Fourth of July

We spent the Fourth of July at the Kaysville city parade/water fight. The parade is kind of dull, but the water fight is awesome and worth the trip.

Susan made ribbons for everyone to wear, in honor of Jill, who loved big hair bows. Kecia has her bow in her hair. Simon is wearing his bow as a bow tie.




Ben and Emma had great seats to see the parade.



Simon was ecstatic to find a barrel of water, and didn't even glance at the parade after this discovery.




We didn't get any pictures of the actual water fight on our camera, as we were busy having the water fight!

Then we went back to Grandpa's house for a barbecue. Grandpa set up a wading pool, and then Glenn pulled out Emma's baby wading pool.




Simon was asleep about two minutes after we got in the car. G'nite baby!

Decorating for Christmas

Dirk was here to help us decorate for Christmas. Ben loved the tree, and here he tells Dirk where to put the ornaments.



We didn't put many ornaments on the lower couple feet of the tree so Ben and Simon would have less to pull on. So Ben helped decorate. Notice the fish on the lower branches. Every couple of days, I would find another random toy on the tree.



And here is our cute little present under the tree! Notice he is even wrapped in Christmas jammies.

Christmas morning

Merry Christmas, honey! I hope you're feeling better. Here are the boys playing with the presents you bought them.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Simon dressed up as a baby this year, and was as cute as ever. Ben, however, has never been a happy boy in a costume, and this year is no exception. A neighbor gave us a cute chicken costume, and this is as close as he got to wearing it.

More Party again

Ben finally got in the wading pool after I went in with him for a few minutes. Then his cousins, Cade and Ethan, took over. They were really cute with him.




Ben's favorite pool activity was letting the water out of the pool.

More Party

Simon had a good time on the Fourth of July too. Here he is hanging out on Kris's shoulder. It's so nice Kris loves to hold babies. I can just hand him off and spend an hour without a baby on my lap! Then Kris had to hand him off to everyone else who loves to hold babies.




Then he got to hang out with Grandma. He's sucking on Grandma's finger voluntarily, even though he looked kind of puzzled about why there was a finger in his mouth. He also loves to suck on his fists. He will have nothing to do with a binky, though.



Then Simon went to visit his Grandpa, and he thought that was just a giggly good time!

Party on the 4th

First off, this is why we were late to the party:

Ben hadn't napped the last couple days. I wasn't planning on him napping on the Fourth, either. I just plopped him in his crib with a toy while I got everything else ready to go. When I went to get him, he had tucked himself in and was fast asleep. I waited an hour and then woke him up, and off we went.

Simon looks huge in his car seat!



At Grandpa's, Ben just stood and watched the slip and slide for the longest time. Last year, we couldn't keep him out of it!



He finally got a push down the slide. Ben's cousins were so happy to see him, and wanted to play with him. He was pretty whiney, though. Maybe all those missed naps caught up with him. Plus he gets nervous when I'm out of sight. The cousins kept coaxing him to play (bless them), and he finally did manage to have a good time. I'll put some more pictures up tomorrow.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, honey! We're proud of you! We love you! We miss you!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day honey! I was reading Benji the book you sent him. I flipped right to the story and he protested, "daddy!" I turned back to the message you wrote him on the inside cover and read him his note from daddy. Then we could read the story.

Benji also remembers you in the pantry. When he wants cereal, he does the sign (or points to it), and clarifies "daddy." This means he wants daddy cereal, like Apple Jacks, and not nasty mommy cereal, like plain Cheerios.

I hope you liked the tie that Benji made for you.

And while Simon may not know you, he does have a dimple in his chin that reminds me of you every time I look at it.

You know that life insurance commercial that says, "life comes at your fast?" Today is the third anniversary of our first date! Three years ago today, I was nervously waiting for you to pick me up, thinking, "I can't believe I gave my address to some guy off the Internet! I never give my address out!" Good thing you turned out to be lovable, and not some weirdo stalker guy.

I love you sweetie!

A belated Halloween post

Here we see our little boo checking out the two pumpkins daddy grew this summer.



Time to carve a pumpkin for Halloween. I chose the larger of the two to actually carve.


I started with a knife but quickly decided that would take way to long.

What to do????

Power Tools! Calling one trusty reciprocating saw.



Okay so Da only took one picture of me at work and didn't think to take video like Kecia and Glen did.

Next I used a knife to do the finer details like eyes, nose and mouth.



Then it was back to the Saw to cut the opening in the back for the blacklight. I managed to cut the opening just right so that it was big enough for the light, yet tight enough to keep the light in place.



And then I set it up, plugged it in, put some tissue across the inside of the face to make him glow better. Here he is all finished.



And behold and be frightened of the final project.



Some facts about this pumpkin. I planted one seed from a package of "Jumbo Sized Pumpkin" seeds from walmart. Like the rest of our small garden it was located in our front flower garden (someday we'll just plan flowers there). It took over the entire patch all to produce two pumpkins. Due to that one plant, we only got a few crookneck from the three hills I planted. If our Tomatoes hadn't grown up higher they probably would have been overwhelmed as well.

This Pumpkin weighed about 75 lbs, the smaller one weighed in at about 55 lbs. According to our bathroom scale that is, so I'm not so sure how accurate it is.

When cut open the rind was almost three inches thick, yet compared to smaller pumpkins it was much easier and less messy to clean. Tommorrow the remains of this Jack-O-Lantern will go in the trash, but what am I to do with the other pumpkin? Anyone want to make many, many, many pies?

And since Kecia asked. Here is Boo in his costume. He did better than last year by lasting for about 15 minutes in it (last year he cried the entire five minutes we had him costumed for pictures.) So only the one picture. This and some similar costumes will be seen over the next few years, as Da is somewhat lazy when it comes to choosing costumes, and thus we rely on the stock pile of M&M costumes her sister has for her kids. They have at least one for each year/age group at least through age five or six. (okay maybe not that many but they have several of these costumes).