Memorial Day

My oldest sister Denise has three horses. The last time we went to see them as a family was when my sister Jodi was pregnant with her oldest son. That was thirteen years ago. We were long overdue for a trip out to Boulder City to see the horses, so Denise decided to take all of us out there with our kids for Memorial Day.

This is Nelson with Denise's husband Buck. (Yes, my kids have an Uncle Buck. We were so excited about that when Rebecca was born.) The riders are Abbey, Tyler, Jodi, and Hailey. Nelson used to live at Willie Nelson's ranch. Nelson's brother's name was Willie. Go figure.

This is Wyatt with my brother Bret and his daughter Hannah. Wyatt is the son of Denise's other horse Sugar. Sugar's not great with kids, so she wasn't brought out to ride, but we visited her later with some apples. Hannah is two, and she started off riding with Bret. She wasn't happy with him on the horse with her, so she made him get off and rode all by herself.

Even the babies took a turn. I know these all look like the same baby, but the top pictures are William and the bottom are Spencer. William was so happy we was kind of singing. You can see it in the top left picture.

Wyatt started getting tired and quit walking so my brother had to start leading him around the corral again. Buck, who happens to work in the same office as Kevin, made me get a picture of Kevin being led around so that Buck could pass it around the office for everyone to laugh at.

Here are just a few other pictures of Wyatt with Rebecca, Whitney, and Abbey. I was so happy that Rebecca wanted to have a ride. She was especially fond of Wyatt because she loves to watch Super Why.

Thanks for taking us to see the horses, Denise. We need to visit them more often.

Success!

• William has successfully learned how to go down the stairs.
  
  

When he first started crawling, he immediately started going up the stairs, so I immediately went out and bought a baby gate. I remembered that we never had a gate for Rebecca. She learned to go down stairs at my mom's house while we were waiting to move into our house. My mom has a million stairs, so she had to learn to go down the stairs there.

I decided that I would rather teach him how to go down stairs than have to climb over a baby gate all day long going up and down the stairs. So I took the gate back, and I'd been worried about William falling down the stairs ever since. I still have to watch him go down to make sure he doesn't turn around and dive head first, but now I'm not as worried about him.

• Rebecca has successfully stuck with her new dance class.

A few months ago I signed Rebecca up for a gymnastics class at the community center her cousins go to. She went to two classes and had a great time. Then at her next class she started screaming at her teacher until her teacher finally made her leave the class. She wouldn't even go inside the gym the next time I tried taking her. I loved taking her to her gymnastics class because it gave me a set errand that got me out of the house every week, so I was quite disappointed when she didn't want to go anymore.

Two months ago she asked me if she could go to dance, and I was a little worried, but I really wanted her to have a fun class to go to. I signed her up with Miss Stephanie where Emilee takes Madisen. We started at the beginning of this month, and I didn't post about it because I didn't know if she would want to keep going. She has gone to three classes, and she really likes Miss Stephanie. When I ask her if she wants to keep going to dance, she says, "Yes!" When I would ask her if she wanted to go to gymnastics, she would say, "I don't want to go to gymnastics." Maybe it was the teacher. Who knows?

Emilee - thanks for letting us borrow Madisen's dance shoes and clothes while we figured out if Rebecca would stick with this.

• Kevin has successfully finished his last and most demanding film class for his film degree.

Toward the middle of this past semester he said to me, "I think I'm going to have to retake my portfolio class because I'm not going to be able to finish everything I need for my portfolio." I told him that I would try to leave him alone and give him more time to work on his projects. He was able to throw some things together, and he just finished the class with a B. I'm so happy for him.

I'm feeling pretty good about all of the success going on in our house.

Whirlwind Trip to Disneyland

We just got a notice in the mail informing us that our Disneyland season passes expire the first week of June. We had been four times in one year, including one five day trip, so we thought we had had a pretty good year. Then our friends Brock and Cari called to let us know they were taking a trip down. We decided to follow them down and give our passes one last swipe. We drove down Thursday afternoon, went to Disneyland all day Friday, and came home Saturday morning. It was a super quick trip, but we had a blast. Here are some highlights.

We were among the first to get into the park, and we went straight to this ride. We probably waited in the Dumbo line for five minutes - we usually wait about 45 minutes for it. Kevin had to run back to hotel room, so Brock was nice enough to take Rebecca so that I could take William. Kevin got back just in time to get some pictures of us. I hope Brock doesn't mind being posted on my blog. (If you're reading this Cari, maybe just don't tell him that I put his picture up.) This is Rebecca's favorite ride, although she claims Small World is her favorite. She loves that she gets to drive whenever we go on it. This was William's first time on it, and he wasn't as thrilled about it as his sister is. He had his little hands gripped on my arms. We had to stay in the middle position the whole time because he would start to flip out whenever I tried to move the Dumbo up or down.

Since this was our fifth time here in the past year, and we've done almost everything there is to do at Disneyland, we decided to see some of the extras. This included meeting some more characters. Pluto was on Main Street right as we came in, so we stood in line to see him right before heading to Dumbo. Cari and I waited in line with the kids to see Tigger and Pooh while Kevin and Brock went on Splash Mountain. It was 101 degrees outside the day we went, which I believe was even hotter than it was in Las Vegas, so Splash Mountain was a must. We saw Belle on our way out of Disneyland as we were heading to California Adventure. Rebecca was dead asleep in the stroller when we saw her. We just had to wake her up because Belle is her absolute favorite. She hugged her for about five minutes straight.

Believe it or not, this was the first time we took Rebecca on the carousel. She loved it. When she saw the Ariel carousel in California Adventure, and she had to go on that one too.

We got stuck on Pirates of the Caribbean for about 30 minutes. William was already a little bit fussy when we got in the boat, so when the ride stopped, I thought, "Great. I hope this gets going soon before my kid starts screaming his head off." After a few minutes of quiet, I looked over to see him like this. He was out. Brock and Cari's cute little girl Bostyn also fell asleep on Cari.

We got back to the Hotel room pretty late, and Kevin and I stayed up even later to watch Training Day on Bravo. William got up at 6:30 am, and neither one of us was ready to get up with him, so Kevin put him on the floor to crawl around a bit. He destroyed the hotel room as we slept. Here he is pulling all of his wipes out of the container. Aren't we great parents?

I'm so glad we got to go one more time with our passes. Thanks for inviting us, Brock and Cari. Hopefully next time I'll get to see the parade!

Happy Birthday, William

One year ago today, my baby boy was born. I want to record some of my favorite things about him on his first birthday.

-If he has a binky, or bottle, or sippy cup, and my face is right next to his, he'll keep trying to stick what he has in my mouth until I take it.

-He says "uh-oh", "uh-uh", and "no no", you know, all of the positive things that his mom says to her kids all day long.

-He'll try to crawl fast when he gets excited, but his legs go faster than his arms, and he face plants.

-He'll go to other people and be happy, until he sees mom - then he only wants her. (This happens to be my favorite thing about him right now, though it probably won't last much longer.)

-He loves food.

-He's a cuddler. (Rebecca never was.)

-He's sensitive. He even cries when his sister is getting scolded.

-He thinks Rebecca is the cat's pajamas.

-He has really fat feet, and he crosses them when he is in his high chair.

-Lately, his tongue is constantly sticking out.

I love my boy. I can't believe he is one already. Happy Birthday, William!

1st Birthday Party for Spencer and William

My sister Jodi's son Spencer turned one on April 27, just two and a half weeks before William turned one, so we decided to throw them a combined 1st birthday party.

We had it at my sister's house, and as you can see we had a trampoline AND a jumping castle for the kids. Kevin's mom and dad both took a turn on the trampoline. We got the jumping castle from my next door neighbors the Carrolls. That's right - they own it. How awesome is that! They rented it to us for CHEAP! If you are interested in using it for a party at your house, let me know, and I will get you their information.

William LOVED his personal birthday cake.

He was very clean and cautious when he started out.

He kept eating long after Spencer was finished, and this is how he ended up after he got the hang of it.

William and Spencer both got some great presents, including some fun new toys. Now William can stop playing with his sister's doll house and tea set. The poor kid needed some boy toys.

This is Rebecca at the end of the party. She's playing with the gift that Kevin's mom got for her (so that she wouldn't feel left out). It has nothing to do with what happened at the party, but I think it is just a cute video of her.

Congratulations, Laura and Michael

This past Saturday, Kevin's sister Laura was sealed to her husband Michael in the St. George Temple. It was such a sweet ceremony. The room they were sealed in is this cool room upstairs right next to the Celestial room.

I hadn't seen Kevin's cousin Brittany in a couple of years, so it was so nice to see her there.

This is my favorite picture of all the pictures I took that day. Everyone got their serious pictures, and for some reason it was taking me forever to get a picture of them on the stairs. When I finally snapped my picture, Michael thought everyone was done taking pictures, and he made this cute pose. I think I'm the only one who got this shot.

After we took some pictures, we had lunch at the park down the street from the temple.

Kevin's mom and sisters made these cute lunch baskets for everyone to enjoy. It is a styrofoam tortilla warmer with cute plaid material wrapped around it. Inside was a chicken croissant sandwich, a cup of fruit, a wrapped napkin, utensils, and chocolates, and a frozen Capri Sun to keep each basket refrigerated. It was the cutest lunch box I've ever seen.

There was also an afternoon lunch in Las Vegas for those who couldn't make it to St. George.

My sister-in-law Emily, the queen of all things domestic, made these sweet tuxedo chocolate dipped strawberries.

It was even warm enough outside for Rebecca to enjoy the pool for the first time this year.

We're so happy for Michael and Laura. Now they can start having some babies!

A Girl And Her Cousin

When Rebecca was four months old, my brother Travis called to ask if he could drop two of his kids off at our house while he and his wife went to find out if they were having a boy or a girl. When I asked them what they wanted to have, they said they would like a boy so that he could share a room with their youngest son Gage. I wanted them to have a girl (to play with my little girl, of course). When they got back they announced that Gage would have a little playmate soon. I was disappointed.

Since Ryder (Travis and Wendy's baby boy) turned two, he has just loved Rebecca.

Whenever we have family get-togethers, these two are inseparable.

This picture is from when they first really started playing together. This was taken last summer when William was a couple months old.

Here they are watching a movie together during our trip to Mexico last November. It was during this trip that Ryder really learned how to push Rebecca's buttons. Just like me, she can't stand being teased. Ryder figured this out, and they fought the whole time. She kept saying, "No, this is mine," and he would immediately go up and take whatever it was she was claiming. Of course she would then start screaming. It was pretty entertaining.

When we were getting ready to leave my brother's house last Sunday, we found these two outside doing this. They always find fun things to do together.

It didn't really matter that Ryder was born a boy - he and Rebecca still enjoy playing together. I hope they never grow out of loving each other.

Twilight Teaser

I apologize for all of the Twilight posts - I will try to make this my last one until the movie comes out in December. Heather D. found this trailer. I don't know where the heck she found it. I've been looking for it almost every day for a while now. Now that you all know what a psycho I am about the upcoming movie, I will let you enjoy the following trailer.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.fullscreen&videoid=33429578

Fire Engine Fun

Last night we went over to my brother's house to celebrate my nieces' birthdays which are just a few days apart. We went out into the front yard to find an older looking fire engine with a crane attached to it.
The owner of this cool truck bought it on Ebay, and he was letting the neighborhood kids have a ride on the crane. I guess you can buy just about anything on Ebay.

My brother took Rebecca and a few of my other nieces and nephews. You can't see the other little kids because of the drape around the crane car. (Is that what you would call this?)

Here is a video of the crane coming down. My brother put Rebecca down and picked up his son Ryder. Sorry about the glare of the sun.

I handed William to my mom with my half-eaten chocolate chip cookie so that I could get some pictures of the truck and the kids.

When I got back to him, he had happily finished my cookie for me.