A quarter of a century!!

That's right I am now a quarter of a century old. The big 25!

I had a great birthday and enjoyed it with my favorite people. My two sweet boys, my little angel girl, my adoring husband, and my fun-loving mom!! We had a great day. We got some fun pictures of Avery taken, cleaned up the house, was surprised by beautiful flowers from Kevs, had the yummiest dinner, and the best little b-day party!!

The boys gave me the Chutes and Ladders game. Kevin gave me some new scriptures with my married name on them. My mom gave me some clothes and a framed pic of Aves. Nana gave me a Disney movie and CD. My bother gave me a gift card to Sonic. My sister gave me a new webcam to chat online with her. Then we had some b-day dessert and by my request we had hot brownie sundaes. Kevin thought since we didn't have a cake we could put 25 candles in the hot brownies and of course the brownies were still too hot and melted the candles from the bottom up. We had to try to pull them out and of it left little puddles of wax all throughout the cake. Kevin was so disgusted but he found a solution. Within a few minutes he came out of the kitchen with a tub of ice cream with all 25 candles lit. The boys were thrilled with all the fire. We sang happy birthday and blew out the candles TWICE- the boys loved blowing out candles.

Thanks everyone it was a great day!!

Grandma Time

It's not very often we get to have our "Grandma time" so we quite enjoy the few times we get it. My mom was able to fly in for the weekend to celebrate my 25th birthday with me. (I still can't believe I am 25!!) We are always so busy while she is here trying to fit in everything we want to do. We had to hit the Galleria first thing and get a much needed pedicure and some b-day shopping. It is sure the good life relaxing with my little baby girl, mom, and a good foot-leg massage. I could have lived in the moment forever!! We found some cute pants and a couple shirts which I have really needed since I haven't quite lost all the baby weight and my clothes are just not quite fitting right, if you know what I mean.

We headed home from the mall way too late and decided rather than trying to whip something together we would head to Saltgrass Steakhouse. Two words-YUM YUM!! Thanks mom, that was a really yummy treat!!

Sunday is always good because we get to just stay home and relax. We ended up making Halloween sugar cookies and frosting them with the boys. It was fun and very messy. Then Jace told us he "fels suck" meaning he felt sick. He laid on the couch for the rest of the evening and sure enough threw up during the middle of the night. I was worried that with Jace being sick my birthday on Monday wasn't going to be much fun at all. But then I realized it takes more than one sick child to make my mom lay low. We woke up and tried to get a jump start on the day. We got Aves all gussied-up for pictures and headed to Picture People. It was so fun to get pics with her and oh-so-wonderful to have my mom there to keep the little guys under control.


Pictures turned out wonderful (duh, it's Avery) and my mom got me a beautiful framed picture for my birthday. That night we had my favorite dinner, salmon and baked potatoes with my favorite salad and homemade red onion dressing. Delicious!!

Then sadly our fun filled weekend had to come to an end. Grandma had to take the twins to ride on the train at Hermann Park because it has become tradition. The boys loved it and then we had to get grandma to the airport. ALL of us wished she had stayed longer but we all no vacation can't last forever. Conner loves lots of frosting with a little bit of cookie- just like his grandma

Like mother, like daughter

Gma and Jace

Avery loves to be a part of the action

Thanks grandma--it was loads of fun and we can't wait to do it again!!

Oil Ranch

I know I am quite behind on my blogging as usual. But I can't neglect the cute pictures from the Oil Ranch. Yes, it was quite an experience and one I don't think I want to repeat anytime before next year.

This was our first year going since last year I thought the boys would be too young to get anything out of it. So this year I was determined not to miss it. I was so determined I even canceled Avery's 4 month well child appt so we could go. (Now of course she doesn't have an appointment until Nov 5th!!)

Since the Oil Ranch is about an hour away my friends and I decided to caravan together. We met at our house at 9:30 and took off. THe car was packed with kids, snacks, lunch, diapers, extra clothes, sunscreen, cameras, sunglasses and who knows what else. The kids were more than happy watching "Cars" on the TV while Avery slept and we drove. We finally arrived and of course we had to ride the train first...and second!! We rode twice consecutively because the boys loved it so much.

Don't they just look thrilled!! :)

I do have to add a side note ** Although this post may sound fun and happy. It was extremely hot and humid and during parts of the day I questioned myself as to why I wanted to do this. Looking back it was great, but I have to warn you that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with an infant and definitely not on a hot and extremely humid day. **

After the train ride we played in a little park and then trekked over to the animal petting area. The boys loved touching the goats, pig, sheep, and chickens. They were even lucky enough to get some food to feed them. Just when I thought the day was starting to look up a little bit as we were walking out of the animal area Jace started screaming that the ants were biting him. Sure enough we had to rip his shoe off and mom had to sacrifice her hand and rub all the ants off. It never fails---the boys seem to migrate to the fireant hills.

After cleaning up the ants and washing our hands we headed over to a covered pavillon to eat our lunch. I was of course starving and didn't bring close to enough water for myself (nursing makes you really thirsty!!) or my boys. The boys didn't eat much I--I think they were too hot to have an appetite. I of course gobbled my sandwich and by then the boys were ready to take off for some more adventure.

We got some cute pictures of the kids climbing on the wagon of pumpkins and playing around. Then we had the opportunity to milk a real cow --but of course my boys weren't getting anywhere near that thing. The highlight was that the cow had to take a pee and it splashed all over. The boys laughed so hard, I just had to roll my eyes......

Jace and mommy trying to get some milk

Not so sure....

Next the boys rode some horses around. Conner rode first and was completely afraid; he made me hold him and walk along next to the horse the whole way. Jace was just excited. He couldn't wait to get on and let go of mom. I was so proud of him. They really liked the horse part and both of them even rode twice!! By this time of day I was starting to get tired and Avery was starting to wonder why she had been in her carseat and stroller all day. Was mom ever going to rescue her?? She is of course the world's best baby and was a great sport just tagging along and enduring the heat.

ConnerJace riding his pony

The boys found a barn and couldn't help but explore, just like boys do. They found some little animals to look at and then even better---a slide!! They climbed the stairs to the second level and then slid down a big tube slide. They had a great time!!

Our last event was a fun tractor ride to the cow pasture where the cows came right up to the wagon and the kiddos could feed the cows--or actually it turned out more like the cows could eat the kids! Either way we had some good laughs and lots of fun.

The whole crew

Brekke, Avery, Audrey, Me, Jace, Conner, Dawson, ??, Jillian, Mariah, Grayden

Finally after all the fun was over and I was dripping out of my clothes we ended our day picking out pumpkins to take home from the pumpkin patch. The boys loved climbing in all the pumpkins and of course they each found about ten that they wanted to take home. One just didn't seem like enough to them.

Conner and Jace

Of course as we drove home it only took about 10 minutes before all the kids were quietly sleeping. Jillian and I were able to enjoy our drive home chatting without any background noise (I think that might be a first). Thanks Jillian and Dawson we had a great time with you guys!!

Battle Wounds

I thought I would make a quick post proving just how tough my husband really is. In the last two-three weeks Kevin has endured two quite impressive battle wounds. The first was a nice black eye. The funny part is that he didn't even know he one until I pointed it out to him. Turns out that it got a little rough and tough at ward basketball earlier that morning and he came home with a little prize.

The second incident occured on the way to school. Kevin rides his bike to school every day, rain or shine, (his lazy wife refuses to get out of bed to take him and the three kiddos). The way Kevin tells the story.....he cut across Almeda and he wasn't going fast enough and turned to sharp and literally fell off his bike. He scraped his arm up pretty good and I am amazed he was able to get back on his bike and continue to school like nothing ever happened. I am also thankful that his arm seems to be the only place he hit. He must have been holding a pretty tight frame to keep the rest of his body safe. The scrape has taken quite a while to heal up but we all think he's going to live through it.

I am just glad I married my superman!!

What to paint?

Since October just started we thought that rather than carving pumpkins (since they'll rot before Halloween) we would paint them and get the boys excited about Halloween. Jace carefully selected four pumpkins for our family from the store and then set them beside his carseat for the ride home. When we arrived home he was so exicted to hand them out to each person. We had lots of paints (washable of course) and lots of brushes and had a painting party outside on our "driveway". The boys love painting anything so we knew this FHE was going to be a hit!! Of course the boys loaded the paint on their pumpkins and were done before Kevin and I had barely started.

Little Aves wanted to join in the fun

Painting has begun


Conner and Jace (L to R)

Jace and Mom

The next minute we look over and the boys had carefully begun another painting project----on each other!!!

Mom pretending not to notice the boys

Painting each other!

The boys obviously had much more fun painting each other than the pumpkins. We just had to make sure they didn't get Avery or anyone's garages. Two boys and wet paint is a dangerous combination.

Chuck E Cheese

I have been begging Kevin to take our family to Chuck E Cheese. I don't know why I have been wanting to take the boys but I have. The last two weeks the boys have been working on their incentive chart for teeth brushing and when they did it for two weeks we took the chart in to Chuck E Cheese's and they each got 10 free tokens. Kevin didn't really want to go but since the boys had earned it he didn't have much of a choice.

We got there at about 6 pm and ordered some pizza and got about 60 tokens (thank goodness for coupons). Then my 3 boys took off and explored the rides and games while I sat with my sleeping baby and waited for the pizza. It was a bit of a wait but it was fun to watch the boys play. We all ate our pizza (the boys even did a good job eating!). Then we just played and played until we didn't have any tokens left.

Kevin and I were both surprised to learn that is was 9 pm when the tokens finally ran out!! Where did the last three hourse go?? We had so much fun we totally lost track of everything-except our kids!! The boys didn't fight with each other at all, in fact there was no whining of any kind. They were heaven putting their money in machines, playing games, and ripping off the tickets. They loved picking our prizes with their tickets and have been playing with their rocket shooter all day. Overall I would say it was a success!! I just want to know when we can go again.....

Jace and Chuck E Cheese in the car

Jace and Conner eating pizza

Conner not so sure about the horse ride

Jace on the carousel

Adorable Avee

My sweet little girl is growing before my eyes. She is more gorgeous every day and I can't imagine our family without her. She has brought such peace and happiness to us. We are so grateful for her sweet spirit.

In these pictures she is just barely 4 months old. At 4 months old she is still a perfect baby. She sleeps all through the night, tags along with the boys all day, hardly ever cries, doesn't spit up, loves to blow out her diapers, loves to laugh and play with her brothers, loves to look around and sit up and pretend she can run around with the boys. She is now grabbing at toys, sucking on anything she can find (including but not limited to her dress, blankets, binky, toys, and anyone's hand). She is also super strong and loves stretch out her legs and stand right up. WE LOVE HER SOOOOOO MUCH!!!

Avery and her sweet brother Jace

Jace and Avee Baby

Daddy and his girl