Painting with Pudding

Oh Summer how I love you!

Cache County Fair

A couple weeks ago we headed out to the Cache County Fair with our good friends Gary and Tess, and their little ones. They had lots of goats everywhere and Kylee and Tyler had to stop at EVERY little pen and say their hello's. Gross. Sorta cute. Mostly gross.


What is it about water that draws children in?! Puddles, rain, rivers, lakes...Tyler would have been happy to play by this river/stream thing all night. Bobby tried to get him away through the genius tactic of fear, by holding him out straight over the river with his little feet dangling over and his toes just barely getting covered by water. Too bad that sorta backfired as Tyler's right flip-flop fell off and got carried down the river. Lessons were learned by all.


Riding the horses...possibly ponies??...is always one of Tyler's favorite things to do at the fair!


Kylee didn't want to ride a horse so she happily scaled her way up the corral and watched with me from the sidelines.


At first Tyler only wanted to ride the little kid rides like the train (which Kylee LOVED, but was actually too small to ride so the guy only let her ride it once)...


...and the carrousel.


But then when Hayden (just a couple months younger than him) begged him to do rides with her he LOOVVVEED them! He wanted to do every ride as much as he could! I knew he would love them, but no matter how hard I pushed him to he wouldn't give them a try until he got a little peer pressure from his girlfriend. Uh-oh ;) They rode down this long, steep slide thing together (since he didn't meet the height requirement he had to go down with someone who did and Hayden is taller than him).


I went back later and took a picture of it b/c when they were actually on the ride during the day I ran into Michelle from the blog Someday Crafts (a pretty big blogger in the blogging world!!) and was sorta giddy with excitement, and after I introduced myself we talked for a bit and I got a little distracted from the fair...oops, but so fun to meet her!


Tyler and Hayden on the spinning dragon things...I hate these!!


Kylee got to ride the motorcycles with Tyler and Tyler was in heaven!


See how he's gettin' all into the turns! Ha ha, he thought this was pretty much the coolest thing ever! Kylee was scarred (I was surprised by how fast it went and the bikes move up and down as the ride goes) and she started to cry a little bit in the middle, but by the end of it she was fine and said she liked it. I kinda think she just said that b/c Tyler was saying how much he loved it.


A wave to the fans...


They walked like this from ride to ride. Friends are awesome!

Bailey's Blessing

On August 6th this beautiful little girl was blessed by her father Skyler Ence! (holy cow I miss holding this little thing soooo much!!!)


I was SO SO SO happy Bobby, myself and the kids could travel down for a quick 2 day trip (left Logan Sat. afternoon about 4:30 and got to St. George about 11:30 that night and drove home Monday night) to be there for Alisa and Skyler and share in their special day!


*please note batman in the above and below picture...only way this kid would (relatively) stand in one place.



The Ence Family


My grandparents


Nelson family (minus Amanda who couldn't get away from her recently acquired job teaching at the MTC!!!-yay Amanda! And Ty still out on his mission in Washington.)


The day was ALL about this little princess-EVERYONE wanted to hold and love on her!




I WISH this was clearer-so sweet!


All miss Ky wants to do is hold that sweet little baby, but Bailey doesn't ever quite seem to be on the same page! :(


Sorry Bailey, not one of your better pics, but it's pretty decent of your Aunt Angela and I'm totally selfish like that-better get used to it :)


Not to worry-I had you laughing and giggling like crazy the next day!






You were so sad to see me go-or maybe I ended up being a little too much for you-either way I was sad too, see...


In our quick trip we also found a little time for candy land (which we literally play at least 5 times a day at home)




Grandpa taught Kylee how to draw the letter O and letter T-which she now draws EV-ER-Ywhere.


Kylee got into Alena's mascara and practiced for Halloween. (The boys decided to practice with eyeshadow and lipstick but they were both in time-out by the time I got my camera out)


And lots and lots of Bailey snuggles!


Kylee was SO happy when she finally got Bailey to smile at her! She is still talking about it!!


Right before we left we headed outside to snap some pictures of everyone!


I can't wait to watch these 4 (ages 2 mo., 2, 3, and 4) play and grow together! They are very entertaining to be around! ha ha!







Can we please just take a moment and look at my Tyler's face...that face is the epitome of everything he is. Oh man...


I wish I lived closer to my sister so these cousins could get in trouble play together SO much more!


Kylee holding Bailey's cheeks up "so she can smile too!" She just can NOT get enough of this baby!




We LOVE you Bailey and are so happy to be apart of your family!

28 years OLLLDDDD!

I turned 28 on July 21st. two. eight. It feels older. I remember 16 feeling older. And 21. 16 because I could legally drive and date. Something about being able to drive myself to work, school, over to a friends, etc. made me feel drastically more mature than I did on July 20th. My dad took me out on my 16th birthday so he could be my first "date" and I remember feeling a sense of empowerment knowing my freedom leash was getting a little bit longer.

And 21 because I got married 3 days after my 21st birthday and something about being married kind of made me feel grown up. Knowing I was starting a journey that I could only imagine the possiblities of was SO exciting, and gave me hope and encouragement, and inspired me to change. Not who I was altogether (because I kind of love me :)), but just certain...quirks. Things I knew about myself that needed *tweaking* in order to be the wife and mother I wanted to, and knew I could, be. I was ready to grow up. Something about turning 21-about that number- that kind of gave me the internal push I needed to embrace the next adventure.

And now I'm 28. And I feel different. I can't explain it exactly. Maybe 10 years from now when I look back to the 28 year old me, and this time in my life I'll be able to pin point exactly what it is that made this year different for me. But just to sort of describe it, I feel...wiser. Which is weird since I'm pretty much as "blonde" as they come and haven't done anything that would increase my brain capacity-educationally speaking-but I just feel like I understand things a little better now than I have in years past. Which I guess, makes complete sense-the older you get, the more knowledge you gain-but it's different than that.

I think that the older my kids get, the longer I've been married, the closer we get to the end of this forever-a-student-life tunnel, the more I think. About everything. Life, motherhood, marriage, the gospel, womanhood, what I want out of my life, what I want to accomplish personally, and so so much more. And I'm just at peace. Not that I'm not typically at peace with myself, but this time it's different. I'm at total, 100% complete peace with who I am as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, and as a person. NOT that I'm even close to perfect in ANY area of my life, but for-literally-the first time EVER I'm completely OK with that. I have somehow in this CrAzY-move once a year-always having to make new friends-constantly trying to figure out my kids-thanking my lucky stars I have a patient and forgiving husband-one adventure after the next-life, I have figured out how to "bloom where you are planted". And I sort of-hold your breath-like my imperfections. As a matter of fact I embrace them. (I actually left a crooked, vinyl quote on my living room wall for about 6 mo because it felt good to show the world-I'M NOT PERFECT AND I'M OK WITH THAT! I only recently took it down because I re-arranged my living room.)

I am in a different place at 28 than I was at 27. I can't ever say I've been in a bad place in my life; I've been extremely fortunate in that way, but today I am different. Not sure how else to say it, because I feel like comparing these two places, would be like trying to compare Alaska to Hawaii. Both beautiful and good in their own way(from what I've heard and seen pictures of-ha ha!), but very different. I am confident in a way I have never been. I am sure of who I am and I Love me!

This is not to say that I don't have bad days, or meltdowns, or question my parenting methods, or feel like a failure because no matter how honest to goodness I try, I will never be able to cook like my husband, because I absolutely do have them. But now I don't worry when those days come or let those emotions defeat me. I accept them. I allow myself to feel the emotion, I let my husband try to fix my problems (he's a guy, that's what he does, why not let him give it a go? I certainly haven't found the right way...and come to find out-he's usually right. ugh), and then I just let go. I guess in short...I'm a lot less high-strung than I used to be. And whaddya know? Life's a whole lot more fun that way.

So 28. Nice to meet ya, I'm glad you're here.

Summertime

I can NOT believe it's already August! I remember walking outside one day at the beginning of May and being ELATED that it was finally warm enough to go outside without a coat, and now I feel like coat weather is right around the corner for us again-ugh!

Stores are stocked with sharpened pencils and notebooks, and aisles are lined with everything the freshman college student needs to survive their first year away from home. I miss all the sand toys, the beach towels, the water guns and sunscreen being the first thing I see when I walk into any retail joint. Just another harsh reminder that days like these are almost just a memory of 2011....








When we haven't been outside soaking in every ray the sun puts out, we've been....
Playing with this Monster Lab kit I won on a blog giveaway(retail value $19.99)!


It gives you everything you need to create a 'monster lab'. First you color all the different monster pieces...


Then you put them in the oven and they shrink down-this was definitely their favorite part!


Then you use the different knick-knacks they give you to put it all together how ever you want.


They were pretty proud of themselves and we had to leave it on display on the kitchen table for a week! ha ha!


One weekend in July we traveled down to Springville to stay the night with the Elletts. Ky missed her best friend!!!






This last week we had a special visit from Grandma and Amanda! There will be a separate post on this later, but here's a fun photo collage my mom put together!!


One of our favorite things to do is go to the Library! Tyler HAD to show Grandma and Amanda how great he is at playing 'the skeleton game' on the computer






Summertime is tan lined bodies, popsicle stained chins, consistently dirty bare feet, flip flops, little bodies sticky from bugspray and smelling like sunscreen. Cups full of ice cold lemonade and driveways filled with sidewalk chalk stick figures. Tired eyes at the end of a busy, outdoor, run till you can't breathe filled day and then falling exhausted into bed with an 'I love you mom', barely audible, coming out of their tiny, kissable lips . I think I know what the next 30 days will be like at our house. Summertime.