Let the Birthday Celebration begin!

Since my birthday should be considered a national holiday, I took work off Monday and Tuesday (my birthday actually on Tuesday). We took the kids up to the state fair in SLC. There is so much to do! Jayden got to ride on the horse named Thunder and we got to walk thru and see sheep, goats and cows. Collin thought they were very cool, and after petting one of them came out with a handful of hair!
We got to take the kids for an adventure on the farm to learn about earning money. They got to feed a cow, pick apples from a tree, plant seeds, drive hay to the sheep, and take all of our food to the market to sell. Then they got a "dollar" for all their hard work and got to pick out a treat to "buy." It was fun for kids of all ages! By the way Jeff held up the kids in the college faces, and we just barely noticed that they are switched in the boy and girl heads. I blame Jeff :)
While walking around we saw a transformer, which scared Jayden (bottom right hand picture). We got to go on some fun rides and spend lots of money! Jeff bought me a churro that costed $4! I swear that they used to cost a $1.50...
Overall we had such a fun day...Happy Birthday to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family Time

So I have been a blogging slacker, but I am trying to catch up. These pictures are of a few fun things we have done lately. Jeff and I took Jayden and Collin to the Dinasour Museum at Thanksgiving Point. Every Tuesday in August is $2 Tuesdays. Jayden wasn't quite sure what to think about the giant bones she was seeing. They have a fun place with sand and water, with dinasours and trees that you can make your dino a home. We had fun walking around and seeing everything. We even saw a pair of sunglasses in one of the exhibits, and had no idea sunglasses were around that long ago :)
One of my good friends Deb and I took Jayden and Collin up to This is the Place Monument up in SLC. Macys was sponsoring the shirts and we thought it would be fun to go support it! She got to ride on a horse, water corn, play in a train and a little village, and take a big and small train ride. They also have houses you can go in and do activities. We had a blast. Afterwards we all got treats, and you can see where most of Jayden's treat ended up!

Fish Lake

So I am a little slow about getting this blogged, but here it is! Last weekend we went to Fish Lake with Jeff's side of the family. Jeff's parents rent an amazing cabin that we can all stay in together! Fish Lake is a georgeous place, if you haven't ever been there, I reccomend it! We had such a fun time taking the kids out on the boat to catch perch. They catch fast and they are fun for the kids. In one of the pictures on the boat you can see Jayden holding a worm. Shortly after that she didn't want it close to her. She is so funny. After a full day of fishing, she fell asleep on the boat, it was so cute!
One of the days we were there, Melissa and I decided to color while the guys were out fishing, and we decided to make it into a little contest, one for our brother-in-law Josh to be the judge. They were arrriving later that day. So we colored our little hearts out, and of course, we each thought ours was the best. Josh arrived and we layed out all of the pictures. Melissa entered 3 pictures, I entered 2, Jeff entered 1 and my father-in-law entered 1, but put his initials on the page so he was disqualified. The judging began, and 1st place was my Strawberry Shortcake picture! I was so thrilled, because Melissa is so competative. 2nd place-my pony picutre! Jeff hoisted me in the air as I went prancing around, so proud! 3rd place was her Strawberry Shortcake picture. The look of devestation on her face was the best moment of my life (ok, not really, but you have to understand how competitive she truly is--the truth has come out). As I was cheering I glanced over, and there she was, with my picture in hand, just staring at it. Then she called Josh over to explain why my picture was so much better. To make circumstances even better, knowing how great this was that I won, Jeff held an awards ceremony. For my 1st place picture I recieved a portable DVD player (owned by me), my 2nd place picture I recieved a digital camera (owned by me), and Melissa's 3rd place she recieved a bag of cheetos. I offered her coloring lessons, if she was interested. Melissa, you know I love ya!
Karen was so sweet and loved to hang out at the cabin with the babies. One of the days we rented a "party boat", which was so great! It had a carpeted deck, and tons of space for the kids to play on deck. It was fun because the entire family was able to go out at once, including the babies!
Overall, Fish Lake was so much fun and so memorable! Thanks Boyd and Karen!

Trip to Bear Lake

I started my vacation for 10 days last Friday, and Jeff had to work all weekend, so I decided to pack up the kids and go up to Bear Lake with the kids and my family. My aunt and uncle's family have a cabin up there. It was about a 3 hour drive. Am I slightly crazy to take the kids alone? I say yes, but the kids were great on the drive up! (We will talk about the drive back later :) )Collin slept about 2 hours, and Jayden slept over an hour. That evening we relaxed and hung out with the cousins at the cabin. Jayden was in seventh heaven being with her cousins. They watched a movie that evening, and she then decided to sleep in a twin bed with me rather than with all of her cousins. Fun! I had Collin in his car seat next to me. He had been awake for a long period of time that evening so I assumed that he would sleep so well! Boy was I wrong! He woke up at 12, 3, 4:30 and 6:30. At 4:30 I decided he would sleep a little longer laying next to me, so all 3 of us were sleeping in a twin bed! Good thing we are all small! The next morning we got ready and went down to the lake. It is such a beautiful aqua color, the pictures don't do justice! Jayden went out in the water, and something (probably seaweed) touched her foot, and she freaked out thinking it was a dolphin. I had to explain that there aren't dolphins in the lake, so she decided it was a fish. My cousin went out into the water with a plastic bat and pretended to "kill the fish" so she wouldn't be scared, but that didn't work. It was very entertaining to watch, and defiantly worth it! She enjoyed sitting on a tube being pulled around in the water. We took her on a tube ride pulled by the boat. It is a tube with 3 places to sit, so she was on my lap in the middle, with my brother and his girlfriend on the sides of us. She loved it. After her ride my brother and I decided we wanted a more adventurous ride. Our first ride we skidded outside the wake behind the boat, and I got dumped off. It was so fun! We decided to go on one more ride, and wow, it should go in the record books. We again were outside the wake and we hit a huge swell that popped us up clear in the air. My family in the boat said they could see the bottom of the tube, and I was above that flying high in the air. They said I was about 8 feet in the air before I hit the water! It was quite the adventure! Oh the best part? My brother stayed on both times! What a punk! We stayed at the lake for close to 5 hours, Collin also did great hanging out in the shade.
That evening we went into town and got delicious shakes. That night we had a bigger bed, and Collin only woke up at 4 and 6:30. We had another great breakfast, and packed up and came home to my cute husband! The first hour of the ride home the kids were whinny and tired, but they both fell asleep until we were a few minutes from home, so it worked out great! We missed Jeff so much! We were so excited to get home to him, and missed him on our trip, but defiantly enjoyed it!

Tonight we decided to get out of the house and go do something fun. We came up with the idea of going up to Bridal Veil Falls. It was absolutely beautiful! We picked up KFC, had a picnic and went up to play in the water. Jayden cracks me up. The water was ice cold, but she wanted nothing more than to play in it forever! Jeff went out and waded in the water with her, and played around in the falls. She kept refering to it as Fish Lake (because she knows we are going there soon). I highly recommend taking the time to go up there with your families, and enjoy the summer weather!

Happy Fourth of July!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO EVERYONE! I hope that you all had a fun, happy and safe holiday! We had such a fun day! It all began at 8 am, and ended at 10:45 pm! My kids are such little troopers! We went to the parade down in Provo, which was a blast. Just Jayden and I went with my mom, grandma aunt and uncle. Collin and Jeff stayed back because of the heat, yea... (Jeff doesn't love parades). Jayden was pretending to play the musical instruments with the bands that came thru. After that we went and walked around the boothes at the Freedom Festival for a little while. Around 1 pm we met up with Jeff and Collin and went out to Hobble Creek canyon with the Nuttall family for a barbeque. My mother in law (the same favorite one), and my sister in law Janelle (who just got back from Switzerland this week) decided to go walk around the boothes a little more. Jayden took a few minute nap on the way there. It was so much fun! They had blow up slides that Jayden was able to play on, and she went "fishing" and got a whistle (yeah! a whistle! my favorite!). We left and went up and had a barbeque and did
fireworks works with my family. I have 2 brothers that can't just do fireworks, they have to make them bigger and more explosive. It was so fun to watch. We all had boxes of poppers, and it was fun to scare each other with them!
Today we are simply recovering from all the fun :)

We LOVE Summer!

So I wanted to get Jayden one of those sprinkler balls, but realized that I have no where to store it. My friend told me about a sprinkler that she used to play with as a kid, and I went to Lowes and got this for $3.oo! Even better :)