School and Soccer

I can hardly believe how grown up my little man is! He's old enough to go to school now!! It's still really weird. My friend Lauren was over the other night and mentioned how grown-up he is now and that makes me a little sad.


Of course Cooper has to get in on the action too! For the first few days of school he would ask me about 10 times if it was time to go pick up Jacks yet. He has adjusted better now and only asks twice.


This is Jacks' friend, Aidan. He is our neighbor and is in the same class. My mom is the teacher and his grandma is the aid. These boys are pretty spoiled!


Jacks was so excited to start Soccer this year. He has been practicing with Cooper and his dad a ton and has improved a lot. Last year was our first year and he was very reserved and didn't get a lot of ball time. He is still reserved this year but has a lot more skills to counteract that. He likes to wait on the outside when everyone is fighting over the ball and when someone finally kicks it out of the group Jacks will grab it and go.


He is having so much fun and is getting really good. He made 4 goals at his game last Saturday and was so excited that he's been telling everyone!

Demolition Derby

We went to the Demolition Derby in Spanish Fork on Saturday. Bert and I went to one when we were dating 8 years ago, but i hadn't been to one since. I loved it and have wanted to take the boys to one for a while but i always seemed to hear about one after it was over. So when i heard about this one I jumped on board really quick.


We had so much fun. My 2 sisters came with us and Casey and Lauren (one of my roommates from college.)


Here's the group right before the final Champions round. My sister Erin has an almost 2 year old and he was only interested for so long, so they left early.

Cooper loved it so much and keeps asking over and over if we can go again! They have made up their own version of it here at home. It's quite funny to watch. They announce their cars, "Here comes Lightning McQueen" or "Here comes the brown car that kept going" and then they countdown. 5....4....3....2....1 and the crashing begins. Come on over for the show anytime :)!!

Summer Fun

We have been swimming and slip-n-sliding a lot this summer. It's nice to fill up the pool and set up the slip-n-slide and the kids can go to town for hours. I don't have any good pictures of the slip-n-slide yet, but we have the perfect hill for it in our back yard. I have many fond memories of slip-n-sliding when i was a kid and I'm happy to pass that on to my kids.


Jacks got a bike for his birthday and we have been riding A LOT lately. We have a church really close to our house (I know...in Utah every church is close to your house :) ) He's getting pretty good at it. It shakes him up a bit when he falls but I just keep telling him that that's a part of learning and to get back on and try again.

Cooper has been riding this trike around but he could never keep up with Jacks and he just seemed too big for it. So I went out and bought him a bike of his own.


He loves it and thinks he is such a big boy. It's the cutest little thing ever. One of the challenges of having your kids so close together (19 months apart) is you can't wait around for hand-me-downs on everything. I'm glad we got this for him and he can be learning to ride at the same time as Jacks.

Cutest little biker dudes ever!

Primary Activity

We had our annual Fireman/Policeman Primary Activity on Aug 6. It was great. This is an activity that we all look forward to. This kids love it and I had a few kids ask me about a month ago when it was going to be because they were so excited about it. And we leaders love it too because there isn't a whole lot we have to do. ;)


We have all the kids gather first and listen to some safety tips from Ben and Dave.

Then they turn on the water and the kids can run crazy for about 10 minutes. They get completely soaked.

Then we give them a Popsicle and they can walk home. Perfect summer activity! Thanks Dave and Ben! It was a lot of fun and I appreciate you coming over and helping with it.

Boise

We went to Boise for a quick weekend trip in July. Bert has a brother that lives up there. We always have a good time when we go and the boys always want to know when they will be able to go up again!


We went to the zoo while we were there and had a great time.

The kids played in the water in the backyard and we headed out to the pool one afternoon too.

They loved having a sleepover with their cousins Josh and Samantha.


It was a fun trip! We went to the rodeo while we were up there too but I didn't get any good pictures of that since it was so dark in there. Thanks Dave and Julie! We had a great time!!

Jacks is 5!

We started out his birthday celebration with breakfast at McDonalds and they played on the slides for a while. The boys had slept in until 10 that day so we had to hurry and get down there before they ended their breakfast. We made it just in time and we were there before the lunch crowd so it happened to be the perfect time to go because the playland wasn't busy at all.

My family all came over for cake and ice cream and presents later in the day. Jacks had requested a dinosaur cake so I found one online that i thought was cute and that Erin and I could create! He wanted it to be blue and green. It turned out super cute!


After cake and ice cream we headed out for a burger (I know that was backwards but it was the only way to work it out).


After dinner we went to see Toy Story 3. That had been the plan since we first saw the previews for it at Christmastime and saw that it was coming out on his birthday. He loves Toy Story and he loved the movie. They really did a good job with it and I have even heard some people say it was the best of all of them.


I can't believe he's 5. He's going to Kindergarten in the fall and will be going to my mom's class. I don't know who is more excited, Jacks or my mom!!! Jacks is very sweet and a huge helper. He's very sensitive to other peoples feelings and will never choose his favorite of anything (probably because he doesn't want to hurt anyone or anythings feelings). He loves to play sports with his daddy and is very good at all of them. He is very social and always wants to be at someone else's house instead of his own!! Happy Birthday Jackal!!!

Preschool Graduation

I know I'm about a month late on this post...that's the story of my life lately!

Jacks graduated from Preschool on May 24th. He had a panic attack when we got there and wouldn't participate at all. Bert finally got him to go sit up in his chair as long as he was sitting next to him.

And finally by the end he warmed up enough to go up and get his diploma from his teacher. She asked all the kids what they wanted to do when they grew up and Jacks told her he wanted to be a race car driver. News to me! I'll have to talk him out of that one for sure ;)!

He got a cold sore on his lip 2 days later and I'm convinced it's from his panic attack and stress during the graduation!

Disneyland 2010

I've been in such a funk lately and so I'm really behind in my blogging. We were able to go to Disneyland for the Williams Family Vacation the first week of March. It was so much fun and we all had a great time. The weather was perfect. It was springtime there. Beautiful flowers and green grass. I can't wait for our spring to show up!


Cooper was a wimp when it came to the characters and some of the rides. He would not go near any of the characters and there were just a handful of rides that he would go on. He refused to go on Peter Pan but I knew he would like it and so I forced him into that line and he was not happy with me...but in the end he loved it. This picture above is him on the Ladybug ride in Bug's Land and it was one of his favorites. My mom can go on spinny rides without getting sick so she was usually his partner on this ride.

(Getting ready to ride the new Toy Story 3D ride)

We booked our trip through Costco and so as a bonus we got to go to a character breakfast. I thought this was so much fun and definitely something I would want to do again. We ate at Goofy's Kitchen and there were about 5 characters walking around. Cooper was very nervous the whole time but we kept him in the corner and no one tried to talk to him so he survived. The food was so funny because they had everything from scrambled eggs and waffles to chicken fingers and hot dogs. It was quite the breakfast buffet!

This was on the last day (we were there for 5) and he finally decided he would do it. He saw Woody and said he wanted to take a picture with him. So we took off after Woody to get our only picture with Cooper and a character. He looks pretty nervous but he was sure proud of himself and wanted me to show everyone the picture.

We had a blast! Jacks was tall enough this time to go on some of the adult rides like Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain and Soarin'. He felt so big and said they were some of his favorite rides. It was fun to take him on the "fast" rides. I never counted exactly but I'm sure we went on Small World atleast 10 times. It was one of Cooper's favorites!

The Boys

Yesterday, while Jacks was at school, this is what I found sitting in the hallway. He had gathered all of his stuffed animals and lined them in a row and then was talking to them in his "sweet baby voice". It was so cute!! If he was a girl he would play with babydolls all day long! I am sure of it! But, since we don't have any, his animals serve as his babies and he will put diapers on them, take them for rides in the stroller, wrap them in his blankie, and love them.

My boys are obsessed with shorts!!! I don't get it! Every morning, pretty soon after they wake up, they ask if they can put on their shorts and run around in them. It is a sad day if I ever say no! In fact, it is the ultimate punishment to make him put pants back on :). I just took this picture this morning right after they woke up and right now as I'm typing this they are running up and down and being crazy!! They have so much energy and are definitely all boy!!!

Cooper's Birthday

This is going to be a long post with a lot of pictures because there were so many cute ones that I couldn't pass up! OK, here goes....

Cooper's 3rd Birthday was on Jan 19, but he really got to celebrate it for 3 days! (Hopefully he won't remember that next year and expect it again!) On Sunday, the 17th, we had birthday dinner with the Keele's and Cooper opened presents and ate cake.


Grandma Keele gave his Pete's Dragon which he was really excited about.

The next day we celebrated with my family. That morning Erin and Becky came over to help me finish up the cake. Bert and I had dyed and baked 6 different layers the day before, which was a process but not as bad as I thought it would be. So they came over early, with kids in tow, and we made Cooper a "Red Hi-Ho Cake" (That is exactly what he said when I asked him what kind of birthday cake he wanted!!).

So here is what it looked like right before we frosted it. Cool, huh?

This is the final product and the happy birthday boy that got exactly what he wanted!!

Cooper and all his loot. He got a lot of stuff.

Cooper loves to play with his cousins stroller and so I have been wanting to get him one for a long time, but everywhere I looked they only came in pink. I happened to be in the baby Gap at Christmas time and saw this stroller. It's perfect because it's blue and green and totally masculine :)!!

So then the next day was finally Cooper's actual birthday. Bert had a basketball game that night so I took the boys to that, which they loved, and then we went bowling afterward. Casey and Peggy came with us.

After bowling we grabbed some ice cream and then made our way home. When we got there this is what we found in Cooper's room...

Nana, Papa, Tiff, and Tessa had come by to decorate his room with balloons. The boys loved it and didn't waste any time getting all tangled up in the balloons. It was a fun few days!