Vacation Time

We had the best time in ST. GEORGE this last week. It was so nice to get away and just have some much needed R & R.
Our week went a little like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, swim, eat lunch, nap, go play (or back to the swimming pool), eat dinner, watch movies, play, go to sleep. Yep, every day was awesome!
We also added in a Rodeo. We drove to Enterprise on the 24th for the Rodeo. My kids loved it. 1st rodeo for them. It was packed, but still fun. We loved watching the bull riders.

(sorry-- scary picture-- I never did my hair or make-up.. so nice!)

Jayson, Rylee and Tayler even headed out to do the chicken round-up. Thankfully, they didn't get one because if you do, it's yours and quite frankly I don't want a chicken. But they still had fun chasing after them.

We headed to the park too. It was way too hot though. The kids played for a little while at least. I think the temp's were around 105-110 the whole time. I loved it.

Sunday afternoon we decided to do a little historical tour around St. George. First stop was the temple. It is so beautiful and very WHITE. I still haven't done a session there but next time I really hope too!

After the temple we went to Brigham Young's winter home and Jacob Hamblin's home (sorry no pictures). My kids enjoyed listening to the tours. There is a lot of great Church History there.

Most days we enjoyed ourselves in the pool. The water was refreshing and always felt so good on a hot day.

We also spent some time at the St. George municipal pool. It has a water slide and the kids loved it. Sean did lots of swimming lessons with the kids all week. Rylee officially does NOT need water wings now. She can swim like a fish and is so good. She jumped off the diving board into the 11 foot deep water and had NO fear. It was awesome. I am proud of all of them.

Sean and the kids also rode the 4 wheeler a lot. They kept taking turns and loved every minute. The condo was in the perfect place for 4 wheelin'.

I loved just relaxing without the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I could sit back and just enjoy my kids. I learned so much about them and Sean and I laughed so hard at all the things they did. It was so wonderful and couldn't have come at a better time! We all needed that trip.

On the way home we stopped at Cove Fort. Yep, more Church History. It was awesome. I was a little apprehensive about it, but I'm glad we stopped. It is amazing to see places that people lived and worked and fought for. I can't imagine all the work that went into everything they did every single day. Can you imagine feeding 65-70 people 3 meals a day? Man, just feeding my little family wears me out. We do enjoy so many luxuries in life.

On the trip, Jackson was being a stinker about eating so I pumped a bottle and handed it to him. This is now his new favorite thing to do. Lay on the bed and hold his own bottle and eat. Wait? He doesn't seem big enough to do that yet does he, but I guess he is. *sigh*

It is nice to be home, but now it's back to real life. Ah, I can't wait for our next excursion!

My birthday boy

Look at this handsome little boy that is 3 today!

It's crazy to think that just yesterday (at least it feels like that) he was this small and we all got to meet him for the first time. We fell in love right away and he made his way into our hearts.

I love having Jayson in our family. He sure keeps us on our toes at ALL times and is usually getting in trouble for something, but he can sure be a sweetheart too.

This last Sunday when I was getting him ready for Church I had church music playing throughout my house and the song "In the Hollow of His Hands" started to play as I was buttoning up his shirt. I looked at him and started to tear up as I said to him "Jayson you're going to be a missionary one day. Mommy loves you so much" It was one of those moments that make being a mom so great and that I realize what life is truly all about. He is definitely going to do great things in his life and I can't wait to witness them.

Happy Birthday little boy!

It's great to be 3.

6 months OLD

My little boy is 6 months old today!

I'm not sure I could be any more in love with this little boy. He is pure JOY!

He is starting to sit up on his own.
He is still rolling from one room to the next like a crazy man.
He scoots a little bit to get a toy.
He grabs EVERYTHING- hair, toys, food, glasses, bags, etc.
His 2 bottom teeth are ready to POP through any day.
He smiles non-stop.
He looks at you as if he understands what is going on.
His eyelashes are amazingly long and beautiful.
He has mismatched ears. It's so funny!
He can drink out of a cup and loves water.
He loves to sit in our pool and splash.
He loves to read stories with the big kids.
He is such a good natured little boy and rarely cries.

I couldn't be more grateful he is mine! He truly is a ray of sunshine.

I am so lucky.

Party Time

Last night we did kind of an impromptu birthday party. Sean's sister Shantelle is back from Malaysia and we wanted to see her and spend some time with her so we decided to have everyone come for dinner and that evolved into a little birthday party for my almost 3 year old BOY (his birthday is on Thursday this week). I can't believe it! He is such a fun little dude. Sean went to a Pizza making class last month so he made everyone pizza again. He has some mad skills. He keeps getting better and better and learned so much at his class. He made a bbq chicken pizza that was so AWESOME! I made the Olive Garden salad and we called it dinner. It think it turned out pretty good.

Here's some pictures from the day/night.

Jayson helping me with his cake-- I know all he really wanted to do was lick the bowl :)

cool kid
The finished product. Not super good, but my first attempt. It made Jayson's day and that is all that mattered!

getting ready to blow out the candles

Present time

Thank you everyone for the sweet presents. We are saving some for Thursday too when we celebrate with our little family. It was a great night and we appreciate everyone for coming. Thanks for helping us celebrate Jayson's birthday.

Last week on Thursday, Shantelle had a birthday party for Emerson at the Rec center in Bountiful. We loved the pool and had so much fun. The kids had lunch, cake and ice cream first and then went swimming for hours. I loved that pool. I love that you can go inside or outside to play.

Emerson, the birthday girl

All the cousins together again

Now we are spending the week getting ready for our trip to St. George. I can't wait to have a whole week with just my little fam and do nothing but swim and veg. It will be so nice.

San Juan Islands

This past weekend was our first Girls Weekend and I was able to spend it with these fabulous people. We giggled a lot and have TONS of inside jokes now. Ahh, it was so much fun. Everyone was able to be there except for my oldest sister, Jen. We sure missed her!
My mom, Jackson and I boarded our plane Thursday morning to Seattle. It was my first time in Seattle so I was very excited to finally get to go. It was beautiful. We were the last to arrive since Julie and Katie flew in an hour and a half earlier from Denver and Marcela and Ashley live there, so when we arrived we were ready to set sail. We rented a 12 passenger van to travel in and it was awesome. Ashley was our fearless driver and she did such a good job. We drove about 2 1/2 hours to catch the ferry to Friday Harbor. The drive was great and we laughed and joked the whole time. We waited for about an hour to catch the ferry so we went to the little waiting area to get some food. The ferry ride was so much fun. I am AMAZED at how stinkin' big those things are. Amazing that people just drive right on. Brilliantly engineered. The weather in Seattle was HOT. I loved it. We stood out on the deck of the ferry as we crossed. I was hoping to spot a whale, but no such luck. When we arrived in Friday Harbor we went to the vacation house we rented for the weekend. It was a great place and right in the middle of the Lavender fields, but since it had been so warm in Seattle for a few days and was closed up it was SWELTERING when we arrived. It was 101 degrees inside when we got there and they don't have air conditioners since they never really need it. Whoa, too dang hot for me. Julie was the only one not phased with it. I guess the 130 she experienced in Kuwait made it bearable for her. We quickly opened every window and got all the fans going. It never really cooled down until about 5 the next morning. Poor little Jackson was pretty congested when we were there and had a fever so we didn't sleep much. He was such an amazing traveler though. Except for the nights, he was awesome. I was so happy to have my little babe with me. We also got to meet Camila for the first time (Ryan and Marcela's) little girl. She was born exactly 2 weeks after Jackson. She is so dang cute and sweet and was such a great baby too. It was fun to meet her.

Here is cute Aunt Ashley with Jackson and Camila.

The first day we headed out exploring. It was fun. We first went to state park 'Lime Kilm' to watch for whales. It was beautiful. I don't have all the pictures from our trip so I will have to get some others from everyone and post them later. This is Mt. Rainier that we saw from the airplane. It was such an amazingly clear day.

This was on the Ferry ride over to Friday Harbor (Ashley, Katie and Julie)

Mom, me, Jackson, Marcela and Camila (nice placement of Jackson's foot right?) Exploring the different places on the island. Saturday we went to all the shops and ate ice cream. So yummy!

Julie's birthday also happened to fall on the last day we were there, so we had a little impromptu party the night before. Instead of a cake we roasted Smore's and had party hats. I hope she knows how much we love her. Sorry Julie I don't have a picture of you and me just mom and me celebrating YOU. It was sad to see it come to an end. I really enjoyed getting to know these wonderful people that much more. I am looking forward to our next one. Thank you everyone for making it so great. Our trip home was a little more interesting. Returning the van was a joke (I'll leave it at that :) and our flight was delayed 2 1/2 hours.. blah! But we made it home safely, just a little later than we would have liked. A huge thank you to Ashley for taking care of all the food and arrangements. You were fabulous.

Quick recap & update

WHOA.. time really does fly! Here is a quick recap of things we've done in pictures.

Tayler, Rylee and Jayson decided to make pig faces. I thought they were so cute. Jayson's barely fit his face.. hee hee! Tayler is definitely the arts and crafts director for the summer. I love it and so do the kids.
2 weeks ago we went to the zoo with my great friend Anna and her adorable kids. We had a great time. Thanks for the invite Anna. You are wonderful.

Jackson just chilled in his car seat. Can you believe he is 5 1/2 months already. He is rolling like a champ and sucks on his fingers non-stop. He is always smiling and we think he is pretty great.

We even saw the new baby elephant "Suri." She was pretty cute.

Jayson was so excited to see the giraffes. They actually went inside for a minute to eat so we got to see them up close and personal. (we thought of you Alyssa :) Jayson kept plugging his nose. Apparently he wasn't a fan of the smell.

Mikayla with the girls. She has been AMAZING these last few weeks. We have really enjoyed her staying with us. I'm sure at times she has been bored to tears, but we are really going to miss her. She is so easy going and so much fun to be around. We love you Mik!

On Saturday, July 3rd, we took the kids to the Kaysville Parade. It was my kids' first parade (yes, their dad has kept them from parades). Anna and Jeff saved us a place and we had a great time.

The kids loved getting candy and then at the end getting soaked by the fire trucks. Sean stayed home and played with the ditch witch all day and trenched the whole back yard. 7 hours of hot, dusty work. He is amazing and was a bit sore that night- to say the least. Thanks babe. We missed you.

Tayler lost her 8th tooth over the weekend. It actually wasn't super loose but she wanted to look like a rabbit and loose both her side teeth so she let Sean pull it out. She is getting so brave and when she wants it out, it comes out. The tooth fairy is going broke at the rate she is loosing teeth. Love that toothless grin.

Tomorrow starts our "girls weekend." All of my sister-in-laws, sisters, and mom (minus Jen :( are coming. We are heading to the San Juan Islands in Seattle. Can't wait! I'll have lots of pictures when I return I'm sure. Jackson is tagging along with me too. My kids love when mom goes because dad knows how to PLAY PLAY PLAY and they know they don't have to clean up until right before Mom comes home.

Loves!