Guess who's THREE?!?

We recently celebrated Chico's third birthday! I just want to take a minute and talk about Chico.

Chico tends to be shy towards strangers, and hide behind my leg like they're going to kidnap him. But if he's in the right mood he'll be a social butterfly and say hi to everyone he sees.  He LOVES saying "hi" to older people.  He has grown up hanging out with my grandparents a lot and I think he just knows how cool elderly people are.  He brightens peoples' day all the time by saying "Hi! What's your name!?"  It's adorable to watch on hikes.
He loves babies and apparently dotes on the baby that comes to nursery with her mommy.
He loves playing with his Legos and builds all kinds of cool creations. It's so much fun to see his imagination at work. Brent and Chico and I had a little conversation the other day that made me laugh so hard.

Brent: Chico, what does Heavenly Father want for us?

Chico: Wados (Legos)

Me: Chico, do Legos make us happy?

Chico: Uh Huh!

He's got such a fun imagination. He's constantly surprising me with the things that come out of his mouth.
His ice breaker statement is, "So, I had a bad deam", usually followed up by "....da dotes put me in da watto..." (translation: I had a bad dream, the goats put me in the water) He pulled out that one about 10 times a day, until recently, he's started to ask, "So what do you deem about Daddy?" It's adorable.

He is an awesome big brother even though Grizwald is starting to steal his toys which is causing some frustration. Chico loves Griz and is usually so sweet towards him.  One time I picked up Chico to go somewhere and left Griz with my mom.  After a few minutes in the car all the sudden Chico said, "Uh oh! We forgot Griz!"  I love how they communicate with each other through smiles and some brotherly bond that they have. Chico can get Grizzly laughing so hard. I love it when he does that.  When Griz is crying I ask Chico to make him happy and he always sings "Twinkle twinkle Little star".  Have I mentioned what a good singer Chico is? He's really awesome and has really good pitch. It's so cute to hear him sing to himself or start singing along with his favorite song, "All Creatures of our God and King".

Ice cream is NOT his preferred dessert choice because it's, "a witto bit..tode". (translation: it's a little bit...[pause for effect]...cold)  Sometimes when he tries a food he doesn't like he politely spits it out, gives a thoughtful pause and says, "it's a witto bit...[another thoughtful pause]...yuttie."
He loves his sippy cup filled with "mut".  He'll always be sure to specify WHERE he wants to drink his milk as if "milk" has its own conjugation.  "I want mut ah bed" or "I want mut in yo woom" or "I want mut in da funt woom".
He can be pretty hard for people to understand sometimes and I feel like I have to translate for him a lot.  I am amazed at how fast he has progressed in the last 9 months.  He hardly could say 50 words when Grizwald was born and now he can say almost anything! Some of the cute things I want to remember he says: "Lookin' good Mommy!"
"Holy Smoly, how I do dat?!" and of course I can't think of more right now.  One of my favorite things he pronounces in such his OWN way is ....

"Martin and Dean" aka Lightning McQueen

He loves the movie cars but he especially loves his little hotwheels, Lightning McQueen car.  That little car goes everywhere with us.  "Where's Martin and Dean!?" is a common question coming out of Chico's mouth. We're always sure to keep a close eye on him so we don't lose him!
I borrowed a Lightning McQueen cake pan from my friend Megan. It has all the frosting directions with the pan and I was doing pretty good until I got to the red part.  You're supposed to use a star tip for the red frosting but I put so dang much food coloring in it that it was too runny.  Oh well, it still looks incredible.  I'm going to have to apologize to the rest of my future children right now, sorry kids I don't think I'll be able to do this elaborate of a cake for you guys.  I don't think I am ever doing a cake like that again.  I felt like such a neglectful mother. I would have never gotten it finished if it hadn't been for my mom letting me do it in her kitchen while she entertained and helped with my boys. It took me around 6 hours to do it all I think.  I like cute cakes, but I think I'll stick to cakes a little more at my level and with a few less color changes in the frosting. :)  Thanks Megan for letting me borrow it though, the cake was a hit!

haircuts

We were starting to become quite fond of Grizwald's long hair but it was always so messy and poofy so I felt like I needed to cut it. I kinda regret it, but the shorter hair does look good. :)


Chico got a haircut too, but he wasn't in the mood to let me comb it for the picture.


And later on when both of the boys were asleep I cut Brent's hair too. I probably should watch some You Tube videos on how to cut hair because I'm still struggling with blending it. There is a defined ridge on his haircuts that I need to work on eliminating.

we love our yard

It's so nice to just go and lay in the grass, let the kids crawl around and play with their trucks in the dirt, go and pull a few weeds, admire my beautiful flowers that are filling out quite nicely, cut some lettuce and cilantro for dinner, and watch and wait with anticipation for the rest of the plants to ripen. Sounds magical right? 

There is only one bummer. The owners of the goats put up an additional fence, so now we can't feed the goats anymore. We can just wave at them from a distance. Our goat chasing days are apparently over. Then again, I wouldn't put it past them to get through both sets of fences. You never know.

We love it when Grandpa comes to say hi. :)

Look what my baby can do...

71, 72, 73...

Man he does pushups with such good form!

He's definitely a Hatch boy, strong as on ox, but still cute and cuddly. Our little Grizzly Bear.

p.s. did you notice Brent is posting on his blog again? check it out here.

What did the fish say when he ran into the wall?

On the Fourth of July we decided to drive the 3 hours to the South Part of the Uintahs to visit the Upper Stillwater Dam. It was spilling the first part of July and so we wanted to see it while it was still spilling strong (according to Edward Torrez, who allegedly saw it at at it's peak a week or two later, we missed it flowing even stronger at 2500 cfs, bummer). It was worth the long drive though and I was amazed by how big this spillway is.  My parents and sister came along for the adventure.

Chico brought his dump truck and played while we all admired the waterfall. Chico grabs his dump truck and just tears around so dang fast. It's so cute to watch.

I love these pictures of Chico with my Dad as they get the giant rock out of his dump truck and throw it in the water.

Why is it so much fun to throw stuff into water? I don't get it.

These are the awesome people that made the voyage with us up to the Dam.  Hope it was everything they hoped it would be! It really meant a lot to us!

A family picture documenting this time in our lives. It's kinda nice that Brent works in a place where he can find out about cool places like this dam, and awesome places to hike and camp. I love my husband and love going on adventures with him.

And now for some more dam pictures:

My awesome mom packed a picnic. We didn't have a babyseat for Grizwald so we let him sit on the tablecloth.  He really tries to eat whatever we eat with those two little teeth of his. :) Sometimes I think he eats even more than Chico.

It's a good thing that tablecloth wasn't a nice one. He got tomato and strawberry ground into it pretty nicely.

He and Em were being so dang cute. He was just being such a goof, isn't it funny that a 9 month old can be a goof?

He grabbed this paper plate and just stuck it in front of her face and held it there forever while looking at me. Can't really describe why it was so funny, but it was. :)

Got some good pics of my parents.

And of Chico.

The Strawberries were delish. I may have eaten most of them.

Em is such a good aunt.  And once she finds that man who sweeps her off her feet she will make an awesome mother as well.  She goes and plays with my kids while the rest of us adults are too tired. They love their Auntie Em.

After the picnic my parents and sister went on a hike. Brent and I had to get back home for a photoshoot but we had time to go back to the Dam for a minute.

Brent saw some people by a gate to a road that leads you up closer to the dam. He asked them if he could go see it closer up. They let us (I think it's because of where Brent works, but I'm not sure).  It was way cool to see it up even closer. The sound of the water roaring is deafening.

Grizwald slept in the car while we ran out to check it out.

A lot of trees and logs get caught up at the top.

The people encouraged us to go down even closer to the water but to watch for falling logs because you never know when that debri caught in the top is going to come flying off apparently.

 It is SOOO cold down there next to the spray. It's like you're in a different world.