Utah

wow! I have not blooged in a long time, sorry to the few of us who follow this blog. We have been pretty busy working on our yard and going on vacation. Thomas and I took a long trip to Utah recently and we had so much fun. We first went to his Aunt Kellyanne's Graduation from Taylorsville High. We were so excited to see our family, it had been a while!

Thomas found this Rocking horse at my brother's house that he loved and couldn't get enough of.

We went to Lagoon with my family, for the first time with Thomas, he couldn't ride to many rides, but he did like the Merry-go-round, well he liked it once it began moving.

This is Thomas' cousin Brianna, they had so much fun together (they kissed most of the day). Thomas just loved being with all of his cousins, We were really sad when we had to leave. So to all of our family out there Thomas' misses you and he want's you to come visit!

Too Many Rocks

So we finally decided on grass.. real grass.. that means sod, sprinkling system, curbing, hmmm this is starting to sound like a long project, no to mention the trees, shrubs, garden... and please no... the maintenance.. mowing, watering, fertilizing... I'm tired just thinking about it. But, I digress, first things first: ROCKS!

We have twenty tons of the stuff... what to do with forty thousand pounds of decorative rock... People Paid money for this stuff?? It is way to expensive to pay someone to haul it away, I could take about forty loads to the dump in my truck.. still expensive and about a month long process wheelbarrowing it all out into the truck and taking load after load after load. No way.. throw it over the fence. It was a nightmare until Julie had the brilliant idea to put it on Craigslist. I resisted at first (see craigslist killer) and thought who would come and shovel out weed invested rocks for hours on end just to get some free rock. Finally, I relented, I put an add up saying if you want to come shovel it, and haul it away, you can have it... within an hour I had people responding and within two days I had 20-30 emails from people in Prescott wanting to come pick it up... unbelievable.. before I could blink my backyard was empty of all the unwanted rocks.

People even sent me pictures of what they did with it.

Gotta give Julie props for that one! Saved me hours of hard labor.

Our Backyard

So this spring/summer project has been what to do with our backyard. We have mulled over a couple options, including grass, artificial turf, garden, sand box... you name it it probably came up... again.. and again and again... One thing was for certain something needed to be done!!

Thomas at the P.V. Easter Egg hunt, he really enjoyed sitting in the grass, he didn't want to leave even though it was freezing.

Easter fun, our friends came over and we dyed some Easter eggs, notice Paul in the back ground playing with fake grass.

Thomas found his Easter basket hiding in the corner between the couches, he did not really grasp the concept, but had fun anyway!

Thomas liked Paul's Easter Basket better because Paul's had golf balls. All in all in was a fun Easter, we hope everyone had a great one as well!!

Yay! Grandma came to visit and play with Thomas, we felt a little bad because Thomas got a cold and was pretty cranky. We still ended up having a good time, we went on a drive to Sedona, and mostly hung out. Thanks for coming to visit us!!

Guess who brought sprinkles! I was so excited to get these little beauties, yes I did eat most of them and I am now paying for it, my pants barely fit. (the chocolate ones were my favorite, to die for)

Thomas' Best Friend

Thomas loves to look at himself in the mirror, in fact he could spend hours in front of the mirror, sliding glass doors or oven windows. He is always cracking us up, here is a small example of the hours, the funny faces, and the endless conversations he has with himself. The last 30-seconds are the best...

Heart Walk

We had a fun filled weekend in Phoenix, we went to the Phoenix Zoo. we had so much fun! the weather was perfect and Thomas is now old enough to understand what animals are. The last time we went to the zoo in was about 200 degrees and Thomas was miserable. They have this cute little petting barn that you can go and pet goats.

Thomas loved flicking the ear of this poor goat.

After we left the zoo we had dinner at the Macaroni Grill, which was one of our favorites in Utah, after dinner I begged Paul to take me to Sprinkles, for those of you who don't know what Sprinkles is it is supposed to be an awesome cup cake shop. I say supposed to be because much to my dismay they were closed. So no Sprinkles for me oh well maybe next time. Anyway the next day we did the Phoenix heart walk. It was so much fun, it is so amazing how many people were there donating their time and money for this great cause.

They wanted the babies in strollers to just do the one mile, they also had a 5K. If any of you know Paul and I we were of course OK with the one mile. It was so funny at the half way point we were being cheered on and they were handing out water like we had just ran the marathon. And at the end of the race we went through a line of people giving high fives. I will definitely do this again every year, it made me realize what a true miracle Thomas' heart surgery really was, 10-20 years ago there could have been a completely different outcome. If you ever have a chance to do something like this for someone you love I would definitely encourage it, because it is amazing!

Teeth Finally...

Well I just had to post about this because it is so exciting!! Thomas' got his two bottom teeth, this is so exciting because I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. He is sixteen months, I was begining to think he didn't have teeth. This picture is funny because my mom took this picture while we were in San Diego and when we came home we thought he looked different somehow, I think he still looks like a different kid when I see the picture.

5 Years!!

It was our 5th Anniversary on the 7th and we went to San Diego, The best part of all we went with out Thomas. My mom came up and stayed with Thomas for a few days while we went. This was the first time we have ever left him overnight. I will admit I was very nervous, but it was much needed and we had so much fun. Thank you Mom Thomas had so much fun with you and he misses you!

Boy if I didn't know better it looks like Paul likes animals!

This is Sunset Cliffs it is so beautiful, but it was really cold, I am wearing Three jackets, It was actually kind of nice that the weather wasn't great, there was hardly anyone at sea world. There were no lines and we got to do everything we wanted to do.

This is La Jolla cove behind us those are seals that come up to the shore, it is pretty amazing to see that outside of an aquariam. Can I also tell you there are way to many birds in San Diego, I was eating this massive ice cream cone on the beach, and I decided I was done and went to throw it away, well the seagulls were eyeing me. When I threw it away they all started chasing me. I threw my jacket over my head and started running, well that only made it worse because my jacket was flapping around like a bird. Paul said it looked like I was their leader, so I chucked my jacked and took off running. I eventually got away, but those birds are crazy! I saw them steal a guys hamburger right off his plate and Sea World. Needless to say we made it home safeley and come to find out Thomas didn't even miss me! Oh well we had a great time!!

New Orleans

There are a whole bunch of Plantation about an hour outside of New Orleans, that are so amazing I couldn't believe we were in Louisiana still.

This was our favorite one, we thought the trees were amazing, it looked like it was straight out of an old movie.

This is Bourbon Street, once again bad parent alert we took Thomas down this road, and yes some girl threw her beads to him. Thank goodness we did not see any nudity.

We took a cute little fairy boat to Algiers which if you ask me is a pretty lame place, but the boat ride was fun.

Sugar Bowl!!

Guess who wen to the Sugar Bowl, That's right we did!!! It was a crazy time in New Orleans, The food was yummy, Bourbon Street was crazy, and the service there wasn't very good. and oh yeah the best part of all The Utes won!!!!!

Can you believe what terrible parents we are we kept Thomas up at all hours of the night, the noise was so loud at the game that we had to plug his ears with waded up paper napkins. Thomas really did have a good time, he clapped every time there was a good play, it was pretty cute.

It was so crazy that we won by so much, almost everyone thought that Alabama would win, but we sure showed them!

We decided to take a road trip to to the coast, it was so pretty there we wished it was warmer weather so we could have played in the water. As you can tell Thomas hates the sand and is not a nature lover like his Dad. I will have to cure him of this because I like the out doors.

Polar Express

Thomas playing on the train seats.

This was our train Elf.

Williams was freezing so we hurried and took a picture of the outside of the train.

Spread a little Christmas

Yeah!! Christmas is here.

Some of my family came up for Thanksgiving and we took our kids to sit on Santa's lap. Thomas didn't think it was that much fun, can you tell.

We got tickets for the Polar Express in the cute little town of Williams. It was so much fun, Thomas loved it, he was bouncing all around and trying to keep up with the noise level on the train. We would definitely do this every year, it so cute all the kids (and some adults wear their PJ's on the train). You sing Christmas carols and the read the story of the Polar express, they serve hot chocolate and cookies. You also make a stop at Santa's village to pick up Santa, so he can give the first gift of Christmas.

Thomas just got the first gift from Santa, he loved the bell and was going crazy shaking it.

New Background

In celebration of the Twighlight books and upcoming movie, Julie requested the new background to our page.

Happy Halloween

Thomas enjoyed pumpkin carving night and his sucker.

We had a lot of fun carving pumpkins this year!

Thomas was a Penguin this year, This is at our Trunk or Treat, we stayed there for a little while and then we came back home to pass out candy, we had a lot of Trick or Treater's in our neighborhood.