Pioneer Day

This Pioneer Day fell on a Friday which was really nice because Dave had a 4-day weekend. We were going to be very ambitious and were planning on going to the Days of 47 Parade. I was trying to get Dave to sleep out the night before to get us a spot, but he wasn't really into that idea (I probably would have felt too bad anyways). He thought if we left at five in the morning we could find a pretty good spot. After really thinking about it, I decided that we were crazy for thinking that our kids would do well there. We got up and went to breakfast instead. We watched the parade on tv for awhile and played. Meg and I went to Classic waterslides with our cousins and Dave and Will stayed home and took a nap. We came home and took a trip up the canyon with our cousins for a campfire and dinner. It was a great time. Will was especially good by the fire. Once I told him "No" he didn't try to touch it again. Meg LOVES playing with her cousins so she had a wonderful time. We were home and in bed in time to hear fireworks going off in our neighborhood. Gotta love the life of tired parents.

Give this guy some food and he'll be happy all night.

We had a lot of fun with this butterfly net.

Viva Las Vegas

Last weekend Dave was going to go to Las Vegas for a training seminar. The weekend before I was gone to girl's camp so I was bummed to be apart again. Plus, my parents are out of town and my sisters-in-law were having a girl's weekend so I was feeling like I was going to be super lonely. Dave came home from work on Thursday and we had dinner and I told him how lonely I was going to be. His flight was going to leave in about three hours. He checked to see if there was room on it for us and there was! So, we tagged along with him for the weekend. It was a little rough getting there, but we made it late Thursday night. Friday morning we took Dave to his seminar and then went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was a lot of fun and they have a lot of sea life to see. I thought it would be fun to show the kids the lions at MGM so I started walking over. It didn't look too far away, but as I started going it started to seem farther and farther away. It was about 110 degrees (I really don't know how people can live there). We finally made it and checked out the lions. By that point I was exhausted so we finally went back to our hotel and relaxed until it was time to pick up Dave. We ate at the Bellagio that night. The kids loved it. We watched the fountains and then headed back to the hotel to go to bed. The next morning we took Dave back to his class and then we went over to Circus Circus. It was actually pretty fun. The kids were a little too small to ride the rides but we looked around and played some games. We watched some circus acts and then picked Dave up from his class. We had some time to kill before our flight left to go home so we found a splash park and let the kids play. All in all it was fun spending time with Dave and showing the kids around Vegas. I'm not planning on going back for a long long time though.

Will and Dave having fun at the splash park.

Meg waiting for the fountains at the Bellagio. We bought those shoes she is wearing in Vegas and she LOVED them. She kept running around saying that they made her run fast. When we were waiting in line for dinner she kept showing everyone her shoes and telling them that they were new. It was so fun.

Will loved being in our hotel room. Here he is enjoying a pancake and jumping on the bed. He was in heaven.

Thank goodness we found the splash park. Meg finally got her clothes wet after much poking and prodding. She wanted her swimming suit on but I couldn't dig it out of the suitcase. We kept telling her that it was okay, but she was really weird about it. I think she finally got too hot and just decided to do it.

In the picture, Will is getting his diaper changed on the grass at the Bellagio. He was so fun on this trip and was as happy as could be.

It's Independence Day!

I am doing this blog for journaling purposes only, seems that it is almost a month later. We have been EXTREMELY busy lately. We just got done with our Girl's Camp. It was awesome! I still haven't put all of my stuff away from that though and we have been home for almost two weeks. That's what basements are for, right? Anyway, we had a pretty low key 4th of July this year. Both of our kids were super cranky so it made for a really fun day. We went to my parent's neighborhood for their annual parade and breakfast. I had to wake the kids up to go...that's never a good sign that your day will go smoothly. My mom pulled them in the parade and then we had a little breakfast. It was my cousin Jack's birthday so we went to his house for a party and then we went home. I taught Young Womens the day after and I came up with this great idea to stitch "pray" onto a pillowcase for each girl. I really didn't think it would take me very long, but ended up taking me about 20 minutes per pillowcase and I had 27 to do. I worked on those things all day Friday, the rest of the day Saturday and then Sunday morning. They turned out really cute though. The girls really seemed to like them...some even brought them to camp with them. They in turn tiedyed them which was a little alarming, but I figured I had given them to them so they could do whatever they wanted to them. I was kind of bummed though. Oh well. We grabbed some dinner and then got a few fireworks to do at home with just us. It was actually pretty fun. Will got a little scared, but his tiredness was working against him too so he was kind of whiney. Meg really liked them though. Then, we put the kids to bed and I stayed up until one in the morning stitching. Great fun!


I am so grateful that we live in a country where we are free. I am also very grateful to all of the people who are willing to serve in the armed forces. I definitely wouldn't be able to have my husband in harm's way and I respect those families so much. God bless America!!!

Dairy Days

My friend Stacy told us about Dairy Days that Thanksgiving Point holds each year and we decided to go. She was sick and missed out on the fun though. It was a great time. Both of the kids were in love with the animals. They had a lot of baby animals there and it was really fun to see them all...I'm a total sucker for baby animals too. I had been bribing Meg all day with a horse ride and she was so excited up until the point that she was actually supposed to get on the horse. She freaked out and cried almost the whole time. It was so strange because she is never really like that. She did say that she wanted to ride a red horse so maybe the horse that she got wasn't what she had in mind. Will rode a horse too and loved it. We had a great time though and will definitely go again next year.

Meg was having a pretty long conversation with this llama.

Will loved being free to roam around and he loved looking at all the animals.

This baby cow was a huge hit with my kids. He was really hungry too and kept eating our stroller, people's clothes, a little girl's hair.

Happy Daddy's Day!

We had a great time getting ready for Father's Day this year. I took the kids to the mall looking for a tie for Dave's dad. We came away with a tie for him, my dad and two for Dave...all picked out by Meg. She chose a purple tie for Dave and was so excited about it. When we got home I hadn't yet prepped her to tell Dave that what we got him was a surprise so she told him that we had bought him a purple tie and that was that.

Dave is such a wonderful and loving dad to our kids. He is extremely hands on and is so helpful. He loves to play with and read to our kids. The other night he went mountain biking right after work and didn't get home until our kids were in bed. He came downstairs where I was and said, "I miss our kids." It was so cute. He is such an incredible dad and I appreciate everything that he does for our family. Happy Father's Day Dave!

"He walk like people!"

(Meg took this picture so it's not the best. Will is so happy to be able to get around quickly. He won't crawl at all anymore.)

Since Memorial Day Will's favorite thing to do is walk. He had been taking steps here and there for a little while but must have decided that it was time, because he is walking EVERYWHERE. On Memorial Day we went to the park with Dave's family and he must have felt more comfortable on the grass because he started to walk longer distances. Now, he basically walks everywhere. Meg was a very good big sister and taught him how to walk (or at least she thinks she did) by holding his hands and walking backwards. At first, Will was a little leery of this because she would go too fast and then he would fall on his face. After a few talks she became a lot nicer and more gentle about it. She was so excited and said "Mommy, he walk like people!" Will is a lot of fun. Last night Dave sadly said that we don't have any babies in our home anymore. It's true too, he is definitely a little boy now.

Aloha

Dave and I got to go to Hawaii this month....without kids. It was so fun. We have been to Hawaii three times since we have been married. It is by far our favorite vacation spot to go. The first time we went I won a trip with my work. That was a fun trip but I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Meg so I was really tired and wasn't able to do a lot of adventurous activities. The second time we went we brought Meg with us (she was about 7 months old). That too was a lot of fun, but a lot of hard work with a little baby. This time we were kid less and I wasn't pregnant so we were ready to do a lot of fun stuff. Jim and Sarah came with us. We had a great time hanging out with them. They are so layed back. It was really nice. We quickly drove the road to Hana as soon as we got off the plane and then stayed in Hana that night. We stayed in this really nice bungalow that night. The next day we spent the entire day having fun adventures on the road to Hana. We hiked through bamboo forests to waterfalls, swam in waterfalls, hiked through lava tubes. It was really great. The rest of the time we stayed by black rock in Lahaina. We swam a lot, went snorkeling and just relaxed. We missed our kids a lot. Mother's Day was an especially hard day for me because I wasn't able to see my little babies. They were having a wonderful time with my parents though. A few months before the trip my mom made the mistake of telling Meg that they would take her to the dinosaur museum while they took care of her. She talked about it EVERY DAY until they finally did. In fact, right before we headed to the airport we said a family prayer. Meg wanted to say it all by herself. She said the usual things and then said, "Thank you that Grandma and Grandma take me to the dinosaur museum." It was hilarious. The day that we left we did a zipline tour. It was so fun. We thought that we had lost our camera so we didn't get any pictures but it was awesome. I am usually scared of heights but I actually didn't get too scared. It was a much needed vacation. We feel like we are married again instead of teammates. It was nice to spend a lot of good quality time together. A big thank you to my parents and my aunt and uncle, Kellie and Tate for helping us with our kids. Will got sick about four hours after we left and was a little miserable so it wasn't a really fun time for them. We really appreciate all of the help that they gave and still continue to give to us.

Dave spent awhile talking to a homeless man about the history of this banyan tree.

We took a hike to the blowhole. It was so neat...maybe my favorite part of the trip.

Dave in the bamboo forest. This hike was my other favorite part of the trip. Jim almost killed himself climbing one of these.

This was in a lava tube cave. Dave is still talking about the "hidden cameras" that they installed to keep you from going too deep into the cave. "Don't insult my intelligence!"

We love Maui!

St. George

May has been an extremely busy month for our family. For Young Women's we are practicing for and getting ready for our Temple Celebration performance that will be at the Conference Center tomorrow. It has taken a lot of time, but is going to be so awesome. We went on a couple of trips this month too. At the beginning of the month we went to St George with a bunch of Dave's high school friends. We did some swimming, shopping, mountain biking, and just hung around. There were quite a few kid's schedules to work around so it was a little difficult to hang out a lot with all of Dave's friends, but it was still fun.

There is a really fun splash park by their City Hall in St George. The kids had such a fun time.

Pics of the kids

My friend Natalie has been wanting to get into photography for awhile. She just got a fancy new camera and was nice enough to take some pictures of my kids for me. I think she is so talented and did such a good job. Thanks Nat!

I love this one! It's kind of a funny face but is classic Will. When he gets really happy he squished his nose up and the wrinkles appear. He is so funny.

This one is so funny because it really doesn't look like Meg to me. I haven't seen her make this face before.

Will climbs into everything now. We were just talking and he climbed into this play sink. He is so hilarious. We have one of those walkers and he really likes it. I was making dinner the other night and he and Meg were playing back by their rooms. I heard the walker come closer and I figured he was just pushing it. He comes around the corner and was in it. He was so proud too when he saw me. He can climb out of it too. He is getting to be such a big boy.

The Mullet is Gone!

Will got his first haircut (besides his rat tail being cut off) this week. His hair didn't look very long but it was a little thick in the back and whenever his shirt would slide under his hair and push his hair up he had a bad mullet. We went to Cookie Cutters and he got a little boy's haircut. I was a little sad to see the baby chick puff on the top of his head go but he looks so much better. He was such a good boy. Meg got her hair trimmed and he watched her. They put him in the same little airplane and he was as happy guy. He tried to look at the clippers and that made it hard but he was a brave little boy. He got a balloon afterwards and was so happy. He looks so cute.

He ended up with a faux hawk and looked so handsome. This really is the best picture that I could get. He is VERY active right now.