Utah State Fair 2009

Whoa! Time has surely gotten away from me!! I was just thinking about blogging tonight and saw that I already had a draft saved of our trip to the State Fair. So I decided I would just hurry and get this up...then maybe I will keep posting stuff. Right...I won't get my hopes up! So we went to the fair back in early September. We usually go on one of the first days, but this year we are lucky we even made it! We went on the last weekend, friday night to be exact. We grabbed some dinner and went to Josh's work at ate there. The weather was a bit threatening on the way there. Crazy clouds, dark clouds, strong winds...

Here I am blowing in the wind!

But by the time we actually got there it had all blown over and we had a good time! Enjoy some of my favorite pics!

Cotton Candy is a MUST! We go to the same stand every year! :)

And then we must always measure how many hands tall we are! We usually do this after we do the helping hands on the farm thing, but this year we got there too late and they were closed. But we got the pics we wanted! :)

Bubbas Turn 1!!

I cannot believe how far behind I have gotten! So let us rewind back to SEPTEMBER 27!! My baby boys turned ONE! I can't believe it! It's so exciting for them to grow and learn new things, but it's also so sad that they are growing so fast!! So here are some pics from the fun day we had! We gave them Mater and Lightning McQueen cars! They weren't too thrilled about them then, but over the last month+ they have come to like them! They only know one direction so far, which is reverse. Unless it's Jonathan, he uses it as a walker and goes forward! :)

Here are all the goodies I made for the big party!!

I think they were a little overwhelmed with all the presents! I love these hats my mom got them...Jonathan on the other hand isn't so sure!

Cake time! They hated the party hats I made them until they had cake right in front of them! I'm glad they left them of for a few pictures!

Jonathan after digging into his cake! He kept himself quite clean!

Julian went to town though, smearing it all over his head!

We are so grateful for all our friends and family that came to share the fun with us! It totally wore the boys out! Here they are all ready for bed!

11 MONTHS!

I meant to do this before we went out of town, but I was busy getting ready to head out of town!

So better late than never, the boys are 11 months old...and in just a few weeks they will be a year old already! I can't believe it!! I tried to pose them for some pictures before bed, but they wouldn't have it. You'll see. So here are some pics I did get that day! Here they are enjoying some yummy banana cookies!!

After their bath they had some fun playing with their toys!!

And then the meltdown began!! I couldn't keep them both in the same picture! They were all over the place. And they obviously weren't very happy with me!

Poor bubbas!!

They are getting so so big!! Here are some recent accomplishments:

• They finally are crawling! It has been quite a process. They both started in reverse, for quite awhile, pushing themselves backwards all over the place.
  
• Their crawling style differs between the 2 of them! Julian is more of an army crawler, while Jonathan in more of an up on his hands and knees crawler!
• Julian finally learned how to put himself into a sitting position from laying or crawling. He was pretty proud of himself and I'm sure he enjoys sitting up instead of laying on his back on the floor!
• They are both pulling themselves up on everything!! (I had to finally lower their crib mattresses just the other day...it was sad, and now they are always standing in there).
• Jonathan is clapping and kind of waving.
• Julian is clapping, playing peekaboo, blowing kisses, and waving!

There you have it! My sweet boys are growing up!! And they are so much fun! They are starting to interact even more! Jonathan is still quite a bully. The other day he pushed Julian over and when I heard the screaming I ran over to see what was going on. Jonathan was nearly on him, smacking his face, pulling his hair, and grinning. I'm sure it was a fight over a toy or something!! :/ I'm sure it's a glimpse of what is to come!

Vegas!

Last weekend [8/28-8/31] Josh and I escaped to Las Vegas, for 4 whole days with no kids! My mom came down and stayed with the boys and the girls were here off and on [they went over night with Josh's mom one of the nights]. I missed the kids so much, but had a good break and lots of fun!

We didn't arrive until Friday evening, and I think the temp at 7pm was about 107. Geez. Josh was there doing some work with a friend so we went straight to his house and then we headed over to our hotel to check in and get some dinner!!

We stayed at the Suncoast, it's about 15-20 minutes away from the strip. It's pretty nice and there is some nice shopping close by. We ate at an Italian restaurant in the hotel that night, called Salvatore's. It was delicious! I had the most yummy Chicken Alfredo and Josh had Veal Chop Milanese. He had a bite of my alfredo and noticed there was nutmeg in it. I thought that was crazy that he could pick that out, but he googled it and sure enough, "good" italian places put nutmeg in their alfredo! He's becoming quite the food connoisseur.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast at a cafe in the hotel. They had the cheapest most delicious peach smoothies!! Only $2. Yum! I miss them! :) Then I dropped Josh off to work for the day and I headed down to the outlets. It was 111 that day. So. Stinking. HOT! I walked around for close to 4 hours. I couldn't believe I killed that much time!! Then I went to a newer outdoor mall and walked around a little more and then to another outlet mall (indoor this time) and killed a little more time!! I picked Josh up and we headed back downtown to Fry's where we picked up a new sd card for my camera. 8gb for $17 plus a $5 mail in rebate. We also got a cheap webcam so we could video chat with family, only to get home and see it has no mic on it! :( Bummer! We were going to try the mexican place in our hotel, but it was closed when we got back and ended up at TGIFridays.

Sunday we had breakfast at the cafe again and enjoyed another peach smoothie! Josh worked with his friend again! I didn't do anything too exciting! Mostly drove around. We went over to Redrock that night to check it out since it wasn't too far from where we were. They had a ton of restaurants there, but they all seemed pretty pricey. We didn't want to be disappointed, so Josh googled them all and read reviews on his phone. Here is the cool couch we spent awhile on up near the conference center in red rock. He's such a poser!!

We ended up eating at LBS. Nothing like a $14 hamburger. It was quite good, though!! I went with a turkey burger! It was delicious!! Here we are all stuffed after pigging out!

On Monday we checked out of our hotel and grabbed a dry nasty bagel on our way out! I had been begging Josh to go down to the strip with me and take some pics with the las vegas sign. I had never seen it before. Then we were flipping through channels on the tv and there was a channel that was continuously displaying the sign. So we were being silly taking pictures in front of the tv in our room!

When it's cropped right it's almost believeable, right? haha Like I said, silly!!

Nothing like starting the day off with a monster redbull. It actually took him half the day to finish. No wonder he felt sick!!

Here was what we saw out our window. Some new condos. Quite fancy condos. Our friend told us they were $2.2 million for 2400 sq ft. We looked them up when we got home and the big top floor suite is $20 million! No wonder it's available! Who can afford that!?

Josh had to work with his friend a little more before we headed home. I dropped him off and ran around town a little more! Then I got Josh and we headed home. We stopped by In n Out on our way out of town. Mmmm. It was good! I even ate a tomato on my burger and LIKED IT! That's a big deal!! Wonder why they aren't grossing me out like they have my whole life!!

If you are still reading this, I am impressed!! Pretty much wrote it all for myself, since it's pretty much my journal! It was a great trip, good time together! I missed the kids so much and it was great to get home and be with them!

[KINDERGARTEN]

Last Thursday my little Kaitlyn started Kindergarten. I can't believe it! She was so so excited for the first day and couldn't wait! Especially since Jenica got to start an entire week before her. I had to go with her for the first 30 minutes and we did a craft, had story time (which by the way totally made me cry), and then we had to leave during snack time. She had a great day! Enjoy some pics of my little poser!!

2nd GRADE

Today Jenica started the 2nd grade!! I cannot believe! I know that 2nd grade isn't all that old, but it is for me!! And next week Kaitlyn starts Kindergarten!! That will give me a few hours each day of just me and the boys! Hooray!!

So I just uploaded all these pics and they came up in reverse order and I don't feel like dragging them into the right order, so we will just go backwards!! :)

Jeni is in Spanish Immersion this year (until 6th grade...yikes). She is so excited about it and her teacher seems really nice! Here they are together this morning!And here is the traditional (thanks again, Angie, for the idea) first day of school picture! Followed by all of her previous first day pics, so you can see how much she has grown and changed since preschool! :) Look how grown up this girls

Lesson Learned!

A few days ago we were driving in the car. The girls were goofing around and I had the radio playing in the background. Zoned out not even paying attention to what was on. I guess I assumed that they weren't listening as well.

When we got home, little Kaitlyn starts singing, "hush girl, shut your lips, do the Helen Keller, and talk with your hips". Uh oh! I was shocked! I was speechless! I couldn't believe that whatever music was quietly playing in the car was now coming out of her mouth!

So I explained to her that it wasn't a very good thing to be singing and I didn't want to hear her singing it again. She keeps asking why, and I keep telling her. And then she says "Well, if you don't want me to sing it then why do you listen to it?"

Lesson learned! She was totally right. So lately I have tried to be more cautious about what I listen to! I have a cd in the car of this years primary songs that the girls love listening to!

At home I have been listening to Pandora on the computer, I love it. But it's totally random what songs you are going to get. I thought it was great that you can block the explicit songs, but that doesn't mean it filters out topics. So tonight I started looking for some lds artists on there and what do you know...they have a bunch on there. I set up several "stations" based off different artists that I like and it finds other music similar to those! I love the spirit that this music brings into my home! Pandora is awesome...you must check it out!! :) Just wish I could have it in the car with me!!

Lots and Lots of updates!

So I believe I am now caught up! My recent posts are way out of order, but they are all up now. Lots of pictures and videos for our recent happenings!!

I can't believe the summer is almost over. I can't believe Jenica will be in school mid next week, and then Kaitlyn the week after that!!

Jeni is so excited to be starting and meet her new teacher!! Yesterday we found out who their teachers are. Kaitlyns kindergarten teacher is the same one that Jeni had! I really liked her, so we are really excited! Bring on a new school year!

Now I need to get some real stuff done! Time to bring up all the girls old clothes and get them all listed on KSL! Wish me luck, and please don't forget to browse down and see all our fun!!

Girls Night

It's always nice to go our every once in a while with a good friend, with no kids! Last friday Tamara and I got to go have some fun!! I had a coupon for Kohls and I wanted to stop there real quick to see if there was any good deals. Well, my plan of a quick stop wasn't so quick. Go figure. Some of my favorite deals of the night were some pajamas for the girls that I got for $4-5 each, a pair of ascics tennis shoes for Jeni (reg $45) that I got for $7.50, and a two pack of superhero pj's for the boys that was only $4. I got some other stuff too!!

The coupon I had was for 15% off or 20% off if you spent $100. Since neither of us wanted to spend that much we put it on the same transaction and saved more! I had to take a pic of the receipt because it makes me so happy to see how much we saved! :)

The plan was to go get dessert, but we ended up at training table eating a huge plate of cheese fries instead!! Yummy Stuff!

Thanks so much for the last minute fun Tamara!! :)