August 2012, Part 1

I really am going to try not to get behind.  So, rather than wait until the end of August to post my updates, I'm going to do what I have now and add the rest later.  :)

Above: Just hangin' out with Daddy and wearin' his hat.

Above: Daddy had a long day at work and passed out on the couch, but that didn't stop everyone from climbing on and cuddling him.

Above: I sure love that Spider-man Pete!

Above: He's fierce when he's crossed by his foes.

Above: He will protect the weak and innocent.

Above: And he'll have good times with his brother!

Above: And he'll do timed poses with his Mama!

Above: The boys LOVE to do timed poses.  They love to run into place in a hurry before the camera goes off.  The result is always a mixed bag though.  If the boys look cute, I look psycho (with a "crazy" smile and eyes).  If I look cute, the boys look mad, sad, or aren't looking at all!

Above: We went for another nature walk in our mountains.  This trail is right by the Draper Temple, less than 5 minutes from our house.  I love that look on Peter's face.

Above: We went simple on Jonathan's outfit and opted for a white onesie and jeans.  It makes him look like a 1950's rebel.

Above: Peter was "reading" the nature signs to us.  Ironically, he got this one right!  He was telling us that this was a picture of a chickadee.  And it WAS!

Above: While on our walk, a very nice man with a super nice dog ran into us.  He let us play with his dog and the boys were in Heaven!  As for me, I was just grateful that neither of them had allergic reactions to the dog.  :)

Above: Dogs are so fun!  But Mama is glad we can't own one because of the boys' allergies!

Above: What a cute guy!

Above: Ohhhh.

Above: We visited the Children's Gardens at Thanksgiving Point in the morning for our play group.  But unfortunately, my camera batteries were dead.  The boys hadn't quite had enough play time at the gardens, so I packed a picnic dinner and we went back there that night as a family.  Here, Jonathan is trying to find his belly button.  Darn it!  It's so hard to find because of my cute belly!

Above: We love getting wet at Noah's ark!

Above: Good times.

Above: Even better times when food is involved.

Above: My handsome husband saying something sassy to me.

Above: Very often, this is my expression and response when my husband says something sassy to me.

Above: Then Jeremiah told me to smile normally so we could take a regular picture.

Above: My little monkey saying "Cheese!"

Above: Peter jumping from log to log in one of the other sections of the Children's Gardens.

Above: A fun tunnel for kids to climb through.  "Mom!  Where do you think this leads to?"

Above: Peter's hair just looked way too shaggy while we were at the gardens.  So, we cut it that night.  Cutting the boys' hair is a NIGHTMARE.  They HATE it.  And it's always traumatic...for EVERYONE.

Above: But after a bath, Peter was right as rain.  He loved his new haircut.  I gave him my mirror while he was in the tub so he could look at it.  He lounged around in the tub for a luxurious amount of time.  Finally, Jeremiah said "Peter, it's time to get out of the tub."  Peter answered "Not yet, Dad.  I'm still yookin' (looking) at myself."  I love that guy.

Above: This has been summer of the reptiles for me.  We've seen three snakes (while hiking and at Thanksgiving Point gardens), a mama lizard, and two baby lizards.  I was less thrilled to see the snakes (I only saw two of them).  They still give me the shivers.  But I think lizards are cute.  I found this cute little rock lizard in our yard while I was watering the plants.  She was very cooperative for the camera.  At first, I thought she was a baby...and a he.

Above: But then we found one of her babies and it was soooooo cute and even littler!

Above: On August 11th (my brother, Nephi's birthday), we decided to have a carnival for the kids.  We have been having themed parties this summer since the girls (Maddie and Kinlie) have been in Utah and we wanted the cousins to have a lot of fun times together.  We had our Half-o-ween party, a Camping party, and most recently, our Carnival.  When my Aunt Theresa found out that we wanted to do a carnival, she donated some money to the cause.  She is so incredibly sweet and generous!  So we made this banner to commemorate our carnival to her! 

Above: Here's the whole family that was in attendance...except for Clayton who insisted on taking the pictures.  He hates being in them, but is very helpful about taking them!

Above: We served all sorts of carnival-themed food.  Kettle corn, mini funnel cakes, nachos and cheese, corn dogs, churro muddy buddies, carnival cupcakes, rice krispy treats on a stick, homemade watermelon cotton candy, etc.  Did we go a little overboard?  Yes.  Yes, we did.

Above: The kids got to play all sorts of fun games like: bean bag toss, ring toss, bowling, pictionary/art work, water games, squirt gun games, water balloon games, and whack-a-mole.

Above: The kids got to go to the fishing pond and they got all sorts of fun goodies there.  Maddie got this bee-yu-ti-ful crown.

Above: Jonathan got this cute train engineer hat...but he wasn't very happy about wearing it.

Above: Peter loved his shark nose.

Above: What a sweet guy!

Above: When we first talked about a carnival, we decided that balloons were a must.  Well, did you know that there is a worldwide helium shortage right now?  Zurchers (our local party store) had a limit of only 17 helium balloons per customer.  But sadly, when Mom got there to get the balloons, they had run out of their helium quota for the day.  Can you believe that?  How does one get a helium shortage in the first place?  And how does one remedy such a situation?  The balloons that we got for the kids came from the grocery store.  They were of the non-helium variety (the ones that have sticks in them so that you can put them in flower arrangements, etc.)

Above: Here are the kids playing whack-a-mole.  I bought this for the boys at Christmas time...and it was the perfect addition to our carnival!

Above: Here are the kids and Aunt Robin participating in a cupcake walk.

Above: After the cupcake walk was done, Jonathan and Kinlie didn't want the magic to end.  They continued to walk around and around in a circle on top of those colored footballs, without music, for a good 10 minutes afterward!

Above: Ta-Da!

Above: This was our third or fourth visit to the zoo this summer, but it was the first one where Dad was able to see the new Rocky Shores exhibit.

Above: Here are my boys pretending to ride a bicycle by the big cats section of the zoo.

Above: Just walkin' at the zoo with my Daddy.  Hands behind our backs, as leisurely as you please.

Above: It looks like my two monkeys measure up just fine!

Above: Yeah, yeah.  I know that these outlines are for gorillas and not monkeys.

Above: Peter wanted to take a picture by this gorilla with his Dad.  He pretended to be scared...but my sweet little actor took his method acting a little too far and then he became scared too.

Above: One morning I pulled out our train set stuff to play with.  The boys were in heaven.  The problem was that they wanted all of the same stuff at the same time and kept pushing each other out of the way and fighting with each other.  So, I figured it would be a good solution to simply build another track.  I built one on the floor and neither of them had any use for it.  So, I brought Peter's train table from his bedroom down to the basement and put the track that I had built on the floor on top of it.  So, then they had two super cool train tracks--one on the coffee table and one on Peter's train table.  I figured that meant that they had one each and they would stop wanting the same things at the same time.  What it really meant, however, was that the coffee table train got completely discarded and the train table train became the new train to be desired.  What can you do, eh?  At least they started playing nicer with each other and sharing more once the second train table/track was put up.  Go figure.

Above: We took a weeknight and went up into Timpanogas Canyon (at least I think that's what that canyon is called) and we roasted hot dogs/brats, made s'mores, and had watermelon.  The boys were too excited about being in the mountains and it took a fair bit of effort to get them to eat much (though Jonathan still managed to eat 2 hot dogs, of course).

Above: After going through all of our crap, I realized we had a ton of papers that needed to be shredded.  But then this bright idea dawned on me: why not bring those papers and use them as kindling and burn them in the mountains on just such a trip as this!?  My plan worked perfectly.  But we had a TON of papers and it created quite a hot and blazing fire.  It took awhile to get the whole fire to burn down and to put it out.  But while I tended the fire, the boys had a good time helping dad get a bucket of water to help put out the fire.

Above: The boys had a great time exploring and visiting the river with Dad so that they could throw rocks into it.  I have decided that throwing rocks into a river has to be the favorite past time of every little boy in the world.

Above: These sweet boys tuckered out their Dad that night!

Above: Jonathan refused to be carried and wouldn't let us hold his hand.  Because when he is in the mountains, he's a man and he can do it himself! 

Above: My sweet husband took my ring to be cleaned.  After nearly five years, it wasn't shining quite the way that it once had.  But when it came back, it looked just like it had the day I got it!  I kept looking at it all night long.  So shiny.  So sparkly.  

Above: This morning (August 22nd), we went to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point for our play group.  Peter loves to ride the ponies (as you might remember, Jonathan does NOT).

Above: Here's a close-up of that sweet face.

Above: Aunt Shandie came with us and brought Maddie, Kinlie, Kash, and Jaden.  We were also joined by my good friend, April, and her kids and a few family members.

Above: Cute kids posing in front of the llamas.

Above: Wheee!  I'm in prison!

Above: "Cheese!"  I wish I had gotten a video of this.  I loved the sound of all 5 kids saying "Cheese" all at once in the same tone of voice and on the same note.  It was hilarious.

Above: I took this picture of me holding Jonathan while we went on the wagon ride to get a better view of Farm Country.  Isn't he the cutest guy?

Above: They have a fun section at Farm Country where you can go inside and learn a little about how farms work (planting, harvesting, and distributing the food).  But it's also set up as a play area for the kids too (where they can do the "planting," "harvesting," and "food distribution" themselves).  Here Jonathan is, I'm sure, thinking to himself "So that's how some bugs contribute to the farm.  I see."

Above: Here's cousin Maddie riding a tractor.

Above: Here's Jonathan planting some seeds.

Above: Here's Peter helping with food distribution.

Above: Here is sweet Kinlie riding a tractor too.

Above: Here's my sweet Peter riding a pony again.  He used Jonathan's ticket this time.  But he did NOT want his picture taken this time around.  Sorry, buddy!

Above: And HERE is the view out of my car window on my drive up the mountain to our house.  We are already starting to get colored leaves on our trees!  Whoohoo!  Fall is my all-time favorite season of the year.  I just love it.  I am more than thrilled to live in a place where fall comes earlier.  Now, if it doesn't start snowing too early, I'll be even more thrilled.  Because winter is my all-time least favorite season!  But I'm so excited for the fall!  I love it!