August Amusements

I admit it, here in the Ferguson home we are a bit of procrastinators so what does the middle and latter part of August mean to us...time to squeeze in all our someday summer activities.

Liberty Park

Liberty Park is a community party near downtown that has lots of fun activities for the wee ones. We had the opportunity to play in the wading pools and waterfalls, visit the gardens, and even partake in a free lunch program that Salt Lake offers in the summer.

I love this picture of Phoebe's fat cousin Zack, he appears to be contemplating things over.

Baby Showers

In the middle of August I had the opportunity to throw a baby shower for my neighbor Krisi and if you know me, it is something I get excited to do. I planned and made everything from invitations to treats and gifts. Baby shower gifts/crafts are something that I really enjoy researching for ideas and making, so I was thrilled that several people wanted to go in on a group gift and gaie me the funds to make 2 of my newest baby creations; a baby cake and baby wreath. Both were fairly simple to make and turned out stinkin' cute in my opinion.

These two pictures are of my last baby gift creations, they were onsies I turned into lollipops.

I Can Dress Myself

Phoebe is just getting to the stage where she likes to dress and undress herself. This was one of her outfit creations I found her in after nap time one day. The boots add just the right touch I think.

Readin' Fool

This is a common scene in our home. Phoebe loves books & often goes to her book shelves and grabs every book off of it and piles them all on the couch for us to sit and read together.

Visitors Beware

Where has the privacy gone? This is what happens lately every time one of us uses the restroom. It is also not uncommon for little arms to reach under the door or to have constant knocking on the door while a little one says, "Hello, hello, mama/daddy." Just a warning, potty at our home at your own risk.

Our First Friend

This is Katie, Phoebe's first real friend. They were born 4 days apart and now live about 4 houses apart. Katie is advanced in learning for her age and luckily Phoebe learns from Katie (Monkey See Monkey Do). For Example: We worked with Phoebe constantly to teach her body parts, then one night we saw a blog video of Katie finding all her body parts and after only 2-3 views of it Phoebe now knows most of her body parts, even ones we never even taught her. To go along with that, Phoebe is now learning to count and I can only imagine it is because Katie was over last week counting up a storm. Finally the most valuable thing our dear sweet Katie teaches Phoebe to do is to eat. Whenever the two are together Phoebe turns into a hungry hungry hippo. Phoebe once saw Katie eat a PB&J sandwich, so she then ate one; I can't tell you how many times before this I tried and tired to get her to eat a PB&J sandwich with no luck. Katie is the perfect teacher & friend!

Here they are sitting together on the couch watching Horton Hears a Who. They are sitting so close together because Katie patted the couch and told Phoebe to come sit by her and so Phoebe practically sat on top of her.

The Rarest Treat of Them All...Desert

Anyone who knows anything about our wee one knows she is TINY. She will be 2yrs old in less than 2 months from now and still only weighs 17lbs. For some reason Phoebe finds food to be totally deplorable, however, about once a week she actually gets hungry enough to eat more than a few pretzels. To reward such an occasion, Phoebe gets a treat for desert. You can see by the look on her face about how rarely she sees desert time.

I like to Move it Move it

Phoebe is not a big dancing queen like her cousin Lily, except when we visit Grandma Fergy's home. At grandma's house, Phoebe always runs to the back bedroom where she pumps up the music and busts out her greatest moves for us.

If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd Baked a Cake

On the 24th of July (Pioneer's Day), Cory celebrated his big 29th birthday. This year he requested an Oreo Cake for his B-day cake. The day before Cory's birthday Phoebs and I borrowed cake pans from our neighbors that were shaped like an Oreo cookie to make the cake look more authentically like an Oreo cookie. Unfortunately, my ambitions were where they usually are, way above my abilities. Despite this mini master chefs help, the cake stuck a bit to the pans and so once again it was the thought and love behind it that counted not the finished product.

On the morning of the 24th we started the day with one of my favorite parts, opening the presents. We tried to involve Phoebe with helping out daddy, but she mainly just wanted to point at things around the room and crumple the tips of the paper.

After presents we went to Grandma+pa Fergy's for a pancake breakfast and grandma's first annual Flip Flop Party. The party involved us all getting our own pair of flip flops and then decorating them with jewels, ribbon and flowers. Below is Mommy and Phoebe's Flop Flops, below that is all the decorated shoes of the nieces, nephew and mine.

What holiday celebration would be complete without of course swimming and water games in Grandma+pa's backyard. This was a new water toy that Phoebe turned out to love.

Here is Cory and uncle Davey (Cory's twin) having just blown out the candles on their birthday cakes. Uncle Davey's cake was a Texas Sheet Cake with David and Goliath figurines on it, Cory's was a melted Oreo ice cream cake.

After a whole day of celebrating we headed home to play until bed time. This actually lasted until 20 minutes before the neighbor's fireworks started so Daddy got Phoebs back up to watch the her first ever fireworks, you can note how into the show she was. The poor thing was so out of it, we had to really move her around before she woke up enough to enjoy the show.

What a relaxing way to end a great day of pioneer heritaging and birthday celebrating.

A Postie Here a Postie There

Cinderella...

Cinderelly, Cinderelly night and day it's Cinderelly, "Make the fire, fix the breakfast, Wash the dishes, do the mopping, And the sweeping and the dusting..."

Here is my personal Cinderelly with curlers in her hair sweeping our bathroom floor.

I am such a slave driver I wore the poor thing right out.

Here she is ready for the ball...well not really. I was the only person who unfortunately got to view these cute curls in her hair as we sat outside grandmas locked house on the grass. They only lasted until 12, or in other words about 1 hr, then the magic wore off and the curls fell out again and she was just normal Cinderelly.

Gateway Discovery

Last week Charisse, Amber & I took advantage of 2for1 admission at Discovery Zone and took our wee ones. This is a fun little play place with lots to do. Phoebe quickly found this police car and put dibs on it. She ever wanted to get out of it and if any other child did get in it she was right there to remind them it was her car. On the Second level they had a little theater where Phoebs dressed up as a wild thing, not a far stretch for her. She also got the opportunity to fly a life flight helicopter. She discovered however, she has a bit of growing to do until she can sit in the seat and touch the controls at the same time.

Mary Mary Quiet Contrary how does your garden grow...

Lately, as I have begun to blossom, we shall say, Phoebs has taken on her roll with helping me out around the home. Here she is "helping" me water the back yard. Her help is truly invaluable! Without Phoebe's fine help, I could only water the yard in 1/2 the time it takes or her to drown each and every plant.

Jumpin' into July

Lately I am eternally behind so I will post several of our fun events all in one post.

First Fruits of the Season

This is our first tomato of the season and we are mighty proud of it. We immediately cut it up and used it in a delicious sandwich.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

We had the opportunity this month to take a tour of the newest temple, Oquirrh Mountain. This open house was not as enjoyable as the draper open house, but mainly because Phoebe is teething and cranky and every little thing set her off into a fit. Example: Phoebe wanted to swim in the baptismal font and we had to tell her no, she continued to run back to the font several times before w could get far enough away, each time throwing a huge fit each time we picked her up to carry her back to the never coming elevator.

Primary Children's Hospital

Well our child finally did it...fall off the charts that is. She is 21 months and still 17 lbs. Our last Drs. apt showed she gained no weight in 2 months, but in fact lost 4 oz, so unfortunately it was finally enough to finally get the dx: Failure to Thrive. With this we had to go up to Primary's to get 2 days worth of tests done to see why she is not growing or wanting to eat. Below is a was a picture of her looking like Popeye at the end of her sweat chloride test. Phoebe actually loved this test and on the 2nd day of tests she sat on the Drs chair and threw her arms out thinking it was another one of these test, but the poor dumpling was highly saddened to find that it was actually a blood draw. After all the tests everything came back normal except one that showed a slight swelling in her body, but we don't know where and it could be affected by something as small as an ear infection or perhaps her teething. We have a hunch, however that she has a lactose sensitivity, but we cannot find a good milk substitute with all the vitamins and calories at the moment so she will have to stay on milk, which probably won't upset her since milk is one of her most favorite things in the whole world, besides chips, chocolate, and hot dogs.

Pioneers Day Parade Floats

Last Monday for FHE we went to check out the float preview for the Pioneers day Parades. We walked all around the giant event center checking out all the floats and trying to escape the boisterous echoing marching band, but no found no relief. Phoebe got a balloon bear which she loved unto it's death last weekend. We also got to vote on our favorite floats the top was the adult favorite and Phoebe's favorite was one where there were 3 eras of dancers jigging around on it, we forgot to get a picture of this float. The bottom picture is our stakes float, we felt it was one of the most boring ones there, but oddly enough it won awards in the parade.

Bees Game Night

Last Tuesday Night, the whole Fergy clan got together to enjoy a Bees baseball game. Grandpa Fergy works at the stadium so we enjoyed all the festivities as a 40% discount too, YEAH! We started the 100 degree night in some nice shady seats which helped knock off 15-20 degrees off the heat. Here we enjoyed our ball park dinner, especially the Kids Eat Free Night. After the sun set we moved to the grassy area so all the wee ones could run around. We didn't stay for the whole game since it was 10pm and there were still 2 endings left. The rest of he family, however, told us that we lost by 3 in the end score.

Since Grandpa Fergy works at the stadium, he pulled a few strings & got our family to participate in several of the game brakes. Below is a video of Alan (Pizza), Dave (Hot Dog) and Dakota- Megan's "bo" of the Night (Ice Cream) running a race in their costumes. As you can see Dave won, but all still received a free day pass to Boondocks.

Family Fun Days

Ever year Salt Lake has a free event for the family called Family Fun Days. It is always about 2 weeks before Pioneer Day and used to be at Wheeler Farm, but now it is held at This is the Place State Park. This year we made the trip with a few other of the Fergy Family members.

Unfortunately, last year we missed this event, but we made sure to catch in on all the "fun" this year. As always it was 900 degrees out and more then plenty crowded. We learned how to rope cattle, run in barrel races and about our pioneer heritage. Below are a few pics of Phoebs learning the ropes of a rodeo.

Phoebs favorite part of the day by far was playing in the mini western village that. She would run in and out of the little houses staking her claim from the other children playing.

To fully appreciate the pioneer heritage we all decided to don on the attire and have a photo taken. Phoebe looks like an authentic pioneer babe in her little outfit. In all it was such a "fun" filled day that it should last us a couple more years before our return.

Happy 4th of July

Well better late than never is what I always say, so happy 4th of July on July 21st. This year for the fourth we stayed in town and started the day with the annual Fergy family photos. As always, Cory's twin Dave was the wonderful photographer. Here are a few of the picture highlights.

The whole Fergy clan

Our wee Fergy clan

The 7 siblings in the original Fergy clan

The Fergy clan grandchildren
(Next yr there will be 5 more in this pic)

The three weest Fergy grand babies

After pictures we went to grandma+pa Fergy's house and enjoyed Training Table style burgers and watched the wee ones run between 3 little pools. This entertainment lasted the rest of the day for us.

Afterwards we made the short trip home, put on pjs and Phoebs and I were both asleep before the first burst of fireworks hit the sky. Overall, a very fun and relaxing way to spend the holiday.

Squeezing the Fun Out of June's Last Days

We managed to squeeze every last minute of fun into June's mild summer days by enjoying a not to peaceful picnic with the Fergy Family in the Taylorsville park, on the second to last day of June. I say not peaceful because my child refuses to sit down for 2 seconds in any space I would like; instead, Phoebe's idea of fun always has to include sightseeing any distant attraction and checking out all possible NoNo's in a 500 yd radius. After the picnic we enjoyed the delights of the Taylorsville pool. This is not just a normal pool by any standards, this pool has a beach style entry, giant spiral water slide, and several other gadgets that spray or dump water on you. All the cousins had fun swimming around in the pool, especially my waterbug. Phoebe has zero fears when it comes to water which makes me now have 900 different fears of the water. Several times I tried to sit our wee dear one down in the 6in water section to splash, but to no avail she would just get up and walk/run over to the 5 ft water and then continue to back her caboose up to the edge and stick her little toes right in the water, as if I would let her actually get all the way in. Ahh, she is a handful for the pregnant and weary. Below is a picture of Phoebs' with her cousin Zack during one of the few times that she came to interact with the other young ones in the shallow end.

On the last day of June we took a trip to the Salt Lake branch of a Willy Wonka's Chocolate style factory called Sweets Candy Factory. We got to see how lots of gummy and taffy styles of candies were made. We learned several interesting things such as, it take 2 days for them to go through 75,000lbs of sugar. Every month this candy factory sells about 1 million to 1 1/2 million lbs of candy and they are the number 1 taffy makers in America. Lastly, Jelly beans are the slowest candy to make, they take one week to produce and are the only candy in that giant factory that is still made by hand. After our 40 minute tour and several yummy samples, we exited out by the gift shop where we each received one complimentary bag of taffy. Below is a picture of some of the Fergy clan in our "special" candy maker caps, which we even got to take home as a souvenir.