spinning silliness

So silly. CD all the sudden started doing this today. I wish she would have chosen a carpeted floor instead. She just kept spinning and spinning!

weekend highlights

So we had quite a busy weekend and it all started on Thursday. On Thursday we celebrated my 28th birthday by ordering a Cold Stone ice cream cake (sooo yummy!) and inviting my brother Clint and his girlfriend over to have some and play games. But the celebrating didn’t end there.

birthday girl

Friday morning CD went to her first gymnastics class and did pretty good. Hopefully with time she will get more comfortable and confident. The gymnastics is to help CD learn how to balance and just for muscle strengthening. Friday night Parker’s took us out to eat at Olive Garden and then we opened my presents. After dinner we invited our friends Josh and Trisha over to have some of my Cold Stone cake and to play games. Cake and games happened after the kids were in bed. We had fun playing Mario Cart on the N64, some speed SkipBo (the only way to play), and Pit. It was a lot of fun with lots of laughter.

Saturday I continued celebrating my birthday by going on a shopping spree. Jon was kind enough to offer to babysit while I went to spend my birthday money. I invited Trisha to go with me. It was a lot of fun to have a girls day out. While Jon was babysitting he also helped his brother-in-law install new lights in our kitchen. You wouldn’t believe how much brighter our kitchen is! And I couldn’t believe how dirty it was! To top off our Saturday we watched the Aggie football game with Josh and Trisha. Poor Aggies, the Utes stomped them - but that was to be expected.

Sunday we ended the birthday festivities at Parker’s house by having birthday cake once again. But this time the cake was for Jon’s niece too. So it was more of her celebration than mine (but my name was on the cake too).

So anyway, we had quite a busy weekend with lots of fun. And today it was back to life as usual - work for Jon, and kids, laundry, babysitting and much more for me!

looking good!

I give it a month and she'll be pro! She has such determination and she doesn't even need much encouragement from us. Thankfully she thinks it's a game and you can tell how proud of herself she is. And all of this has come about since Monday! Woohoo!!

weekend camping trip

We spent our Labor Day weekend camping with my family. Well, we almost spent the whole weekend with them, but we knew a storm was coming in, so we left early. Who wants to be camping in a tent in rainy conditions? Not me! No one believed me that a storm was really coming, but when it starting raining Sunday afternoon just before we left, they decided to believe me. Good thing everyone else camping with us were in trailers!

The kids loved camping and being dirty. Actually, CJ didn't like his hands being dirty and kept washing them at the cleaning station outside the trailer - or maybe he just liked washing his hands outside. CD had no idea when her hands were dirty. We tried to keep her on the carpets, but she was constantly crawling in the dirt. I was so glad to get everyone home and bathed last night. Now it's just a matter of getting all the laundry and bedding washed.

Like I said, we slept in a tent. We have a good sized tent, so really it isn't all that bad. Jon and I both are able to sleep on air mattresses while CD sleeps in her pack-n-play, Carter on the floor with lots of blankets for cushion, and a space heater to keep us warm. The last night we were there we didn't need the heater. We experienced "the warm before the storm", although the storm really did start during the night. That night the wind was so horrible I couldn't sleep - I thought we were going to blow away. Thankfully the kids slept right through it, but anytime I started to fall asleep I felt like the wind was going to blow the protective covering off our tent if not collapse our tent. So needless to say, I had a long night, but we all survived.

Our shelter from the storm


CJ kicks back and relaxes while he watches Grandpa make our breakfast

Overall we all had a really good time. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for letting us enjoy your camping trip with you!

can you say "please"?

I am teaching CD sign language in order to help encourage talking and to help her learn a new way of communicating. Her first sign she ever used was "milk" although she doesn't really use it anymore. Her favorite sign is "more", and she just recently learned "please" thanks to Grandma Allen enticing her with candy. To sign "please" you are suppose to rub the palm of your hand on your chest in a circle. CD signs it by putting her hand on her chest and shaking her head. It is so cute! So I decided to make a video of it so everyone can see!

Besides, learning signs, she also is starting to say her first words. She still isn't consistent with them, but she has approximations for "ball", "dog", "duck", and we swear she said "bubble" while at nursery yesterday. It's coming!

5 years

On Saturday Jon and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It is crazy to think that we have been married 5 years already. Wow, where does time go? We really wanted to celebrate our anniversary by taking a trip to Vegas - just the two of us. But we haven't been able to work it out yet. So on Saturday we went on a date while my brother Clint watched our kids. It was nice. We were able to go to dinner at Cafe Sabor, do a little shopping (alone!), and drive go carts and play miniature golf at the Celebration Center. We ended the night out by getting ice cream at Caspers. We did not get home until 11pm. Now that's something we haven't done in awhile! Good thing my brother now lives in Logan. Maybe we'll be able to go out at least once a month on a real date! That would be nice!

Just for kicks, here are a couple of mine and Jon's wedding pictures.

fire hydrant fun

Late this afternoon we discovered that the fire hydrant at the park across the street from us was being drained. After awhile the neighborhood kids started playing in the water and CJ thought it would be fun to join them. So we got him in his suit and joined the fun. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids playing in the water. Yes, even CD tried walking in it.

a day at the park

Today we went to play at a local park called "Ryan's Place Park". It is a really fun park for the kids with lots to climb on and play with. CD even enjoyed climbing the stairs as high as she could. Grandma Allen was with us (she's visiting for the week) and had fun watching the kids play. Yesterday CJ insisted that Grandma buy him a lunch box from Michaels, so today we packed the lunch boxes (CD got one too) with some snacks and had a picnic after playing in the park (CJ's idea).

CD climbs up the stairs

CJ climbs up a rope ladder

CJ and CD show off their lunch boxes

heads up - name change

Just so you know, I am now going to refer to C1 as CJ and C2 as CD. For those of you who know my kids, I'm sure you can figure out why I'm doing this. And for those of you who don't know my kids as well, those happen to be their initials.

who could resist such cuteness

Okay, so CJ and I made cookies today. It wasn't planned, but CJ insisted that he wanted to make cookies and then went ahead and started getting out ingredients for the cookies. He got out flour, shortening, brown sugar, and chocolate chips. Since he was accurate and helpful in getting ingredients, I gave in and we made peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. The real reason I gave into CJ's demands for baking cookies is shown below. Who could resist such cuteness!?