Grammy and Pampa got us a trampoline for Christmas last year. Now that we have grass we decided to set it up. The kids absolutely love it. They are both in the air in this picture.

Went on a trip to Utah this weekend to visit Uncle Jared, Aunt Heidi, and cousin Xander. Kathleen was so excited. But she just couldn't hold out and fell asleep in the car when we were almost there.
We went to temple square in downtown Salt Lake. Kathleen LOVES temples, so we thought she would really enjoy it. But they seemed to like the water features best of all. Here is Ryan with Brandon on the other side of a water feature from us.
Kathleen in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
Across from Temple Square is the conference center. There is a huge waterfall that is several stories high. The kids loved it. Kathleen would scream on the top of her lungs and run around like she was trapped by the water or something. It was pretty cute.
Then we took the trax to a mall downtown. The kids loved the ride.
If you ask the kids what their favorite part of the trip was, they will tell you, "The train!" Or in Brandon's words, "The choo choo!"
When we got to the mall, we went to a planetarium to watch a movie. But they had all kinds of fun exhibits.
Kathleen's favorite was walking on the moon.
Brandon seemed to prefer to walk on Mars.

No matter how you look at it, the Spaghetification of our weekend was wonderful. Thanks Jared and Heidi.

Kathleen and Brandon love to play on their swing set together. It is one of the few activities they would rather do with each other than without.I even got them to smile at me for a moment. Of course, when they are on the rocket, they are almost always smiling.

My mom sent me this picture of my brother Bradley after his softball game last night. It made me laugh out loud at how dirty he is. I thought you might like to laugh at him too.

Since Brandon turned two we took him in for his portraits. He was so cute I had to share them.



Of course, no picture is complete if Kathleen can't sneek her way in. I guess I should have dolled her up too.

For our fun activities for the day, Brandon and Kathleen took turns pushing each other around in:You guessed it, the dump truck Grammy and Pampa gave Brandon for his birthday. They giggled and giggled. It was so cute.Brandon picked out Lucky Charms for his birthday cereal. Over the course of the week, he learned that he really liked the marshmallows (as every kid eventually does). This morning he decided when he was done with breakfast, to get the cereal back out and just pick the marshmallows out. But it was too much work digging into the box each time. He figured it would be easier to find them if he dumped all the cereal out. He was right. In this picture he is eating a marshmallow and saying, "Mmmm."

Yesterday Kathleen thought it would be fun to get in her camping chair, bring over the pool, take off her shoes, roll up her pants and PRETEND to dangle her feet in water. She was so cute. I think she actually thought that she was dipping her feet in water.

As was requested, here are the decorations on the shelf in the new orange bathroom. Sorry that wasn't in the other picture I posted.

We sure had a lot of fun this weekend. We went on paddle boats at a park downtown. The kids loved it. There were geese and ducks all over the place. This little family of geese were so cute. The kids loved the babies. Grammy and Pampa took Kathleen in their boat.
Mom and Dad took Brandon with them. The kids were pretty sad when it was time to say goodbye. They had so much fun.
We had to take pictures with Grammy and Pamap before they could leave. You can tell by the smile on Brandon's face here that he sure had a good weekend.


We miss our Grammy and Pampa.

Yesterday was Brandon's birthday. He turned two. First thing we gave him one of the gifts from his Grandma and Grandpa. It was a big ball. He LOVED it. He played with it all day long. Then, that evening, Grammy and Pampa came to spend the weekend with him. They gave him this cute little dump truck and hard hat.

Then mom and dad gave him a lawn mower that blows bubbles. But he was so attached to it that when we went for a walk, he took it with him the whole way. He probably walked more than 1/2 mile with the lawn mower. He even slept with it in his bed last night.
Pampa took Brandon to the sandbox to show him how to properly use his dump truck. They were pretty cute playing in the sandbox together.
Brandon caught on pretty quickly and had the time of his life.
Then, before bed, we sang to Brandon and let him have a cupcake with Kathleen. But he got another chance at the cupcake thing today when we had his party. He is a pro at getting those candles out. I have never seen a two-year-old get it as well as he did.
The party was fun and all the little kids had a good time.
Kathleen was such a trooper. It was a difficult thing for her to watch Brandon get so much attention and so many gifts she wasn't allowed to touch first. But she understood it was Brandon's birthday and was such a good big sister. Good job Kathleen!

I painted my bathroom this week. Yes, orange. I know it is a bit brighter than I hoped for, but I actually really like it now that it is all finished. First I painted the room orange. Then I put up panneling and moulding and painted it an off white color.And yes, I put that shelf together myself and hung it on the wall myself. It is weird how much I am capable of that I didn't realize. Usually with projects there are some things I give to Ryan to do. It was fun doing this all myself.
We had ice cream cones for an evening snack. Kathleen posed so cute.
Brandon likes to eat the bottom of the cone first, creating a big hole for the ice cream to escape. He makes such a mess, and loves every minute of it.
I never put a picture of Ryan on from my birthday. He was so cute. He made 69 cupcakes. It should have occured to me then that he was throwing two parties. So cute. Then he made me a stroganoff dinner at my request. It was a lot of work for him. He is so sweet. He even wore an apron because I thought he looked cute in it.
Tomorrow is Brandon's second birthday. He is sure growing up fast. We'll see what feast dad can cook up for him.

As most of you know, today is my birthday. Ryan threw me a birthday party last night and again tonight. He is pretty cute. Last night was with people from where we used to live. I wished for grass when I blew out the candle. Well guess what happened! We got GRASS!!!!!Tonight's party was with people where we live now. So you will never guess what I wished for. That's right. A million dollars! Just joking. Anyway, here are some good pictures of our yard.






The kids aren't quite over the exciting fact that they rode a horse last weekend, so daddy has had to step in quite a bit.