just love~

i just love her.
he just loves her.
they just love each other!

my little super heros~

the boys have really gotten into super heroes lately.
they are in love with super hero shirts.
cullan walks around the house singing the "thunder cats" theme song.
(daddy introduced it to him!)

who knew~

who knew brushing teeth with a two year old and a three year old could be so dangerous.
the other night garran came out of the bathroom while brushing teeth with the boys to ask me if maybe just maybe he had something in his hair!

a nice reminder~

when i woke up this morning garran told me that he wanted to read me something out of the ENSIGN. he said that he had been reading it and it made him think of me. here is what he pointed out.

"The best marriage advice I ever received was from my dad, Richard Hopkins, who told me that an accomplishment for one person in a marriage is a victory for both. My husband, Mark, and I have made this one of those rules we live by. For example, if one spouse graduates from college, it brings honor to the family and should be celebrated as a joint accomplishment. (after all, for one spouse to graduate, the other had to support the effort by sacrificing time and perhaps contributing financially or helping more than usual with childcare.) And now the whole family is better off because of it. The same concept applies to other accomplishments - serving well at church, doing well at music or sports or other talents, getting a promotion at work, and so forth. This advice has worked so well in our 25 years of marriage that we decided to apply it to our six children as well. The accomplishment of any child is a victory of the whole family. Other children should not feel pressured to accomplish something similar, nor should they resent the success of their sibling; instead, we celebrate what one has done to bring honor to everyone!"

what a great way to look at it. this was a great way to start my morning!!

socks~

kael has a love of socks. it started off with just his socks. then he moved on to any pair of socks.
i know it looks like he is wearing tights. nope those are garrans socks. kael really wanted to wear them.
this is him doing his super hero kick with his cool socks on !!!
i don't get it sometimes but he sure is cute.

old school~

how many of you remember taking old broken crayons and melting them down to make the fun little circle ones that you make with muffin tins. well my friend did this the other day with her kids and kind of reminded me of doing it as a child. so i went on a hunt to find all our broken and used crayons. then garran happened to come across a huge stash!
so we peeled. melted. cooled. COLORED!!
i love how they turned out. they were so pretty.
ps. the only problem is that i have to continually stress that we don't cook the crayons every day. only on special occasions!!!

update on preschool~

after cullans preschool open house we treated him to some alone time with mom and dad and went to get an ice cream cone.
while eating our ice cream we asked cullan what he thought about his teachers and classroom.
then i said "so cullan, you like your school?"
cullan responded
"yeah i like it cause i'm a genius!!"

excited~

this kid is excited!
today we get to go and meet his teacher and see his classroom.
today he gets to meet all the kids that are in his class.
today is the beginning of cullan officially being a big kid.
today we go to his open house for his brand new preschool!

cuteness~

the moon~

tonight we were driving home.
cullan and kael were talking in the back of the van.
all of a sudden we hear cullan say...
"kael, look at the moon.....IT'S BEAUTIFUL!!"
followed by a round of applause.
garran and i could not stop laughing.

dad visits~

this weekend my dad came up for a visit.

we were originally going to go to the park, however their was a birthday party going on and so we decided to go to the arboretum.here is gramps with the kiddos!
we walked around for a while looking at all the different rocks and flowers.here is cullan doing some crazy pose. i'm not sure exactly what he is doing. it was funny though.
we stopped to get a group picture. this is about the best we could do. we stopped and fed the fish. i tried to get all the kids picture on this rock. briea was making the funniest face. i have no idea what that is about.while the boys played in the sand, briea just hung out and sat with grandpa for a while.kael hung out with grandpa too. i don't know if we have one picture of kael just smiling. he is always doing something crazy!we decided to head out. grandpa decided to try out the back pack. briea just went along with it. she is not very picky as long as whoever is carrying it, is moving.
after the arboretum we went and had some lunch and then off to the big surprise.
we tried something that the boys had never done before.here they are waiting in line.they were so excited... they could hardly wait!And off they went.....Zooming around the track!cullan LOVED IT!!! all he wanted to do was go FASTER!!!kael did NOT LIKE IT!! i think that he ended up crying the last two laps. he was just laying his head on garran.so on the second ride, grandpa ended up riding solo. kael was a great fan but not so much for driving. kael was even a little leery of going to sit in the car after they were done racing. grandpa really wanted a picture with kael like he had with cullan so kael compromised and just sat on grandpa's lap for a minute.
all in all it was a fun visit and the boys had a great time!
thanks grandpa for coming to visit.

B~

she takes meal times VERY SERIOUSLY!

just stuff~

craziness around our house is a common thing.
so here are some different things that have happened today.are these not the cutest fire guys ever.
i saw these at the store on clearance for just a few dollars a piece.
the boys love to dress up and pretend.
very cute. if i do say so myself.cullan after crafts.
they were supposed to go on the paper.
oh well. what a cute kid.
********************************
the following is a conversation i had with cullan after i had lost my temper during the day.
me: cullan i'm sorry i lost my temper and yelled.
cullan: that's ok mom. you just grumpy. you can yell sometimes.
me: well. i probably should not yell at all.
cullan: yeah. you were grumpy, but you can yell at kael!

sometimes it is so funny to hear how they think.

control~

i needed a change.
hence the new background.
i needed to change something because i don't seem to have control of anything else.
why can't i have what i want when it comes to Internet, phone and cable.
why do i have to bundle?!?!?
and if i don't bundle, why do you think you have the right to charge me double the price for the same service.
if i was not addicted to my blog, i think i would just say goodbye to it all!!!

after~

my little sweetie after sweet potato's!
they are so cute when they get it everywhere.
she even still has some above her eye if you look closely.






babies just don't get much prettier than this!

happy feet~

today the boys were watching happy feet on tv.
kael wanted to put some socks on.
before i knew it, he was trying to tap dance his way around the living room. just like that little penguin on happy feet. it was hilarious. i'm sad i did not get video, however these pictures are pretty dang cute too!


this little guy makes my day sometimes.
he is hilarious and so full of personality!

1st ever Mom Campout!

here we are. three of the nine ladies that went camping. we had a blast. it was a great weekend. it was so relaxed. no kids, no makeup...just swimming, sitting around chatting and sleep..ahh...sleep! (well kind of)
we were the first to get to the cabin.
(left to right) meg, diana, stacy, krista
when we got there we chatted for a little while.stacy found this horn thing. really there are no words. i think we were just so dang excited to be there that we got a little crazy!krista found it too.. like i said... a little excited.
we decided to get ready to go to the lake and hang out while we waited for the other ladies. stacy and i had brought some floats but krista forgot hers. luckily diana had an extra. well kind of lucky.she is laughing like this because i took this ....she got stuck and was having a little trouble getting out. i took this picture. i don't think she knew right away that i took a picture of her rear end but i did get her permission to post it.
she has a good sense of humor.
so we finally got on our suits and headed down to the lake.
this was on the way to where we could go swimming. it was beautiful. so relaxing and quiet. exactly what i needed. this was the beach where we could hang out and go swimming.
we were excited to be there...can you tell?
we just hung out for about three hours, floating on our rafts, laughing and having a great time!
(i hate the smooched face from holding the camera myself and leaning back into the picture..oh well it was so much fun!)
after a little while had passed the rest of the ladies got there. this was a group shot of everyone.
left to right
krista, charity, diana, jamie, niki, susie, katie, stacy, meg
(i love krista's tough girl face..she looks mad...or that she might hurt you.)
of course we did a silly one. what can i say. a bunch of moms get some free time and we go wild!! LOL =0)after a fun day a the lake we decided to grill out and start a fire. krista is super excited about starting the fire. can you tell?
unfortunately stacy and i were in the danger zone. this was her...fighting the smoke!
niki and i at the campfire taking pictures of each other taking pictures... charity, jamie and krista sitting around the camp fire. i think krista is blowing some smoke and jamie is just super excited to be there!susie and diana laughing and having fun. we were having such a good time, we ended up staying up until 2:30 in the morning. then we headed inside. some of us just could not stop laughing and chatting so we headed back outside and stayed up until around 4:30 just having so much fun laughing.i came in for a bathroom break during all the festivities and saw this. (poor stacy and her back)
the next day we took a golf cart tour of the area that was at the cabin...
dang this hill.. stacy may be the only one to feel my pain on this one. something beautiful hides behind this massive hill.... you just will never see it!

a few of the ladies left around lunch time and the rest of us headed back down to the lake for some more fun in the sun. here are susie and i just getting in and getting on our floats. i have this stupid blue shirt on because my sunscreen from the day before was defective and i have a horrible sunburn. its a lovely shot i know. plus it looks like i have a toupee on. but i don't care..it was so much fun.. i am willing to post a horrible picture!here is our hostess for the weekend on her massively awesome float. we would pull hers out and then just tie ours to hers and we were this massive floating fleet on the lake. after the lake we knew it was time to pack up and head home. we were so sad to go. we had such a good time.
good bye sweet cabin and golf cart "aka the little engine that could"!!
until next year.
hopefully more ladies will be able to come next time. this year was kind of a trial run to see how it would go. we would love to invite even more people next time. the one rule is NO KIDDOS!
ps. i have to say thanks to my wonderful hubby who watched the kids so i could go with no fuss at all! he is great!