Some fun videos

My little brother spent the afternoon with us one day and decided that he wanted to play with Ethan in the water. These two videos are of Ethan and Brandon on the slipin' slide


Here is miss smarty pants showing off her sign language skills. She can now say more, please, thank you, all done and sometime eat or drink.

So when Madelyn first got her little baby stroller she refused to walk behind it. Then one day out of the blue she stood up and started pushing it around.

Carnival Birthday Party

We had a huge celebration for Madelyn and Jenner's (my nephew) 1st birthday AND to celebrate Jenner's older brother Race's baptism.

To get the party started we sent out these invites

I have so many photos that I've grouped them all together. Click on the photos to see them larger.

Below you can see the party from a far. Doesn't it look great! Thanks to my awesome friends for hanging up all of those balloons! We had fresh cotton candy for our thank yous and some fun games for the kids. Including our cute clown bean bag toss that we made.

I  had a banner with pictures of Madelyn, one from each month of her life hung up. A face painting station. Freshly popped popcorn and lots of yummy food. We served hot dogs and asked our guest to bring a side dish. Then we finished things off with funnel cakes and cupcakes!

My sister and I made this cupcakes to look like little cups of popcorn. It took some time and love but they turned out great!

Here are few pictures from the kids eating their birthday cupcake. Jenner was loving it and dove right in. But Madelyn was not interested at all. She poked at it a little bit but other then that she wanted nothing to do with it. Silly girl.

One of my favorite parts of the party was the photo booth. It was fun to get people to dress up and pose for a fun photo. I think these turned out so cute!

Madelyn has spoiled with all of the present she got. Below are some snap shots of her opening her presents.

The party was a lot of work but totally worth it. I love to celebrate my kids birthdays and sometimes it fun to get a little crazy and carried away. A HUGE thank you to everyone who came to celebrate such a fun time in our little girls life.

Amazing!

This won my amazing husband $500 for his department at work, lunch with the CEO and $500 for him to bring home.14 other people tried to make a basket from half court but no one could do it. Jared blew everyone out of the water. He is amazing!

Madelyn's Birthday

On Madelyn's actually birthday we had a little celebration with just our little family. 

First she opened some presents. Ethan was very excited and eager to help her. He picked out a play phone as his present to her.

Jared and I gave her some new clothes and her very first cabbage patch doll. She was so excited for that doll and couldn't wait for Jared to open it. As soon as she got it she gave her a hug and a kiss. She loves her dolly.

Next we had milk and cookies and sang happy birthday to her. This was one of her first times having milk and as  you can see she loved her cookie. What a fun birthday for a 1 year old.

This last year has gone by so quickly. I can hardly believe we are celebrating her 1st birthday. She is a great baby, full of life and personality. Her older brother is her buddy and she is as sweet as can be. We love her so much and feel so blessed to have her in our family.

Here is a short slide of pictures I used for her birthday party. It is one photo from every month of her life. It's fun to see our little princess grow.

Going to the Zoo

Before Jared left on a weekend trip with his buddy we went to the zoo for some fun family time. Sadly I did a terrible job at taking pictures. It seems like every time we go to the zoo I'm too busy looking at everything instead of taking pictures. But here are the few that I took. I should have done a much better job because this was Madelyn's first time going.

The kids loved watching this big guy move around.

The giraffes were so fun to watch. They were out and about and right up close. We got to see just how long his tongue was. Ethan thought it was pretty neat.

Having a little lunch break :)

This picture isn't that great but we got to see the elephant show. It wasn't as great as we hoped it would be but it was fun to see the elephants out and moving around. The baby elephant is adorable though!

This was the highlight of our trip. The new bird show they have is awesome! Totally worth your time. The birds fly right above your head and do some fun tricks. Ethan loved every minute of it. 

Fourth of July

This year for the Fourth of July we spent some time with Jared's family. We went to his sisters house had some yummy food and the went over to a church parking lot to watch some fireworks. Here the kids are lighting their sparklers and have some fun.

Unfortunately that all ended when Ethan got burnt by a sparkler. One of the sparklers touched his head, burning it and his hair. You can see where he got burnt in this picture.

 Poor kid cried through most of the fireworks but eventually he calmed down and fell as sleep. 

In the end it was a fun night. We ended it with our own fireworks back at Jared's sister's house. 

Vernon Reservoir

The week after our trip to Moab we went to Vernon Reservoir with my family. It's this small reservoir in the middle of no where but a dusty and fun place to camp. Defiantly Wither's style of camping. No cabins for us :)

Here are a few pictures from our trip. I kept Madelyn in pack & play cuz I knew she'd be a huge dirty dusty mess if I didn't. And for the most part she was pretty happy in there.

Everyone tired to go swimming but it was windy and cold. Here are the men trying to talk themselves into diving into the water. 

Eventually they do and the girls got in too.

Once everyone had their fill of the water we headed back to camp and the kids found a great way to entertain themselves. They turned this trailer into dirt bikes and went for lots of rides. I love it when kids use their imagination. 

By the end of the day all of the kids were dirty head to toe and exhausted.

Here are a few pictures of me and Jen trying to feed Madelyn.

Isn't that dirty face adorable!

Well the next morning there was big news, my little brother Jamason proposed to his girlfriend of  2 1/2 years. Yeah! They will be getting married this October in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. We are so happy for them. 

After that we packed up and headed home.