Wii Pro

Mas caught on quickly to the Wii.

Cuddler

The past couple of weeks Tristyn has liked to cuddle with a little beany baby elephant. When DanaRae and her boys were here, they noticed her cuddling and bought her this fluffy dog for her birthay. She has been sleeping with it since. She actually likes to hug both the dog and the elephant. You can't see the elephant because it's squished under the dog! She'll also walk around the house hugging one in each arm. So sweet!

Gumball Machines

Mason made these cute gumball machines for his teachers at preschool. He loved putting his handprints on the 'pots' and then putting dots all over the place. He tried to write his name with paint on one of them, but then scribbled it all out. His teachers did a great job with him and he's come a long way in the past several months, so we really appreciate them!





I can't take credit for the idea--it was on Good Things Utah. It was a fun project and I think I might have him make one for me!

Playing with Digital

Yesterday I finally tried to make a digital scrapbook page. I haven't touched Photoshop since the retreat a few weeks ago, but this is what I came up with. I didn't use many special features, but I think it still turned out cute. If nothing else it made me want to practice more!

Bubbles at the Park

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to the park to play and blow bubbles. It was Tristyn's first time going down the slide and her first time blowing bubbles (with us anyway--she may have seen them at daycare). It was fun to get out and we made it home just before the rain started!

Easter 09

Yeah, I know that Easter was several weeks ago, but I still wanted to post a few photos. We went to Baby Animal Days the day before and the kids had fun running around and liked looking at the animals, but not really interacting with them. About the same as last year!

We got home kind of late, but still had to color eggs! Mason loved coloring on them with crayons and then dipping them in the dye. The kids must have been good because the Easter Bunny brought them cute baskets (even though they were scared of him at Animal Days).

Here are the kids in their Easter outfits. It was still pretty cold, so we had to adjust them a little bit (Mason's outfit originally included shorts and Tristyn's was sleeveless). They still looked really cute.

We had Suzy's family and Melissa over for dinner. All of the kids loved having an egg hunt outside and they all ended up with way more candy than we could sneak from them!

Luvin' the Ladybug

Tristyn's teacher at daycare took these super cute photos of her last week! She has having a great time with the ladybug!

She had a ponytail in that fell out, which is why her hair is sticking straight up.

Unfortunately she inherited my PALE skin! We both need to see the sun!

Birthday Party

Tristyn will be turning 1 next week, so we had a family BBQ/party for her on Sunday while some family was in town. She slept through dinner but got up just in time for cake! She hasn't ever seen us blow out candles on a cake, but she seemed to know exactly what to do . . . or maybe the puckered lips were in awe of the mound of frosting in front of her!



She did have real dinner before the cake (I know, I'm no fun), so she didn't have much of an appetite for it. She took a few little bites, but didn't really dig into it. Any cake she got on her hands, she tried to wipe off on her shirt.

I didn't really have time to get special decorations, so I pulled out a few that we used at Mason's 1st birthday party. The party hat wasn't her favorite! In the first photo of the post I was holding her arms down so she didn't pull it off.



She had a great time opening gifts and got two super cute sun dresses from Diane and Cheryl, a Minnie Mouse bowl and plate, a stuffed dog that she snuggles with at every nap, a fabric Winnie the Pooh book, a magna-doodle, and a toy Piggy Bank, that incidently only speaks Spanish (that was an oops on my part--hopefully they'll trade it so we can actually understand it!).

Thanks to everyone that made a special trip down for the party. It was a crazy weekend, but we had a lot of fun. Thanks especially to DanaRae, Damian and Braxton, who stayed the weekend and watched our kids while we went to Park City for our anniversary and who wore out our kids!
Speaking of our anniversary . . . it was our 7th on Sunday! I can't believe that it's been that long, but I guess time flies when you're having fun! It's been a great 7 years and we have two super cute kids to show for it! I'm lucky to have found such a great husband and look forward to many more terrific years with him!

Dino-wear

Mas wanted to wear underwear over his pants. It's a start right?

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Art Show . . . continued

Mason had an end of year program/art show at preschool the other day. He sat on the floor while the other kids stood and sang their cute songs. He did stand and sing one verse of the 2nd song, but was picking his nose or was playing hide and seek from my camera the rest of the time. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch him and his class up there. After the kids sang, they showed a great video of all the fun times the class had this year--it was cute to watch! His teachers have done a great job with him this year and we've definitely seen a lot of progress. He loves going to the 'green room' and I'm sure he'll be bummed when he has to go to a different room. On the topic of 'green' . . . Mason loves this green shirt and always picks it when given the choice between this shirt and another. It's his 'green ball' shirt since it has a tiny baseball on it.

Here are a few of the art displays they had around the room:

Thanks to the great staff who have made it a fun year for Mason!

Track Star

It's amazing how fast little ones learn! It was just a few days ago that Tristyn staggered through her few first steps. Within the past couple of days she has mastered walking and is now strolling confidently across the house! She's also a great at multi-tasking and does just fine walking and drinking, clapping, or screaming at the same time. Mason is so cute with her and likes to help hold her hand while she's walking. This video is from last night.

I'm loving her little curls right now! Hopefully she won't lose them as she gets older!

Silly Girl

Tristyn had a blast falling on this pile of pillows tonight. She especially liked it when Mason would fall down on them first and she could fall on top of him. It was fun to see them play and laugh together.

I seriously need to figure out which way to take photos and video on my phone so that they're straight! Sorry! I took a few videos on my camera that are right side up, so I'll try to post those later.

Art Show

Mason brought this fun marshmallow sculpture home from his art show today! He is excited to show it off.

(The little marshmallows made it for about 1/2 hour after getting home. The large one lasted a couple of hours, but he didn't set it down for a second).

Blue Eyes

Tristyn's hair was so crazy after taking her pony tail out that I wanted to snap this photo. I love it . . . not for the hair, but for the great blue eyes! Gotta love 'em!

Digital Scrapbook Retreat

It seems like all we did was eat at the retreat! Lunch at Olive Garden and dinner at PF Chang's . . . can't get better than that! It was a great day with Julie and Brooke and I'm looking forward to more retreats with them! I'm going to need many more to get digital scrapbooking down! Paper is all I know!

This is my first digital page--very basic, I know! I'm hoping to find time to practice and learn to do more. Hmmm, to blog or to play with Photoshop . . . that is the question!

Field Trip to the Farm

Mason went on his 2nd preschool field trip last week! Tristyn and I joined him at the farm. I didn't think that we'd get him past the milk jug conveyer belt! He could have watched the cartons roll past him for the full hour! As always, he wasn't real interested in the animals. He played with the food dispenser for a while so I gave him a quarter and he liked to watch the food come out, but didn't want to feed it to the donkey! I wasn't brave enough to let him eat it from my hand either, so the donkey had to eat it off the concrete (I know, I'm a wimp).



Mas also liked the tulip sign that shows how tulips grow from bulbs.

My little jail bird! I need one of these at home!

Tristyn had a blast watching all the animals and especially liked the big sheep and little piggies. Mason loved the ducks, which is always his favorite and the park, and liked running up and down the ramp by the duck pond. He had a lot of fun on the wagon ride and even thanked the horses that pulled it when he got off!

Thanks for another great fieldtrip! We had a great morning!