Is it wrong?

Is it wrong that I'm proud of Liam for yelling "Don't!" to a bully, chasing him down, grabbing the scruff of his neck and that smacking the bully in the back of the head?

William and Wendell took the kids to the McDonald's Playland tonight to let the kids run themselves ragged. The kids had a blast. At one point though Liam yelled "Don't" to a little boy, which scared the little boy who then ran off. Liam chased him down, grabbed him by the cuff of the neck, and smacked him in the back of the head. William placed Liam in timeout, but later realized why Liam had done what he had. The kid was being a Playland bully and was running around hitting all the kids on the Playland. In my humble opinion, that little boy got was he deserved, and I'm glad my little boy stood up for himself and the other kids that the boy was smacking.

Our Day at Hogle Zoo

After many stops and starts on June 3rd, and Aeva's first call to 911 (in which the police showed up to her cousins house...long story) we finally made our first visit as a family to Hogle Zoo. It was great! We went much later in the day and it felt as though we had much of the park to ourselves. There's a fun little scale model train that goes around the park (which Liam adored) and a great little playground. The big cats exhibit, which looks like a really cool Tibetan mountain village, was very nice. It was disappointing though since we didn't see any of the big cats. They were all hiding. My son thinks he is the Dude version of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Here he is, singing to the zebras to try and get them to respond or come over to him:

Here's our adorable Aeva playing in a huge egg:



And here's me and the kiddies on a cool elephant that made sounds (i.e. snoring, sneezing, and even would blow water out of its trunk and spray you if you stood in front of it). Liam was obviously a afraid of it:



Next desired adventure/outing with the kiddies: Children's Discovery Museum in Salt Lake :-)

Aeva's First Steps, Sambelina the St. Patrick's Day mommy, and more goodies...

Happy St. Patrick's Day! There's no better day to birth babies than on the most popular of all Irish holidays. :-) Our cute little Himalayan kitty became a mommy today. She scratched and meowed at our bedroom door this morning, which she's never done before. We thought that strange, and even stranger still when she kept trying to peer into and somehow get inside our dresser drawers. She was insistent. So I pulled out a drawer and in she went, deep inside the dresser, climbing over drawers internally to nest in a nicely closed drawer. We realized this must be the big event, so I pried her out to remove my clothing in the drawer and reline it with something appropriate. Less than 4 hours later, she'd given birth to 3 white kittens. Sadly, on of them was stillborn. The other two seem to be thriving.

Way to go Sam! :-)

Aeva is graduating to a toddler's forward facing seat, which we purchased at TJ Maxx last night. Here are the kids having fun with the box :-)


Here's a cute, recent pic of Aeva asleep in her chair with her baby doll:


And finally, here are some of Aeva's first steps! Cool stuff. Go little girl!

Aeva's First Birthday!!

Today has been a good day. Aeva woke up happy and was charming all day. For her first birthday, she decided to make two "firsts". She climbed from the floor to the very top of the couch today, and she took her first steps today! (5 in a row). That's my girl!! She also experienced her first nosebleed from an accidental smack in the face by Liam with her Cabbage Patch doll. She's tough!

We put on a simple party for Aeva and had a great turnout of family and friends. I made Aeva her own little white kitty cat cake, with blue M&M's for eyes, a sour pink Skittle for a nose, and a pink "sour straw" as the collar. Also, the flower on the cat's head matches the one I stuck on Aeva :-)






And then we sang Happy Birthday!


She picked off the sour skittle nose first and made a great face:



Here she is eating the sour string "collar":





We love our little girl!!

Halloween 2008

Well, Halloween has come and gone, but I wanted to post some pics of last Friday night. We went to a "Trunk or Treat" party and had a fun time. There were lots of cars in the parking lot and Liam went home with a healthy stash of which we have claimed our fair share of parent tax :-)

I'm looking to be more ambitious with costumes next Halloween. I have grand ideas of sewing elaborate costumes, but it doesn't usually seem to happen. Maybe I should start now for next Halloween...

Anyway, here's our adorable pumpkin, Aeva (her uncle Gordon is holding her):

and of course here's the ever precocious Liam as Thomas the Tank Engine:

And here are some family photos :-)

A day in the life of Aeva...

is always a busy day. At least for her. While of course I'd be bored out of my brain if I spent the majority of the day on the floor trying to get that crawling thing worked out, Aeva is kept busy as she becomes coordinated and is now within weeks of her official first crawl. She's already quite good at scooting, pushing, and rolling around to get where she wants to go. And paper is her favorite thing. Wherever there's paper, there's Aeva:We are gearing up for the 16th Annual Baconfest tomorrow, and so I left to go shopping for my special Baconfest entree. As I was rushing off, I asked William to feed some pureed prunes and rice to Aeva. She's a tad messy, but if you're vigilant, it's not too terrible an affair....that is until William takes over. He's now fired from spoon feeding Aeva until further notice (i.e., until she gets good at it). Here's evidence of how out of hand it got:

To be fair, she is REALLY strong and it's impossible to keep her from grabbing the spoons and dumping food. I've used the trick of giving her a second spoon, but of course, she's always more interested in the new spoon coming at her. Add to this all her drool (William says this is mostly what soaked her sock), and you've got a nice mess.

After her bath and another bottle, Aeva was finally defeated and knocked down for the count:

Campfire dinner with family

On Monday (Oct. 6th) we decided to go up the canyon and have a campfire dinner with Heather and Wendell and the kiddies. We brought the steaks and veggies and they brought the hot dogs, marshmallows, utensils, wood and trimmings. They were quite patiently waiting for us when we finally showed up with the food.

Liam and his cousin Ethan were, as usual, ecstatic to see each other. Anymore, we usually don't tell Liam he's going to see Ethan until we're close to leaving, otherwise, he pesters us until we DO leave because he can't wait to see "Nee-Nee", as he calls him. Here they are "sharing"one of my favorite things in the world, Pringles:

We cooked the asparagus and yellow squash in tinfoil over the coals, but the squash took on a horrid flavor. At least we had marshmallows! I love hanging out with Heather and Wendell. It does me good, and I love that Liam gets to play with his favorite person.

Here are some more fun photos of the evening:

Heather, Cole, Sydney, then William & Aeva, and then Heather and Cole. CUTE!

We're a beautiful family :-)