Happy Birthday Eli!

5 years old! On Saturday we had Eli a birthday party and invited his friends. He wanted an army themed party this year.

We thought that it would be fun to have a water party where they could play capture the flag with water guns and have a tug of war over the pool.

Last night I tried to explain to Eli that today was going to be his real birthday. He told me that he felt like he already had his real birthday with his friend party. Today he got to open the family presents. Thanks Gramy and Papa for the great gifts! Eli was really excited about the water/sand table.

Some of Eli's favorite things right now are his little cheap army guys. He has battles with them several time every day. He is constantly building castles or defences. He likes to play outside and play with his friends. He doesn't like to eat his dinner. I'm sure that someday that will change though. We are so lucky to have such a great kid!

Gavin 11 Months Old

What??? That can't be right! It hasn't really been 11 months since this precious addition joined our family has it? I can't believe it. He finally has 2 teeth and no longer wants anything to do with baby food. I can't say that I blame him but I have a hard time finding things that I "trust" him to eat. I just bought a pampered chef food chopper and that has really come in handy because I can chop everything into tiny pieces. It makes both of us happy. Gavin is still a really happy kid. Lately he has become quite the big helper. His favorite things to help with are unloading the clean clothes out of the laundry basket, unplugging anything that is plugged in on his level, unloading the silverware from the dishwasher whether it is clean or dirty, and pulling out the fake moss in my decorative tree at least once a day.
This first picture is one of the several attempts of taking Gavin's picture inside.

As you can see I finally decided to use the outside grass trick again.

3rd Child Syndorme and Summer Update

So Gavin is now 10 1/2 months old. He continues to fill our house with joy. He is hands down the best baby. I don't know what has taken him so long but just last week he finally cut his first tooth. Believe it or not it was the upper left one, pretty unusual. He weighs 18lbs 9oz and is 27.8 inches long, for those of you keeping track. He is a busy boy figuring out everything that he can about this world. It was a rude awakening when he started pulling himself up to things and then he would just let go like he thought that the hard part was actually the pulling up only to realize that standing wasn't as easy as it looks! Taking this picture outside was really funny because the second he gets set down he is off crawling but, in the grass.......he wasn't sure about that texture so he just sat there like a perfect angel. Everytime he put his hands down to crawl he would quickly pull them back and look at me like, what is this stuff??

At the beginning of June we went to Utah. Today is the one year mark since Spencer's dad passed away. We went up to the cabin last year around the same time to spend some time with his dad so his sister's family set everyting up again so that we all could go back to the cabin. The kids loved spending time with their cousins. We had a great time visiting with everyone.

The kids could spend all day playing on Gramy and Papa's beach catching sun fish and building sand castles!

We got to go to the Oquirrah pronounced "Oaker" mountain temple open house. It was really neat. Then later in the week Spencer and I got to do a session at the Salt Lake temple where we were sealed. It was our first time doing a session there since we had been sealed and it being so close to our anniversary it was a neat time for us.


One night I talked my dad into pulling out the slides for a slideshow!!! I love snuggling on the couch and remembering the "good old days".

Then my family headed down to Zion's national park with my mom's side of the family for a family reunion. I loved it! I want to go back and hike the narrows. It was so beautiful. This picture was actually take at Kolob canyon on the way home.

The day after we got back from Utah I headed up to girl's camp with my ward. I had a lot of fun and was able to stay up the mountain all week thanks to my wonderful husband. He did a great job of keeping the kids alive while I was gone and when I got home the house was even vacuumed! This is a picture of some of my girls!

My good friend Allison was assistant camp director so it was fun to spend the week together. We usually talk on the phone everyday anyway. We went on the 2nd year hike up to a little shack where a guy lives during monsoon season to watch for forrest fires. It was so neat and sooooo high up.

Hopefully now that summer is almost over things will get back to "normal"!

Happy 4th

Today was probably the best 4th of July that we have had since living in Tucson. We went to a friends house for a bar-b-q and spent the day swimming in their pool. My mom outfitted the kids for the 4th.

Our friends gave us some of the popper fireworks because they are the only legal fireworks here in Tucson so this is a picture of the kids having a grand old time with their fireworks.

This is Gavin inside of the house because I didn't want him to "accidentally" get hit with a popper.

At the end of the day we drove up to see some fireworks at a spa. We got as close as we could which wasn't all that close. Nothing like laying on the Davis High school football field with the fireworks so close that you begin to wonder if people's blankets will start catching on fire. Now that is what we call watching fireworks!!