last week looked like this:

a sunset that looks normal in this picture but was so pretty in real life.

 couple nights of babysitting baby thayne who has major stranger anxiety. this photo was taken at the tail end of our night babysitting him and nothing could distract him for longer than 10 minutes before he started crying untiiilll tanner jokingly put this blanket over his play mat. as soon as it covered him, he stopped crying and immediately started giggling, kicking and squealing with joy. he stayed under there for 30 minutes just pleased as punch. guess he just needed to not see us at allllll so he could have a nice time. (we did check in on him under there fyi)

 saturday night date to cool haus for our continued search for the best ice cream in LA. i had stopped by here once with maddi after we had first moved here and felt real intimidated by all the flavors so we snuck out without buying anything. 

round two was just as intimidating because those flavors are nutso. i taste tested baked apple, balsamic fig mascarpone and brown butter candied bacon and got scoops of the first two. sooo delish. tan taste tested fried chicken and waffles and spicy pineapple cilantro sorbet and got the fried chicken and waffles flavor. it pretty much tasted like vanilla ice cream with caramel and i'm pretty sure didn't have any actual chicken in it. 

we give cool haus a...3 out of 5. which is generous. let's say 2.7. i really liked both of my flavors and tan liked his but the ice cream was a little too creamy for us. we like sweet rose creamery and scoops better for sure.

 saturday morning pre-conference breakfast. i made this blueberry dutch baby pancake in our cast iron dutch oven (since we don't have a skillet) and i think it worked out quite well! we really liked the syrup and it was a fun way to start off conference weekend. 

 sunday morning we had andree and josh close over for breakfast with little liam and enjoyed the first part of conference with them. conference was wonderful as always and my ears perked up quite a bit more whenever parenting was discussed. it was hard being away from family this conference but also a great time to be together and listen to our wonderful leaders. we particularly loved elder clayton's talk on marriage, elder holland's talk on faith and sister dalton's talk on divine nature.

a post conference walk around the neighborhood. we had a delightful time after sitting all weekend long. this little spot of rolling ivy hills was one of our favorite sites from the walk. (couldn't look more pregnant swollen in this pic. my body is definitely to the furnace phase)

 these bright pink flowers were also very delightful.

my first baby shower friday night! clare burns, one of my cute YW, had begged me since she first found out i was pregnant to throw my baby shower. she went all out and sent out evites, made a diaper wreath and researched baby shower games. she specially made the cupcake i'm holding in the picture and was just so adorable all night. she looves babies and is so good with them. we invited my girl friends from the ward along with the YW from the wards we combine with and had a really delightful night. everyone was so sweet and baby frei got some really great gifts. we're so lucky to be in such a great ward.

 tanner had a law review party friday night while i was at my baby shower so we were both a bit pooped by the time 9:30 rolled around. (but really we're always pretty pooped by then haaha) tan was battling a little cold thing last week and his ears were plugged up friday so we decided to try the hydrogen peroxide trick...for the next hour and a half. my ears weren't even plugged but i wanted to give it a try and holy cow it is the craziest feeling everrr. tan's ears were bubbling up like crazy since they were so clogged and mine barely had any bubbles and i could barely stand it. you know your life is pretty dang crazy when this really was an entertaining way to spend your friday night ;-)
(and tan will love that this photo is your closing thought)