General Update

Thanks to life, morning sickness, and the hectic summer, I have fallen very behind on documenting what has been happening with our family. The last thing I posted was a catch-up for March, so, you're in for a whirlwind of a catch-up.

April
Garrison and Gabi got married in St. Louis. Abigail and I flew out for the event and had a wonderful time. I was only able to get phone pictures because adding the camera to the luggage felt like punishment. I guess I also missed getting pictures of the couple on my phone, but I did get some of the travelling.  FYI: It's a little claustrophobic getting to the top of the arch. My sister about had a panic attack.

May
Mr. Mitchell and I celebrated our sixth anniversary with a date night and temple sealings. No photographic evidence available.

We do, however, have evidence of our trip to Zoo Boise with Grandma and Grandpa Holdaway. Sprout was king in his wagon, and Little Lady loved the ocelots.

June
In June we had a visit from Grammy and Grandpa Earls who picked up mommy's morning-sickness slack and made up for daddy being gone so much with the start of fire season. They got us all caught up on yardwork and planted our garden for us.

During the summer we spent one afternoon a week at the lake. This tradition started in June with the warmer weather. Both of the kids LOVE digging in the sand. (Little Lady usually preferred to be sitting in the water up to her armpits to do this.)

July
We spent the 4th of July at home. We went to the parade and festival in Buhl, made fun treats and crafts, and enjoyed fireworks at home.

We spent a day driving the Thousand Springs Scenic route and stopped in to dig up some fossils in the middle of nowhere.

We spent the 24th of July in Mendon so Caleb could experience the holiday. It's a great small-town experience.

August
Mr. Mitchell was gone on a long assignment in August, but he was only a couple of hours away, so we were able to visit him for a day. We played in the river, rode a gondola, saw where Daddy is working, 'flew' the helicopter, played in a fountain/mini-splash pad, ate lots of food, and had a great time with Dad in Ketchup (as Caleb called it).

September
This month we finally got to celebrate the newly weds on our side of the country with a cute open house.

Our Sprout turned 4 years old! We celebrated with a little birthday party with family after the open house, and on his actual birthday we opened presents. He was very insistent for a few hours that he wasn't four years old yet because he still didn't reach the '4' on the measuring stick. We were finally able to convince him that height and years are different and rarely the same.

Hopefully I do better in the future of keeping our long-distance family updated with our doings.

August 2014

So, the biggest thing that happened in August was finally getting to see our beautiful, baby girl. Click here to read about our adventures with baby #2. We've had a girl's name picked out since I was pregnant with Sprout and we've decided to stick with it. Her name makes it so that everyone in our family will have a 'B' in their name except for Mr. Mitchell (a.k.a. Paul). I've decided to change his name to Baul because, really, it's not that different from Paul and then he can be included in the 'B' club.

Mr. Mitchell was gone quite a bit this month on fires and so I was able to spend time with my parents and my sister's family. Unfortunately, we're learning that Sprout does not travel very well, and so we'll be cutting down immensely on our visits to family until he gets that figured out.

We were also able to receive a visitor this month: Heather - one of my best friends. We mostly just talked and watch movies, but we were able to eat out at a few places and go to the zoo in Idaho Falls. It's a small zoo, but it was very nice.

I think red pandas are adorable. I geek out every time.

They're watching the lions sleep.

He was fascinated with the tiger.

Pretty flamingos.

Sprout's favorite were the penguins. We had to go see them one more time before we left the zoo.


Sprout enjoyed Heather's electronics very much.

I think he's telling me to bug-off.

The month of August was a little frustrating because the landlord decided to have the siding on our house redone. Instead of just coming and doing the job and moving on to the next one the siding guys would come for only 2-3 hours each day. Magically, they ALWAYS came at nap time. This is not a joke - it was as though they had placed a camera in Sprout's room and decided to come once they saw me put him down. This means we had no naps for almost a month straight. On the plus side, they're done now and the house looks better. Here is what happens when a child is nap-deprived for weeks:

He passed out an 1 1/2 before bedtime and WOULD NOT wake up.

Sprout has definitely hit his terrible two's. For us that mostly means he has just decided not to listen anymore. I spend most of my days giving warnings and putting him in time-outs. Time-outs don't seem to phase him at all. In fact, sometimes he'll put himself in time-out for fun. The worst is when we're out and about and he decides to walk into the parking lot without me. I'm so afraid he's going to get hit because he won't listen.

A positive side to this age is watching his personality boom. He's had a definite personality from the time he was wee, but now it's hilarious. I love to hear him talk, and I love to see the way his brain works.

Because who doesn't wear sunglasses while eating indoors?

He is a goofball, and, even on the worst of days, I am so happy to have him in my life.

Zoo Boise

So, I tried doing the blog monthly so that people don't have my stuff popping up in their faces all of the time. It hasn't worked for me. By the time the end of the month comes around it's a daunting task to try and put together all of the pictures, stories, events, memories, etc. that I gathered from the month. I've decided I'm going to have to break the blog down by event with perhaps a monthly wrap-up to include things that aren't necessarily covered by a single event (e.g. my little boy's awesomeness). Sorry if it becomes obnoxious! Without further ado I present ... ZOO BOISE!

We went to Zoo Boise for me. I'm not dumb enough to think that Caleb will retain any memories from things like this, but I will. I'll remember how big his eyes got when animals caught his attention, I'll remember snuggling him by the lions, and I'll love looking back on those things even though he won't remember them. Plus, as a bonus for this particular mommy-memory making situation, I just flat-out enjoy zoos; Mr. Mitchell and I hadn't been to one since we were dating, so it was time.

Bald Eagle

Giraffe skull.

C.G.'s 2nd favorite part of the zoo.

Smiley boy!

He really wanted that bottle!

It was nap time at the zoo.

Snuggling my baby at the zoo.

Keeping an eye on the monkeys.

Wallaby! 

Kookaburra - he never laughed.

Wild goose on her egg in the middle of the zoo.

He didn't want his head in there.

C.G.'s favorite was definitely the monkeys. They were the first things we saw and went back to them a couple of times just to watch C.G. watch them.

Here are the silly monkeys that C.G. liked the most because they were so loud.


Here's a video showing C.G. studying the monkeys.


For the life of me I cannot recall this little creature's name, but he was one of Mr. Mitchell's favorites because he was so nimble for his size. I thought he was a pretty cute little guy.


My favorites were the red panda and meerkats. The meerkats really enjoyed showing off for us that day.


We had a wonderful day at Zoo Boise.