Pictures

Should it really be so hard to get two little boys to sit next to each other for 60 seconds to get a picture of them?

Baby Bradly

In December Ryan and Erin had their first baby boy. We drove up to Idaho to meet him. He is such a cutie. It is so easy to forget how little babies start out. Parker is no longer a baby when a "real" baby is around.

Catch Up

Okay, here it goes. I am attempting to get caught up on my pathetic blog. It is only 4:53am. I can't sleep but I don't know that I am awake enough to make sure that anything I say makes sense. We shall see.

Poem

One, two, buckle my shoe.
Three, four, shut the door.
Five, six, pick up sticks.
Seven, eight, Laman straight.
Nine, ten, a big fat hen.

I love how little kids interpret things. This is my favorite funny thing Hayden says right now. He used to call McDonald's "Megan Donald." Oh how I miss that.

Smarty Pants

Hayden is such a bright little boy. He remembers everything you tell him. He knew all of his letter names and sounds before he was two. Now he knows both capital and lower case letters. Here he is doing his lady bug puzzle that you match the capital and lower case letters. I love to hear him say capital and lower case.

UESP Christmas Party

12/03/09

Joe's company, UESP, had a Christmas party this year and the families were invited. They served a nice dinner and then had Santa Claus come to see the children. Each child sat on Santa's lap and got a gift. i was really impressed with the gift. It was a cute stocking that was stuffed full. It had an apple, an orange a pencil, stickers, a virtual pet and a little game.

Last Hayden was afraid of Santa Claus. This year he was so excited to sit on Santa's lap and tell him he wanted a football helmet and football clothes. I kow he was so excited but looking back at these pictures he looks terrified.

He sat on Santa's lap and stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Hayden. Nice to meet you."

Parker was a different story. He really was terrified by Santa. He did not want to sit on his lap at all. We will see how he does next year.

Oh Christmas Tree

11/27/09

The day after we decided that we were going to beginning a new family tradition. We bought a permit ($5.00) to cut down our Christmas tree. Our permit was for an area of BLM land by Cove Fort. Joe's mom and sister came with us so I could help with the tree and we would have help with the boys. We thought it would be fun to pull the boys on a sled through the snow. At first unfortunately but later thankfully there wasn't any snow.

Our permit was for a juniper tree. Do you know what they look like? I didn't, but now I do. They are so ugly. It doesn't look at all like a Christmas tree. It looks like a bush with tiny berries. When we got to our destination and saw these ugly trees we wondered what we were going to do. You could see were people had been cutting trees down and it appeared as if they cut the ugly bush into the shape of a Christmas tree.

We were preparing to do the same when we saw a cute little tree all by itself. We cut it down. (We may or may not have been where we were supposed to be and it may or may not have been a juniper tree.) We cut our cute little tree down and loaded it in the truck and enjoyed some hot chocolate.

Joe carrying our tree

Hot chocolate mustache

We drove two cars so that the tree could be in the truck. But Cris, Jill, the boys and I were in the van. As we were leaving I needed to turn the car around. I didn't notice a tree stump and I got the car stuck. It took forever to get it out. We tried everything. Basically, I couldn't go forward because of all the under carriage stuff and I couldn't go backwards because of the bumper. We were seriously stuck.

After surveying the problem and sawing off some of the stump, Chris decided that if we could get the car high enough we could get off the stump. We jacked the car up and piled rocks under the tire and tried to get out. it still wouldn't work.

Parker was on my back in the Ergo keeping warm. He fell asleep and I put him back in his car seat.

We called my trusty brother-in-law Mike. He was going to pull us out by putting a strap on our van and pulling us out with his SUV. This didn't work either. Then he decided Chris really was on to something. We jacked the car up again and put lots of rocks under the tire again.

It finally worked!

This is what we were stuck on.

I am so glad Chris and Jill were there to help and so extremely grateful Mike came to our rescue.

Unfortunately the excitement didn't end there. After putting the tree up it fell over three times and we finally had to buy a bigger tree stand. Half of the lights didn't work so we ended up buying all new lights. what was supposed to cost $5.00 ended up costing a whole lot more.

The tree was so poky we were covered with rashes and scratches. I think this tradition began and ended all on the same day.

Even though it wasn't the most enjoyable experience it was very memorable. The best part was the wonderful scent of a freshly cut evergreen tree.

Parker's Walker

11/29/09

Parker has been close to walking for such a long time. One night he took Grandma Great's walker. He did a great job walking with the walker. The next day I got out Riley's little walker (from when she broke her femur) and he walked with it for a few days. (Until Hayden climbed on it and fell off and scrapped/bruised his face).

Go To Bed!

11/27/09

I thought I told you boys to go to bed!

Hayden thinks it is so funny to get in Parker's bed. This night Parker didn't mind. Most of the time he screams because he wants to be asleep and his big bully brother wakes him up.

Thanksgiving 2009

11/26/2009

I know, I know, Thanksgiving was months ago. But better late than never. My birthday was on Thanksgiving this year. We had an enjoyable day. Joe made pancakes for breakfast and served it to me in bed. Hayden and Parker ate it. Joe gave me a beautiful picture of Christ and a cute nativity. Parker and Hayden gave me a gift card to In-N-Out Burger.

After a low key morning we went to the zoo. It was such a lovely fall day and we had fun having Daddy with us at the zoo.

This year we had dinner with the Young family. It was a fun day.

Attempt at a family picture.

The kid table

Parker loves Grandma Young so much!

He really is thankful for Mommy!

I made my first pumpkin pies. (I made 4)

Allen with Elsie and Daisy

How!

There were candles in all the pies and I had to race down the counter to blow them all out. I failed!