Creepies and Crawlies...

The first part of August we were able to make a trip to the zoo. We went to see the Nature's Nightmares exhibit and they had these bats just hanging out. Not even separated from the visitors. Very creepy...

And of course we had to check out the baby elephant Zuri...

Nathan posing on the big elephant outside the Elephant Encounters exhibit...

Riding the Carousel...

And the ostrich came over to say hello too...

Climbing the wall...

We took Nathan to the climbing wall over at the fitness center a couple of weeks ago. We thought he'd have a really great time since he likes to climb things.

Getting all harnessed in. Safety first!

Chris went first...

and went all the way to the top.

Nathan on the other hand, really didn't want to climb. This was about as high as he got...

He just wanted to hang...

and swing.

We figure we'll go a few times more, get him used to things and then we won't be able to keep him off the climbing wall.

4th of July...

***Warning...LOTS of pictures***

Over the 4th of July we were able to head up to Idaho to spend the weekend with family. My niece Kassie was getting baptized on Saturday the 3rd so we packed up to have some fun...

Here's Kassie, on the right, with my other niece (Kassie's cousin) Jessica. 

We are so proud of her decision to be baptized!

As you can see their skirts match. I made the 4 nieces that got together matching skirts. Each pattern was different. It was fun to make them and I'm sure I'll be making more of each pattern. 

Here are all 4 girls, from left to right Kassie, Alyssa, Jessica and Audrey...

 and another one...

(My SIL's sister Angee took these great pics of the girls, you can see more pics on her blog.}

Here's a picture of Audrey that she took. I love how it turned out.

Here are some pictures of the skirts up close with links to the patterns if anyone wants to make one :)...

 

The blue one with the red on the bottom, I made up myself, the one with the blue on top and the bottom was made from the Market Skirt tutorial.

 I used instructions for the Split Twirl Skirt for this one.

This skirt was based of the 2 Layer Twirl Skirt, with some modifications since I only had 2 fabrics I was using.

*****

Enough with the skirts...on the 4th we met up with my brother's family and his in-laws family to watch the Fireworks at Ann Morrison Park in Boise. I didn't get any pics of the fireworks, but got some of the kids having fun before. 

Here's my sister Gina giving me the stink eye...

Nathan and his cousin Bryce playing Uno...Nathan just started throwing in all his cards. First time playing and he had no clue how to. It was funny to watch.

Another one of Audrey...

Here's Audrey with her cousin Bryce, she really likes him. No, she's not going to kiss him, although that's what it looks like, he was pretending to be a puppy and she was just holding his face.

Here's a picture of what some of the adults do while waiting for it to get dark enough for the fireworks. There's my mom, Chris, my bro Evon and sis Gina.

Audrey getting a ride from her puppy friend...

Alyssa came over to say hello...

and another of Nathan....

I don't know if you noticed, but the boys had matching shirts that I made, just took some light blue shirts and ironed on some stars I cut out of some fabric I had on hand.

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend, we sure did!

Still catching up...

And we're almost there...just need to stop taking new pictures!
Here's two posts in one...

Father's Day

I showed you some pictures of Audrey that I took Father's Day. 

Here's some pictures of the kids with their Daddy that were taken on Father's Day. 

Takin' turns on the slide...

 Daddy

 Audrey

 Nathan

 Love this picture!

 Yes, she's saying Cheese.....

 We sure do love Daddy at our house!

West Fest Parade
West Fest was held at the end of June. We love being able to walk up to the corner from our house and watch the parade each year. Here's some pictures of the fun.
Waiting for the parade to start...

Yay! It's begun...

We love to see the policemen...

Daddy was there too...

There's the firetruck!

Nathan actually got to sit in this firetruck the night before when we went over to West Fest. He loves the firetrucks.

A little side note. I did the West Fest 5k earlier in the morning. Came in at 50:29 minutes. I that's about 5 minutes quicker then the one I did 4 weeks earlier! Also walked to and from the walk since it started just down the street in front of the West Valley Fitness center. 
Been working on being healthier this year and one of my goals was to do a few 5k's. I'm also doing Weight Watchers at work and am down 22 lbs so far. WooHoo!! It sure feels good getting healthy!!

Fun stuff....

Just a random bunch of pics of some stuff that we've done and had going on lately...
and still trying to get caught up.

Here's Audrey and Grandma Johnson looking through some quilting books. 

 I was working on an afghan for one of my friends and Audrey decided to help me out. She likes to hold onto the hook and "help".

 We went to the drive-in to watch Toy Story 3. The kids loved it and had a lot of fun. Audrey's showing you the little movie screen, we watched Toy Story 2 while waiting for the movie to begin.

Nathan finished playing soccer for the summer. I thought it was really neat that they gave the kids medals, they're really nice ones too! He only missed one game due to being sick and played in each of the others including one that was played while raining and was super cold.

 

Looking back...

Another year has come and gone and it's time to look back over the last 12 months.

We've had a fun year, here's a look back at us:
Nathan turned 3 and had his very own Dinosaur birthday.He's learned his colors and knows his alphabet. He's really good at frustrating mom and dad and picking on his sister Audrey. He still loves all things cars, spiderman and dinosaur.

Audrey turned 1 and loves everything girly! She had learned to walk, has gotten a few teeth (4) and is learning new words although she still doesn't talk a lot. Audrey is definitely a girly girl and loves being a 'mom' to her babies, but also enjoys playing with her brothers toys. She's also learning to fight back and pick on her brother (she's learned well from him! LOL!!)

Chris is still working for Cache Valley Electric and with his job has done a little traveling around the state this year and also headed to Arizona for a couple days. He has a great time rough housing with Nathan and 'nicely' tossing Audrey around. He continues to enjoy his computer games and has started up playing D&D again with some friends.

I'm still working at Harland Clarke, same old stuff there. I've enjoyed making my kids birthday cakes this last year (we'll see what I can come up with this year), sewing up new and old projects, crocheting and trying new recipes.

Now on to the new year...
I remembered some of the goals for last year, and unfortunately didn't do so well with some of them, but did okay on others. After reading through them, I'll be making all them them again this year. (Maybe one year I'll do well enough that I can take some off! haha!!)

*Gonna work on losing some weight through exercise and eating better. I did lose 10 lbs during July-Sept. (have kept it off too! yay!!) Some of my friends at work and I were doing a 'Biggest Loser' comp, but it kinda flopped. I've got some new videos to use and hope they will help me stay on track along with having a membership at the local fitness center. 

*I'm going to continue sewing/crocheting up some UFO's (Un-Finished Objects/Works in Progress). Still haven't finished up the items I listed last year and have others I've added to the mix. I'm planning on really making a dent in projects this year, so maybe next year this one can be taken off the list.

*I want to do a few 5K's this year including the SLC Susan G Koman's Race for the Cure. Didn't do any of these last year (other then on the treadmill), but want to do 2-3 if not more this year. Since I have a goal of exercising more, I should be able to do this one for sure!!

a new one...or two!!
*Doing better at planting and maintaining my garden. We've put in a garden the last few years, but hope this year to do better at maintaining it.

*Do more scrapbooking!! I've got lots of pictures and I think I'd better start doing something with them, especially since Chris has now invested in it by getting me the Cricut!

and one more,
*Reading my scriptures each day.

I'd better leave it at that! I want to be better at accomplishing more of my goals this year and as is, think these will keep me pretty busy along with things I'll add along the way to do and watching my kiddies grow.
Here's to a great 2010!!

Christmas Day...

On Christmas morning Nathan came in to our bedroom at about 6:30 and climbed under the covers with us. This wasn't too bad since he wasn't ready to get up yet. Then at about 7:30 he decided he wanted to watch his show, so we turned on the TV for him to watch (we wanted to let Audrey to get as much chance to sleep before opening presents). Nathan did check on Audrey twice and both times she was still sleeping. Then between 8 and 8:30 Nathan went out of our room and snuck into the living room and saw all that Santa left!

He was so excited!! He came to our room and kept saying "come on, come on". When we asked what was going on he said "there's CANDY!" So we headed out to the living room, but told Nathan that Audrey had to be awake before we could open presents. He went to check on her and ran back down the hallway yelling "Audrey's awake! Audrey's awake!" LOL!!!

He was so excited, here's some pictures from our fun morning opening presents.

We didn't have anywhere to go Christmas day. It was a nice and relaxing day to let the kids (big and little)  play with their presents (the kids of course got lots of toys each, Chris got some tools he wanted and a GPS and I was spoiled with a new Cricut machine...bring on the scrapbooking!)and watch "Christmas Story".

For dinner, again it was just us and my sister Gina. We enjoyed a honeybaked ham, thanks to a gift certificate from work and some yummy potatoes that Audrey really enjoyed...

And then for desert, decided to carry on something we had done a few times with my mom and dad in the past and we made cream puffs. It was the first time attempting to make them and they were soooo good. This will be something we will do for Christmases to come for sure! We filled them with vanilla and huckleberry ice cream! YUM!!

Hope you all had as fun a Christmas as we did!!