bon anniversaire a mon ami

A couple weeks ago we celebrated Jared's 27th birthday. I know such a baby, right? I always love to remind him I'm SO much older (a full 8 months) ;) We had only been down in Arizona for a couple weeks, so we didn't really know many people to celebrate with, but we still made sure to party!

I baked a Vanilla Tres Leches cake for his big day which ended up being a little more involved than I anticipated, but turned out soo good! Emmett and I surprised him with it when he got home from work, and I'm not sure who was actually more excited - Jared or Emmett!

See that gorgeous watch he's sporting? That was his birthday present from Emmett and I!

Emmett had been patiently waiting all day to eat the cake we slaved over.  And was just as excited as could be to help blow out the candles.

Project Tres Leche (Pronounced in a Puss in Boots accent) was a success! 

A couple friends informed us off all the restaurants around us that provide FREE dinner on your birthday! So we MAY have hit up not one, but TWO of them! (Next day's work lunch for Jared!!) haha. We're all about free things!

I'm so grateful for Jared and all he does for our family. I feel lucky to embark on all life's adventures with my best friend :) 

we'll raise our colors high in the blue, we're the cougars of BYU...!!

So much has happened in the past little while, it's hard to know where to start! It all got set in motion a couple months ago (was it really only a couple months ago??) when Jared wrapped up his Masters in Engineering (Woohoo! Go Jared!)

I was able to attend seminar the day he presented and watch him do his thing! It was such an extensive project - he worked around the clock on it for nearly 2 years and spent a lot of time out on site He did a great job. Doesn't he look so official?

That night we went and celebrated his huge accomplishment at PF Changs with my sisters

About a month later it REALLY became official, when Jared walked and received his Degree.

It was neat because Kirsten and Rusty both graduated as well! So it was a big day in the Whittaker household!

I am so proud of all you guys for your hard work! I know how hard Jared worked for this moment, and am glad we were able to celebrate it with all our family.

 BYU has been such an important marker in our life - during our time here we've had our first child (well ALMOST two!), learned many life lessons, strengthened invaluable relationships with family, and created lifelong friendships with those in our neighborhood. I think Ziggy Ansah summed it up best when he said "I didn't just go through BYU - BYU went through me." We will miss you BYU and will forever carry you in our hearts <3 p="">

the first getaway

Sometimes I feel like life is a crazy rat race and I try and try to get everything done in the day, but somehow only ever manage to accomplish like 60% of what I'd like to do, and so the cycle continues on and on...

One of the things on my neverending list is getting caught up to date on the blog, so I can quit doing boring catch-up posts, and actually write something worth reading.

Well I haven't quite made it to the latter yet, but here's one step closer to catching up!

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Jared and I went on our first overnight trip at the end of June. We spent the night up in a nice resort in Midway as an early celebration for our Anniversary. Here's a shot of the view on the drive up.

Can't you just smell the mountain air looking at it??

Our room had a box of chocolate dipped strawberries waiting for us, which I was pretty excited about.

Unbeknownst to us, this cute little vacation town shuts down at 8pm. Like really shuts down. So Jared and I had to go on a wild goose chase looking for something to eat. The only thing we could find open was a Domino's pizza carry-out. So we took our pizza back to our room and laughed about the grand, romantic meal we were having on our special anniversary getaway.

Aside from that little hiccup - it felt so amazing to just sit back in the jacuzzi and/or sauna and have nothing on my mind. And especially amazing because it was the coolest hot tub I've ever been in.

(yes thats a tree coming out of the waterfall)

I also spent some time basking in the sun on a lawnchair (one of my favorite things *which I literally had not done since before Emmett was born!! There is no lounging on his watch!) However, Idaho boys apparently don't know how to appreciate a good lay in the sun... I guess you can't blame them - what opportunity do they have to practice it? So my basking was short-lived. Yet still glorious.

After the dinner adventure, we figured we had a little room to splurge on the resorts gourmet breakfasts (which were delicious but disappointingly small. Your buck doesn't go far here).

 

We finished the day out by biking the hills of Midway (a real rush on the way down, but boy did uphill suck!), racing down the Alpine Slides, and shopping at the Park City Outlets.

We came to the consensus that little, even local, getaways are a necessity in any relationship. It was just a nice recharge - and honestly was one of the only times we had nothing to worry about besides enjoying each others company. So here's to (hopefully) many more anniversary trips to come!

kah-mo! kah-mo!

That's about all we hear anymore. Emmett has inherited Jared's deep blue blood. He is Cosmo the Cougar's #1 fan. And I'm not exaggerating, I really think he might be. He wants to wear his "cougar shirt" ALL the time. Like he once wore (and slept) in it for three days straight, then still threw a fit when I made him take it off to be laundered. And anything that's navy blue is "Cougar".
Whenever we go to any type of BYU sporting event, he runs like a madman screaming Cosmo's name throughout the entire duration - needless to say I don't usually see very much of the games.

Last weekend we decided to take him to the football team's spring scrimmage. He had a blast running the stadium full speed screaming for Cosmo. Most people we passed started laughing - I don't blame them!

                                                            (Of course we paused to check out the snow plow)

"Kah-mooooo!!"

We train 'em young :)

a world of discovery

For the holiday, I decided it would be fun for our family to go visit the Discovery Children's Museum. I'd heard how neat it was for little kids, and it well exceeded my expectations. To tell the truth, it just may have been the best day of Emmett's life!! I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Prepare to be amazed!!

 

(dropping balls down the tubes)

Oh and look, I finally accomplished my college dream of becoming a news reporter! And have the studliest co-anchor I've ever seen. Eat your heart out Ron Burgundy!

 

If you can't already tell, it wasn't just Emmett that had fun!! Here Jared is building a tower out of building blocks, which will eventually get knocked down by the earthquake simulator

  

Creating tunnels for the ping pong balls they would drop down



playing in the water

An Emmett sized Supermarket!! He even stopped and lifted out his bread here like  he was going to pay. LOL

And of course amidst this sea of amazingness, he found a vacuum (as if the day could get ANY better, that was the cherry on top!)

All in all an awesome Labor Day :-)  It sure wore Jared out, he's been asleep on the couch since about 9pm! Emmett and I will definitely be returning to the Discovery Museum this winter when we need to get out!

snippets of summer

I was browsing through my camera today and noticed there were all kinds of important/adorable shots that I've never posted. Some of them are a few months old, but I'm just going to do a good ol' mish mash post and share them all anyway.

Jared's 25th Birthday (Back in June)

What kind of wife forgets to post about her husbands birthday?? Anyways, it was great and the cake batter pie I made turned out delish.

 

Taking Emmett to participate in the 4th of July Children's Parade

Emmett's new Boots with the Fur that he makes me put on allll the time (even though they were purchased for winter)

Like Father, Like Son

 (Remember this post about Jared?!)

*A funny little anecdote I have to add about these boots:

Emmett was sitting in the front of the shopping cart, helping me shop, when I came across these boots. I asked him if he liked them. He responded by sticking his foot straight up in the air, whimpering for me to put it on. When I did - he smiled really big, kept holding his foot up to look at it, started laughing, then proceeded to reach next to him for his sandal (the shoe he was wearing)... and chucked it out of the cart. LOL. He had made his decision.

Emmett at his usual post on the counter being my Sous Chef

I'm not sure how much raw brownie batter babies are allowed to ingest...but let's just say Emmett got his fair share. I didn't hear any complaints coming from him!

Joe Cool out for a Sunday Drive

Found the Sombrero Jared brought back from his Mexico trip and came running into the room all of the sudden wearing it (and one flip flop to boot!)

Decided he wanted to sit in one of his toy boxes one day

And one morning I had the carseat in house. I looked over at Emmett and discovered he had kicked back in it and was watching his morning television.



And last but not least, a cute baby on a summer day taking the time to smell the flowers

We are really going to miss summer!! Looking back over these summer pictures made me realize that in these past few months Emmett has really changed from a baby to a little boy (I'll be posting some recent pictures soon!). In typical mom fashion, it made me want to cry! Why do they have to grow so fast?!? Slow down and stay my little Peanut forever <3