What a Whirlwind!

Wow, I have always known that summer is busy, but it seems that it has been a little extra busy this year. On Thursday, my favorite brother, Karson, married the cutest girl in the world, Linzy. So we were happily involved in a lot of the wedding festivities. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures yet, but trust me, the bride and groom were adorable.

We have also been to the zoo, partied at Mona days, I was out of touch with reality for a couple of days while I read Breaking Dawn (LOVED IT) and we went to the demolition derby since my last post. Luke looks forward to the derby all year round. He is totally in his element there! Tanner has always liked it too, but he lacks some of the ferver that Luke seems to have. Ellie even seemed to really enjoy it. People around us were surprised that the loud noise didn't bother her at all, but I assured them that with brothers like hers, the noise was nothing new.

Ellie recently turned 7 months! I can't believe she is that old! She now has two tiny bottom teeth, and is starting to get on her hands and knees to crawl. She has been doing the army crawl for a couple of months so she gets to where she wants to go just fine, but I am sure that her new mode of transportation (actual crawling) will be happening right around the corner.

Tanner, what can I say about Tanner? Last week he proudly announced that he didn't hit or push in nursery because he bit Sammy's fingers instead. Yesterday the boys went to church in my parents' ward and I swear when Launey, Ellie, and I sat down in Sacrament without them, there was a twinkle in his nursery teacher's eye. He is going "pee pee" in the potty really well, unfortunately we are having more of a struggle with the dreaded number 2, but I guess we will just keep pushing along, no pun intended.

Luke has been loving his new bike riding abilities and practices them often. He is still just as content as ever to play with his cars for hours. He gave a talk in primary last week on baptism and did a marvelous job. Two days ago our fire alarm went off for no aparent reason. Luke has an intense fear of fire, so he had a terrible time trying to get to sleep because he was so scared that there was going to be a real fire in the house. He probably got out of bed ten times after we intitially tucked him in. A few minutes after his last venture out of bed, we heard him talking out loud as he was lying there, but neith Launey or I could make out what he was saying. He was asleep shortly after that, so it wasn't until morning that he told us who he was talking to. He said that he was so scared that there was going to be a fire that he said a prayer and said, "Heavenly Father, is there going to be a fire in my house tonight?" Then he said that Heavenly Father whispered in his brain the word "No" so he calmly fell asleep. Don't you just love the faith of a child! I have no doubt that his little sincere prayer really was answered.

Anyway, sorry for the long post I guess I had a lot to catch up. I will post a few of the many pictures from the past few weeks :).

Ellie and me on her first zoo train ride, doesn't she look excited!

Launey and the kids, for some reason the appear to be a little less excited

Luke and Tanner are up there on the fire engine. The got to ride on it in the good old Mona Days parade!

I love this precious picture. They wanted to go ride the inflatable slides in the Mona park so I told they to stay together. They held hands even without me telling them to do so. Isn't this just priceless!!

Introducing . . . Luke's Colorful World

There are a lot of things that Luke can do to entertain himself and occupy his time, but one of my favorite things that he does is draw. I love it for a number of reasons, it is quiet, not messy, he feels a great sense of accomplishment, and I get to sneek a peak into his 5-year-old mind. From time-to-time he goes on drawing sprees and my fridge doors are quickly plastered with artwork. I love to display his drawings because I know how much work he puts into them, but there is only so much space on the fridge. So, I have started a blog for him so that I can scan the pictures and post them on the blog. I figure it will be a great way to display and even store some of his artwork. Hopefully it will be something neat that he can reflect on as he grows up. Feel free to check it out :)

http://lukescreations.blogspot.com

Oh so very . . . Cherry Hill!

Last week was our every-other-year family trip to Cherry Hill. Unfortunately Launey's grandfather passed away at the age of 89 early on the morning of the 14th. My mom took our boys up without us so that we could spend some time with Launey's family on the night of the 13th before Grandpa Horsley died. We eventually did go up and enjoy some fun activities with our kids and other family members and we had a great time while doing so.

Luke has been saying for nearly six months now that when he was five he would learn how to ride his bike without training wheels. Well, the mental aspect of it had been getting the better of him so he had been refusing to try. While he was at Cherry Hill, my Aunt RaNae asked him if he needed help getting started on his bike (which had no training wheels). She didn't know that he didn't know how to ride, and he was to shy to tell her, so she just got him started and off he went! It was the best way for it to happen. Whenever Launey and I tried to practice with him, he broke down in tears and said he couldn't do it. Luckily with her, he just didn't dare make a stink. Now he is a bike riding animal! He told me the other day, "Mom, I love riding my bike, I just love going fast and feeling the wind in may face." What a big boy he is!

I have just posted a few pictures of our Cherry Hill outing as well as a cute one on Brielle and Madix, Mckel Stowell's baby at the good old Ute Stampede Horse Parade.

Ellie, my 3rd cousin Kayci, and my Aunt Melinda

Tanner with his lovely magnetic creation

Linzy and I as the coolest pirate girls in the world, Linzy has a much better pirate face than I do

I may have a bad pirate face, but that doesn't even compare to Launey's fake having fun face!

My favorite brother Karson, and my ever so cute future sister-in-law Linzy

Brielle and Madix

The rest of the pics

I know that this may be picture overload, but I got the rest of the pictures from Michelle, so I just had to post some more. Let me know which of them you like :). Some of you have asked me for her information, her blog address is http://michelletandyphotography.blogspot.com/. I will put a link to it under my friends list.

Strike a Pose

Yesterday we had the wonderful opportunity to have our pictures taken by a very talented and sweet friend of ours. Michell Tandy took them for us, she is married to one of Launey's long-time friends, Josh. She is very talented and was super great to work with. I appreciate how patient she was with our kids, (that alone takes skill), and her fresh new approach to family pictures. Here are a few that she posted on her blog. I haven't seen all of them yet, but I guess you can consider this a sneek peak. Michelle, if you read this, thanks again!! You are awesome!

Celebrate good times, Come On!

This fourth of July was another success. Many of you may know that Luke's birthday is on the fourth of July which always makes this time of year a little extra crazy. We usually try to have a party for him on the fourth, but this year we decided to spread it out to cut down on the chaos. Launey and I took him out for his birthday on the 1st while my mom and Kylee watched the two little kids. We went to The Pizza Factory (his choice) and to Trafalga where we played mini golf, rode go-carts, and played a few arcade games. We had a great time and hopefully we created some good memories for Luke. He also got to go out with my parents on the third for dinner and a movie. Then, we celebrated all day long on the fourth by going to the parade in Provo, lunch at great-grandpa Horsely's house, rides at the Nephi park, and finally fireworks. He still thinks that we are to coolest parents in the world because we seem to pull off the biggest birthday bash anybody has ever seen. Finally on the fifth we had family members over for cake and ice cream. As you can see, it has been a busy week.
Tanner had a few meltdowns throughout the birthday week. I think it is just hard for a two and a half year old to understand why their sibling is getting so much attention, and not to mention presents, when thing are usually a bit more evenly divided. Eventually he got used to it and the meltdowns were less often. Luke has also been pretty good at sharing his new toys.
Ellie seemed to love her first fourth of July celebration. She was entertained most of the day and was really good for the most part.
I am realizing that this could quite possibly be the most boring blog entry in the history of blogs, but I guess I can chalk it up to more of a journaling experience for my own records. You can just enjoy the pictures and look past all of the rambling :)

Brielle, highly amused the parade

Tanner and his squirt gun, he almost looks innocent!

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Sweet Brielle, giving Grandpa Ivers kisses, and just being cute

Luke and my mom ready for the rock wall, and Luke in the famous old jail-house 4-wheeler ride at the Nephi park.

We're Baaaack!

Well two months and about six thousand emails later, we finally have the Internet!!! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. So much has happened since my Disneyland post. I am just going to have to do a quick summary or this could be the longest post in blog history.

To start off, we have moved twice, first into the rental home we owned, but just until we closed on this house, then into our current home which is brand new and located in the Summit Ridge Development in Santaquin. I love our home and I am so excited to live in a house that was built in this century.

Luke finished t-ball and graduated from preschool. His birthday is coming up on Friday and he is incredibly excited about that.

Tanner has begun a little stint with biting. He bites Luke on a daily basis. I hate it and if anybody has suggestions on how to get him to stop I would love to hear them. And yes, I have bit him back.

Ellie turned five months, nearly a month ago and is only a few days away from being one-half! I can't believe she is that old. Time truly does fly.

I am just going to post some pictures I have taken in the last two months and start fresh. I am so happy to be back, unfortunately my laundry probably liked it much better when I didn't have blogging to take up some of my free-time :).

Brielle on her 5 month birthday.

Brielle during her first go at a real swing, as you can see, she LOVED it!

Tanner . . . . Just being Tanner :)

Luke's last T-Ball game, Preschool graduation, and fathers' day baseball.

Luke and Tanner on a ride with Papa. He used to let us do the same thing when we were kids, it was a lot of fun to see my kids playing with my grandpa like I did.