Bathtime with Dallin

Dallin has been super cute in the tub these past few weeks. I have been grabbing my camera some nights. Here he is, at bathtime:

This night, as I laid him back, he kept saying, "Nice, warm." Guess the water felt nice.

Kindergarten!!

Blake started school yesterday! I like that kindergarteners start on a different day than the rest of the school. It just gives everyone some time to adjust.

Here he is going in for his kindergarten assessment. Cutie pie!

After watching his brother and the neighbor kids who he loves go off to school without him, now he is finally part of the group. And he is very happy about it!

He got some new school shoes, and has been begging to wear them. Finally the day came. I said, "Blake go get your new shoes!" He was so excited. We got his shoes on, and I said, "Ok, go get your backpack." His jaw dropped and he just stared at me for a second. I think he forgot all about his new backpack. On top of his new shoes, having his backpack too, he was just wide eyed. So much happiness all at once! After he recovered from the awe of it all, he was just squealing.

Big brother was pretty excited for him. Kyle told Blake, "You are going to love it. Kindergarten is so fun!"

He sat right down and started coloring. Oh, this back to school has been a little hard on me. First Kyle doesn't want me around to take pictures, and now my little cuddly Blake has one foot out the door! I am not usually emotional like this, but this year has been different. These milestones are big ones.

I love his teacher this year, Mrs. Kelly. She does this cute thing with the kids when they go home. They do an elbow bump, so here he is doing the elbow bump with her:

How cute are these kiddos! This is the neighborhood kindergarten group. Blake and Onyx are in the same class. They are destined to be great buddies! I love it!

Back to School 2012

Summer flew by and already it is time for school! Kyle is in 3rd grade! Oh wow. That is crazy. I was looking forward to this day, Kyle really needs school and really does good at it. Then, I got all sad because he didn't want anything to do with me taking pictures of him. He got embarassed and wouldn't pose. That morning, this is all I got: He was turning away from me as I snapped this picture. :(

"MOM!" he scolded me.

I was allowed to accompany him to his classroom, but not allowed to go in the room to take pictures. I took this from the hall.

Outside the classroom is where I stayed. Dejected. Rejected.

At the end of the day, he did come running up to me. So that made me feel a lot better. So he is still happy to see me after school. Good enough, I'll take it! I took that opportunity to get some better pictures:

Love you Kyle! My big 3rd grader. You can have some space, I understand. You are going to have a great year, little buddy!

Bear Lake

Every kid loves water, and my boys are no exception. I love Bear Lake because it is so safe. The shallow water goes a long way so the kids can have a lot of fun without too much worry. We met up with the cousins who my kids just love. They always have a good time playing together. They built some pretty cool sand castles. Who doesn't have fun with water and sand?

Dallin had a big fluffy yummy cheeto that he dropped in the water. The wind was blowing that day, so when he tried to reach down for his cheeto, it would float away from him just enough that he couldn't reach it. So up he would stand, walk forward a few more steps, then reach down to grab that cheeto, and off it would float just out of his reach. Again he would stand up, take a few steps, reach down and just out of reach it would float once more. He got frustrated, stood up, and yelled. Then, determined as a 2 year old can be, he kept at it. Finally on his 8th attempt, he got ahold of that soggy, sandy cheeto and ate it. "Mmm" he said. All that effort made it taste good I guess.

The boys also got in a water fight with Grandma Bonnie. At first I felt bad that the boys were shooting her with tons of water, sometimes right on her bum. But then I realized that she started it by dumping large buckets of water on them. :) Looks like they had a good time.

We had to park quite a distance from the water, so we were hauling all our stuff through the sand, uphill. I gained a new respect for the beach volleyball players.

It was such a fun day, we have to do this again soon before summer is over.

I Love This Sleeping Baby!

Raspberries!

This is a happy and welcome sight around here. Look at all those!

Dallin doesn't remember eating these last year, so this has been a fun surprise for him. "Berree!" he says. He gets so excited sometimes I catch him trying to eat the green ones.

Kyle helps me pick them. He picked all of these by himself.

Digging for gold!

I even had enough to make freezer jam. It was quite a mess. So worth it. Yummy. I love this stuff.

My Dad

It has been 4 years since I last saw my dad. So finally, he came to see me and see the boys. Last time he came, Kyle was 4, Blake was 1 and of course Dallin wasn't even around yet. July is a good time for him to come out because of the car show, and my dad is a total car guy. He loves old cars. He is pretty good at working on them himself. We took the boys with us and they really enjoyed it. Although it is July, the weather was pretty nice. Most of the time there was a cool breeze.

We also went to go see the movie Brave. Great movie.

So now the boys know who Grandpa Marvin is. And I got to play lots of rummikub with him. :) It was a great visit. Hopefully 4 years won't go by til the next one.

Willow Park Zoo

I love having the willow park zoo so close to us. We don't go there as often as we should. I took the three boys for a visit. It is nice and shady and cool. Everybody's favorite was feeding the duckies. Dallin had never done that and soon had them eating from his hand. He did a cute giggle along with this.

There is a peacock that roams free there and it soon figured out that we had some food. Kyle and Blake fed this thing for a few minutes. It got pretty comfortable around us until Dallin saw it and went running after it. Then it ran away and flew up and over a fence.

Are we really there? Where pictures always have to have silly faces in them. I guess that is where we are with Kyle. This face came with a bunch of wierd noises. And some giggles too. 2 out of 3 isn't too bad I guess. D for the picture but A+ for the fun we had.

Best Seat in the House

Dallin found himself a place to sit. Right on my face!

Tee Ball

One of my favorite things to watch is Tee Ball. I love all of it. The hats are cute, the kids are cute, it is summer time!

Kyle wasn't interested this year, but Blake gave it a try. I wish soccer came after tee ball. Since Blake had just gotten out of soccer, which is very active and busy, he was a little bored in tee ball. But he still had fun.

The first time Blake hit the ball, instead of running for 1st base, he ran to get the ball he had just hit! It was so funny to watch.

Blake's team was the Indians. The neat thing is that he had the same coach Kyle had a few years ago.

Blake's nickname at our house now is "BEEP" because that is how Dallin says Blake. Everytime Blake would hit the ball, I would clap and yell, "Go Blake!" and Dallin would clap and yell, "Go BEEP!"

Here is "BEEP" on base.

Dallin got bored, and he would wander off a little. My big helper Kyle would go and entertain him.

Ever since Dallin saw our sprinklers come on in our yard, he has been so obsessed with them. No matter where we are, if he sees one, he will yell, "wa wa!" Then he has to stop and inspect them. When we were looking for a spot to sit at the last game, Kyle carried my chair for me. He purposely set it down right in front of a sprinkler so that Dallin would be happily occupied, for a few minutes at least. I told Kyle what a great idea that was and how smart he was for doing that. Kyle said, "The student becomes that master." Ha ha!

Kyle took some pictures for me with my camera. He did such a good job! It was cute to see him walking around with my camera, getting pictures of Blake. I wanted a picture of Kyle taking a picture of Blake. :) Actually Kyle took the one below: I love my boys! I love summer time!