I know Thanksgiving was a month ago but we had a great time with family. There was some pin the hat on the turkey....

and busy bee game playing.

Our ward party was the first weekend in December and Kaleb loved watching Santa do magic tricks. Ashton didn't want to leave Matt's side. He didn't want to sit on Santa's lap and tried to get off quickly but as soon as he was given a candy cane he was fine. Anything for candy.

We haven't taken a trip to temple square to see the lights since Kaleb was 2 so we decided while it wasn't too cold last Tuesday to go. The boys loved riding Trax for the first time (does anyone else think $4 for a round trip ticket is a little much) and we even stopped in to see where Matt works. Kaleb thought it was pretty cool that daddy works in a big, tall building. We enjoyed looking at all of the lights and then grabbed a treat before heading home on trax.

The boys have been spoiled already with all of the Christmas parties we've had. We're excited for Christmas this weekend and spending time with family.

Weekend Hangover

Somebody was worn out today after a busy weekend!

A couple of weeks ago Matt took the boys to Mulligan's to go miniature golfing. The boys loved it. Matt said that Ashton would grab his ball after hitting it and put it back at the beginning. He didn't quite get the concept. But they had a fun time together.

The other day I could hear Ashton in the kitchen and it sounded like something was scraping. As soon as I asked him what he was doing he said "I cooking" and I knew what he was into. I had the ingredients out on the counter to make pumpkin bread and he dumped the whole box of baking soda and the container of salt in the crockpot liner. So I wasn't able to make bread that night since I had no baking soda. I know most kids like to help cook but Ashton is obsessed with helping me cook and mixing things. He always mixes our eggs for breakfast and he'll get the salt and pepper out no matter what I'm cooking and try to add it to it. Love that boy!

I know it's not Halloween but Kaleb's been wearing this costume all year since we bought it on clearance last year and Ashton's really into bumblebee so we thought we would get him a matching costume. Any yellow car Ashton see's he calls it bumblebee. So I was worried since Wal-mart's small size is 4yr-6yr but Ashton being 2 (a couple months shy of 3
) fit perfectly in it. There's no way Kaleb (6) could fit into that costume.

Last Friday when How to Train Your Dragon came out Wal-mart had this display and the boys were so excited to get their picture taken. This is Kaleb trying to lift Ashton up so his head would show but he couldn't quite lift him up. I don't blame him, Ashton's only 10lbs. lighter than Kaleb. He's not a small boy by any means.

Well, 2 posts in October, that's double what I've been posting lately! We'll see if I can keep it up.

Where to start...

Wheeler Farm has a small corn/hay maze and for $7 you can go through it and pick a pumpkin and take a wagon ride. We had fun although it gets dark so quick that we had to hurry through everything.

Matt didn't want to smile for the camera and kept making stupid faces.

The boys loved running around the maze.

The drywall is finished! (minus cleaning up all the dust) Here are some pictures:

This is the view if you're standing at the bottom of the stairs (stairs to the right). There's a storage closet (with washer/dryer hook-ups) and the door on the right will lead to an eventual bathroom. We have 2 sliding doors that lead to the bedroom on the left.

This is the bedroom at the bottom of the stairs.

There will be shelves on the right side of the closet.

Bedroom 2

The closet will have shelves in the bottom nook (we didn't want to waste the space) and the 2 cut outs above are the main water shut off valves so we'll have doors on the openings.

The hall leading to the family room. The cutout on the left is a kid area under the stairs.

Family Room

Family Room

Probably not the most exciting thing but for us it is. We've put so much work into it and it's finally looking like a finished basement (sort of).

Also, we put a new screen door on the front and new shutters. The paint on the old shutters were peeling off and they were a dark brown/purple color which I wasn't too fond of. (The color of the gutter.)



We have a disc with the family pictures we had taken so here are some of them.

And last here's Kaleb's 1st grade school picture.

Well, there's my marathon post. I'm sure there will be another one in a couple weeks since I can't seem to keep up.

Family Pictures!

Last weekend Tracy took some family pictures for us at Mueller Park. She has a preview of some of them on her blog and I love them. I was worried because Kaleb has a really fake smile most of the time and Ashton wanted to pick up sticks and rocks so he didn't like to stay in one place but she did an awesome job and was able to get some great pictures.

Tracy Layne Photography


And...the drywall is done! We finished hanging it last night after pulling 2 almost all-nighters. So although we're exhausted I'm excited it's almost done. We've done everything ourselves but we're paying someone to mud and tape since that's more of a learned skill and it would take us forever and still not look as good. And after all the hard work hanging the drywall we didn't want to ruin it with a bad mud job. Today is his 2nd day and he said it will take about 1 week. Then it's on to paint!

Other random happenings:

• Matt started a new position with Zion's Bank about a month ago downtown and he's loving it. He takes trax to and from work and he loves the people he works with.
• Kaleb loves 1st grade and is doing awesome at reading and spelling. I can't believe how well he reads. He just picks a book from his shelf and can read most of the words without any help.
  
• Ashton has really started talking more lately, in sentences that you can understand. It's always nice when they start talking better so that you're not the only one that knows what they're saying.
• I'm loving the cool mornings and evenings. I'm looking forward to having a little more time with the main part of our 9 month basement project done. Now I can start exercising regularly again and start losing the weight I've gained in the last 9 months...ugh! But first I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend!
  

Happy Friday!

1st Grade and Yellowstone

Kaleb is at his first day of first grade today. Ashton doesn't know what to do without his buddy. Every couple of minutes it's "Where's bruh-bruh?" (brother) or "I need to get bruh-bruh" or "I miss bruh-bruh." Kaleb was most excited about eating lunch at school. We're trying the school lunch to see how he does with that. They give them 5 choices, one of them being peanut butter and jelly everyday so even if he isn't interested in other 4 options there's always PB&J.

We had a great time in Yellowstone although it was cold. We had to bundle up most of the time but every so often the sun would come out. It only rained one night but there was alot of rain so we did get water in our tent. I'm glad we were on air mattresses.

Kaleb and Ashton loved seeing all of the animals and geysers. We only did the lower loop of the park and maybe in a couple of years we'll go again to see the upper loop. Here are some (okay, alot) of pictures.

Kaleb really wanted binoculars and so the first day we bought him some. I didn't think he would be interested in them after the first day but he never took them off. He loved looking at everything through them.

Kaleb and Matt looking at the Teton's.

Hidden Falls above Jenny Lake in the Teton's.

The boat ride back to the other side of Jenny Lake.

Ashton and his hair twin on the Jackson Hole Tram ride. The boys loved the tram.

A wagon ride at the Bar J Wrangler's dinner.

The water was really blue.

We enjoyed the warm steam coming from the geyser's.

Waiting for Old Faithful.

We saw it 3 times and luckily the first time wasn't windy or extremely cold. The 2nd and 3rd time the wind blew the water into the crowds of people and so the steam blocked you from really seeing much of the geyser.

Although we didn't see any bears we saw just about everything else.

Yellowstone Falls

Volcano Pot

Yellowstone Lake
The lake is huge, I took this picture as we were in the car stopped for wildlife on the road.

The last night at our campground we walked down to the river so Kaleb and Ashton could throw rocks.

We even saw a deer crossing the river while we were there.

It was a fun trip with Matt's parents and we're glad we were able to go. This world is an amazing place and I loved looking at all of the amazing scenery.