Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus

We have been pretty busy lately. Needless to say, I have been slackin on updating the blog. After Thanksgiving, two trips to Orem and Christmas, I'm exhausted! We have had a good couple of months though. Here are some pictures of our Orem trips.
This is at the Bean Museum. They had a full size elephant and it was HUGE! Tanner thought it was pretty cool.

Rylee had her share of fun, too. She was just happy to get out of the stroller and run around.

We also went to the Dinosaur Museum. Tanner was pretty excited about it. It's the best place in the world, next to Pirate Pizza!

We had a little Christmas party with Jim's family and the kids were making snowmen out of marshmallows and icing. They had so much fun! Tanner was pretty proud of his. The poor little guy got sick while we were there, so it was hard to get a smile out of him. :(

And now onto Christmas. We had a great Christmas this year. My dad has a Santa suit and come over every Christmas eve. This year when he walked in Tanner says "It's Santa!!" and didn't stop grinning the entire time. It was the cutest! Rylee on the other hand......

However she did enjoy Christmas morning. It was so much fun watching them, especially Tanner, unwrapping and playing and unwrapping some more!

As you can see, we had a wonderful holiday. Hope yours was just as good!
Have a Happy New Year!

Tanner's Awsome Bed

Tanner just got a new bed and I'm pretty sure he likes it. When he got up on it for the first time he said "This is the most awesome bed in the world!". The spiderman sheets were a bonus!Rylee likes it almost as much as Tanner. The bad thing is that she has already figured out how to climb up the slide with her bare feet. Little stinker! Hopefully we can avoid the ER due to broken limbs.

Happy Birthday Rylee!

Our baby girl has turned one! I can hardly believe it had already been one year.

We had a pig party for her. She was just about to give the piggy a kiss!

As you can see, she had plenty of help opening her presents. They were a little more excited about it than she was anyway.

Her aunt Kendra gave her some books that she already loves. She wanted to look at them all as soon as they were opened.

She actually blew out her candle! I was so surprised. Tanner was a little disappointed because I didn't think that she would so I told him to help her, and he didn't even get to. But he soon got over it because then it was time to eat the cupcakes that he had been waiting to eat ALL DAY!

It was so funny how dainty she was eating the cake. She just picked all the pink dots off, and as soon as she was ready, she dove right in. She loves having her hands all messy!

These are the cupcakes that I had to hurry and make because the cakes I tried to make didn't turn out. I thought that they turned out pretty good for a last minute project. Now I remember why I always pay someone to do it for me!
Rylee had a fun birthday. Thanks to all of the family that were able to come an celebrate with her!

Halloween!

We had a great time this past week preparing for Halloween. Tanner asked everyday if he could wear his costume. Time is such a hard concept for little kids to understand.With much persuasion on my part, Jimmy 'helped' Tanner carve some scary pumpkins to greet our trick-or-treaters. Tanner picked out the designs he wanted and supervised Jimmy to make sure he was doing it right. He was very impressed with them and went outside every ten minutes to look at them again and again.

Tanner and his pumpkins.

On to Halloween. Rylee was a little Punk Rocker, complete with tattoos and a pink mohawk. She looked so cute. She was loving playing in the pumpkins.

Tanner, of course, was Spiderman. I bet you didn't know that Spiderman wears cowboy boots. It was fun to have Tanner get a little more excited about it this year.

Tanner had an unfortunate accident that rendered his Spiderman costume unwearable, so I had about five minutes to hurry and think of something else. Thank goodness for Poppy Jeffery and his cowboy paraphernalia. It was a quick fix, but he makes one cute cowboy.

We had fun this year with the kids. I do have to say, though, that I am glad it's over. we are now looking forward to the upcoming holidays and time with family.

This and That

I thought that I would get the creepy stuff out of the way! Jimmy and I went to a Halloween party last night and this was what I got to come home with. Jimmy looked great! It took a minute for people to recognize him.We are not a very likely pair. We had a great time at the party. It was fun to be around some adults for a change.
On a cuter note, we went to the pumpkin patch with the kids and we had a lot of fun. It's located on a farm that has all kinds of stuff for the kids to do. We rode on a little trailer puiled by a tractor to get to the pumpkin patch and Tan thought that was pretty fun. Rylee even liked it. She didn't care, however, about getting her picture taken.

Tanner got to pick put his own pumpkin. It wasn't very hard for him to decide, he pretty much picked the one that was closest to where we were standing. Jim was OK with that since it was small and he had to carry it around for the rest of the time that we were there.

They had this little thing to take pictures with. I told Tan to put his face in it so I could take one and I guess he did! He's so funny. They also had all kinds of farm animals to pet and little rides. It was perfect for a little boy who doesn't have much of an attention span.

Rylee is getting so big! I can't believe she is going to be one next month!

The other day, Tan had the camera and was taking all kids of pictures. This is a self portrait (obviously!). He was having so much fun with the camera. Some of the pictures he took are pretty funny.

The boys! The weather has been pretty nice lately so we took the dogs to the park to let them run around a bit. Tanner and Jim also got a little exercise!

A Few New Things

We have a new addition to our family. He' s a bit bigger than the other dogs, but he seems to fit right in. His name is Barak (pronounced Barick) and he's an English Mastiff. Jim has been wanting a Mastiff for so long and just happened across an add for this little guy. He is just as sweet as can be. As you can see, he's pretty big.

Tanner already loves him. He didn't take any time to adjust, just walked right in like he has always lived here.

My parents got some miniature goats that are just adorable. Tanner was pretty concerned that they didn't have their mommy and daddy. It was pretty sweet.

The other day, Rylee thought that a crayon would make a good snack. It was a huge mess. I literally had to scrape it from her teeth. That girl puts everything in her mouth!

Tanner had started to draw almost constantly. He really needed a picture by some of the pictures he drew.

I just thought I'd throw in a picture of my new haircut. It's super cute! Rylee is totally not interested in taking a picture. She couldn't keep her eyes off of the new horse, I mean, dog!

30 Already?!

The rumors are true folks, I just turned 30! It's not so different than 29, but I do feel like I have to be a little more responsible. BLAH!! I had a good birthday. Jimmy did so good this year, remembering all of my favorite things. What a sweetie! He had to work that night, so my mom took me to dinner at Olive Garden, my FAVORITE place, and we had a really good time. My sweet little daddy got me an ice cream cake from Baskin Robins, and it was just perfect. I think Tanner was pretty impressed that the cake AND the ice cream were all in one. Birthdays are just not what they used to be, but I was with my family, and it was a good day. Thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes!

Feels Like Fall

The other day it was pretty nice outside so I thought I would sit out there with the kids and get a little fresh air. Tanner is still working on learning to ride his scooter. I'm sure the boots aren't helping any. But he does LOVE his Spiderman sunglasses!

Rylee loves being outside. She sat and watched Tan ride his scooter and had a snack of Gold Fish crackers. It was really nice to just sit and enjoy the day. I'm looking forward to more days like this. Yay Fall!

Finally!

The unthinkable has been accomplished! Tanner is potty trained. After thinking that it was never going to happen, and Tanner not being interested in any reward I could come up with, I guess he finally decided that he was ready. He takes after his father in the fact that he does everything when he feels like it's his idea, not mine, so I knew that I was going to have to wait until he was ready, but I was getting impatient waiting. The boots were his reward. They must have been just enough motivation, because they worked! Now he has new brown boots that I have to take off almost every night after he has fallen asleep. I love it! Way to go Tanner!

One down, one to go. I hear girls are easier to potty train than boys, so maybe we only have another year of diapers! Wouldn't that be nice?!

Jim's Birthday

Jim had his 30th birthday this last week. He had to work so we weren't able to celebrate it until Sunday. He said all he wanted was a big fat steak! So that's what he got! He had all of his favorite things for dinner. He was pretty happy!Thanks, Jim, for all that you do for your family. You work so hard for us and we love you so much!
Happy Birthday!

Gone Campin'

Over the Labor Day weekend we went camping with my mom's family. We had a lot of fun. Tanner wouldn't hold still for anything. He loved being up in the mountains. You would think that he is a city boy with how fascinated he was with everything, or just a three year old boy! This obviously isn't when we were camping but I had to throw these two pictures in. This was when Rylee turned 9 mo. Hopefully her hair is long and curly to help cover those ears! Just kidding! She couldn't be any cuter!

Tanner had to take a picture with his strawberry marshmallows. Weirdo! By the way, this is before his haircut.

Onto the camping trip. We were in an RV and Tanner got to sit in the front seat and navigate. He thought it was the coolest. He was telling us almost the entire way that we were being chased by dinosaurs. But lucky for us, some of them were nice.

He confiscated some boots from his cousin and had outfits similar to this one the whole weekend. You will all be proud to know that it only bothered me a little. This was on one of our many walks. We just let Tanner lead the way. Just so you know, he can run fast in those boots, he told me so himself.

Rylee loved going for walks too. Only she wanted to actually walk. Any day now, I'm sure of it. She sure loves her Daddy!

And her Daddy loves her!

Tanner is a little poser! This was by a big rock that he would climb all by himself. He was so happy to be so independent.
This is an after of his hair cut. Not he best picture but it's the shortest it's ever been. Good thing it grows fast!

Rylee just wanted to get in the dirt!

Tanner played in the creek as much as he could. The water was freezing, but he didn't even notice! He was having too much fun.

This pretty much sums up the way we all felt at the end of the weekend. We were all so exhausted, but we had a great time!