A Look at our Summer

If I could sum up in two words what my boys are to me it would be "Pure Joy!" Lately they've started playing with each other a little more now that Tate is 9 months! I can't believe how fast he's grown up. It seems like I love aniticipating Easton's next stage, the new words he'll say, his developmental steps, etc. But with Tate, it's almost as if I want him to stay little forever! I miss him being so tiny and cuddly. I look at our family picture hanging on our wall (when Tate was an infant) and I remember when his whole body could fit on my lap. Now he's over 22 lbs. and almost 2 ft! He's loving his new independence of cruising around with the furniture but gets extremely frustrated when he sees his brother do something that he can't.

Lately, their favorite past times consist of watching Dora the Explorer, visiting Grammy and Poppy's house (my grandparents) where Easton loves to ride on the four-wheeler, and wrestle with their daddy. Oh, I forgot. For some reason, Easton loves to run around with a big fuzzy blanket as his kingly robe. Tate tries to zoom after him on hands and knees hoping to be able to reach in time to bury his face in it. If he catches him, Easton then spends the next 20 minutes pulling Tate around.

I've started piano lessons with two students now. It's a step up from my one student back in Rexburg. Although I'm not currently using my teaching degree, it's so nice to have in case I ever need it.

Life is wonderful.

Here's a sneak peek into the Johnson life.

We live on the border of a beautiful spacious park:

Here is a picture of Grandpa Lystrup's Model A that we got to ride in:

Easton in the rumble seat:

Now here's a funny story. One night during dinner I was rambling on and telling Patrick my usual update on the day when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Easton kept smiling at the potato he was holding. I ignored it at first, but he continued to do it. I asked him, "Easton are you happy?" He said "Yeah," and continued smiling at his potato. I asked him if his potato was happy and he said yes. I was still confused, however. Then, it clicked! "Let me see your potato!" I looked closely and sure enough, there was a little, thin piece of Swiss Chard (similar to spinach) in the shape of a smile on his potato. There were even two dots above it that looked like eyes. I couldn't believe it! His potato really was happy.

Here's the famous happy potato:

August 17

Yesterday we celebrated our 3rd anniversary. It's hard to believe that it's already been three whole years. It seems the time has just flown by so quickly. Last week we were able to celebrate our anniversary with a trip to California. We flew to Los Angeles and then drove to Anaheim where we spent two nights. Our trip included a day at Knottsberry Farm theme park and then when we got back to Salt Lake we spent a night there too. By far, the best part of our anniversary trip was going to a session in the Salt Lake temple.

It was surely a beautiful trip. Anniversaries are such wonderful times to celebrate love and glance back at how far we've come.

As we drove to my parents home to pick up the boys on Friday afternoon, I realized that a phrase my father always said finally rang true for me: "The best part about a vacation is coming home." While that used to puzzle me as a little girl, the words kept circling through my head on our drive back to Idaho. It was so good to hear little Easton's voice and Tate's coos in the back of our car.