatee. Most days she begs me to put her floatee on her just so she can wear it around the house. It is hilarious to watch because she doesn't have great mobility in it so she has a hard time climbing up on the couch and chairs or picking things up from the ground. 

One day I told the girls we would go to the pool and laid out Rory's swimming things while I changed into my swimsuit and put sunscreen on Clara first. As I am lotioning her up Rory comes in with her sun hat on, swimsuit pulled over her neck and sunscreen in hand, obviously all ready to go. I swear, it just does not possibly get cuter than this baby. I love her face in the second picture that so obviously says, "What mom?? I nailed it." 

These days, you'll typically find Rory with multiple headbands around her neck as a necklace, covered in water from her tea set, possibly wearing her floatee, but definitely begging to watch Super Why.

And last, but CERTAINLY not least.... RORY'S HAIR CAN BE PUT INTO PIGTAILS AND I AM NO LONGER LIVING BECAUSE I DIED OF THE CUTENESS OF IT. This first ever pigtail 'do was what Rory rocked to the baptism of a new beehive in our ward. I walked in just SO proud about how seriously darling she looked, and then as I sat there I felt a little silly for making such a big deal about it in my head. But as soon as the program was over and it was time for refreshments, all of my beehives in attendance ran up to me and just gushed about how cute her hair was and how much older the pigtails make her look. So yes, these twelve-year-olds and I think pretty much exactly alike. And also, Rory is the cutest thing that has ever happened to me.

"Just Think of the Fun Things We Can Do"

The first weekend in May we concluded our Team Dance season in Spokane, which is always my favorite city. The competition level is so high there, and this year did not disappoint. May was also the beginning of a new project for one of my best friends. Lilly started an organizational instagram/ blog and since I finally had time to even think about my house I went to work organizing everything we own. It has already made a huge difference this summer and I no longer cringe when I open my pantry. While I was at Team Dance, Stephen took that Friday off of work so that he could be home with Rory while I was gone and when I got home these two were inseparable. They've both really nailed the "we-love-you-but-we-don't-really-need-you-anymore" look lately. 

Stephen and Rory are the cutest little partners in crime, and she seems so much more older and capable every time they work on a project together. When he is working in the backyard, like say fixing the sprinkler system, he will give Rory a task and she will attack it immediately. For the sprinkler project he had her scooping water out of the hole he had dug around the sprinkler head with a plastic cup and she scooped like there was no tomorrow, sighing the whole time at the work her little body was exerting to get the task done. Sure, at one point she said, "milk", and attempted to drink the dirt-laden water before Stephen could stop her, but I mean, that's still pretty impressive, right? Another project they did together was running the cables behind the wall on our mounted TV. There was less that Rory was able to do on that job, but she still sat right by his side in case he thought up anything he might need from her, and the few times he asked for tools she was right there. 

Kendall, who just graduated BYU in April (during our wedding dress shopping adventures- she didn't attend any ceremonies), is now living in Washington for the summer, so after our Team Dance Spokane event she flew back with me to Phoenix. Back in December we had all decided to purchase tickets to Taylor Swift's Reputation Tour. It started with Mady and I because we are obsessed, but then eventually Kendall, Courtney, and Jules all joined the crew and we had ourselves an official Girl's Night Out. In order to purchase our tickets we had to go through this new "verified fan" purchasing process, which basically meant we had to watch Taylor Swift Videos for two weeks to prove that we weren't robots or scalpers. It was no small task having to play the videos over and over again for those two weeks, and everyone got on at some point to get our views in. BUT it all totally paid off when we got to buy our tickets at the pre-sale (on my birthday!) and we literally had our pick of any seat in the stadium. 

So, Kendall flew down with me for the concert right after Team Dance. Courtney flew home from Spokane, packed up her kids, and drove to us the next day. Mady flew in the morning of the concert and lucky Jules lives just 30 minutes away from the venue in Glendale- we officially had our crew! With the craziness of finishing up the Team Dance season we didn't have a lot of time to think about or prepare for the concert, so the night before we found ourselves at Walmart purchasing supplies to make some concert t-shirts. We worked late at night after the kids were all finally in bed sleeping, and watched the Re-mixed Arrested Development Season 4 that Netflix had just put out. 

In the morning we found our shirt had not turned out exactly as we had anticipated so we made a few quick corrections and found we could cover most anything with a little glitter. 

With Mady finally joining us, we left for the concert, red lipstick in tow, and made our way to Glendale. We made it to Jules house, stopped for a bathroom break and a quick picture and then started toward the concert venue. Before we reached the stadium we stopped at an In-N-Out for dinner and ate quickly as we knew concert traffic would be bad. We could not have even imagined how crazy it would be. We were probably 5-10 minutes outside the venue when we got stuck in standstill traffic for OVER AN HOUR. It was so frustrating because the venue had sent out an email to prepay for parking, and then they specifically said to follow the signs put up around the venue and not your GPS because the phone directions would lead you astray. So we were just stuck. With a bunch of Taylor Swift teenage girl fans that had no clue where they were going just like us. The concert started at 7:00 and we hit the traffic around 6:30. We watched 7:00 roll right on by as we painstakingly inched our way towards the parking, then 7:30, then 7:45, then 8:00.. It was INFURIATING. Not even Mady's Taylor Swift Trivia could distract me from the rage I was feeling. I'm fired up just thinking about it! Finally, we get close to this stoplight and are just about to turn like the car in front of us when a police man drives up next to me. My lights weren't on and I didn't know it because I was driving Stephen's car. so he gave me a warning to get them on. Before he pulled away he said, "You're going to want to go straight here, there is nothing but lines up there and the parking lot is completely full." So we thanked him, went straight, and were able to park and run into the venue within minutes. I don't know what we would have done if he didn't save us. We made it to our seats right as Camilla Cabello began singing "Havana", the closing song of her set (having completely missed Charlie XCX and the rest of Camilla's set). About 15-20 minutes after we sat down Taylor was on the stage so I am so glad we made it when we did. The concert was INCREDIBLE. My favorite part was when she came to the side stage in front of us and did Shake It Off (with rainbow dancers, confetti, and dancing snakes), an acoustic version of Dancing With Our Hands Tied (so much better), AND an acoustic All Too Well, which made me want to cry a little bit because it's just the best song. I seriously feel like words can't describe how cool our night was. And our seats were fantastic. Oh! And Delicate. That was my other favorite part. She floated around on a lit up bubble thing and the screen made her look like she was made of stars. It's hard to explain but it was awesome. 

With the concert over we still had one or two more days with everyone in town so we took advantage of it and took these babies out to play! We went swimming at our community pool for the first time this summer, which I quickly discovered would be a new favorite spot for Rory. We went to the pool quite a bit last summer, but she mostly sat around in her pool float looking displeased the whole time. I brought her baby float, not knowing how much she would even want to be in the water. Well, she decided the float wasn't for her, so I kept her in my arms. This, too, ended up being an undesirable option for her as she attempted to kick away from me so that she could follow Owen and Dean around everywhere they went. She was so eager to copy what they were doing and I knew we would be making a floatee purchase real soon if she was going to enjoy the summer at all. The one thing she did really enjoy about being in my arms was having me lay her on her back and swooshing around her hair in the water. Girls will be girls!

We also got to hit up our fave splash pad, but I did not get any pictures of the cousins together for some reason, besides a blurry Madden in the background. Just know that they were all there and we all had a total blast together.

In conclusion, Taylor Swift is incredible, I love spending time with some of my favorite people, and Rory still looks too darn cute in a swimsuit.