For my husband

Mike and I went on an excellent date for our 4th anniversary (which was a month and a half ago).  We started with dinner at Tiburon, which is in Sandy and is by far the most excellent restaurant Mike and I have ever been to.  As an appetizer:

ST. ANDRE & BRAISED KURABUTO PORK
The Chef’s New Favorite: French triple crème Brie, 5 hour ‘Dry’ Braised Kurabuto pork belly & balsamic onion jam
The above is right from their website- I started thinking about how good the meal was and I wanted to read about it and let my mouth water.

My entree:
NEW ZEALAND ELK (our house specialty)
Char-grilled Rocky Mountain Elk Tenderloin , served with creamy mushroom “Duxelle”, green peppercorn demi-glace & garlic mashed potatoes
I thought about just asking for 2 more portions of our appetizer for my entree, but then I would have missed out on this.  It was wonderful.

Mike's:
Mike got one of the specials, so I can't copy from the website.  I will try to describe it.  It was the best steak in the entire world. With the best sauces in the entire world and oyster mushrooms.

Our drink:
Mint lemonade.  We successfully recreated this for a ward party and I don't ever want to drink anything else again.

Here we are in front of the restaurant sign:

Brace yourself for more awesome camera phone pictures.

After dinner, we went to Abravanel Hall for a concert Mike had gotten tickets to.  It was the Wicked Divas show.  Two past Broadway Elphabas sang various diva songs.  There was some Barbara Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Celine Dion, and the like.  Wonderful.  They finished of course, with some big numbers from the musical Wicked.  It was lovely.  Mike and I never got to see Wicked when it came to Utah, since Mim had just been born.  Not complaining- Mim is worth a billion Wicked tickets, at least.

During intermission:

There you have it, one of the most awesome (and our most expensive) dates ever.  I must say, as well, that the company was excellent.

A word about being married to Mike for four years:  It feels like much less.  He's so easy and so fun and so wonderful to be married to.  And he takes me on awesome dates like this one (because he loves me and to make up for calling me things like PREGATRON, MOTHER OF BABYTRON).

Mim's just up to stuff

 She loves brushing her teeth.  She wants to do it whenever I am, and since I do it every time after I barf, (morning-sickness style) we both get in more than our daily quota.

 One of the reasons she loves brushing her teeth is because she loves the little bathroom stool I got for her.  It goes everywhere with her.  Recently she figured out she could use it on the piano to reach the pedals and the keys at the same time, which she's always wanted to do.  Really.  She gets very frustrated when she sits on the real bench and can't get to the pedals.  She starts fake crying and sometimes throws a tiny tantrum about it.

She also loves sitting in a freshly fluffed lovesac. 

I found this picture when I was looking up the others.  There was a chicken in our driveway in January.  

Other stuff about Mim:

She's still definitely dramatic.  When she throws her little tantrums, sometimes she'll throw herself on the ground and if I walk away she rolls after me, fake crying all the way. 

She's talking more, but hardly ever on demand. 

She figured out doorknobs.  Or maybe she just had to grow a little bit more.  Either way, they are no longer a barrier.  We got those child proof door knobs things and are now in the market for more advanced ones, since it took about a half hour for her to figure out our current version.  

And this just in today- when I ask or tell her to do stuff she doesn't want to, she says "what?" over and over again while I repeat myself.  Sometimes she throws a "why?" in there, as well.

We got haircuts!

Me and Mim did, at least.  Last week.  And then I tried to take a picture of both of us with our new haircuts, which didn't go great.  It was super fun, though.  And I did get this one:

 

Mim's looking at the camera and kind of smiling!  It took about 40 pictures to get this.  

There's Mim's new hair.  I've been debating for weeks about cutting it.  I loved how long it was, but hated doing it.  Mim also hated when I would do it, so it was a lose-lose.  Turns out, I wish I hadn't waited so long to cut it.  It's so much easier to keep under control now.  For reference, here's a pic a few days before the chop. 

 Yep, she's wearing my boots.  She got the zippers up all by herself, even. 

I totally do.  I'm working on number 2 right now- we took a family outing to the doctor today and heard the heartbeat. It's the best sound in the world.  I'm due August 21st.  HOORAY!

New game

Mim and I were playing a game the other day.  It started out as me showing her how to climb into her crib (she can climb out, so I wanted to make sure she knew she could get back).  It wasn't long after I showed her how to climb in that she turned it into diving in:

This one wasn't one of her more awesome ones, but she was just loving it all the same. 

After she climbed in, I finally got to see how she gets out.  It's kind of ridiculous.  She starts with a headstand that pushed up into a handstand.  Observe:

I kept laughing when she would do this- it's just so silly.  Do I really have to wait until she's three to get her into gymnastics?  This girl will climb or swing on anything.  She also loved it when she would tip over from the headstand. 

So that's my little gymnast.  Teaching her to climb into her crib has backfired somewhat.  She climbs on top of her changing table now and also up onto me and Mike's nightstands (I don't know how she does that- probably using the knobs on the drawers like she tries to do on the dressers and the kitchen cabinets).

She's so fun.