What We Did on Our Utah Summer Vacation 2011

*****Warning, long post with lots of pictures!!!!*****

Well, we survived our annual summer trip out west!

And when I say that "we" survived, I mean ME! I was in Utah with the boys for almost two weeks before Matt joined us for our third and final week on vacation. Our trip probably would have been longer but Quinton starts school EARLY (relatively speaking) in Alabama so we had to come back eventually!

We started out our journey well enough - the Mobile airport has a little play area for the kids and that proved to be a great distraction! Nice face, Quinton!
One of our first stops in Utah was to visit our friends, The Christensens. Sawyer was happy to find someone smaller than him to boss around - or push in a swing! This is Gwen, Evan & Mariah's newest addition. She was such a sweetie!

This is Gwen's older sister, Jane. Much like her mother, Jane is a lovely conversationalist and likes to play mommy to Gwen.

Wes, the oldest of the three Christensen kids was nice enough to let Quinton spritz his glasses for a good cleaning...you can tell Wes had younger siblings!

Lucky for us, we were able to meet up with friends, the Knowles, who were in town from Tulsa and then, we also ran into some Chicago friends, the Walkers, while hanging out with our Tulsa friends! What luck! We watched the draper Days parade with all of our friends!

The weather was awesome! Warm but not too hot!

The kids really thought this monster truck was cool!

What better way to cool off than an air-conditioned bubble that bounces over water! This 'ride' at the carnival was too cool to pass up! Quinton, Andrew and Sarah LOVED bouncing around in the balls!

A lovely train ride for the group!

In an effort to prove that I am the coolest mom ever, I actually held this freaking boa! The original plan was to have Quinton hold it but he chickened out. Seeing as how I have to uphold my street cred, I took over and don't I look sooooooooooo excited????

Lucky for us, Matt's brother has the hook-up with Maverik and we were able to score tickets to the Days of '47 Rodeo at the Maverik Center in the box! Wooohooo! It was fun to watch the rodeao but what was even better was that Sawyer could run around in a contained area while I got to watch the rodeo! Double bonus!

We also spent a couple of days at my Aunt Amy & Uncle Stan's place in Idaho. They live on a beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere and it is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been...except for the cropdusters at 6am!

I grew up spending my summers visiting my cousins at the farm and I am beyond thrilled that my boys are able to experience the same wonder of farm life. Plus, it's amazing not to have to worry about traffic while the kids play outside!

Quinton enjoyed the swing that I used to swing on at his age!

We also did some "sightseeing" in Twin Falls which included spending an afternoon at a cool lake.

You just hafta love summertime when the hardest part of your day is climbing up a slide!

My handsome nephew, Evan. I love this guy! He is so sweet and loving and is a great helper with Sawyer and Quinton!

Ahhhh, a frozen chocolate covered banana...I can still taste it....

Shoshone Falls with my dad and the kids. My dad said that the falls were amazing earlier in the spring with all of the winter runoff, the falls were at the highest in many years. In all my visits to Twin Falls, I have never seen these falls! It was magnificent!

This is my amazing sister, Jessi! It still boggles my mind that she is younger than me and her oldest will be starting Junior High this year and my oldest will be starting kindergarten!

I love my awesome sister so much! She is a single mom and works so hard to make sure her kids are happy. She also has the most generous heart! I love you, J!

Sawyer exploring the farm.

My grandfather, John Russell, lives about 30 minutes from my Aunt's place. He has a gorgeous property with so many trees, plants, flowers and garden that he faithfully tends. This is my dad's dad and they are so alike in so many ways, I am very lucky that my boys have the opportunity to get to know so many of their GREAT grandparents!

My dad and Sawyer enjoying some fresh cut rhubarb...

It was the perfect afternoon, sitting on my Grandpa's lawn in the cool shade enjoying some nice cold watermelon...the epitome of summer!

Silly Grandpa and the kids had a blast riding around the farm on four-wheelers! Back in Utah, we spent some time with Matt's side of the family. This is my beautiful niece, Bella...

The first year or so, Sawyer was a total Momma's boy but in the past few months, it has become almost painfully obvious that he has turned into a full-on daddy's boy. We were in Utah for so long without Matt that Sawyer took to cuddling Matt's brother, Ernie, to get that lovin' feeling he missed. Lucky for us, Ernie was more than happy to snuggle Sawyer! Thanks Ernie!

This is Ernie's youngest, Max. Max and Sawyer are 9 months apart and they are so fun to watch! The phrase, "monkey see, monkey do" is so totally appropriate when it come to Sawyer and Max hanging out!

Finally! Matt arrived!

We spent a day in downtown Salt Lake City. It's been a while since we've done that so it was fun to have Wendy and her kids and Matt's mom come, too.

Here, the boys are playing on one of the big pillars in the Joesph Smith Memorial Building.

Towards the end of our trip, we headed back to Idaho for Matt's Harker Family Reunion. This is a crazy event with 100+ people all claiming to be Harker descendants. We had a great time with lots of cousins to play with for Quinton and Sawyer and I even met people I hadn't met before (or at least that I can remember!).

Here is Matt's brother, Gary, working on the dutch ovens. One of the bonuses in marrying into the Harker family is that the Harker boys like to do most of the camp cooking! Sweet!

This is my super-cute neice, Noah. Her cuteness is what makes me want to try for a girl!

There's just something about this picture that I love...maybe two things...I love Sawyer's expression and I love how strong Matt looks - holding onto his little boy...

And there you have it...I tried not to put too many pictures in this post but it's hard to pick the best or most fun since we did so many things in Utah! I didn't even post our pictures to the water park, the children's museum and other fun stuff but you get the idea...we had a lot of fun and made many family memories!

A Belated Father's Day Post

Yeah...this picture says it all...

Matt is a pretty awesome dad to two really sweet little boys. He is a superstar when it comes to loving, wrestling, tickling, helping, soothing and oh yeah, diaper changing!

Happy Father's Day!
We may not be perfect parents but we love our boys so much for making us the parents we are today!

My mom, Silly Grandma, was able to be in town for Father's Day and helped us celebrate Matt which included a crepe breakfast and Father's Day fajitas!

Matt with his very special dad!

And me with my dad...one of the coolest guys on the planet!

I love you so much!

(P.S. this picture is from last year and makes me so glad I got the Lasik surgery!!!!)

A big hug and kiss to our dads, grandpas and greeat-grandpas! We are a very lucky family, indeed!

The Best $8 We've Spent In A Loooooooong Time!

The first time I went over to our friends, the Bryan's house, their kids were playing with plastic party cups. I thought it was so odd but after awhile, even I wanted to stack them and knock them down.

So last Saturday, I ran into Sam's club for a few things and whaddya know, I walked past the brightly colored plastic cups. They were a little under $8 for a pack of 140 cups and I almost didn't buy them but I remembered how much fun we had at the Bryans', so I made the $8 investment into what Quinton has called "the best toys EVER!"

Exhibit A:

And we ALL knew exactly who would have the most fun knocking our pyramids down!

We affectionately call him, "Sawyer the Destroyer!"
Tadaaaaaa!

First thing Sunday morning, Matt and Quinton got down to business before Sawyer woke up...
Amazing, isn't it?

And on Monday....

I love this action shot!

So save yourself some serious money and buys plastic cups for the kids! I guarantee it'll be hours of build 'em up and knock 'em down fun!!!

One Year Young...

Happy 1st birthday to our happy little boy!

Photo by Sarah Severson Photography

A year seems to go by so fast these days! Now that our sweet little Sawyer is one, I feel like time is just racing by!

It's amazing to think what has happened in the past year and how much Sawyer has blessed our lives. He is such a delightful little boy and has so much personality to share with everyone he meets!
It's pretty often that Sawyer hears he looks a lot like his brother and it's true...they were made from very similar molds but they are also so very different. I am a lucky mom, though, because both of my boys seem to be as easygoing as me and Matt!
Sawyer literally DOVE right into his cake during the photo shoot!
As far as stats go, I'm behind in taking Sawyer to his 1 year appointment. The day I had it scheduled, he woke up not feeling well. Little did I realize, until a few days later, that it was a MOLAR coming in that was causing him to be uncharacteristically crabby so I'm glad I postponed his shots so he wasn't battling two hardships at once!
Sawyer LOVED his birthday party! We invited some neighborhood friends as well as some of the families of Matt's co-workers...all people Sawyer enjoys!
We had a "monster" themed birthday party complete with moster pinata, monster cupcakes & a monster cake for the birthday boy!

A masterpiece, eh?

One of Sawyer's favorite babysitters, Miss Ashley.
We love Miss A because she and her mom FIGHT over who gets to hold Sawyer! It is so nice to have such sweet friends when we live so far away from our families!

Sawyer could barely make it rhough the happy birthday song before attacking his cake...

And after all that partying and playing, what's a birthday boy to do?

Why play in his birthday suit, of course!

Happy birthday to Sawyer the Warrior!
I can't wait to see you grow but I don't want you to get any bigger...

What the ????

Funny, thing...if I was in Chicago, I don't think I'd be so behind in my blogging but because the weather is so nice here, it's hard to justify sitting in front of the computer on such beautiful days! Not to mention my boys keep me busy and by the time we put them to bed at night, I'm ready to lay down myself!

In an attempt to play catch up, here are a random few of my favorite photos from the past couple of weeks.

At the beginning of March, Quinton was more than ready for us to take off his training wheels. I was tempted to take them off before Matt finally did it one sunny Sunday afternoon but I wanted Matt to be there to do the honors and watch Quinton take off...and that he did! Quinton looks like he's been doing it forever! He LOVES just jumping on his bike and FLYING down the street. Too bad Sawyer wishes he could go, too!

We planted a little raised bed garden!

We saw a great kit at Sam's club for the raised bed and a garden kit and voila! We have a "salsa" garden and a veggie garden...wait till you see more recent pics! We are already picking green beans, cilantro & basil from the garden!
Can you tell Q needed a haircut?
Here he is before Matt gave him a little trim.

Here is Quinton's after picture...I know it's not very dramatic but it looked a lot cleaner after Matt gave him the trim. Quinton is adamant about not wanting a MUCH shorter summer cut...I like the shaggy-on-top look he's sporting these days.


Sawyer was lucky enough to have his first EVER trim, too!

This was just clean up, too, and he did really well!

Sawyer and Quinton again. This picture is a little out of order and should be up a little more but oh well! Sawyer has discovered how to clap and loves to go around clapping at everything like the world is ever-praiseworthy!

Sawyer LOVES Q's four-wheeler and would love it if he could drive it all by himself. Trust me, he's tried!

On my birthday, I took the boys to the Mobile Exploreum. Quinton has been asking to go for months since they've had a giant insect exhibit and I finally took the boys there on my special day. Quinton and Sawer loved the bugs!

The entire Exploreum could have fit in the lobby of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, but what was nice here was that the parking was free and it didn't take forever! So sometimes, good things do come in smaller packages!

I couldn't resist!

Sawyer's hair is long enough to do firecracker pigtails so instead of actually putting his hair up, Quinton and I enjoying giving Sawyer fun hairdos in the tub!

Quinton enjoying our new sprinkler.

And there you have it! Random pictures of some of my favorite people in the world!