Ready, Jett, Go!

Jett has been on the verge of walking for some time now. He seems a bit hesitant to let go of whatever he's holding on to for more than a short moment, so we decided we needed to help him up his game by getting him to practice taking the risk of just taking flight! Our rigid training course that we put him through consists of him going back and forth between our couch and coffee table...all of maybe 5 feet. I know, our living room is so huge. Jett has found this very exciting! To motivate him to start taking those first few steps, Jake was a genius and figured out that we needed to have Jett walk towards something up in the air on the opposite side from him instead of just putting an object on the floor to get...Jett would end up just diving towards the object and crawling for it. But if we put Jake's hat on his head or waved an object around in the air, then Jett was compelled to keep his body up and stay standing up while walking towards it. So brilliant!...I know, you're writing that tip down. So, here are a few video clips of this exciting work-in-progress. 

In this first clip, poor Jett gets so excited for take-off that he takes his steps too fast and instantly stumbles over, even before Jake can finish his sentence! He lands straight on his face as his legs fly behind him sprawling out, and I instantly stopped recording so I could rush to his rescue. Poor guy starting crying quite a bit after his face smashing...buuuuut that hasn't stopped me from watching this video over and over while laughing hysterically everytime at the ending. Sorry, Punkin Bears! Oh, and he was very excited over his new sporty Mickey Mouse jammies that he's wearing.

Jett was put to the test the next day by Jake and Gage while I was at work, and the result was much better...and smoother. Mickey Mouse jammies not included. Here he manages a successful walk from the coffee table to the couch! Being bribed with a treat sitting on the couch, of course. He's like a puppy. Treats work like a gem! (Tip #2.) You can hear Jett's little panting from "working so hard" and can see how excited he gets towards the end when he does a bit of an excited dive to the couch for that last stretch of carpet and then happily munches on his treat. Much praise afterwards! I would've gobbled him up if I was there. He's getting closer!

Finally, I've now thrown in a loop during this week's rigorous training...I introduced Jett to his sweet shark Vans shoes that I bought over a year ago for Father's Day when I was pregnant. These babies are so dang adorable and look even better on his chubber legs. Jett is not used to shoes (at least not ones this heavy instead of just a soft crib shoe), so now we're upping his game even more by challenging him to get used to shoes! He's got his work cut out for him...especially because these shoes have proven to be quite the distraction when he gets a sight of them on his feet. I imagine his thought process is something like this: "La, la, la, playin' with my toys, puttin' this in my mouth, gonna slobber on th--WHAT! What is this creature on my foot?! I'm gonna eat dis"...and then I remove the shoe from his mouth that he has managed to slip off his foot to chew on. See? Puppy dog.

♥

Beck

Salt Lake's annual Twilight Concert Series is taking place again this summer. They used to take place at the Gallivan Center downtown but was moved to Pioneer Park in recent years to accommodate the growing crowds. Thanks to the Twilight Concert Series, I have been able to see a few of my favorite bands such as Shinedown and Red. Awesome shows!

This year's line up featured Beck, one of Jake's favorite artists and whom I've been familiar with over the years but really found a love for once Jake and I started dating. Beck is just great. I consider him such an underrated artist. He has some of the most fun, quirky, any-occasion, good ole clean music. You seriously just want to move and groove to his catchy beats, and his slow songs are just relaxing. The show was last night and was announced to be his first stop on his tour, which I thought was fun and proved to be worthy of a great way to kick it off. 

He played many of his radio hits such as "Loser", "Where It's At" and "E-Pro," all proving to be big-crowd pleasers. I was actually surprised of how great the show was. He was very interactive with the crowd, frequently taking time to talk to the audience and mentioning how he hasn't seen such a lively SLC crowd since 1996...chalking it up to "something else in the great Salt Lake than just salt." He was very energetic despite his plain Amish appearance (black, Huckleberry Finn type of hat n' all) and had some awesome nerd dance moves. He even busted out a lively harmonica solo near the end. It was a great night, great show, great artist. We will be sure to see Beck again if he tours here.

Short clip of "Where It's At"

Snowbird Surprise

The first weekend of August, our Lehi friend group (consisting of 4 couples & 4 babies) planned a surprised getaway for our hubbies and babies to The Lodge at Snowbird. We stayed 2 nights and all shared a 2-bedroom condo with a loft. Jake didn't know any of our trip details and received instructions from me the day we were leaving to pack for an overnight adventure...I even made him close his eyes in the car while I was driving to keep things a secret (we could've been driving to St. George for all he knew!), but because he's smart, he could tell what direction we were traveling and suspected something local. Wah-wah, fail. I finally allowed him to look around once we were up the canyon heading to the Lodge. And the canyon was beautiful! Once we pulled in the parking lot and saw our friends pull up next to us, he figured out our weekend plans included friends...hence why I told him there would be no sexy time this weekend when he inquired. Haha!! Yay, for sneaky hubby surprise!

View from our car as we drove up the canyon

We unloaded our bags (shattering 2 bottles of Martinelli's in the parking lot that were to be used in our friend toast that night...the bellhop thought we had lost money on our fancy wine) and got settled in our top-floor condo. Jett got to take a peek at the view from our balcony, while I joked that Jake was doing the Michael Jackson baby-dangling stunt. Jett's pack-n-play in our room even had quite the view. We were able to spot deer and moose easily on the mountain side, as well as a lively pack of raccoons at night causing a ruckus at the pool below us. That may or may not have been influenced by us throwing bites of pizookie to them from our balcony...which caused several other residents to go out on their balconies and start snapping pics like it was a National Geographic. Anyway, after getting settled in, we all headed down to the pool.

Poolside looking up at all the condo balconies. Ours was the big glass window balcony on the top floor above where Jake is walking.

Friend group in the pool. Shumways with baby Claire, Otos with baby Winston, Hackings with not-so-baby Wesley, and Jake with Jett. I, of course, am not in any pictures since I'm always the one taking them! When looking back, I'm sure Jett will wonder where I was his first year of life.

 

My little Jett loves the pool! He's been enjoying many summer swims the past few months. The view from the pool was beautiful! He was even being brave by sitting on the edge of the pool and jumping (scooting his booty) off into Jake's arms. It was so cute to watch. Yup, there's a video.
On our second day at Snowbird, we did some of the activities available such as the Alpine Slide, the Mountain Flyer and Aerial Tram up to the top of the mountain. I didn't get any pictures in since it was a busy day, but I did manage to snap a pic of Jett at the top of Snowbird after we took the tram up and got a second one of him and his buddy Wesley. So...adorable! 

Snowbird Aerial Tram...ok, ok, I found this online.

Jett thinking "It sure is bright outside."

That evening we played several rounds of a fun card game and enjoyed our homemade pizookies (cookie pizza) and ice cream. They were beyond fantastic! Before we knew it, morning came and it was time to pack up and head back home. It was a pretty fun weekend and we were glad to have a little getaway, even if we weren't far from home. It was fun surprising Jake. We sure enjoy our Lehi friends and watching our kiddos grow up together and interact.