February 26, 2016 - Violet's

Happy Birthday Violet. 

We love you so much and are so glad you are in our family.  It's so exciting that you have been in our family for 2 years now. You have grown so much and learned so many new things. You love playing with your brother and doing all the things that he can do. You both can be so silly. You love dancing to music and you bounce your feet in the car when you hear the music. You love looking at the moon with your dad. You love string cheese and yogurt drinks, and of course, Candy and fish crackers. You love wearing any ones shoes they leave out and you especially like wearing your boots. You love pockets and bags and purses- anything that you can pack around. You love looking at books and having books read to you. You love any Sesame Street Books and Elmo books, and your puppy books. You give the best hugs and you can say so many words and sentences. You have such a cute smile and you don't like getting your hair combed. You say "Night Night" when you want to drink your milk and lay down. You love dogs- and keep saying that James and Maddie's dog Rover is "My Fiki". You also love it when we got to Grandma Jan's and she reads you books and when Logan teases you and makes you run and scream and when Grandpa Dave teases you and says "My Grandma". You love the park and the slides and the bouncy houses at Kangaroo Zoo. We always have so much fun together. We sure love you!   

Chinese New Year ~ Feburary 8, 2016

Celebrating Chinese New Year 

Earlier this month I thought it would be fun for the kids to learn a little bit about Chinese New Year. Mostly we colored a picture of the Year of the Monkey and of course, we had Chinese food. Any excuse not to cook. Tanner and Violet love Chines Noodles and Ham fried Rice. 

Ground Hogs Day!

I've always thought that it was fun to celebrate holidays. Even ones that really don't mean much. But on Ground Hogs day it's pretty exciting to get up and see if the  Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow. Will he see it?  Will he not?  We just don't know until February 2nd. And the rest of our Winter/ or Spring depends on him.  The Weather according to a little guy who sleeps all winter. And  no matter what happens the first day of Spring always seems to be March 20th.
Well, yesterday was no exception. Only this time, Tanner woke me up and said; "It's Ground Hog's day."  So while we were eating breakfast we checked the news to see if the Ground Hog saw his shadow and he did- an Early spring indeed. I showed Tanner some other pictures of what a Ground Hog looks like and we watched the  Wild Kratts episode on Netflix about Ground Hogs and what they actually do. It's pretty interesting to know that the male Ground Hog doesn't even care about the weather. He gets up early to see if any female Ground Hogs are around so he can mate. They have to constantly eat so their teeth don't grow out of control and they can build up fat for the winter. Hillbilly Ground Hogs- That would be funny. Tripping on their own teeth.  

We also read the book Ground Hog gets a Say. That one has a lot of information about what a Ground Hog does and how they dig their holes and what they eat.  I had Tanner and Violet make their own pictures of Ground hogs. Tanner put the flowers in the Ground Hogs mouth and he said that his Ground Hog saw it's shadow and Violet said that her's didn't.

Because Ground Hogs eat Grass, Plants and some Fruits and Veggies we had a salad bar for dinner. Lots of different bowls full of different things that the kids could pick and eat. It's amazing that they will eat a salad if you say it's Ground Hogs food. For dessert Tanner and Violet made some Ground Hog cookies in Pudding dirt.

Tanner was helping Violet put her face on the cookie

Tanner wanted to add some Gummy worms to the dirt since worms live in the dirt too.  

 A happy Chocolate covered Violet.

I'd say we had a successful Ground Hogs day. We even watch Ground Hogs day with Bill Murray. Such a funny show. 

Summer Fun: Fondue Night

We did it - we finished our last thing on our Summer Fun list - Fondue Night. It tasted great. We went over to Nate and Miriam's house and had a great end of the summer celebration. 

 My favorite fondue- Chocolate. We had chocolate with marshmallow cream and as you can see all sorts of yummy foods. I love the rice krispies, strawberries and the cinn bears. 

 Nate and Miriam made the cheese dip in the crock pot. It's so good, and they fried up the squash and made some alfredo dip out of Cauliflower. Wow!  I loved dipping it in bread. I ate so much. 

Miriam and Violet 

 Tanner and Ally

 Rach and Dan

 Eating the first dipped strawberry

 Violet and Tanner loved dipping their own things

 Yum! 

So We did it. We finished everything on our bucket list. We had fun, we took lots of pictures, we laughed and I think we enjoyed everything. Sometimes the days and weeks were really busy but we made memories. Several times during the summer Tanner would even look at the list and ask "What are we going to do today." 

A great Summer!  

Summer Fun: Staying at a Hotel

Tanner loves staying in Hotels. For the last year since we got back from Colorado Tanner has talked about going to a Hotel. He loves staying in them and he really wishes we could go to one that has a hot tub in the room. He loved that. But we stayed at The Springhill Suites in Lehi. It wasn't far but it's a perfect vacation - close and we had fun. 

 Violet and Tanner watching TV while we waited for Dan to get off work so we could go to dinner

 Relaxing in the bed

 Eating JCW's for dinner. We ended up eating in the dark since the power went out. It only stayed off  for 45 minutes or so. They have the best shakes. I'd forgotten how big they were. 

 Tanner, Racheal and Violet-  They love being in the water. Tanner kept practicing his swimming and jumping in the pool. Violet jumped in a couple of times too. Dan and Tanner even went swimming Saturday after breakfast. 

 Bedtime snack of Popcorn and watching the Disney Channel.

 Bedtime - we were a ll tired. It really has been a long week. 

We did get to eat a great breakfast though- I love not having to cook something for our family. It really does give us a break. We could choose from scrambled eggs, ham, cereal, juice, milk, waffles and all sorts of different donuts and breads. It was awesome. 

Another fun family adventure. 

Summer Fun: Horse Rides at Thanksgiving Point

So it took us all summer and we finally made it to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. We were able to go on Thursday morning and I even got the kids to ride on the horses. Other times when we went Tanner didn't want to ride them. I am glad they both liked it and Violet wasn't afraid at all. 

 Violet climbing around in the worm tunnel 

 I don't know why Tanner is giving a stinky face but he wanted to take the wagon ride. The lady even went in the big parking lot and drove really fast and turned around a lot. Tanner & Violet loved it. 

 They had a little melody time program it was kind of crowded and Tanner didn't want to do it very long but the kids got to dance to some music. 

 Violet really liked the rabbits and kept going back. 

 She also fed the goats. She found some of the food on the ground and stuck it up to the fence. She's very brave. 

Playing with the wooden cars in the Dairy area. 

It doesn't take very long to go to through Farm Country. It's not my favorite place but the kids seemed to have fun. 

Summer Fun: Swimming at Scott and Signe's Pool

One of the things that we were suppose to do is go to Thanksgiving Point and play in the water by the Noah's ark boat but when we got there a couple of weeks ago it was gone. I guess it's been gone a while and I never noticed so instead we went swimming at my Aunt and Uncle's pool. It's so fun to swim and not have everyone else in the world there to see you in your suit and just have fun and goof off. Tanner and Violet love the water. We also invited my Mom and Logan  and Nate, Miriam and Ally. 

 Tanner and Logan

 Dan and Violet - Violet wasn't afraid of the water. A couple of times when she wanted to get out she walked around to the edge and was trying to get in the pool by herself. She made me nervous. She just isn't afraid. 

 Ally and Miriam

 Swimming together as a family

 Tanner loves to swim. We just need him to keep practicing. He's practicing his ice cream scoops.

 Miriam, Nate and Ally - Ally was trying to jump in the pool. She was also getting braver.

 Tanner loved jumping off the diving board. Logan and Dan took turns helping him if he needed it. 

Violet wanted to be with her Grandma Jan the whole time. She loves her Grandma

Violet, Racheal and Logan

Another great evening of Family fun