Kiddos

 

These were taken in May - I think. Sheesh. I need to do a better job keeping this blog up to date :) I think the pictures turned out really well. The kids were very cooperative - although, I did have to make a deal with Maggie, if she would wear the matching clothes for their group picture then she could wear a pretty dress for her individual picture. Wow! What an amazing kiddo. Eventhough I don't understand her love of dresses I must admit that it's very cute - and very effective for bribes! Maggie loves to have her picture taken. She is always coming up to me at home asking me to take her picture for some reason or another. She loves to see them on the screen saver on our computer.Hailey even did awesome for the pictures. I didn't do her individual ones this time. We will do them when she turns 1. It was a good practice session. She took her cues from the other two and was pretty happy and cooperative the whole time. Jackson has always been really easy for pictures. He loves to smile and be the center of attention. He is always excellent at following their direcetions too - I wish that would carry over all the time at home....but I definitely enjoy the cute pictures that come from all of them.

Hailey is walking!!

Hailey started walking a few weeks ago. I am finally getting around to posting a video!! She is already getting quite steady and prefers walking to crawling. However, she did take a tumble last week and now she has a nice black eye. It's pretty cute but sad :)

Becca

 

My niece Becca came back from WA to stay with us for three weeks. It was great to have her around to play with the kiddos. The time went by fairly fast. We went swimming, went to the zoo, watched the city fireworks, went to Orem for a birthday party, and headed to Yellowstone to meet up with her family. It was fun. Thanks, Becca!

and even more trip

 

It was fun to be back at the house I grew up in. It's in a pretty remote area on 80 acres so the kids got in all kinds of dirt and farm time. The picture of Jackson with a wet head? He had just pulled a dead frog out a bucket and then dunked his head in. Why? I have no idea. Maybe someone else with some boys could speculate? :)
The picture of Jackson and Hailey playing in the horse trough...... that was our pool as kids - although we used another bigger one - that is now my Mom's flower bed....
The birds belong to my brother's family. They are lovebirds that were hand fed so are now quite friendly. Although Hailey was not at all happy when one landed on my head. She screamed about that but was fine as soon as we moved the bird from my head.

and still more trip

 

This is what was going on the day we arrived at my parents to visit.... My sister and another brother with his family was there. They were making homemade rootbeer - that's my dad with his foot on a bucket of dry ice so the top won't pop off. Oh and my Dad with the gun..... they put dry ice in plastic bottles to watch them explode (something I learned about in my first year of college :) )- but the bottles were taking too long so Dad shot them - that sped things up a little! Maggie and Jackson worked on turning the ice cream maker. We were there for two weeks. Matt was with us for a few days but then flew back down to Florida before rejoining us for the drive home.

More trip

 

This is the one time I took pictures while visiting my Gma...... we went out to the beach while the tide was out and found a bunch of baby crabs. The kids loved catching them. However, Maggie was very unimpressed with getting her sandles muddy. She loved the crabs and would catch them and hold them but she hated that mud. My brother, Jason, went with us. I really should have taken more pictures on that visit.....grr. We also made a quick stop to visit one of my college roommates who has 5 kids of her own. It was great to see them but the visit was way too short. Next time we will have to plan in more time and obviously more pictures since I didn't take any there either!

Trip

 

Whew! We are finally back from our trip. We were gone for three weeks visiting family and friends. It was great to fit in so many visit to see people but we are glad to be back! We had A LOT of driving.
These pictures are from our first stop to visit one of my best friends who just happens to be married to my cousin. Very conveinent - I get to see her at family reunions too :)We went to a splash park with her little ones. We stayed with them for a couple of nights and then we headed off to visit my Grandma. Somehow I didn't take pictures while visiting with her - I don't know why - I am always taking pictures!!