Sunday, August 31, 2014

August

Sunday, August 24th, found us at Josh’s Grandma Dixie’s house with almost everyone on that side of the family (Josh’s dad, brothers and their families, and his parents).

This picture was at the end, but it’s always good to start with a group picture. So here is one of Josh’s dad’s little (HUGE) branch of the family. We love these people so much!


When we arrived we were of course greeted with an amazing feast. Oh how I want to be Dixie when I grow up. She puts on a spread like you wouldn’t believe! Every. Time.

Then we all visited and played.

Avonelle however, who was dressed as Princess Belle for the day, did not leave Hallie’s side, er arms, the entire time. She was her shadow, er weight to carry.


Traegan spent a good long while running around with the cousins.  Then we ate and then he began making this little creation.  It had several names, "Salad Surprise", "Special Treat", "Traegan's treat", etc.  But after he started making it he spent the entire rest of the time adding to it.  (Despite my attempts to get him to stop or actually eat it).


Gareth slept and then got passed around.  Great Grandma Dixie had her turn and Gareth seemed quite pleased.


After the big group picture... Avonelle was still loving on Hallie.


Hallie was so cute with Avonelle.  It was so sweet and it just reminded me of a time long ago...

When I first started coming to Josh's family things I loved hanging out with little Hallie.  We became fast friends.  This picture was I think the last Easter before Josh left on his mission... so probably the Spring of 2005...  Almost ten years ago.  How we've both grown and changed.  And now she is loving on my babies.  Weird.


Here is Traegan's finished Salad Surprise!


He almost cried when I went to throw it away when it was time to go.  So we put it in a bag and took it home and he did actually eat a lot of it when we got home.  Gross.

After we read a story in Avy's room that night Traegan asked if we could all take a picture.  I happily obliged!


Then that night the most amazing thing happened! He's been close for a while, but Gareth finally started laughing! So fun!


Monday morning we had to walk to the school for Traegan to do his Kindergarten testing.  It was quite the adventure to get there at the same time as EVERYONE else's first day of school.  Wow.  I was grateful for my sweet neighbors who waited with me and helped with Avonelle and Gareth.


And lets not talk about how I was tearing up on this day... Seriously?  When actual school started I was going to be a wreck!

Just my little man and his magic eyes!


Wednesday we had Achievement Days and we watched a movie on a big screen in one of the neighbors basements.  I took Avy and she loved it!


The next day Ms. Belle, Mr. Cheeks and myself all woke up with colds.  It was a fairly pathetic day of laying around and snuggling.  Not a bad way to spend your day... minus the snot.


Mr. Dude chilling in the Bumbo.  He loves it! (8/29)



Friday we had to walk to the school again to find out who Traegan's teacher would be.  It's not abnormal to have Gareth be asleep... but poor Avy was bobbing all over the place.  :(


Sunday we actually made it to church... (it's rather difficult to get there by nine when you sleep approx. 0 hours at night) so I took this picture of Gareth because he's about to outgrow this little number.  Kid is so chunky and I love it!


Then we hung out and cleaned for a little bit before the kids and I headed to Logan to visit Justin and Gaelin and my family.  And Josh had his brothers over for a video game night.  They were here until about 3 am yelling all kinds of weird things and giggling like 13 year old girls.  :)  I'm glad they have so much fun together!

Friday, August 29, 2014

And So It Begins...

Saturday, August 23rd was the start of the fall soccer season here in Brigham City.  Josh is coaching Traegan's team again and we have 7 KIDS on our team.  SEVEN!  That's quite a few.

And they are the "Dragons" this time.  The kids named themselves.  Or rather, Owen named them as he was the only one talking at that point.  Once they landed on Dragons, Owen kept yelling, "I'm a genius!"  Ha!


Traegan and Owen were some of the first kids there.  As others were coming a few of their mom's were like, "um... is this the 5 year old team?"  And Noelle and I were like, "Yup.  Our kids are just shrimps."  :)

Avonelle wanted to practice (and play) with the team real bad.  She was always out there mimicking whatever Josh was saying, "ball, goal, yes yes."  (It's all very important and needs to be repeated).

When I'd pry her away from the huddle she'd pout a few feet away from me.  Little stink.


Luckily, Cole was there to play, "Let's pick all the grass we can find!"

He was confused by all the rules she was imposing on him at first.  She's rather picky.


Eventually they developed a sophisticated system of moving the grass from one cone to another before they dumped it...


On my lap!  Or Noelle's lap.  Or in the cup holders on our camp chairs.


Our little dudes when they were sitting out one quarter.
(Look!  I got a real smile from Owen!)


Love them!


Gareth was around.  He was quite happy when upon arrival Papa saved him from the car seat.  He watched part of the game with Grandma and Grandpa Prize.


But after a while, as usual, he gave up and just fell right asleep.


Traegan was about on par with his usual soccer performance.  Mostly dancing AROUND the ball.  Definitely no two goals this game, in fact I'm not entirely sure he touched the ball more than twice.  But hopefully it will just take a second to remember how to play.  :)

I'm looking forward to another season of soccer.  I kind of love it!

Thursday, August 28, 2014

A Little While

Here is just a little bit of the goings on...

I've been trying to take a picture of Gareth every Tuesday (weekly from when he was born).  I have grand plans of doing a collage or something, but mostly it's a way to make sure he doesn't get neglected (with pictures) as the third child...  :)

Anyway, so these were on August 19th and he was 11 weeks old!


Remember when I said he needed a wardrobe of nothing but navy blue... this is why!

Dem eyes gonna keel me!


Also that day I had this conversation with Avonelle:
She was wearing her Zebra blanket and I say to her, "Hello zebra."
She says: "No, I not Zebra. I moo!"
Don't worry, I corrected her and now she says cow.  ;)

She speaks in complete sentences most of the time.  It positively kills me.

This was a few days later (8/21) and early in the morning.  I will miss my morning snuggles and TV watching so much when school starts... SO MUCH!


Silly face one...


Then I finally got around to doing my ice bucket challenge on Friday, August 22nd.  It's embarrassing.  :)
It was raining that day so I did it in the bathtub.
Yes, Avonelle dumped (freezing cold, ice) water on herself and I laughed.
Yes, Gareth is screaming at the end because he was being neglected for a few minutes.


And that's that.  Friday I was supposed to go up to Logan and help with the half marathon, but I just couldn't make it work so Nate and Lindsey came over and hung out and that was much more fun!  :)

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Kiddie Land

Warning: This posts has possibly the most pictures I’ve ever put in a blog post… (I wonder what my record is. Hmm). But there is no better picture than one of a child having fun and that is what Lagoon is all about peeps. So yeah, just know that I know there are too many pictures and enjoy the fact that all of these children are beautiful! Deal! 

Way back at the beginning of the summer when the kids were bored out of their mind and we were ALL waiting “patiently” for Gareth’s arrival… Josh promised Traegan we could go to Lagoon after his birthday. To say he looked forward to that day would be the greatest understatement EVER! He asked all the time if we could go yet. Like daily.

Well somehow we managed to convince Josh’s siblings that we should go together and then the kids would have more fun. Then we managed to convince Josh’s parents to get us discount tickets and supplement the admission cost. Perfection!

Traegan was FREAKING OUT that he got to go to Lagoon AND got to go with all his “cousin friends!”

Sunday was the day. (Yes, we are all sinners and we’re okay with it). :) We had a slow start and when we got there we were surprised to find that there were roughly two billion people there. Seriously. We parked in a field. A very full field. Wow.

But Josh and I had no aspirations of riding any adult rides so we were fine with just chilling in kiddie land all day.

We got there and immediately began the day long activity of waiting in line…


We started out with Bulgy the Whale because it’s A. the first one we saw and B. pretty mellow just in case there was going to be any freak outs.

Gareth was just a chilling in his stroller… which he did most of the day… little sweet heart!


Avonelle seemed to understand that she had a full day of fun ahead of her before the ride even started!


And so it begins!  Oh the joy!


Then we moved next door to the jeeps.  Fun!


Then Josh took the kids on the Tea Cups. At which point I was pretty much convinced that he had lost Avonelle in the time between when they were let in to load the cups and when they actually loaded them. Seriously, I couldn’t see her head the entire time. :)


Then we waited in line to ride the Jumping Dragon; which is Traegan’s favorite ride. When we got up to the front we realized that Traegan was too short to ride it without an adult… as was Avonelle. Since we only had two adults and one of them needed to stay with the stroller, we had a slight problem. One that would likely repeat throughout the day.

Josh waited with a very unhappy Av and a sleeping Gareth while Traegan and I rode it. We hoped some of the rest of the group would want to hang in kiddie land later to help solve the problem.

After that whole ordeal we hiked to the VERY back corner of the park to Pavilion land to meet up with the family. It was pretty darn cool to all be together, I’m not going to lie.

Back row L to R: Jason and Noelle, Scott and Kathy, Josh holding Gareth, Jeremy and Julie, Avonelle and I (I’m on the end because I was running with the timer, I really do love my husband). :) 
Front row L to R: Cole, Owen, Jettsen, Traegan, Kylie, Sammie and Chloe

Family is pretty much the best thing ever and I love that I love my husband’s family as much as my own. I hope we can always do fun stuff like this together because I really love each and every one of them! HUGE thanks to Scott and Kathy for letting us do this!

Then we all ventured back to kiddie land to do a few rides together. We started out with the Octopus one that squirts water at you. Kathy and I waited with Gareth after we made sure that all the kids had an appropriately sized partner. :)

Pappa and Avy had to switch sides, but I did get some good pictures before it started. And Miss Belle did in fact wave to me from pretty much every ride the entire day! Love her!


Chloe was a little worried and crying before the ride started, but clearly she enjoyed it once it was going.


Cole and Noelle


Sammie and Julie


Traegan and Josh


Owen and Jason


Kylie and Jett were pretty excited that they were tall enough to ride some rides just the two of them.  And tell me this isn't like the greatest picture ever?


Dripping wet and grinning ear to ear. I wish there were words good enough to describe the love I have for this little man!


Then we rode on the BomBora roller coaster (where I was surprised and deafened by Chloe’s “only dogs can hear that pitch” screaming) and then the teacups (where I piled in the PINK teacup with Avonelle, Chloe, and Sammie and had to decide whether to spin it and please two of them or not spin to please Sammie) and then we headed up to Pioneer Village for food! Longest sentence ever. My bad.

After that we headed to ride the train with Jeremy and Julie’s clan and Grandma and Grandpa.


Fun side note, this was the only ride Gareth got to go on. You can see how excited he was. :)



Avonelle princess waved at all the animals. She positively melts me.


After the train we said good bye to Grandma and Grandpa who were for some reason sick of melting in the sun and being suffocated by the crowds.  Weird.

Then we just did kiddie land to death!

Each ride Chloe and Sammie would fight over who got to ride with Avonelle. Kind of fun!

This one Chloe and Traegan are in the purple boat and Avonelle and Sammie are in the orange.


Then the helicoters. Kylie was always wanting to ride with Traegan. She loves him. They are pretty cute together.


Chloe was in the back (opposite of where we were standing) when we were waiting for the ride to start. So we didn’t notice until the ride started that she was SOBBING! Turns out there was a bee on her helicopter before the ride started and she COULD NOT HANDLE THAT!


The ride attendent stopped the ride after about two seconds as soon as he saw her crying and let her off. The bee was long gone by then. :) I’m a horrible Aunt… but I laughed. A lot.

Meanwhile, Sammie didn't want to go up in the helicopter and Avonelle did.  So Sammie locked her elbows and held her arms straight out so that Avy couldn't move the bar.  Hilarious.


Then Jason and Noelle and boys met up with us and the cousins all rode on the cars.


Then we made the husbands wait in line to ride Puff the Dragon.


Puff.  I literally can't look at this picture without snorting.  Look at their faces!  Especially Avy's (click on it for full effect), she just looks terrified.  Oh my sides hurt.


Planes.  Traegan and Owen.


Chloe rode this one with Avonelle and had a pretty good grip on the joystick and wasn't letting it go up.  But every once in a while, Avy, who LOVES to go up would grab it and move it as hard as she could.  Chloe would resist.  This would result in the plane bouncing up and down like it was having a seizure and Avy getting this really evil little smirk.  Oh how much fun I had watching her!


Traegan is in the elephant and Avy is in the bee with Kylie and loving that Kylie let her go up!


Then we let them ride it again.  Traegan was so excited to ride it again that he literally ran INTO the bee.  Like full on, cartoon like, flat on the back, feet pop up in the air, ran into the bee.  I didn't see it. Josh laughed hard.  We're great parents.

But he recovered (and so did Av after Traegan wouldn't share the joystick and I threatened going home) and they enjoyed another go of it.


Then we said good bye to Jason and Noelle and boys and headed for the carousel.

Avy and Sammie watched with much anticipation.


Traegan and Kylie on their horses.


The merry-go-round was positively packed and by the time I got Trae and Kylie strapped in the only thing left was this rocking bear.  But once it started moving, Avy seemed pretty darn pleased.  :)


Then we rode the jeeps before heading out.

Chloe and Traegan are in the yellow one and even though you can't see their eyes, their faces are priceless.  Sammie and Avy are in the orange.  :)


Then we were ready to head out and Julie took a family picture for us.  A picture that somehow got deleted on my camera.  Yes.  I'm crying a little.

On our way out, Traegan walked into a pole.  Seriously.  I was quite sure he had a concussion between that and the bee incident earlier.  Then in the parking lot he asked us about what all the rides were made of and Josh said he wasn't concussed.

All in all we had a pretty freaking fun day.  I loved every second of it, especially considering that I LOVE rides and didn't get to ride hardly any.  I just love watching the kids have so much fun.

Thank you again to Scott and Kathy for the SUPER fun day!  I know that my kids had a total blast!  (They've been in here while I worked on the pictures telling me about each and every ride complete with sound effects).  :)  THANK YOU!