Supero Hero

Since I have the cutest little boy who loves to pretend to be a super hero I had to do a few quotes with pictures of him dressed up in his cape and mask.

Families are Forever

Here are some more pictures I have been playing around with adding words to.  I would like to fill my blog with them because they make me happy so don't be surprised to see a lot more of them.  I do want to mention that my brother, Eric took the picture of Porter and our family picture.  My sister, Rosemary took the picture of Vance.  I can take photo credit for the picture of Tanner though.  :)

I love seeing awesome quotes and scriptures and it makes it all the more meaningful to put them with pictures of my little family.

School

Vance is now in 2nd grade. He was really excited for school to start.  He knows several kids in his class already and says his teacher is really nice.  He was also excited that they won't have homework (aside from reading) this week.  He has quite an enthusiasm for school I never remember having.

Tanner is starting kindergarten this year.  Today I got to go with him and we learned a few things and got familiar with his class room and his teacher.  His teacher seems real nice and good with the students.  He will have his assessment tomorrow and school without Mom will start on Thursday.  He is excited to ride the bus and play on the playground.

 Here are my school kids.  Starting to feel a little old with two kids school age.

 Porter wanted his picture taken too.  He is so funny.  I have been trying to talk up preschool with Mom and so I think he is excited for it now.

 Later in the morning we saw a praying mantis in the driveway. Porter was completely fascinated with it.  Here he is waving at it and saying hello.  He was a little too excited about it though and scared it off.

 I was playing around on photoshop yesterday and added this quote to this picture.  I think I will do more.  It's fun and easy.

I guess I will report back next week if our children still want to continue going to school or not.  Haha.

Enjoying the Last Week of Summer Vacation

We have been enjoying the last week of Summer.  School will begin this year for Vance and Tanner.  Porter will stay home with me and do preschool. 

 

I promised Vance we would do a scavenger hunt on temple square this Summer and we hadn't gotten to it yet so we went this week.

Porter was enjoying a fountain.

The boys admiring the Salt Lake City temple

Here they are finding items on their hunt.  I have no idea why Tanner was pulling this face, but it makes me chuckle.

 We also had some free tickets to the zoo so we went there yesterday.  We had a good time.  It wasn't even unbearably hot while we were there.

Here were are ready for the day.

Porter and Tanner enjoying the Gorilla statue.  Tanner said the monkeys were his favorite animal to see.

Porter was making friends with the sea otter statue.

Here is a cool Lego display of a polar bear.  Vance and Porter said the polar bear was their favorite animal to see.

The tiger was cool to watch because it decided to go for a swim while we were watching him and he came up right out of the water next to Vance.  Of course, all I caught was him swimming away, but it was fun.

 The kids had their back to school night last night so we are all ready to start next week.  At least I hope we are.  Technically Tanner and I will go his first day and then he'll go back another day for testing and won't start regular school until the next week.

We have a lot of changes coming up.  School is starting for the boys as well as Stephen who took a break this Summer.  We will be getting new neighbors soon which, when you share a wall and practically a drive way affects your life sometimes, one of the biggest changes is that Stephen will be starting a new job the first week of September.  It is closer to home and pays a little more than he has been making.  We are hopeful that it will be a good change for us.  I feel grateful to a loving Heavenly Father for blessing us.

Ten Year Wedding Anniversary

Earlier in the week we took the boys to feed the ducks/geese at the park.  You can tell from the picture that Tanner is the most timid around any kind of animal.  They all had a great time though.

On Friday was Stephen and I's ten year wedding anniversary.  In some ways it feels like that long and in other ways not so much.  I don't really feel like I am old enough to have been married for an entire decade already, but clearly I am. :)  I posted this picture on facebook of us.  The picture on the left is on the temple grounds our wedding day and the one on the right is one that was taken at Rose's wedding reception a couple of weeks ago.

 Stephen made this awesome origami quilt for me.  I am going to hang it in our living room.  I think I'll make him do another one so this one isn't lonely hanging on the wall.

 Here we are on our anniversary.  Vance took a picture of us.  When you are married to someone 14 inches taller than you, you have to great creative on how to pose for a picture.  Haha.  We had an enjoyable time together while Stephen's parents kindly watched our kids for us.  I am very grateful for my little family, but especially grateful for Stephen and our married.

Today we had stake conference and D. Todd Christofferson of the 12 Apostles was there.  We got a new stake presidency.  Elder Christofferson said some great things that I hope to keep in mind.  One thing he talked about in relation to raising kids in particular was to be persistent and not to get discouraged.  He was specifically talking about scripture study and F.H.E.  to be consistent with having them even though not every single time will it be a spiritual experience.  Good advice and something for me to remember.  Another thing he talked a little about was gratitude.  He said sometimes Heavenly Father is waiting to give us further blessings because we need to express our gratitude for the blessings we already have.  Wow.  If that's all it takes, haha.  Just kidding.  It is something to keep in mind.  It is easy to gripe, but harder to really be appreciative for all of our blessings.  I am so grateful for all the blessings I have in my life.  The are limitless really.  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, and extended family.  I have been blessed with the gospel, knowledge, understanding, talents, the gift of the Holy Ghost.  That is just skimming the surface. I hope to always remember to be grateful for these things.

After stake conference Elder Christofferson took the time to shake our hands.  I am so grateful that the boys were able to do that.  I remember when I was around Tanner's age or so I was able to shake hands with President Benson (who was the prophet at the time).  It was a great thing for our children.  I hope the boys remember shaking an apostles hand.  He has a wonderful spirit about him.

Summer is winding down

We got ourselves back into our routine around here more or less from our vacation.  Summer is winding down and so I am happy with keeping things low key.  School will start soon enough and that will bring with it, it's own changes.

Vance took it upon himself to build a lego mario this passed week.  Stephen and I were impressed with how well he did especially considering the lack of lego options he had to work with and that he didn't receive any help, guidance, or suggestions from either of us.  He did better than I probably could have anyway!

 Porter found some nail polish one more when he was up before everyone else.  It is in my room in the same spot that it has been for months.  He usually doesn't get into any of my stuff, apparently he got adventurous that morning.  It was kind of funny seeing it on his arm, hands, and head.  However, when I asked him to show me where else he had gotten it and he showed me on the quilt my mom made for us when we got married I was not amused.  I tried several different things and was unable to get it out.  Thankfully, it isn't a ton and the color kind of blends with the fabric, but I am still not happy.  Porter was not happy when I had to get it out of his hair and he promised me (without any prompting from me) that he'd stay out of my nail polish from now on.

 The boys still enjoy playing with the angry birds and piggies my mother-in-law made them, but Tanner probably gets them out the most.  He asked me to take a picture of him after he'd arranged them on the piano bench.  Porter jumped in the picture too.

School starts in two weeks.  Kind of crazy to think about!  We signed another contract where we live so assuming some unforeseen thing doesn't happen and we move before the contract is up this will be the longest place we have lived somewhere since we got married!

Fun in Washington

I took plenty of un-wedding related pictures too.  My parents stayed the night at a friend's in Burley after the reception in Almo, Idaho. We stayed in a hotel and went and visited the friend for a bit before heading to Washington.  I am posting this picture because they had a dog and Tanner got brave enough to pet it.  The other two loved the dog!

 We took our pool and let the boys swim in it while we were at my parents place.

 We also went to a park in Yakima.

 Porter and Tanner can't get enough of the tire swing.

 We also went to our favorite park in Kennewick.

 The boys had fun watching the fish and turtles in a pond that is located at the park in Kennewick.

 We stopped by to see if there were any llamas near our old place.  They actually had a ton even though you can't see them in this picture.

 And the boys made it to Emerald City at the park too.  :)

Rose is Married!

My baby sister, Rosemary is all married off to her Steven.  They got married in the Logan temple on July 26th.  It was fun to be able to have everyone in my family and their spouses (minus the spouse part for Glen) to see them sealed together.  I put a ton of pictures on facebook, but I thought I would share some here as well.  

I got my brother, Eric to take a picture of my family while we waited for the bride and groom to come out of them temple.

 Here are the boys waiting at the temple.

 Some of the cousins.  Holly made the girl's dresses.  They looked darling.  Oh and my mother-in-law made the boy's vests and they turned out so cute too.

 Here come the newlyweds!

Sisters.  I have no idea how I ended up being the shortest one in our family...  However, Holly is wearing really tall heels!

 The beautiful Logan temple.

Rose and Porter at the luncheon. He was so cute about her being married.  At her reception the next night he said, "Rose, you are still married!?"  Then when they got to Washington for the reception she was wearing regular clothes and he said, "Rose, you aren't married anymore."  Clearly, it was all about the wedding dress.

 Tanner and Rose.

 Vance and Rose.

 Stephen made them this origami quilt.  I am happy with how it turned out.  Hope they are too.

Sisters with our Mom.

 This is a window from the house my mom grew up in.  She turned it into a frame and got a picture from Rose's photographer.  It was super cool and the picture is gorgeous.

 The quilt table.  My mom made the yellow, black, and gray quilt.

 Some Zillah reception decorations.

 My boys at the Zillah reception.

 The cake table.

 Of course, I needed a picture with my honey. :)

 Porter was a happy boy at the reception.

 He was also my dancing partner.

 Tanner caught the garter.

 Feeding each other cake.

 Here is a little collage of pictures.

We were out of town for a week visiting my parents and helping prepare for the reception up there and now we are back home. I will post pictures of some of our adventures later.