Zions

We (by we I mean I) wanted to to one of our favorite summer hikes before school starts again. We took the kids to Zion to play and hike at the end of the Narrows. I got lots of looks and comments about bringing a 4 month old baby. Yes I know it's hot and yes I did put sunscreen on him and yes I know he has fair skin and no he isn't hungry, he just likes to suck on his hands. None of the comments seemed justified until I slipped with Cardon in the baby Bjorn at the very end and dunked him. No harm done. It was really hot, so I'm sure it just cooled him down a bit.


The kids found a spot where they could catch tadpoles.


The kids did great except for a little too much whining on Prentice's part. They loved floating down the water to have dad catch them. They sure love the water!

Cardon is 4 months

Cardon is four months. He had his wellness check today and he is doing well. He had to get three shots and those are not fun for anyone involved. Prentice was so upset to watch him get them that she wanted to go out of the room. She actually stayed out there with another nurse until it was over. He cried for about five minutes and wanted me to just hold him for about ten and then he seemed fine.

Here are his stats:
Weight 15.56lbs. 60%
Length 25.39in. 64%
Head 16.5 in. 39%

Here are a few pictures of our 4 month old!








At four months Cardon:
grabs for anything
puts anything he gets in his mouth
drools A LOT...still
smiles and giggles
prefers mom
is more serious
likes bath time and water
rolls over sometimes from front to back
holds onto toys
likes to have a blanket or burp cloth to hold
eats 6-7oz. every 3 hours
sleeps about 9 hours at night
will sleep in the crib or if I hold him
doesn't love his car seat
is content
lovable
smells so good
kicks his feet when he gets excited
likes to be tickled
cries if someone sneezes too loud
starting to hold his own bottle
enjoys watching Truman and Prentice play
likes going for bike rides and hikes
has quite a bit of light hair
likes to stand up

And She's Off

We almost gave in and put her training wheels back on, but in the end we held strong. Prentice wanted to ride without the training wheels, but she didn't trust herself enough. She was worried to much about falling or whether or not someone was still holding onto the back of her. It really only took her two days to get the hang of it and then there was not looking back. She has even started to get it going by herself, so she is really on her own. It was a team effort to get her going with Jer and I trading off when one of us got too frustrated with her. After she was riding, we all had some fun on bikes.


After a quite a few falls she had really gotten the hang of it.

Jer taught Truman had to do a "wheelie" and Truman couldn't have been happier.


And Prentice let me ride her bike while she told me what to do. We all had some good laughs and had a nice time in the little bit cooler weather. Prentice was so excited the next day when she still remembered how to ride her bike.

Way to go princess Prentice! I love that you try so hard and didn't give up. I can't wait to go on more bike rides with you.

Fourth of July Hike

Some of these pictures are so breathtaking. I love where we live. We are so lucky to have so much to do, so close to our house.

We decided to do something outdoors for the fourth and went on a couple short hikes in Snow Canyon State park. The first hike was in the black rock of the lava flows. I remembered going on it years ago and thought it would be fun for the kids to see some of the caves in the lava rocks.







The highlight of the hike (if you can call it that) happened right after this picture was taken. I was up top taking pictures of Jer and the kids down below, (it was hard for me to climb on the rocks with the baby bjorn on) when I looked down to see a big rattlesnake on the rock above my kids' head. I didn't want to freak them out, but my kids do have a tendency to ignore me even when it is something important, so I wanted them to know they needed to listen and obey. The problem was, neither them or Jer could actually see the snake so they were trying to move out of the way of something they couldn't see as I described to them what to do and where to go. Talk about getting all of our heart rates up. It slithered away rattling its tail as the kids were just moving away. Looking back I wish Jer could have seen it and I could have gotten a picture. Only the second rattlesnake we've seen here in St. George. I don't know why I didn't think about the fact that we should be looking out for snakes because they would love to hide in all those rocks we were climbing in. Wish my brother Anton would have been there to see it. He would have probably appreciated it the most.





The second hike we did was climbing up some huge rock faces to get an amazing view of the park.



These pictures show that the day wasn't perfect by any means. We stop to rest in a rare shaded spot...then Truman pushes Prentice, then Prentice gives him the tongue. I only caught in all on camera, because I was in the process of getting a cute, peaceful shot of my kids sitting under a tree. Don't even know what they were fighting about.


When Prentice got tired or hot she would just lay down anywhere and take a drink. Fun day and so worth all the effort it took to get there.

Fourth of July 2011

We had our own fourth of July a day early with homemade fried chicken, potato salad and grilled veggies. We invited my parents, my sister Danielle, and of course our neighbor L'Deane. Thank goodness we did invite her because without the fireworks she brought, our show would have been a bust. Truman couldn't wait for the big day and asked no less than a 100 times when we were going to buy fireworks. After they were bought, he asked another hundred times when we were going to light them. They were pretty good leverage for good behavior.

Prentice had her toenails and fingernails painted for the fourth and I made her these bows as well.

Truman and Prentice had them all lined up from biggest to smallest along the wall in our living room for two days, before we took them out to the garage to finally light.

To keep Truman entertained, Jer rode bikes with him to wait for it to get dark.





Nothing is better than holidays with family. It's a good excuse to get together and do something different. We also ended up with a few extra neighbors who stopped to see the fireworks.

Cardon was asleep in his bed, so no one seemed scared this year, except maybe for some of the really loud ones. Thank goodness they have changed the laws and we could actually shoot some off this year. The next night we sat on my parents porch and could see fireworks all across the city shooting up.

Family Bike Ride

For a simple family home evening activity, we got on our bikes and headed over to the garden to see what we could find. It was Cardon's first time in the bike stroller sitting up and he looked so cute. Prentice was so worried about him and held his hand the whole way. She was so excited to be able to ride in there with him.




We watered the plants and found lots of veggies to pick and take home.


We laugh because my dad just threw in this garden and it is one of the best we've ever had. The tomato plants are as tall as Truman already.

Temple Family Home Evening

I didn't really have a family home evening planned, so we decided to head to the temple and the visitor's center since we hadn't been there for a while. We only had to yell at the kids a couple times to be reverent even outside the temple and to please stop teasing each other.



Did I mention that Prentice is into headbands lately and wears them everywhere.

The visitor's center was great except that Prentice started to sob during the movie we watched when they were crucifying Jesus. I felt really bad for traumatizing her, but it was also kind of neat that it got to her so much.