Books

Zachary loves to read books. He doesn't always have a large attention span, but he will sit and read books with me for quite a while. At the moment his favorite book is "We're Going on a Bear Hunt." He used to call it his "uh-oh" book, but now it is apparently just "my bear" book. Anyway, he has been having people read him this book over and over, and last night I was tired of reading it to him so I asked him to read it to Daphne. He sat down, opened the book, and started reading it word for word!! Neil and I busted up laughing and then I ran for the camera. Here he is in all his glory!

Big Brother, Little Sister

For Christmas last year my sister-in-law gave my kids little outfits that say Big Brother and Little Sister on them. It was really big on Daphne, but now it finally fits her so I took pictures of them yesterday. It was almost impossible to get both of them looking at me and smiling, but I still got some cute ones.

Bubble Mower

I've been looking for a bubble mower for Zachary all summer, but I didn't want to pay full price for one. I finally found one the other day at Kid to Kid for $8!! Zachary LOVES it!!!! He played with it all day the last two days, and he's so excited that he gets to help mom mow the lawn. :)

Lately he runs around all day with his tongue hanging out

"Mom, I'm taking a break"

And Daphne just loved sitting outside on the grass :)

Pass of all Passes

We have recently made an awesome purchase. It's called the pass of all passes, and it includes season tickets to Trafalga in Orem and in Lehi, as well as Seven Peaks. All for $35!!!!! My mom and I took Zachary to the Lehi Trafalga last week, and he loved it! We were practically the only ones there, so he got to ride everything over and over. He keeps asking to go back (about 10 times an hour), so I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of the season pass!

Happy 30th!!!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Neil, Happy Birthday to you!!!

Neil turned 30 this year, and I was going to do something fun and exciting but ended up just doing something low-key. My parents each had one of my kids for the day, so Neil and I got to go out to dinner by ourselves, which was wonderful! Afterwards we did presents and had a chocolate dessert. Zachary had fun helping Neil open his presents, and loved singing Happy Birthday.

Neil is training to run a half marathon, so I got him an armband for his iphone so he can track his pace and distance.

We love playing games :)

Neil's mom gave him this cool hat

What a stud :)

And he's three whole decades old!

More camping!

We've gone camping quite a few times this year, and it's been so much fun!!! This time we went with some good friends up to the Uintah Mountains, in a spot that's way away from everything. We turned onto a dirt road, then we turned onto a bumpier dirt road, and that road got progressively bumpier as we went on. All I can say is it's a good thing we have a truck! We had a great time, but we were having so much fun that I didn't take very many pictures. There was a little lake nearby where the boys went fishing and Zachary got to ride in a canoe, which he loved. We had yummy blueberry pancakes with fresh-picked blueberries from the bushes in our camp. At the end we got to shoot some guns (something you definitely can't do in a campground!) which I've never done before but was kind of fun :) All in all, it was a great way to finish off the summer!

6 Months Old!

Daphne turned 6 months old last week!!! She's been such a joy to have in our family and I can't imagine life without her (although right now I am typing this post without any kids around and I'll have to say it's really nice and quiet...) She's usually an easygoing baby, and she always has a smile ready. She's been sick this last week so it was difficult getting good pictures, but I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at them :) She just learned to sit up this last week (both of my babies learned to sit the week before their 6 mo birthday). When I lay her on the ground, she immediately rolls over onto her tummy and then starts screaming. She CAN roll back over, but she WON'T. Oh, well, eventually she'll learn to crawl and then I'll be wishing that she could merely roll over! When I took her to the doctor, she was in the 30th percentile for weight (14.9 pounds), and 50th percentile for height and head size. I compared stats with Zachary's when he was that age and they're almost exactly the same. I love my small babies!!!

She's starting to grow into her eyes, but sometimes they still look huge

Gotta love the drool!

This is my favorite

Or maybe this one is my favorite....

The Zoo

While I was with my mom, we decided to take Zachary to the Zoo. He loves animals, so we figured he would have a great time. He wasn't all that enthralled with the animals, however, which was somewhat frustrating. He did love the area that they were renovating because it had lots of cool tractors for him to watch. He didn't want to leave, so at that point we were wondering why in the world we had paid to take him to the zoo when he could just play on grandpa's tractor! Eventually his interest was caught by the gorillas (because they were fighting with each other) and he liked it okay after that, even though we were almost done. What in the world am I going to do with this kid?!?

Look at the tractor over there, Grandma!!!

My sweet Daphne hanging out in her stroller

This would be the point that we were about ready to give up and go home....

And of course his other favorite animal....a truck!

Zachary loves tigers, but he wouldn't even roar (one of his favorite things to do) because he wanted to go back and ride that dang truck...

He was finally distracted by the carousel, and he kept moving because he wanted to sit on all the animals

These gorillas were cool because the two males will show each other displays of manlihood

Zachary called this the grandma elephant, and he was actually right!

The park was another one of his favorites

And no trip to the zoo is complete without playing with the waterball :)