A Hiking We Will Go

We decided to take advantage of how beautiful Utah is right now with the leaves changing color, so we planned a fun day in the mountains. We packed lunches and drove up through American Fork Canyon and drove the Alpine Loop to right above Sundance. We hiked up to Stewart Falls and had a little picnic before coming back down. It was so beautiful up there! The kids did great...Brooklyn was the trailblazer. On the way back she was slowing down and saying her legs were tired so I carried her for a little ways, but we couldn't do it anymore so we told her it was a race. After that, we could hardly keep up with her! It was very crowded, but probably the best time of year to go. I have to admit I am a little sore today, but I guess the truth hurts...I'm way out of shape!

Fun with Vinyl

I have been having a lot of fun playing with vinyl this past week as I have been doing a TON of orders! This time of year is always busy, but that just makes for good Christmas money. Here are a couple of things I have done in our house...

This is about 2 ft x 2 ft in a little niche between the guest bedroom and bathroom

I actually can't take too much credit for this one. I got the idea from something Melissa did in her house, but I am very happy with how it turned out. It's 4 2ftx2ft canvas squares that I put vinyl on, painted black over it, and then removed the vinyl. They are hung in the front entryway to the left when you walk in the house.

I have another one in the works and I will post it when I'm done...hopefully in the next couple of days. I'm very excited about it! If anyone sees anything else I should try, please let me know...I still have a lot of empty walls to fill!

Week of Firsts

What an exciting week we had in our home!

Brooklyn had her First day of Super Stars Preschool with Mrs. Lindley and 7 other kids, mostly from our ward. She had a great time and was so excited to go back. She had her first homework assignment which was to fill a brown paper back with stuff "about her". Her first attempt was a little funny because she stuffed any and every toy she could fit in it. I gave her a little coaching the 2nd time around, but really she did most of it herself and this is what she came up with.


Her snake, bananahead, that she got in San Diego, a picture of her and Parker and one of her at the beach, she drew a picture of her family (from left to right: grandma, grandpa, Tallan, Brooklyn, Dad, and Mom), and her favorite I Spy book.

First day of Preschool!

We also celebrated Tallan's First birthday! I can't believe he is one already! We celebrated with presents, cupcakes, and ice cream with just our family. The big family party will happen on Sunday. We love our Tallan though and are so blessed he's part of our family!

Sunday Breakfast

Sunday morning we went to Aunt Gail's for breakfast with the whole crew. There were 24 of us and I had 4 waffle irons going at once. I'm very proud of the fact that I didn't burn a single one! It was great to spend time with family. We had a perfect weekend and I hope that it becomes a tradition. Eric found the beach house through www.vrbo.com (vacation rentals by owner) and I highly suggest checking it out. Some of the highlights I haven't mentioned yet include: some great shopping at Horton Plaza and the outlets in Carlsbad, watching people fall and even better, come close to falling on the bike/run/skate path right outside our balcony, and calling the cops on some unruly and loud teenagers in the parking lot by our house and watching them get busted. I am already looking forward to next year's trip! Here are some pictures from breakfast though...

The reason we are all here today and why we are who we have become!

S'mores

We couldn't leave the beach without a bonfire and some s'mores! The last night at the house we decided to do s'mores the Flinders way with fudge striped cookies and mallows of course. The kids really enjoyed their s'mores!

Sun, Sand, and good book

What a relaxing day we had on Saturday. We didn't leave the beach house once! We just walked out the back door onto the beach and spent the whole day there. Well, at least the dads did with the kids. Jenn and I made it out occasionally, but spent a lot of the day inside with the babies. The best part about it, was that I got to sit down and read a really good book! (My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult) It's been so long since I have been able to do that! The kids had so much fun though, and honestly, except for a few hours of naps in the afternoon, they were out there basically from sun up to sun down!

Look at Ethan go on the boogie board! He was awesome and had the time of his life!

Next year maybe my kids will be ready?

Poor Drewby! I guess he didn't mind though! The dad's had more fun digging than the kids!

End of the sunset from our balcony

Time to call it a day!

San Diego Zoo

We had an amazing weekend in San Diego with my sister, Jenn, and her family. We rented a house on Mission Beach for 3 nights and even though it was in the 90s with 70% humidity and we were sweating almost the whole weekend, we had so much fun! We flew in Thursday night and got to the house just in time for BBQ and the sunset. Friday we woke up and headed over to the zoo. What a fun zoo it is too! The animals were out and lively and the kids loved it! I think the polar bears were the favorite because we were lucky enough to see one up close and personal. He was right up next to the glass and although they look cute and cuddly in cartoons and even from afar, I am very sure I never want to come face to face with one in the wild.

Happy Birthday Parker!

Just wanted to give a shout out to Parker Whitford, Brooklyn's BFF, boyfriend, and some day husband. Happy 4th birthday! Wish we were there to celebrate with you! Hope you had a great day!

Parker's 2nd b-day

Parker's 3rd b-day

"Hi-doh?"

Not only did Tallan look totally handsome this morning all ready for church (thank you cousins Ethan and Drew for the oh so cute tie!), but I had to take a picture of his new favorite thing to do...he LOVES to talk on our cell phones. As soon as he sees a phone laying around, he says, "Hi-doh?" and goes for it. He puts it up to his ear and says over and over again, "hi-doh? hi-doh?" I promise I don't talk on the phone that much! Some of his other vocabulary consists of, "uh-oh, dada, ball, and o-da buh" which we aren't sure exactly what that means, but he sure says it a lot! By the way, as much as I loved the dirty hands, knees, and tops of his feet all the time from crawling, he is taking more and more steps all the time! I can't wait to have a little walker!

Look at that face!

The Posse

We finally broke down and got a new camera and our first picture taking experience with it was at a BBQ we had at our house last night with Tim's friends from high school, "The Posse". They got that name because a news reporter once wrote an article about a group of boys in Spanish Fork that started a gang and the reporter referred to them as The Posse. It was Tim's group of friends and the name stuck. They even have a website they keep in touch with each other on called The Posse Page. As much as us wives make fun of them, it's actually pretty cool. They had such a close group of guys in high school and they are almost all within an hour from each other now and try to get together as often as possible. So, we had these guys over with wives and kids and had a lot of fun. We were missing about 8-10 of the guys, but we'll try and get them next time!

Thanks a lot, Jenn!

My camera is broken so I don't have any recent pictures, and may not have any for a while, but thanks to my creative sister, Jenn, my blog has a new look! Thanks for the help...she told me where I can get cutesy title bars, accents, and templates. Almost 2 hours later, I figured out how to do the title. I'm exhausted though, so maybe I'll try and figure out the rest another night. Be sure to check out my newest nephew, baby Ty, on their blog though! (follow the link to "The Daniels Family" from my sidebar) He is absolutely adorable!

ps...she wrote the little poem about her days as a mother of 3 boys on the upper left of her blog! Way cute! I'm so proud of her!

Making a house a home

Yes, we have been in our new home a whole month now and I am finally getting around to decorating! I have started adding a few personal touches throughout with vinyl, and still have a long way to go, but it's so much fun for me! Here are a couple little things I have done so far...

This is in Brooklyn and Tallan's little playroom under the stairs. Brooklyn was very excited to have the alphabet with the fun animals along the wall and especially loved the little "PLAY" definition. One evening when I told her it was time to clean up in the playroom, she brought me inside the room, pointed to it and said, "mom, look! It says 'to make a mess'!" Well, she was right!

Don't worry, I won't take a picture of everything I hang on the wall, but since this was the first, I wanted to share now that our house is feeling more like a home.

Girls night out!

Last Friday night we had a much needed, long awaited, girls night out. We had a mini baby shower for Buffy and Sarah at Brick Oven. We ate good food, and opened presents. Then we headed over to Riverwoods for a little shopping and dessert from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We got a chance to catch up since it had been a month since I moved already and even though I'm not too far away, I haven't had too many opportunities to see the girls, and I miss them!