Carter's 4th Birthday

Our big guy turned 4 on Friday. We celebrated in big 4 year old style:

A breakfast chosen by him of donuts and chocolate milk. Opening presents from Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and aunts. A lunch consisting of root beer, blue raspberry slushie, and two kinds of chips (also chosen by him...:), 2 classes of preschool (not chosen by him), and then a BBQ up in American Fork canyon with cousins and aunts and uncles.



Carter's present from Mom and Dad was a new big boy bike. He cried when he saw it...and not out of joy. He's not really into riding...but it's a cool bike and when he saw all it had to offer he decided to give it a chance...whew~!

His BBQ in the canyon was really fun. We had cheese dogs and hamburgers, chips, soda, smores, and cake. He hiked and played with Jared and Braden to his heart's content. We love that Carter loves to be outdoors and enjoy nature so much. It's so beautiful and peaceful.

Today, Carter held his first friend party...a Knight and Princess Party.


The kids played in a bounce castle, decorated shields and princess hats, practiced their knight sword moves with Tyson, attended a "ball" dance party, ate dragon nuggets and cake, and hit a dragon pinata

Carter's cake of choice was a dragon...a fire-breathing dragon

The candles were a little tricky, so he needed a mighty Knight's help

We're so glad our Knight has been with us for four years. He is one cool boy. We're glad he has so many good friends close by to grow up with.

Family Pics 2009

While we were in Texas, my sis Krista took some family pics for us. I wanted a "Texan" edge to them because we have officially become Utahns for...life? The company Ty has worked for the past 6 years, Preventive Pest Control, has always been so good to us and have become our good friends. They offered Ty a great long-term position with them. We couldn't turn it down...but it's here in Utah. So we gave up our dreams of living in Texas and our now happily settling in to a future in Utah.

Mt. Timpanogos Cave

Last week to celebrate the end of summer (for us...preschool started this past Monday) we hiked up to Timpanogos Cave.
3 mile round trip...height over 6000 feet...through the caves...and back down again.

Up, up, and away. Carter walked the entire way...most the time ahead of us. He is so in his element hiking and out in nature. Taylee walked...sometimes. A lot of the time she wanted to be held. And contrary to the one picture I'm holding her in, Ty did most of the holding...and he barely broke a sweat. The hike taught me that I am severely out of shape. I was pretty much gasping for air and my legs were trembling by the time we reached the top.

The caves were neat. San Antonio is near Natural Bridge Caverns, so I took many field trips to caves in school and it was pretty much like all the others (except you don't have to hike up 6000 ft to get to them :) It was our kids' first time and they were really excited (except for the no touching ANYTHING part for Tay...that was a struggle).

Carter got to be the special helper to be "kissed" by the cave. He got a little nervous having everyone watch him.

Ready for the descent...kinda. Carter's showing on the map here the trail up the mountain.

Taylee completely konked out on Ty's shoulders after a few minutes on our descent. It doesn't look very comfortable, but she slept very soundly. And every hiker who passed us stopped to tell us she was asleep...

It was a hard hike...but so much fun to do together as a family. We're thinking about making it a family tradition to the start of school. If we can hike up a mountain together, we can conquer anything together.

Gateway Children's Discovery Museum

Our good friends the Glaziers invited us up to SLC to visit the Children's Museum. It was our first time and we had a blast. Carter and Tay adore Noah and Kate and they had a blast exploring all the museum has to offer together. After the museum, we ate at the food court and then watched other kids play in the musical water fountains (we didn't bring swimsuits..whoops!...next time!) Thanks so much, Sherry!

The next morning was spent deep cleaning (it seems the past couple weeks have been filled with that since I'm starting to feel better)...and the kids were acting really tired during lunch. After they brought their dishes to the sink, I cleaned the kitchen and noticed it was super quiet. I walked around the house looking for the kids and found each of them sound asleep in their beds. They must've been exhausted.

Expanding

Lately, we've needed some extra doses of fresh air

And fresh flowers picked by sweet Hubby and kids

Small things to excite us...can you spot the brontosaurus shaped tree through the window?

Games and activities to keep Carter and Taylee occupied

And Dad and Carter's help cooking most meals...

...all while Mom just tries to keep them down.
'Cuz things are changing around here

We're expanding to a family of five...Valentines Day 2010

And after a yucky first trimester, I've started the second with high hopes.

**For all you preschool parents reading this-FEAR NOT...school is still on track with some minor changes. I'll go over everything at orientation August 17th. I'm super excited.**

Summer Trip '09

Ty needed to get some work accomplished in Texas and would need to be gone for at least a week to get everything done, so I convinced him driving was way better than flying and he should take us along to hang out in San Antonio. You have to understand-Ty HATES driving. I LOVE road trips and I think the kids are more like me...they actually enjoy being in the car and are mostly terrific on road trips. So, this was asking a lot of Ty-24 hours to San Antonio, then another 6 hours for him back and forth to Houston and another 8 back and forth to Dallas and another 24 back to Utah. And that doesn't include all the driving to areas, etc in each city. But...being the AWESOME Daddy and Hubby he is, he agreed and we made the trek. We did have Harry Potter to listen to in the car...that was some consolation for Ty.

I loved all the gorgeous views...there's nothing like being out on open road.

And all the clean rest stops...we had A LOT of stops
Daddy was gone most the time, but we kept super busy with cousins, aunts/uncles, and Gma/Gpa. The kids painted, colored, played with playdoh, grilled with Gpa, read with Gma, made forts, watched movies, and went wild with their imaginations. Between Carter and Annie's imaginations, anything was possible. My sisters were amazing helpers, especially Marissa who is seriously my hero. She was so good with the kids and always had something up her sleeve to keep them busy...thanks Ris!

Since our last visit for Christmas, Carter has talked incessantly about "Grandpa's attic." My Dad built his attic into this two-level museum of sorts. He has many airplane/war artifacts from his Dad or from things he's collected as well as tons of shark and dinosaur fossils, teeth, books, posters, EVERYTHING he is passionate about. And to Carter...it's pretty much heaven. He just thinks he's the coolest thing alive when he gets to climb up the secret ladder and enter Gpa's clubhouse.

We all drove up to Round Rock, outside of Austin, for a day to meet up with Janessa and her family. It was the half way point between San Antonio and Mansfield and had IKEA and outlets. I met her little guy, Corban, for the first time and the kids had a blast getting to all hang out together. We walked through the maze of IKEA and had lunch (where Ty drove down to meet us...yay!) and then took the kids to a bounce house. It was so fun to have all the little cousins together.

The ride there was a little squished...4 carseats just in the back row.

My mom prepared a great kid-friendly family home evening and played all their favorites on the piano...over and over again at the kid's request and everyone was bouncing with joy until...

...Grandpa snuck up on the little ones with a hairnet over his face like a ghost. Annie and Carter thought it was great fun...

...Taylee and Katy, not so much. They both woke up that night with nightmares of ghosts and Grandpa had to reassure them he was just Grandpa.

We were able to see Caleb open his mission call to the Hungary Budapest mission...which was awesome...and then witness his strange dogpile family prayer....all 6 feet and 7 inches of him

Of course Carter and Daddy had to try it out as well
My kids were so sad to hear that Toby, my parent's dog, had passed away, but had plenty of love for Coco, K and Riley's dog. Taylee would tip her head down waiting for Coco to kiss her.
It was great to see my kids develop better friendships with their cousins. Taylee and Katy especially this visit seemed to really start being friends.

On our trip home, we stayed the night in Albuquerque and had awesome pizza from Dions and just relaxed. The kids loved the hotel room and having space to stretch out, shower, and play.

They even had the best sleep of their lives. I tried getting a picture of the time on the clock-8:30am...Taylee doesn't sleep in past 7am, so this was truly a miracle.

On our final leg, we stopped at this arch to hike. It was super windy and our hair and eyes got covered in red dirt-but it was an adventure...and isn't that what road trips are all about?