Christmas Tree 2010

This year we finally have a tree that fits our front window! Instead of the 3' tree Noah and I got when we were first married.

We set it up last weekend, then it spent a week 'naked' till Holden could handle it no longer. On Thursday as our activity I got out the decorations and let Holden decorate the tree. He was very concerned about Greta getting them off the tree, so if you look closely you will notice that there are NO decorations at Greta level, and very few above Holden level(the ones I didn't want him to break). I think it is so cute!

Merry Christmas! 

Halloween 2010!

This year Holden has wanted to be a Hideous Zippleback dragon from "How To Train Your Dragon" ever since he saw the movie back in march! I thought he would forget about that or come up with something else by Halloween, but I should have know better, of course he remembered! So I spent a month trying to figure out how I was going to make a two headed dragon! I had some great ideas from my mom and Noah, did a lot of online searches on how to make a Muppet, and the movie website was my homepage for a while. Thanks to everyone who gave me ideas. Here is how it turned out. I think it is pretty cool if I do say so myself. And Holden loved it which is all that really matters!

In case you have been living under a rock and have not seen the movie(you really should see it, it is soo good!) 'the Hideous Zippleback does not breath fire it creates explosions, one head breaths gas and the other head lights it'. (which is why there are sparks coming out of one of the mouths)

Since Holden was a dragon I decided the rest of us needed to be Vikings!! Holden thought we should all be dragons, but one dragon costume was enough for me. Here is Greta as Astrid from the movie. My sister Shauna made her boots and skirt which both turned out so cute, thanks Shauna. I just did the "wig".

She loved wearing the wig, when we showed her in the mirror she would say 'pretty' and when I took it off her she would pat her head and say 'hat' or try to put it back on herself.

Noah and I were also vikings but I don't have pictures of us yet, our costumes were pretty cool too.

And finally here are this year's Jack-O-Lanterns. Mine of course is a dragon(the one from the website that appears while a page is loading, I saw it a lot this past month).

Here is Holden with his.

Happy Halloween, I hope everyone had fun!

The First day of Kindergarten!

Holden has started Kindergarten! I can't believe my little boy is so grown up. He was so excited to start, he got up extra early that morning and got dressed, which was great but I was not going to let him wear a sponge bob square pants shirt to school. So I talked him into choosing one of his new kindergarten shirts. The waking up early also made for a very grumpy little boy that evening. 

Here is my little boy all ready to go.

 

He picked out his backpack a few weeks ago. He loves it, the best $2.50 I ever spent!

Finally at school. I am so excited to not be driving to school everyday!

He was a little shy/nervous when we first got there, but after giving Greta and me hugs and kisses he was great.

of course the camera wasn't on when I was trying to get a picture of him walking into the classroom, if you look closely you can see him in there.

Greta is not so sure about leaving Holden at the school, the whole walk home she yells for him.

Greta loves books so when we got home one day she sat down at her table and read her books, in peace. I guess there are some benefits to not having Holden at home.

She is just like her mom and sticks out her tongue when she is concentrating, what a smart little girl.

Greta's Super Fantastic Birthday Celebration: The Party!

After an exciting couple of days Greta's actual birthday party finally arrived! She is already such a cheese for the camera. This was her smiling face that day.

Posing with the cakes.

Blowing out the candle, with a little help from her brother and cousins.

Here she is eating her cake, it wasn't very exciting because she did not smash into it. Everytime she got close the crowd would cheer and she would stop.

I love her little happy dance and how she poses everytime a camera is in front of her.

Happy Birthday Greta We Love You!

August 25 2010

I knew this day would come too soon.

only 1 1/2 weeks early grandma.

Greta's First Super Fantastic Birthday Celebration. Day 2, The Parade, Carnival, & Rodeos

Greta's Birthday started off with a parade. Here we all are waiting for it to start. Norm reserved us a great spot in the shade.

The birthday girl! This year she did not get to be in the parade.

Here is Holden taking pictures with his camera. It must have been something exciting because Harrison and Wesley look pretty happy.

Here are a couple pictures Holden took. Luckily Greta and I were not riding in one of these this year.

And a real Ferrari!!!! How could a true "Cars" fan pass up the chance to photograph a real Ferrari?

Reese and Lane on the Fautin family float, it was wild west saloon themed this year

Rylee was part of the Piute County Royalty (she is the one in pink with her arm covering her face)

Hunter and Hadley were Marysvale Rodeo Queens

So those were the highlights of the parade. It was fun and exciting per usual.

Following the parade was the kids carnival and rodeo. Greta took a nap during those so we missed seeing Hunter and Hadley barrel racing.

Holden participated in his first fish rodeo.

He had fun splashing around in the water but was not sure about catching a fish, someone gave him one to hold, then he quickly put it back in the water. He was pretty upset when he didn't have a fish at the end because he wanted to eat fish for dinner that night.

Greta and I came down to watch Holden in the fish rodeo. Noah took her out to get her feet wet, but they sprayed everyone with the fire hose just as they got out, poor little girl.

Greta's First Super Fantastic Birthday Celebration! Day 1

Greta is so lucky to have her birthday on a holiday.

This year we spent the weekend in Marysvale with Noah and My families. The weekend started on Friday when we ran the Sevier river.

Here is Noah going through the Deadman's rapid

 

and here are my brother Bret and brother in law Andrew going through Deadman's.

Andrew and Bret on a calm stretch.

And Noah

My sister Shauna and husband Andrew

Bret and wife Angela (this year they stayed in the boat! Good job guys!)

Me

And finally an action shot of Noah.

That night Hunter had her 16th birthday party.

Happy Birthday Hunter!!!

The Property

As part of our Fourth Of July weekend we went up to my parents property near Price UT.

We left in the afternoon so we pretty much just had time to make and eat dinner then we went to bed.

The next morning we had omelets in a bag. Greta loved sitting in the little kid camp chair.

We went on a nice little family hike around the property, we forgot the baby backpack so Greta got to sit on dad's shoulders.

Holden found a hiking stick! (surprise, surprise!)

Greta & Noah in the woods.

Greta trying to escape from the tent!

Our family in front of our tent.

My sister Shauna and her husband Andrew came with us, but I don't have any pictures of them on my camera and the pictures I have from them don't seem to want to download, which is sad because they had some really cute ones of the kids. It was a great weekend and a beautiful trip.

Field Trips!

This summer to keep us from going crazy at home, we decided to go on weekly field trips! We invited Diane, Ryn, and Cyrus to join us on our adventures. Per usual I forgot my camera for most of the outings so here are just a few.

Our first trip was to the Utah Museum of Natural History at the UofU. Holden and I decided to ride the bus, it was Holden's first bus ride and he had a great time.

The Museum was lots of fun even if it was way too hot inside! We are very excited for the new museum to open.

Here are Holden and Ryn by a Raptor statue.

Holden's favorite part was putting on a puppet show for us.

Our next field trip was to the Living Planet Aquarium. Uncle Bret and Clara  as well as Aunt Molly joined us that day. The penguins were so much fun to watch, and Holden liked the electric eel!

The next week was Holden's birthday and Park City week so we spent the day swimming.

Discover Gateway was our next destination. Holden loved to do all the experiments. We rode trax downtown that week, which was an adventure with Holden, Greta, & the stroller, but we had a nice ride.

The next week we went to the Church History museum. We were running late as usual, and when I got in my car it wouldn't start! I tried to convince Holden that we would have to skip our trip that week, or maybe we could ride the bus. He decided that we had to ride the bus and trax, so we rushed over to the bus stop, and just made the bus that took us to the trax station, the buses and trax are timed just right so we only had to wait a couple minutes before the train got there. We ended up being only 30 minutes later then our plan! We had a great day at the museum, they have a wonderful kids area which we spent about 3 hours in. We also saw the temple model in the visitors center on temple square. I think it was my favorite trip so far.

The next week we went bowling at Fat Cats. This summer kids bowl for free there! Holden had a great time and got the high score!

Here is Cyrus, with the kid's ramp.

and Ryn who bowled all by herself!

The following week we went to Sugar House Park, the kids had fun but Diane and I decided that it was too hot to do outside field trips!

This week we went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving point. It is an awesome museum. the kids loved it.

Holden & Ryn

Holden & Cyrus' favorite part was the sand and water table. They spent quite a while there building dams and islands and playing with the toy dinosaurs.

Greta was stuck in her stroller most of the time, and it was too exciting to take a nap, so she was a pretty tired grumpy little girl by the time we left.

Well that is what we have done so far. I can't believe the summer is almost over, and school starts soon! We have had such fun on our summer field trips. I am so glad Diane agreed to come with us, it makes our adventures so much more fun with other kids. Not to mention that we actually go when there is someone else planning it with me! Too bad the summer is so short, we still have a whole list of things we want to do. I guess we will have to do this again next year!