Trip to AZ

Look at this little imp, I could just kiss him all day. We were able to take a super fun trip to Arizona last week for 4 days. We had a blast. Carinn and Eric, Rox and Gary, and Jenna & Kellan were all there so it was a big family affair.
Neal and Eric. It is exhausting being 2. And apparently being 29 too?
Kel and Jenna
Baby Bri and Grandma. This baby was the nicest baby ever. I tried to convince her brother and sister to let me have her but they said no.
Alauna had to stay in her room the whole time since she was super sick. Neal, Breanne, and Creed all took home a little souvenior of our trip- they are all super sick right now. Creed has bronchitis.
Celebrating Gma's Birthday with the motherloade cake! Happy Birthday Grandma, we love you!
Cole spent most of his time on the trampoline. He also loved playing with his friend Neal and his new "grandpa" gary. We kept telling him he was his uncle but he wanted to call him Grandpa. It was funny.
The little guy!

The kids thought it would be super funny to hide in the front room and surprise Grandma.
Surprise!
Hey there hot mama! I should not have let Carinn around my husband with her hair like this AND holding a broom, it is too much temptation.
Funny face Grandma
getting a shower

Dressing up in her apron at Grandpa Steve's
His first taste of pretzel and boy did he think he was in heaven. Roxxane also gave him his first taste of chocolate- the mother load cake from claim jumper. He was freaking out from excitement
Savannah loved playing with Payson
Nick and Creed
She rode this bike around the track like 20 times. Good thing she was wearing the life jacket, its kinda like a helmet for your body in case you wipe out
Az living

Creed's a crawler

After flirting with crawling for a month and a half, he actually started crawling the day before he turned 8 months. Now there is nothing stopping him from yummy soggy cherrios, little pieces of leaves, sand, polly pockets pieces, and lots of other mysterious wonders. The only fit you will ever hear this guy throw is when you take something out of his mouth or don't put something in his mouth fast enough.
The whole gangs here to cheer him on. It was a big celebration
We were bribing him with toys. but he kept going to the dvr of course

A very busy day. Cole couldn't handle it anymore and zonked around 6 one night. He didn't even get to finish his dessert.........

Harvest Festival fun

Wow September FLEW by and now we are halfway through October. We have been super busy with Savannah in school. Mike volunteers in her class on Fridays and tells me all about the funny kindergarteners. He said there are a bunch of girls that sit on the bench the whole time and gossip. Savannah is a tomboy and plays soccer with the boys or rides bikes the whole time. Her teacher said she is a really hard worker and is very well behaved. We are super glad about that, of course she isn't always well behaved with us! The other day Savannah said "Mom something horrible happened today. A kid bit another kid" I expressed my shock and said "You would never bite or hurt anyone would you?" She said "I would NEVER do that, it would make Mrs. Logan so sad, I don't want her to ever be mad at me". I had to add "and also because we don't bite, right?" She is loving the whole school thing. She also takes Spanish class twice a week. It is by far the highlights of her week. We now have a new bartering tool. Instead of throwing away toys, we threaten to make her miss Spanish class. Of course these are idle threat since we already pre-paid the whole semster, but it gets the job done.
Cole is doing great, he is the easiest going happiest little guy ever. We had one good day of potty training and he thinks it's his claim to fame. Whenever we try to get him to do it again he tells us "I went in the potty 2 times already". Like there is a limit. He mentions it so often and is very proud of it yet doesn't want to do it again. He tried it, wasn't for him I guess. He also got his first taste of the theater this week. Our friend Vanessa was nice enough to buy tickets and invite us to join her and some friends for Goodnight moon/ runaway bunny the theatrical performance. Cole loved it and was super into it. Vanessa turned to me halfway through and said "this is trying our patience, huh?" Funny the things you have to listen to a million times when you're a parent. Goodnight nobody? Why say goodnight to nobody. C'mon now.
My really good friend Heidi from my Ultrasound Program came out to visit me with her new baby Justin! Oh how I loved to hold him and cuddle him. New babies are so delicious. Creed is out of the new baby stage but still likes to nurse so that's the only time I get to cuddle him. I loved visiting with her and talking about new mommy stuff and sharing ultrasound stories.
We got our car detailed after little Liza who is 2 told me that my car smelled funny. Ok if a 2 year old thinks it smells, it is time to clean it. I realized we got our moneys worth when we called at 2 pm (after dropping it off at 8 am) and they still had 30 minutes of work left on it.
We also finally were able to get together with the Sloans! Krista and I were the best of besties in high school, I practically lived at her house and absolutely love her and her family. But with our crazy lives we haven't been able to get together in forever. So time for more farm fun! This time we went to the festival and there was tons of stuff going on. It was super fun to spend the day with them.
Krista is pretty happy to be riding this tractor
Got baby harrison in on this one
The gangs all here-yes all 10 of us went to dinner after at CPK. The kids were so starved it was painless suprisingly
pretty sunflowers





Mike got Cole to go on a horse for the first time. He loved it!!
our little cowboy
poor little guy is starting to pull himself up on everything and get hurt all the time. check out his bruise on his forehead. i hate when he gets hurt. i wish he would just stay put a little longer
Afterwards we all picked out pumpkins.......cole does a good job at that

getting sleepy...........are we ready to go home yet mom??

Family

I am sitting at work and had some down time which is pretty irregular as of late. I decided to check on our blog and see what our friends and family are up to. I was looking through our pictures from Nicole's last blog about us going to the farm together and hers and Savannah's first mommy daughter outing. At the same time, I was listening to Hilary Weeks, a singer songwriter who sings songs about church and gospel related topics. Listening to the songs and looking at pictures of my family just gave me an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I appologize to those of you who may find this boring, but we use our blog as a family journal, and I can think of no better topic for a journal than to express thankfulness for all that I have.

Nicole and I have such beautiful children who are happy, healthy and perfect in every way. We have a home in a great city surrounded by a ward family that is amazing. We have jobs that afford us a good life filled with fun adventures and exciting times.

I can't remember what Nicole and I used to do before we had Savannah. I honestly don't. Other than staying up all night watching "24" while living in the married couple dorms at BYU-I, I don't think there was much there. Having our kids to live for is the greatest blessing I can immagine. Hard at times, frustrating daily and crazy all the time. But to know that each day I get out of bed and go to work for something more than just myself. That is life.

I have the most amazing wife in the world. She supports me with all aspects of our life. She stays at home with the kids everyday and ensures that they are being raised in the right way. Then she goes out and works throughout many nights to help out. She is an amazing mother who knows how to handle each of our kids in their own needed ways, dealing with their differences like a master. She is the most positive person I have ever met. No matter what life deals her, she takes it beautifully. I just hope my family knows how much I love them and how Grateful I am to be their father and Husband.

Conference Weekend

The weekend flew by. Last but not least we made Ebelskievers for conference Sunday. If you haven't tried them I HIGHLY suggest you run out, get a pan, and have a ebelskeiver party. So yummy and fun!
Ok so Mike and Savannah go on daddy daughter dates all the time. So on Friday Savannah and I went on our first mommy daughter night out. We went to see a play at the children's theater. It was Cinderella. Savannah was absolutely fascinated the whole time and I loved watching her face while we were in the play! After we got to meet Cinderella. She came right up to Savvy and told her she loved her vest. Savannah proceeded to ask her a series of questions. Why do the boys wear makeup? Why is your hair brown? Why was the ballgown white? The girl was so cute and answered all her questions. On the way home Savvy was nonstop talking about how she wanted to be an actress, she thought it would be SO fun! So cute. And so funny. Little does she know it would be over her parent's dead bodies before anything remotely close to that ever happened. Not exactly what I would dream and wish for for my daughter. But it was super cute to see her so excited. Shave It was the perfect end to the night!

Cole's pick for Creed-yummy

Cole wanted to hand pick everyone pumpkins. This was his pick for himself
I think Mike was having just as much fun riding the trikes as the kids.
This little guy didn't feel the same way. We were running around all day and he started getting mad at the farm. He finally cried himself to sleep. Poor little guy.

They loved feeding the animals carrots. In fact our kids are absolute animal lovers. We gave them the choice or Disneyland or the farm and the both wanted the farm-Savannah had to think about it a little but Cole knew right away. Crazy kids......
Mike was so distraught that I bought Cole this hat. He didn't even want me to post the pics on the blog because of it. Ok in my defense it was like 3 bucks and we are constantly losing hats!! Sorry babe.
Savannah was super excited that her horse's name was Tinkerbell
We picked up Savannah early from school on Friday with the promise of doing something fun....hmmm even though we already have plans to do Underwood Farms next week we decided that would be quick and no traffic. The kids had a blast

Coley got in a pool day with Marina before it got to be too cold! Don't hurry back from Hawaii Vanessa, it is chilly down here now!!