Anniversary

Stephen and I actually celebrated our anniversary a couple of weekends ago.  I think I mentioned this before.  Anyway, today was our anniversary and my mother-in-law was kind enough to watch the boys for us so we could go to lunch.  We also had our desktop computer go ka-put on us this week so we took advantage of no kids and bought a new computer as well.  Happy Anniversary to us- a new computer.  Very romantic, huh? 

I woke up this morning to these beautiful roses on my kitchen table.  I think they are even prettier in person and my sister confirmed as much when she stopped by later since I'd sent her a picture of it on my phone earlier in the day.  Good work Stephen!

 Vance took a picture of us.  That has become a tradition I guess since this is the third anniversary in a row we've had him do it.  We took it right after Stephen got out of the shower (he showers right before work) and I am thinking we should have done it at a different time because his hair looks extra poofy.  Haha.  Oh well.  :)  I love Stephen so much and I feel an overwhelming amount of gratitude to my Heavenly Father for leading me in the right direction to finding and marrying him.  The best decision I have ever made and I know it was not one I could have done without guidance from above.  I feel equally blessed to have the wonderful children I do and to have married into a wonderful family.  I have very sweet in-laws.  Ok, my gushing is over. As I said on my facebook status, nine years and counting... :)

Pacifier free and some fun things too

One thing Stephen and I have talked about for a long time now is visiting as many temples as possible with the boys and letting them walk around the grounds and what not.  Last week we walked around the South Jordan Temple.  I've never been close to that one.  It was fun.  My small camera is having issues and that's all I had with me so this is about the only shot I got.

 The boys had fun getting wet and spraying each other with water with spray bottles.  Porter even had fun spraying himself with water.

 Another activity we did was pulling pipe cleaners through a colander.  It was a simple activity yet, it kept the boys busy and having fun for some time.

Another activity we did was making bubbles that bounce a little bit before they pop.  It was real cool.  Here is Vance blowing one of the bubbles.

 On Saturday I made Porter say good bye to his pacifier.  He loves it and I had restricted him to only using it at nap and bedtime.  I knew it'd be rough.  We cheered for him when he threw them away and then I gave him this cute Mater in exchange.  He loves his Mater, but was definitely still missing his pacifier.  He cried and cried for it on Saturday and was still looking for it on Sunday morning.  He is doing much better now though and hasn't brought it up since yesterday morning.

 Sick time!  Yucky.  Porter and I still have colds, but on Sunday we were all battling something.  Tanner was the worst.  I will spare details, but it was lame and the boys didn't end up doing their talk or scripture at church for obvious reasons.  Anyway, Stephen decided to cheer them up by showing them a lego set they didn't know he had.  Here was their reaction to it.

 Here was a little experiment we did with colored water, paper towels, and cups.  It was cool.  Although the boys were very impatient as the water moved up the paper towel.

This morning we went and fed the ducks and geese at a nearby park.  It was fun.  The boys really enjoyed it.  Porter tried to chase down the ducks when they wouldn't take what he offered out of his hand.  Vance was trying to throw the bread as far and hard as he could.  Tanner giggled and had a good time watching them come eat things up.

Scripture and Talk

Tanner has to give the scripture in primary tomorrow and Vance is giving a talk.  I thought I would share with you what they are going to be doing.

Stephen was trying to tell me to move the pictures down so he could see Vance's face and since I am a wonderful lip/hand reader I helped Vance move the pictures up so his face is covered more.  Oops....

Fun

Vance showing off his Angry Bird pajamas that he loves.

 This past weekend Stephen and I left the kids with his parents and had a little get away for an early wedding anniversary celebration.  We had a great time and the kids had a great time with their grandparents.  Instead of swapping car seats we just swapped cars.  Stephen's parents had a light out in the back so we took a few minutes to change it on Friday.

 Here is Porter on our way back home.  We gave them each a new book.  He loves the book we got him and was cute holding it in his lap on our drive home.

 This pictures isn't very good, but it is a necklace I got from Stephen.  It's fun cause I can buy different pendants to swap out.

 At the beginning of the summer I signed up for a kids bowl free program (www.kidsbowlfree.com) and we haven't actually taken them bowling so this morning we decided to go.  They even have ramps for younger kids so Tanner and Porter had an easier time bowling.

Quick trips, rash, juicers

Tanner reading "The Pigeon Find a Hot Dog" to Vance, Porter, and me.  They love anything written by Mo Willems.  In Tanner's own words, "I love the pigeon books.  They are funny."

 We took a quick day trip to Preston to see my mom, Rose, and several family members on my Mom's side of the family.  It was a quick trip, but we had a good time.  Porter had a fabulous time on this tree swing with Rose.

 Porter developed a rash last week.  I tried to take a picture of it, but it didn't really show up on the picture.  It was the worst on his cheeks, but it also got his arms, back, and his upper legs.  It has cleared up now.

 My cute Porter hanging outside in our driveway.  He was watching his dad clean off our driveway.

 I purchased a juicer back in January, you may remember.  Well, I was loving it until a piece got warped and I could no longer use it.  I order a part and it showed up a month later only for me to realize it was the wrong part.  I won't go into the details, but after several phone calls (my wonderful husband made) and five months of waiting for the right part, for people to tell us what was going on, poor customer service and Stephen getting demanding on the phone they sent us a new juicer.  I got it yesterday.

 Just a picture of Vance and Tanner playing with their plastic dinosaurs.

Toy Clearance and Scrapbooks

I wanted to blog about some non-photo of the day related things.  I thought I'd still share our photo from yesterday.  The boys were doing water colors using Kool Aid.  It smelled great.

 Today we took advantage of some Target Toy Clearance.  Generally every January and July Target will mark toys up to 70 percent off.  It's a great way to get cheap toys.  I like to buy them when I can and save them for birthdays, Christmas, and gifts.  Here's a picture of what we picked up this year.  We did get a couple of Lego sets for 30% which I am told (by Stephen) that's really good for Legos.  We also have a Red card with Target and they take off 5% of your total so the items that were 70% off ended up being more like 71% off.  Happy day.  Everything pictured below is either 70 or 50% off.  Yay.

Here is what I got:  Super Grover, STart Wars Transformer Darth Vadar, Spin 'n Spiral Doodle, Hexbug Nano set (which can go along with the Hexburg set they already own), Mater Laptop, Mario Galaxy Figure, Star Wars Trouble, Pigeon Puzzle set, Hot Wheel Trio Car, Hexbug Set, Solar System Tag Reader pack, Mario Cart Wii Cars, ABC Wooden puzzles (giving this to my nephew for his first birthday), Safari Animal Puzzle, and a Mario Galaxy Mini Figure set. Who wants to know how much I spent and how much I saved?  At the normal price all of this would have cost $324.86 and I paid $118.33. That's a savings of $206.53.  And now a good chunk of birthday/Christmas shopping has been taken care of.  I think Stephen spoke for the Mario Kart wii remote controlled cars.  :)

Shutterfly has had some great promos on photo books lately that I have taken advantage of.  I have switched to digital scrap booking, which is a lot of fun, but I haven't had the chance to make anything into a book yet. Well, Shutterfly had two different promos going where I was able to get two photo books 50% off and get free shipping too.  Yay!  That is the only way I plan to get my pages into a book is with that kind of deal.

I thought I'd share a picture from each.  I got a book of Vance's first year done.  Most of those pages I did before I took any digital scrapbooking classes so I am a little embarrassed by my skills, but I am glad to see that my skills have improved.  Anyway, here is a page from Vance's book.

 The other book I ordered was Tanner's first year of life.  Here is a page from his book.

Zoo, Parties, and a Haircut too

Stephen fell asleep on the couch one day and so Porter was kind enough to give him his Mario to snuggle with and "bumblebee" which is the car below Mario.  Stephen wasn't actually asleep when I took the picture, but he had his eyes closed and looked so peaceful.

 Here is Porter with a little crayon/water coloring project we did.  He loves to be involved with the older boys in everything they do.

 One of our activities was doing volcanoes in a cup.  It was a huge hit and real easy just vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring.  We did it several times.

 Tanner pulled this face and told me it was his dragon face.  So there you go, Tanner's dragon face.

 We took the boys to the zoo on Saturday.  Stephen had some Dr. Pepper cans that you could turn in and get free children's admissions with an adult ticket so we ended up only having to pay for Stephen and I's tickets.  We had a great time.

 Porter still loves electronics.  You can see him showing a little lego guy how to play Angry Birds.

 Our nephew had his 5th birthday party yesterday.  Super hero themed.  Really cute.  My mother-in-law made the cute capes and they had masks too.  My boys had a blast.  Here is a picture of all the cousins on Stephen's side of the family.

 I have been so sick of my hair lately.  It's been driving me nuts for lots of different reasons so I finally decided to get it cut short again.  I did it shorter than have had it in a while.  I was even able to donate the hair I cut off to locks of love.  I think I will enjoy the change.