Memorial Day 2012

Well, here I am posting about Memorial Day when it was yesterday. Are you proud? I am! 

We started out day out at Cracker Barrel at 8 am. Keldrie was kind enough to wake us up at 5:55 so we were on time. (Did you catch the sarcasm there?) I forgot to take any pictures during breakfast, but I was too busy eating anyway. Matt was too busy keeping two children happy because somehow I ended up at the other end of the table and he was between Keldrie and Russell. Yay for me! We went with Matt's parents as well as his brother Spencer and his family.

After breakfast, we took Russell over to Grandma Keller's. He was going to spend the morning and afternoon with her while Dad went golfing with his brothers and Keldrie and I has a very special day planned with the other cousins. While we were saying goodbye, we took a few pictures!

Aren't these boys handsome!?

Keldrie was a wee bit excited about where we were headed next. 

I was nervous about leaving my baby boy for so long! He is over 4 months old, but I just hate to be away from him for more than a few hours.

After telling Russell goodbye, we took the two minute trip from Grandma Keller's house to Grandma Smith's house. We switched around some car seats and got ready for a long car ride with 4 kids and three adults in Gaby's mini-van. Luckily, there was a TV.

The back seat sure was full. Getting two full car seats plus a booster took some work, I'll tell you that. 

Andrew was excited, can't you tell? 

An hour and half later, here we were! But where is here? Why we were at the Heber Valley Railroad (also known as the Heber Creeper).  A special friend was visiting. A friend named Thomas. 

There he is! Thomas the Tank Engine, straight from the island of Sodor! 

 And if you get a chance to see a childhood character who happens to be a train come to life, you want to ride said train. So that's what we did!

Kel wanted to hold her ticket, of course.

After the train ride, we took some pictures...

....played in the hay bale maze.....

....and in the bubbles! There was lots to do and I think we did it all!

And then after getting some lunch, everyone but me napped for at least part of the ride home.

 

Once we got back to Grandma Smith's house, Keldrie and I went to go pick up Russell, who had gotten to go with my mom and brother over to my Grandma Nicholas's house for the party over there. We spent a couple of hours over there and then made our way back to the Smith's for dinner and more play time with cousins. 

Grandma and Russell enjoying the shade.

Matt had to go to work in the afternoon but he got off in enough time to join us for dinner and for some basketball in the back yard. The kids all lined up to watch the dad's and uncle's play. (I played too, but was the first one out)

It was a crazy, long, but oh so fun day! What a blast! 

Sunday Evening

It is the Sunday before a Monday holiday. Memorial day is always a fun one and this year will be no exception. We've got quite the agenda to fit into one day, but you will just have to wait until I post about it to see what we are up to.

We've had a pretty busy week. We saw Avenger's. It was pretty good. They spent quite a bit of time setting up for a sequel. I hope it is as good. We went to a 4 pm show on Wednesday. There were only 5 of us in the theater. And since we got there a few minutes early, we got to pick where we wanted to sit. We chose top row, very middle. Or rather, I choose. I think it is the best place to be because there is no one behind you. 

We also made some hamburgers!

I figure, if you are going to have a hamburger, go all out!

Keldrie did not have a hamburger. The closest thing to a sandwich she will eat is a quesadilla. (Hope I spelled that right) So she missed the enjoyment of a true American meal. She has been busy though. 

She loves to play dress up! She often has the purse, shoes, and even jewelry to finish out the outfit. 

Russell prefers to not have any clothes on at all. Russell has really come into his own these last few weeks. He is getting incredibly playful and has learned how to hold onto his toys much better.

Russell has very fast growing fingernails and since I always seem to cut his little fingers whenever I try and trim them, my mom did it for me this week. She did it in about 3 minutes and did a perfect job. Turns out that when it comes to some things, your mom will always be able to do somethings better than you. 

Weather in Utah is never predictable and this week has been a reminder of that. It started out with some beautiful, almost hot days but the last few days have been rainy and cold and we had to pull the long pants and jackets and close toed shoes back out from the back of the closet. 

We are looking forward to tomorrow and since my birthday is a week from today, we will have lots of celebrations this coming week!

Little man moving

So Russell can roll over now, but he can also move himself 90 degrees to the side. I'm not too sure how he manages it, although I've seen him in action a couple of times. 

Usually once he gets to this point, he starts to fuss and complain and I pick him back up, but he definitely wants to be on the move. I keep telling him to enjoy the simple life and just lay there and be happy and not grow, but he still thinks he needs to get bigger. Silly boy!

Besides that, he has one new thing I have to share. On Saturday he will be 4 months (can you believe it?) and so I thought perhaps it was time that he try some rice cereal. We dug out the spoons and had a blast watching him react to his first taste of cereal.

Yes, we got him a Bumbo chair and I love it! I love that I can put him in it and he can still see me. He did make a mess, but not as big as Keldrie did with her first try of cereal. He kept putting his fingers in his mouth but every time I brought the spoon close he got real excited and he seems to be learning to open his mouth too. It has been super fun. He has had it once more since then he was an even better eater. 

Check out this bad boy! Matt and I splurged a little and bought an exerciser bike. So far, we are in love with it! It actually has video games on it and you have to pedal the bike faster if you want help in winning the games. It is pretty cool. Keldrie is bummed that she isn't allowed to play on it, but maybe one day she can use it. I definitely pushed extra hard this morning while I worked out because last night, Matt and I split a piece of Raspberry Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake. It was amazing, and beyond high calorie, I'm sure.

While my sister was here visiting last week, I did a lot of playing and not a lot of housework and so this week I have spent a lot of time doing laundry.  I have spent a lot of time folding laundry, especially. It's not too hard though, when you have some good T.V. to watch. So that's what I've been doing this week!

The Smith Family visits City Creek

Have you been to city creek yet? It is fantastic? Two blocks of fantastic shopping and a huge selection of great food. We didn't have time to visit all of the stores, but we did go in a few. I really liked H&M and might have even bought something except that there were like 15 people in line and only one person working the register. We spent the most time in the Disney store. Keldrie was in princess heaven!

So any idiot can tell you not to take a picture in front of a mirror, but oh well. Can you see the excitment on Keldrie's face? 

They have a beautiful river running the whole length of the mall. This part even had some fish.

Keldrie and I in front of the fountain. Keldrie is distracted because 15 feet away is a splash pad to play in. 

Keldrie has had some serious attitude lately and this look on her face is just one example of that. 

Here she is checking out the splash pad. About 15 seconds after I took this picture, she leaned over to look at one of the jets and then got a face-full of water. I was laughing so hard I couldn't take anymore pictures. 

After checking everything out, we headed over to the Cheesecake Factory to meet with one of Matt's former mission companions, Matt Neves. We meet up with him once or twice a year and this was one of those nights. We had a good time and I was thrilled with my dinner. If you are ever there when they are serving the loaded baked potato soup, get it! I still have half of it in the fridge and I am looking forward to an incredible lunch! This is the only picture I got during dinner because by dinner time, both kids were out of patience with sitting still. We managed to keep them both calm enough. 

All in all, we had a fantastic time and I look forward to going down again, although honestly probably without the kids.

A conundrum!

So I have a conundrum. I have all these pictures from the last month or so and no real cohesive way of presenting them. So here you go! A completely random assortment of pictures from the past month! 

Pictures of my favorite people sleeping! 

Food I made and took a picture of!

Photo Sessions!

What we've been doing!

 Sorry Tyler and Hannah, I cut your heads off!

And there you have it! More to come!