hey, spring!

in honor of the first day of spring yesterday, here is a little video of henry we made on vine while in arizona. its better if you replay it a couple times.

xo,

h.

arizona. part 1 of 2

 we are really missing arizona weather, right about now. ah, it was beautiful. i will be honest, i have never thought much of arizona other then this: a really hot (too hot) not so pretty desert. and guess what- i was completely wrong. well i was right about the hot thing, but i was wrong about the other two things.

yes, it was very desert-y. i loved it though. so different from east coast as far as greenery goes, but i love that it is so different. i am so glad the God has so many styles, our world is so diverse and beautiful.

emma and henry and i stayed with my cousin jodee who lives in chandler. her beautiful family of four consists of russel (her hubby) and boys calvin, wesley and bingham (such cute boy names). calvin and wesley are twins that are about to turn four. bingham is the exact same age as henry! both fiesta boys born may 5th, cinco de mayo. he weighs at least 10 more pounds then h boy... so chubby and sooo sweet. henry felt like a race car when he crawled with baby bingham, maybe that is why h is so skinny- he is always going, going, going. (as fast as he can). yep. the twins were so awesome with henry, he loved trying to chase them around and loved all their fun toys. thank you so much, jodee. we loved staying with you.

everytime daniel and pat had a free moment, emma and i raced over to see them. friday they had the whole afternoon off. it was amazing. we first went and saw the new gilbert temple that is being built. breathtaking.  and then went downtown for some delicious greek food and homemade ice cream sandwiches. it was such a fun night. we ate outside in an 85 degree evening.

per.fec.tion.

here are some pictures. i will post more... this is only part 1.

^^baby bingham. look at those rolls!^^

 

^^ see why i miss this man, he is so good looking, and the perfect dad.^^

^^on saturday we snuck over and saw the mesa temple. also breathtaking.^^

^henry in his car seat.^^

^^arizona sunset.^^

DAY FOUR.

right now: 

i wish i was kneeling beside our bed while you say: "it's an even day-your turn to pray".

i wish i could hear you singing crocodile rock to henry as you rock him to sleep.

i wish that i could grab your face with both my hands and kiss you really good and then you pull away with a smile and say "honey... not in front of henry!".

i wish i could sleep next to you. and lay my head on your chest. that's it. that's all i want.

i wish you were here to get henry from his crib when he wakes up in the middle of the night tonight, i never seem to wake up. 

i wish we could make our sunday brunch together tomorrow. always involves bacon.

i wish we were holding hands and talking on the couch about the day we just lived. 

i wish we were wrestling on the bed with henry to get all his energy out. watching him giggle and giggle and thinking to myself, "that is my baby, daniel and i are parents to that perfect baby!" 

hearing you say, "henry's a good boy, momma."

i wish we could read family scriptures tonight. 

i just wish you were here, daniel. we cant live without you. not at all. 

h boy and i just walked through the door from being in arizona for three days seeing daddy! the original plan was to go to nyc for the weekend while dad was gone and then maybe we wouldn't miss him as much. 

yeah.right. 

after we said goodbye to him on wednesday morning, we knew that the only place we could even possibly think of going, was to arizona to see dad as much as possible. so we did, thanks to my moms southwest points we got a ticket for the very next morning. i texted emma, wife of pat who is also on the team. she said that she couldn't go to school because she couldn't stop crying. so it wasn't hard to convince her to come down with henry and i. we were both pretty pathetic. so off to arizona we went.

it was amazing. 

but as you can tell from the words above, leaving him down in phoniex and coming home to an empty house, well, its the worst. i love that man with all my heart, with every bit of my soul and and with every little and big fiber of my body. 

i just got off the phone with him and we talked for 17 minutes and 23 seconds. that is a long time for daniel boony, he isn't a phone talker. but a wonderful husband he is. AND the best kisser in the world...fyi. 

i.cant.wait.for.tuesday.

i will post pictures of our az adventures soon- it was such a blast in 90 degree weather. yes, 90. 

xo,

h

 

 

 

six days.

spring break is upon us! well, for henry and i at least. no teaching for us this week. just plain ol' spring break fun. but, thanks to daniel, it will just be henry and i for most of it because daniel is leaving us on wednesday for SIX days. i'm dead.

byu lacrosse has 3 pretty big games this weekend is sunny arizona. i. am. so. mad. at. them. i did not sign up for this honey buns! (daniels new nick name as of two weeks ago, i think it fits pretty well...).

henry and i are debating flying to new york and visiting all our old pals out there. it could be really fun. but not really, really fun, because daddy won't be with us. we'll see.

since i didn't have class today we took a family drive. it was beautiful. the weather feels of spring time. i could get used to this. one of our favorite places to drive to is the new provo city temple, so cool. they are renovating the provo tabernacle that burned down last year. the entire structure is being help up by metal beams so high you could drive a car underneath it!

please don't come wednesday. we can't live without daniel for six whole days.

....

mommy sandwich.

lots of thinking has been going on around here...

today was a good day, a great day actually. the weather today was absolutely beautiful so henry and i set out to make a day out of it. and a day we made. we first jogged to zumba at our stake center, danced it up, walked home with some friends, then jogged a little more. came home and had some green drink (i need to post the recipe soon, it is to die for!) and then buckled back in the stroller and off we went to explore downtown provo.

i have been so mean to this little city, always talking about how much i miss new york city, how much better nyc is then quaint little p-town, and honestly, provo probably feels pretty bad. so today i decided that that all needed to change.  truth be told, i need to enjoy right now, march 6th, apt 304 just south of byu campus. because in not too much time, we will most likely be moving and i am sure that i will have some "oh..i miss provo" days when i find myself in a new city with new adventures and new challenges. remember that quote i once heard when i was a beehive in young women to bloom where i was planted? well, today i started my blooming in provo. tu-duh!

we wondered down through memorial park and onto center street. my favorite street in this town. we got some chicken tacos at rocco's and took pictures of our favorite houses a long the way.  henry fell asleep somewhere between the park and the tacos and was as peaceful as a little angel. he is so perfect.

there has been a lot of talk lately about our plans after daniel's graduation this spring. lots of big, grown up decisions. grad school, law school, business school, move to brazil etc etc....

...


...sigh....

 

so i henry and i tried to soak all that in as we walked in the sunshine. i think it went pretty well.

family portraits by: emma koide matheson.

oh, hi blog! remember when i said that i lost both our computer chargers in one week? well, that was a few weeks ago and today we FINALLY got our new ones in the mail. so i am back on the web. boy does it feel nice.

lots and lots has happened in the past 3 weeks. daniel went to vegas for his byu lax trip, and henry and i couldnt love without him so we jumped in the car friday morning and got there just in time for his game against chapman university... talk about intense! don't worry, we totally won by 3 points. it was a nail biter though. exciting, exciting, exciting.

we have had more lacrosse games since then, a week with jc and jen's kids, dancing, crossfit, cuddles, laughs, cries, good hair days, bad hair days, sunday dinners and much much more. i will slowly try to update the blog. sigh. 

the weekend before vegas (sorry, i'm jumping all over the place, so much to tell, so little time before henry wakes up!) we got some beautiful pictures taken of our little family by our dear friend emma matheson (and pat was there too snapping pictures like a pro). emma is amazing folks. her husband plays on the lax team with daniel and we feel pretty lucky we have them as friends. here a a few of our favorites.

enjoy.

yay...! you made it all the way through! that was a lot of the neeleman family.

i think my favorite thing about all the pictures is how emma completely and brilliantly captured henry's curiosity. his expressions are priceless. and boy is he curious these days...everything is fascinating to little h boy, just today he dumped out ALL the oatmeal onto the floor and then crawled around like a mad man in it. he loved that he could slide in it. it was awesome.

happy almost wednesday!

xo