little boys

Some little kids pop the bubbles that their mom is blowing with their hands.  Not my kids.  They pop them Jedi-style!  These kids never cease to make me laugh, and I love being their mom!

it's great to be a florida gator...

About a month ago (wow, I'm so behind!), we had our family Gator Party!  The last time we were able to host a Gator party was back in 2009.  We've tried every year since to make it happen, but Saturdays in the fall are always busy and this was the first year that we could party Gator-style again!  The two most important elements to any Gator football party (besides the actual game), are the boiled peanuts-which I failed to take a picture of, but which were delish, and the real-life football field in our backyard.

Of course, we had to decorate with all of our Gator paraphernalia, and lots of orange and blue!

Kade and Ky decorated the awesome cake, and Bart brought his gator head home from his office for the weekend.

Field painted? Check. Blue and orange treats out? Check. Decorations up? Check.  Now it was time to party.  We had lots of friends over, even though none of them are true Gator fans, they were nice enough to come and party with us, and help us cheer on our team!

I made these yummy cupcakes, and tried a new frosting recipe.  It's from my friend Melanie's cooking blog, and it is seriously life-changing!  I've made lots of frosting in my life, and this one is better than any other recipe by far.

Also, when I was looking on Amazon.com for something fun for our Gator party, I found this awesome Jell-o mold kit.  It's kinda hard to tell in the photo, but these are little Gator head logos made out of Jell-o!  I seriously put these on the table, turned around 45 seconds later and they were all gone!  Apparently Gator Jell-o is a big hit with the kids!
At half-time, we held our own football game!  The kids go crazy playing on the "real" football field!

At some point, the costumes came out, and Kade is a Gator fan/football player/some-kind-of-super hero

It was such a fun party, made even better by the fact that the Gators beat Tennessee 31-17!  It's great to be a Florida Gator!

run or dye!

A few weeks ago, I ran another 5k!  Seriously, what is up with that?  I'm not a runner, remember?  But, when I found out that Run or Dye was coming to our city, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get completely covered in colored powder, even if it meant I had to run a long way to do so!

Luckily, I had the best group of friends with me, and we had a blast!  We  are team Indi-Go!  (Hence all the purple!)

All pumped, and ready to go!

 I wish I had pictures of during the run.  It was so fun to run through the color stations and see the colored powder flying all over the runners.  Then, it was fun to look at myself to see how much of that particular color landed on me, and how colorful I was getting!  It was good motivation to keep running.  After we finished, we joined the crowd of other runners who had crossed the finish line. All at once, we all released more colored powder into the air...and got completely covered.  All that color in the air looked awesome!

  I seriously cannot wait until next year!  It was so much fun! Wait, does that mean I'm going to run another 5K?  Who am I??

we went to new mexico: day three

Day three we headed to this fun restaurant that Bart had discovered while looking to see if Man vs. Food had ever been to Albuquerque.  Sure enough, this is one of the places they ate.  This place is huge, the food is good, and the prices are crazy low!

The plan for the day was to take some hikes to see some petroglyphs.  Well, the main hikes we wanted to do were closed due to flooding.  Yeah, the first part of Bart's trip he got to experience some of the worst rain/flooding that that area has seen in 20 years.  Luckily we found another hike and got to see some neat ancient drawings.

Love, love, love this picture of my tired baby snuggling his daddy.

It was fun to be outside, hiking in the desert, looking out at the mountains, and enjoying the dry air.  Made me miss home.

Okay, I have to say something about these two.  I knew that Krew and Lynndon were going to be fast friends.  They are less than a year apart, and they are both the most mischievous children in their families.  Watching Lynndon while we were there reminded me of Krew several times.  I wish they got to spend more time together, but then again, they would probably be TROUBLE!

I call this one: Mamas carrying babies!

My little hiker.  Boy, did he love being outside and wandering around like this.  In the dirt.  With his cousins. He was in little boy heaven.

After our hike, we decided we needed to cool off with some amazing shaved ice!  I've heard of people going crazy over snow cones and shaved ice, but I've never had any that were worth talking about.  Until now.  The only problem was deciding what flavor to get.  There were so many!  I finally settled on strawberry cheesecake and toasted coconut with creme on top!  It was amazing!

 

After our delicious treats, we had to say goodbye to Bret and Charise and the kids so they could start their long drive back home.  I hate saying goodbye, but it was easier knowing that we will see them here in a few months!
With a few hours of daylight left on our trip, Bart and I decided to take a drive up the canyon.  It strangely felt a lot like the canyons I grew up near, and strangely felt nothing like them at the same time.  But, I loved every minute of the drive.  It smelled so good, I loved being able to look out and see the town below us, I loved the winding road, and all of it made me miss home. A. Lot. (And by home I mean Utah, not Wisconsin where I live, because I still can't call it home.  Although I did miss my two children who we left at home, but that's a different matter entirely!)

When we got to the top, we could not believe this spectacular view!  It was honestly breathtaking.

Oh, and watch out for bears, apparently!

After our canyon drive, we found some dinner, packed our things, returned our rental car, and went to sleep.  The next morning, we woke up super early to catch our flight home.  Krew was not very happy about being woken up early, and turned into this monster:

Actually, all things considered, he was very well behaved on the way home.

Once we arrived back home, all I could think about was how much longer I had to wait to see Kade and Ky.  I was so happy to see them when I picked them up from school that I may have cried a little bit.  It was a great trip, and I was so glad that Kade and Ky had a fun weekend and were happy and safe, but it was awesome to see them again.  Because, as Bart and I always say, "It's better when we're together!"

we went to new mexico: day two

Saturday morning, Bart had to finish his conference, but the rest of us had a blast!  We started our day with a yummy, free, hotel breakfast, while Krew, Cooper, and Lynndon went crazy, playing together and entertaining the other hotel guests with their silliness!  It was fun to watch Krew interact with these two.  It took him about 4 minutes to warm up to them, and then he played with them like they were best friends, even though the last time he saw them he was much to young to remember them.

As soon as they came to our hotel room, Krew asked if he could hold the baby.  I wasn't sure how he would handle it, since he's never held a baby before, and he's sorta still one himself.  But he loved every second of it!  Just look at these two cousins!  

He held McCoy for quite a while, and kept kissing the top of his head, and saying in a really high pitched voice, "I got you, baby!"  It was adorable.

Our first outing of the day was to this fun little aquarium.  Krew loved looking at all the fish, and of course following his cousins around.  Bart was able to join us once his conference was over, so he got to see a lot of the aquarium too.

And this is how you put 8 people (including 4 car seats) in one vehicle!

After a quick stop at McDonald's for lunch, we headed back to the aquarium to catch the train to the zoo!

We only had about an hour at the zoo, so we had to rush through it a bit, but we got to see some neat animals, and of course the kids loved it.

Being at the aquarium and the zoo all day without a nap makes little ones (and big ones) tired!

For dinner we decided we needed to eat at Tucanos.  The last time Bart and I ate at a Tucanos was in Provo, on February 8, 2003.  It was the night he proposed to me.  So, it was fun to go there and have some of those memories brought back.  After a very long wait for a table, we got to stuff ourselves on the most delicious food!  I definitely kept eating long after I was full, but it was just too dang yummy!