zoo 2010!

I have enjoyed taking emmy to the zoo since she was a baby, this is our third trip to the zoo. Her first she was only 3 months then again at about a year and now at 2 1/2. It has been fun to watch her get more interactive and interested with all the animals.

3 months 

about 1yr

almost 2 1/2

then

now

 I think her favorite things were to chase the peacocks and turkeys, the carousel and of course ice cream! She did also like the monkeys, there was one monkey that kept posing for me and always made sure he had his lip up against the fence when he would get into a new pose, it was very entertaining!

The Circus!

On the 10th of September Dave, Emmy & I took off to Vermont to visit his parents and grandma. I unfortunately left the dang camera in the car that we drove to Salt Lake! I was so mad at myself! So the only pictures we have from Vermont are on our phones which I still have to down load to the computer. So you will hear more about the Vermont trip when I post those pictures. Anyway on our way back from Vermont we stayed in Salt Lake for about a week and were lucky enough to go and see the elephant parade and the circus all thanks to my lovely Aunt Roslyn :) Thanks again Aunt Roslyn!

                                                              

waiting for the elephants 

                                                      

Me Emmy & Grandma Rainey

                                                          

Emmy's clown nose!

                                                            

The elephants are here!

                                                                      

The Circus

The elephants

                                                            

motorcycle on a high wire with lady on trapeze underneath 

                                                

Elephant caring a dog in a basket in its mouth

Say Cheese! 

7 people on motorcycles in this cage! It was crazy!

Dave, Emmy, me, Aunt Roslyn & Morgan

Amazingly strong and flexible brothers

Crazy super bendy chicks that later all 3 fit into a small box!

Zion hike "Three Ponds"

A couple of Saturdays ago me Dave and Emmy headed up to Zion national park to go on hike and get some fresh air! After parking the car we jumped on the shuttle to the trail head, about half way there it starts raining. I was like yahoo! I love the rain and was glad it was going to be nice and cool. Dave on the other hand was not thrilled at all seeing as he hates the rain and was seriously reconsidering the hike. It took a min but i finally talked him into it, after he made me renegotiate to a shorter hike. It was beautiful! All the colors were more vibrant it smelled great and there was some really cool thunder to go along with it all! Emmy did awesome for her first bigger hike and did not get tuckered out till halfway down on the way back! I don't know if you can tell from the pics but we got pretty wet, it was so worth it though! Dave even admitted that it was actually pretty nice to have the rain to cool you off and that it was not as bad as he thought 
it was going to be.

While you were out!

  My parents have always put our kids needs before any of their own, also the remodeling of all the rooms in the house except their own! Needless to say their room was in desperate need of remodeling, a place they could come home from work and relax in, somewhere where they could escape from all the ciaos in their house caused by a few of their darling grand kids :). So when my parents decided to be chaperons for my little brothers graduation Cruise, where they would be gone for a week. It was the perfect time to do a little while you were out of our own. So all of siblings decided to pitch in some money and redo their bedroom while they were gone and surprise them with a nice birthday/anniversary gift.
  The second they left on Sunday morning we all got to work emptying out their bedroom and scraping the ugly cottage cheese texture off the ceiling! The next couple of days were filled with sanding furniture, painting it, ripping up carpet and tack board, painting painting and more painting, organizing their closet, doing all their laundry, cleaning and shopping for the things we needed to complete the room. All while trying to keep tabs on the kids, keeping them fed, happy and out of messes, okay so we were not so good at keeping them out of messes seeing as one day they decided to get in the pantry and dump flour all over them selves and the entire upstairs! That was a fun one to clean up! Not to mention the air conditioner decided to freeze up on the second day and only worked about 40% of the time so we were all roasting!

  We were still finishing up the final touches, getting the rest of the house in order and dinner ready when we got the call that they were in Vegas! Needless to say we finished with everything about 15 to 20 min before they got home. All of us but Randi and Rusty hid in our parents bedroom to take pictures and video them while we all yelled surprise when they opened the door. Randi was there to ensure they came into the bedroom at the same time by telling them that Brekken had fallen asleep on their bed waiting for them to get home, and they had to go peek in on him and see how cute he looked :).

  They came in and we all yelled surprise and Happy Birthday! My dad started laughing and my mom started to cry. Then we had my oldest brother Andre read them the poem that we had him write for them and then framed it to hang in their room.This is how the poem went.

Love of a Parent
As a parent you gave your love, you give your heart
You give everything you have from the very start...
As our parents you showed kindness by lovingly serving others
You showed patience with every forgiving kiss
Remember who you are and what you represent
This is what you taught
As your kids, even though sometimes it may not show
We take your wisdom with us no matter where we go
So today we celebrate you, our parents
Today we give our love, today we say thank you!
For all the love and support, for all that you do
WE LOVE YOU MOM and DAD
This is the best family a kid ever had.

All of our hard work was so worth it just to see the look on our parents faces :) sorry there are not really any before pictures, my mom forbade me to put any up :)

Congratulations!!!

My smart, handsome, and talented little brother Sharrod graduated from snow canyon high school!!! Wahoooooo! Congratulations! Unfortunately an hour before we were supposed to leave for his graduation I got a migraine and spent the rest of the day throwing up and missed the whole thing! Sorry sharrod but im so proud of you! Love U!

                            The big graduate!

                                Sharrod with both of his mom's and his dad!

Emmy turns TWO!!!!

For Emmy's 2nd birthday we invited a couple of friends and went to the park for a bug themed party. Emmy has really been into bugs lately and so I thought it would be a fun party for both boys and girls.
I had Emmy in a yellow and black dress with a anntenna headband to make her a little bumble bee :)
I filled two casserole dishes with rice and hid some fake bugs in them and gave each kid a pair of tweezers to find the bugs with. Instead of cake and ice cream we had the cup of dirt dessert with gummy worms in it, yum! And for the party favors each kid got their own little bug collector kit filled with bug stickers, gummy worms and other fun bug stuff!
I cant believe I have a two year old already! Crazy how fast time flys!!! And she is definitely acting two!!!
Emmy loved all her gifts she got, thank you everyone for coming and thanks for all the gifts. Thank you  grandma Connie for all the stuff you sent also! We love you everyone and hope you had fun!

A little spruce up for Emmy's room

Emmy's room was pretty plain and boring and I did not have a ton of money to spruce it up, but thanks to the help of my good friend Val I was able to make it look a little better and only spent about 30$
Thanks Val for all your help1 ; )

                                           Emmy's room before

couch, chair, pictures

                                      

bed, dresser,pictures

Emmy's room after

                                     

new wall deco, shelf 

                                              

this was cheap and easy to make. 

wood frames spray painted black with scrapbook paper inside 

wood framed mirror I modge podged 

                                             

shelf with pic

                                                          

emmys favorite thing her butterfly hook and the hooks with her bows and necklaces 

                                    

bed, dresser, and wire pic holders

Big bottle of baby powder + Kids = big white mess!

So the other day I have Randi help me hang a couple of pictures in Emmys room real quick. The kids we have left sitting on the couch in her room watching a movie. A few min later Brekken comes into Emmy's room with suspicious looking white stuff all over him. Randi smells it and says oh shoot I think they got into the bottle of baby powder I just bought! I walk on down to Randi's room, open the door, and walk into a big white cloud of dust!!! I see Emmy jumping up and down on a once maroon couch that is now white,  laughing as it makes big poofs of powder come up. Kennilee is also laughing as she continues to pour out more baby powder onto the couch to continue the neat effect!
Needless to say it took a while to clean up but Randi and Kenneths room still smells baby fresh!

You can still see some of the powder in the air in this pic

the informant

Mess maker #1

Mess maker #2

The air has cleared and the kids are upset their fun time is over!

quick family snap shot

Since everyone was down for easter we thought we would get a quick family pic. The only day we could do it on turned out to be very windy and the kids were not up for it but at least we got everyone in :)

                                                         The whole Family!

one of the only pics emmy was smiling in :)

our fam ( with the windy hair look) 

Emmy and I 

Easter & Emmy's first big ouch!

I love Easter! It is my favorite holiday! I love the colors, love the candy, love that time of year, and also love the meaning of easter!
This easter we went out saturday for a picnic some 4-wheeling and an easter egg hunt. The kids had a blast and I was surprised at how quick emmy caught on to the easter egg hunt. I showed her how to find the first one after that she was cruzin around picking up easter eggs, she made out with quite the loot!
On sunday we had a nice breakfast then let the kids out in the back yard to find their easter baskets and then listed to conference.
The following week Rem, Traci, and Traci's family came down from logan to hang out and play. One of the days we went out to a favorite spot of ours to paint ball ride 4-wheelers and shoot clay pigeons. We had been there for about a half hour when emmy started screaming over by the 4-wheeler, that someone had just got done ridding. I went over to see what was wrong, and she kept trying to brush her hand off so I looked at it to see if I could find what was wrong and sure enough her hand was red, white and starting to blister! The poor thing had touched the exhaust and burned the crap out of her poor little hand!
She screamed pretty good  for the first hour and a half till we got it all bandaged up, then she was back to playing! All in all it was really good easter! Late Happy Easter everyone!

    Saturday easter egg hunt

    4-wheeling with dad and Annika

Brekken and Emmy trying to take figure out how to work the 4-wheeler

Sunday morning Emmy searching for her easter basket

 Emmy & Dave with her easter basket

Emmy's first big boo boo, burns and blisters on her poor little hand : (

Walkin off the boo boo

Back to playin in the dirt! It takes more then that to stop this girl :)