Birthday Celebrations!!!

This year for Justin's Birthday we decided to forgo friends and family parties and just have a little party with Grandparents. I then told Justin we would go and do anything he wanted to as a family. He choose to go swimming but on the Friday before his birthday he came down with a fever and cough, so swimming was out. On Sunday night both sets of Grandparents came over for dinner and cake and ice cream. Grandma Linda made a really cute Indiana Jones Lego birthday cake. All Justin wanted this year (it didn't matter who asked him) the answer was always Lego Indiana Jones of the Wii! He was super excited when he opened his gift from grandma Linda and there was his games! He also got some more wheels for his Mario Kart from Grandpa Les and Darlene, and Garrett gave him the movie Bolt! On his birthday he got to opened his presents from Mom and Dad before dad went to work. We gave him his very own BB gun so his can shoot it when we go on 4-wheeler rides. He was super excited. Mike took off work early so that we could go to Trafalga mini golfing and playing the arcade games. Justin had a great time. For dinner Justin got to choose where we went, it was no surprise that we ended up at Teppanyaki's. He loves it!

Blowing out the candles!

His favorite present by far!



The new gun was OK too!

Fun at Trafalga!

Dinner!

Blowing out the candle at dinner!

Happy Birthday Justin we love you!

SEVEN

SEVEN YEARS AGO today Justin joined our family! He has brought so much joy and happiness to us. We love him! He is a great kid and the best big brother!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!!! WE LOVE YOU!!

A LITTLE GETAWAY

Mike's brother got married on the 21st so we loaded up the car and headed to Durango, CO for the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and they both look so happy congratulations Tom and Kari! We left Durango on Sunday morning after breakfast and thought we would stop in Moab and do a little sightseeing and hiking before heading home. The weather was beautiful it was nice and warm but as we arrived at the Hole in the Rock we stepped out of the car and the wind was so strong Garrett could hardly stand up!

Justin loved hole in the rock he thought that it was pretty cool that someone actually live in the rock. After a short tour there we headed to Arches National park to do some sightseeing and hiking. We stopped at the entrance sign to take a picture and as Justin stepped out of the car a gust of wind came up blowing sand into his eyes. Needless to say our adventures into Arches did not start out on a good note! We did a little hiking and sightseeing and then headed off to our hotel for some swimming. One step in the pool and hot tub and they were both ice cold. They had just changed the water in both and had not had a chance to heat up. Justin was devastated that had been what he was looking forward to the most. With a promise that we would see about swimming in the morning we headed off to bed. We sent the boys into the bathroom for one last bathroom break before bed and Garrett looks at me and says "my tummy hurts" and then starts crying and throws up all over the whole bathroom. Needless to say I was glad the day was over but I had a terrible night also thinking that he was bound to throw up again. We had a great day on Monday we went back to Arches and did some hiking and then we headed home. It was a fun little trip even with all the thing that happened.

A pic outside Hole in the Rock!

The boys on one of our hikes in Arches!




Mike stuck Garrett on the top of this arch to climb down to help Justin up. Later he tells me that it is a huge drop off inches behind where Garrett is sitting. I about had a heart attach!

This what Garrett did the whole time we were hiking any time he could jump off of something that is what he was doing.

An Update

I thought that because it had been so long I should probably update. Nothing to exciting has been happening...Mike's birthday was on February 6th for his birthday we spent the night at the Zermatt in Midway. Our plan was to take the kids swimming then bring them back to home, were my mom was going to stay the night with them and we would go back and have a night to ourselves. However plans changed when Garrett started with Croup again. We ended up taking Justin swimming and Garrett had to stay home with Grandma. The Zermatt was relaxing for Mike and I. Mike had a great birthday! He gave himself a new Snowmobile helmet and some hand guards for his snowmobile. The kids and I gave him Rock Band and since February 6th our lives have been consumed with this...

We have done a few other thing besides Rock Band. We gave Justin the Lego Star wars game for the Wii for Valentines day and he has done little else but play that. With Justin being so wrapped up in the Wii it leaves the computer for Garrett to try to play on. He thinks he is pretty big.

And last but not least Garrett finally got a big boy bed! Justin has wanted bunk beds for along time now so we finally went to Grandmas and brought home the other part to the bunk beds that I had when I was little. Justin got the top bunk and Garrett got the bottom! I was really unsure of how the bed was going to go over with Garrett since he still could not get out of his crib on his own, but he has been doing so well. He only gets out of bed when he needs to use the bathroom. He was pretty happy to sleep there the first night but the second night he wanted his bed back! Justin of coarse is loving every minute of it!

Dandy Dandy Notebook

Garrett is at such a cute stage right now if you can look past all of his misbehaving and his evil doings! He says and does some of the cutest things. For awhile now he has had a little notebook that he carries around along with a pencil. He calls it his dandy dandy notebook. He got the phrase from Blues Clues in which Joe carries around a Handy Dandy notebook to draw the clues that blue leave him on. Garret will carry his dandy dandy notebook around all day with him every once in a while drawing on a page. It is super cute. I love him so much!

Sledding Fun

Since Justin didn't have school on Monday we decided to take a little break from the Wii and go sledding at the park. It was such a nice day and it was great because Garrett does not love sledding so he was able to play on the slides while Justin and the other kids took turns going down the snow hill. We did talk Garrett into going down in the sled a couple of times, once with Jen and then he wanted to go with Justin. Justin is such a good big brother to let Garrett go with him. We had a ton of fun!

2008 Review

I will just warn you right now that this post is very long! Since I didn't start my blog until mid-year I wanted to recap a few of the thing we did this year.

2008 was a pretty good year for us! We had a lot of great times and did some really fun things.

January

Mike and Justin went Ice fishing for the first time with Brian and Jonathon they had a great time and they even caught a fish!

February
We had a huge pile of snow in the back yard from all the snow we got. Mike and Justin decided to make a snow cave I have to say it was pretty impressive! Since we had all that snow we spent a lot of time outside playing in it!

March

We had a great Easter that we celebrated at my brother Dee's house, I must say my mom puts on a pretty impressive egg hunt the kids have a blast. Although Garrett was so busy playing with all the toys I don't think he picked up one egg. I guess he still had fun. We also celebrated Justin's 6th birthday and Garrett's 2nd birthday with family. I can't believe Justin is already 6 and Garrett is 2(although he definitely acts 2). They had a great day. We also bought my new 4-wheeler but, because there was so much snow still we were not able to ride it.

April
Over spring break the kids and I went on a little road trip with my mom we went to Idaho and went sight seeing we did see a lot of cool stuff and had a great time. Right after we got back from Idaho we loaded up the car again with my mom and my brothers family and went to Vernal to see the Dinosaur Museum the kids loved it!

May

We were finally able to ride the 4-wheelers, as an added bonus the kids got to slid down the hill in the snow they had a great time. It is so nice to be able to go into the mountains and get away from everything and just spend time as a family.

June

June was definitely a month of firsts. Justin lost his first tooth and also had his first broken bone.(he broke his foot on the slip n slide) We also went on a really fun camping trip with some of our great neighbors.

July

July was filled with a lot of 4-wheeler rides, parades, picnics, fishing, and a lot of work on the driveway.

August

Justin started 1st grade. I did pretty good at holding back the tears until I dropped him off in his class room and then there was no holding back I think I cried the whole walk home. The Summit County Fair is also a big part of our August every year. My kids have a great time in the Little Buckaroo Rodeo.

September

No more diapers! Garrett started potty training and he did amazingly well right from the start. I only had to bribe him with Chocolate a few times. We had a great time in Disneyland!! Mike has never been before and last time we took Justin I was pregnant with Garrett. They both loved it! Garrett loves Mickey Mouse and all the other Disney characters he was in heaven! It really is the happiest place on earth!

October

This year we tried something a little different with our pumpkins rather than the traditional jack o' lanterns, Mike decided to carve a Mickey and a Minnie Mouse they turned out great!

I am not going to repeat the things we did in November and December because I blogged about them so recently.

We had a great year this year we spent a lot of time together as a family and I loved every minute of it. I hope 2009 will be as great as 2008!