The Fair

Oh my gosh, the fair is so gross! We met Kyle's sister and her hubby and kids at the fair for some white trash fun. It was so stinky and dirty and the food was revolting. But Gage loved it, so we will probably make an appearance every year. Gage wouldn't ride any rides by himself so Kyle and I got to experience all of the fun kiddie rides along with him. :)





We thought he would love seeing all of the animals at the farm, but the second we walked in the door to the animal section, he covered his nose and wouldn't take his hands away because the smell was too much for him. Can you tell that he has some sensory issues?? :)

But I would do it all over again just to see how happy Gage was at the end. Brigg, on the other hand, was NOT a fan of the fair. :)

The Farm

We took the boys to Vertuccio (sp?) farms recently with their cousins, Alexis and Scott. Gage was terrified of the train and wouldn't ride it until Alexis took an entire ride by herself and made it back in one piece. Then of course he was dying to ride the train, so he picked the last car on the long train and they took off. The man driving the tractor that pulled the train was very strict about kids staying inside the train during the ride so we told Gage several times before taking off that he needed to stay in the train. But of course, this is Gage we are talking about. He enjoyed the ride for a while but toward the end he was bored so he climbed out while the train was still going. The driver was SO mad as he picked Gage up and walked him back to us. He was yelling at Kyle telling him that Gage wasn't allowed on the train anymore. Gage spent the rest of the day saying "Gager no like the train, Gager no like the train".

Kyle had a great time riding these race car bike things. He was running all the little kids off the track. At least someone was enjoying the trip to the farm. Gage refused to ride on Kyle's lap for a little spin around the racetrack.

This is Kyle's mom holding Brigg. If you zoom in on the picture, you can see the sign behind her that says "Please do NOT pet the donkey". :)

It took some convincing to get Gage, Brigg and Alexis to stick their heads through these holes long enough for us to get a "cute" picture. You can see how much they are all enjoying this... It got even better when Alexis got her head stuck in the hole and had to have her dad twist and turn it for a few minutes while she is trying hard not to panic before setting her free.

Gage and Alexis did enjoy the hay bale maze for a while, but Gage came out of there with hay in several uncomfortable places and he wasn't very happy about it.
The cow was a huge hit. Gage and Alexis milked that cow until it was dry.

And Brigg just hung out in the stroller, eating his orange.

Fossil Springs

We courageously took our two very young children with us on a little hike to fossil springs last time my dad was in town. I am so mad because I spent half an hour trying to get the perfect family picture of all of us at Fossil Springs and then I accidentally erased them from my camera before uploading them to the computer. So here are the few photos that I didn't erase. We were so amazed with Gage. He walked the entire mile and a half to the waterfall by himself and then swam in the freezing cold water with Uncle Brock. We did have to carry him all the way back to the car, but I was impressed with how much walking he did without complaining too much. His crocs kept falling off though, so he spent a lot of time on the ground putting his shoes back on. He loved hiking with Grandpa. Brigg had a fun ride strapped to Uncle Brock in the baby bjorn. It was definitely an adventure and although Kyle will never do it again, I had a great time!

Summer

I have gone the way of most moms in the summer time. Too busy to blog. And my baby sleeps in the office due to my boys' inability to both sleep in the same room together...so during naptime, my baby is sleeping next to the computer and updating my blog is sooo not worth waking up my baby. But today I find myself with one down and one sitting on my lap so I might as well upload some photos... So here's a glimpse of what we've been up to this summer:

We went to Oceanside to visit my family. Gage loved the beach, Brigg loved taking naps, and we all loved spending time with the fam. It was so much fun and Kyle and I can't wait to go again without the boys. :)

This is Jacob. He was awesome enough to babysit Gage while we went out for an adult dinner with my aunt and uncle. Gage is a tough kid to babysit, but Jacob totally kept his cool, even amidst a Gage-sized tantrum and Gage adored him for it. I wish Jacob lived nearby, or better yet, lived with us!

My brother, Andrew came to visit. He is so skinny I barely recognized him. He's lost a crazy amount of weight over the past year. Doesn't he look great?! Gage secretly adores uncle Andrew. Even though he gets super shy when Andrew is around and won't talk to him, he talks about uncle andrew and asks about him constantly. And he loves looking at pictures of uncle Andrew.

(this was Andrew just a mere 8 months ago...can you believe how awesome he looks? Now we just have to convince him to shave the beard...)

Brigg learned to sit up and how to eat solid food. He loves the sweet stuff (sweet potatoes, bananas, etc, but pretty much eats anything I give him). Gage is a good big brother and always wants to help feed and change Brigg.




Brigg also learned how to crawl a few weeks ago. He now races around the floor putting all sorts of weird things in his mouth. I have had to vacuum and sweep a lot more than I would like to.

Gage learned how to shave. Unfortunately he eats more of the shaving cream than he puts on his face so we have to hide the shaving supplies from him.

Gage has taken up singing. He loves music and suddenly one day he just started belting out recognizable words to songs. I am pretty sure he's tone deaf so the tune isn't even close, but he has many of the words figured out.




Kyle celebrated his 31st birthday! Birthday celebrations have taken an interesting turn in our household. Our kids are going through and "anti-babysitter" phase. So rather than traumatize any more of my young women in the ward, we have just been taking the boys with us. For Kyle's birthday, the boys and I went shopping and picked out some new board shorts for Kyle, then Kyle came home and we picked up Thai takeout and took it to McDonalds where Gage played in the ghetto play area while we enjoyed our food in peace. We did purchase a milk for Gage, so we weren't breaking the "McDonald's patrons only" rule. :) Then we headed home and devoured some homemade german chocolate cake and sang happy birthday to daddy. I am pretty sure Kyle never imagined that he would end up at McDonald's for his birthday dinner (especially once he married a woman who is strongly against fast food), but it was fun and we did go out sans children the weekend previous with Kyle's dad to Radio Milano to celebrate.

Happy 4th of July (a month late)

The fourth of July was so long ago that I can't even remember what we did to blog about it. I wanted to turn my photos into collages so they would look better when I posted them, but I will probably never get the time to do that so I am just going to post them as they are. I do remember the fourth of July being a lot of fun. We went to Anthem to stay with Katie and Jeremy. Anthem does their 4th celebration on the 3rd so we did all the fireworks and fun the night before the big day and then went to the Anthem water park on the fourth. Our holidays and weekends sure would be boring if we didn't have Katie and Jeremy to supply all of our fun!

Anthem has a really fun Independence Day festival complete with a weird guy on stilts, patriotic tatoos, and tons of bouncy play equipment. Gage LOVED the maze.

Gage begged and begged to ride in the "strawberry" or tomato, or whatever it is. It spins around and around and just looked like the most fun Gage had ever seen. So Kyle waited in line with him for a half hour while Gage repeated over and over "Gager's turn, Gager's turn". They finally got on and convinced Anden and Jeremy to ride with them. Immediately after it started spinning, Gage was crying to get off. And poor Jeremy gets major motion sickness so he wasn't too thrilled either. So the ride operator stopped after a couple seconds and that was the end of Gager's wild ride.

Waiting for the fireworks to start.

Brigg had an interesting time playing on the water slide.

The only time Gage will sit down to eat lunch is when he's with his buddy, Anden. Anden is a great example for Gage. I wish they lived closer so we could see them more.

The next day, we went to the Anthem water park to let the kids play. Brigg and Taylee spent the day chillin' in the shade under this umbrella while Gage went down the waterslide a thousand times.

Summer Fun

My sister, "Auntie Kiana" came to visit from Maui for a couple weeks and we have been out having fun and getting things done, so my blogging has been lacking. But here's what we've been up to this summer:

Katie and Jeremy invited us to go to Forest Lakes with them for the weekend. It was so nice and COOL!!

Kyle and Jeremy finished Jer's tree fort (with a little help from the boys).

Gage & Anden played surprisingly well with each other.

Kiana rode a quad for the first time and loved it.

Gage, Brigg, Anden & Taylee went for a little Rhino ride with the moms while the guys and Kiana rode their quads. Gage was terrified of the loud Rhino so when we first started driving I looked back and saw his head hidden under his blanky.

Then after a few minutes, he got bold and peeked his head out to see if he was still alive. :)

Brigg loved being carried around in the baby bjorn (my back didn't love it so much).

And we spent a lot of time hanging out in the cabin and relaxing with our good friends.

On the way home, we stopped at the fish hatchery so Gage and Anden could feed the fish. Gage was a little freaked out by the very agressive fish at first but soon found out how cool it was to throw stuff in the water. Then Anden taught Gage how to roll down the hill. Then Auntie entertained Gage on the rest of the ride home.

When we got home we found strawberries were 3lbs for $1 at the superstition market, so we bought 27lbs and made jam. It was a long hot day, and included one exploded jar and another messy mishap on the stove, but it was worth it when we had fresh homemade jam on our toast the next morning. Then I went back and got another 15lbs of strawberries and froze them for smoothies later on. I love the superstition market!!

We took Kiana and the boys to the Oasis water park again. Gage had so much fun playing with his Auntie in the water. I wish I had gotten some pics of them together, but water, the baby and a camera can be a dangerous combination.

Kyle has been cleaning up the yard and as soon as Gage saw daddy get out the lawnmower, he grabbed his own and was outside helping out. Gage adores his daddy and wants to do everything Kyle does all the time. He often tells me that he's going to work and then goes outside into the backyard for a while. :)