april review...

and some of may...


i'm so behind!!!!  i haven't blogged in forever.  we have been having a pretty good and busy summer till i realized i had a lot of catchin up to do.  i will go back to april.

we had a fun visit from chris' favorite cousin jessie and her boyfriend patrick.  they were coming to town to visit someone else and we offered for them to stay at our house with us instead of camping (good too since it rained a ton while they were here )  it was great fun spending time with both of them.  they are hilarious as a couple.  easy and very comfortable to be around-  and jessie brings out the super silly side of chris as they would reminisce summers they spent at her house by the lake in Michigan.  they sang songs from that time, they laughed and laughed and laughed.  we then of course had to take some silly pics to document this awesome occassion...

they ofcourse had to include the overly serious face (in which i'm just being sassy not serious) the fake big laugh, the homage to prom pics, and the white trash pic in which jessie asked that i remove my temporary tooth  haha oh and the regular nice smile.  we were so glad to have them visit and hope they come back next year as well.. especially since by that time they may be married!!! they just got engaged!! yay!! we approve!! 

we've also been able to take a few afternoon trips to the beach... daniel loves it!! he is so brave and runs right out to the water and splashes in it and loves it when the waves crash on him.  we are pretty lucky in that he hardly ever eats the sand .  if he does its by accident-  

we often get to meet up with friends there and its always a fun time watching our little ones play together.  

i have also obtained a new obsession of collecting sharks teeth.  you find a couple and then you are hooked.  pretty soon you have found 40 in one trip or even more if its low tide.  

we also get to see some pretty awesome ships off shore since we are on a marine base.  this one day helicopters were practicing landing on them.  it was totally fun to watch.  

i was driving to walmart one day and passed by this sign and had to just laugh 

at first i thought it said BYU Bartending University.  and then i realized it was a BU with a wine glass in the middle.  but hilarious and ironic if it had been BYU bartending.  haha

one night i was getting ready to go out with some friends and after i got all my jewelry on and i looked in the mirror and said i guess i'm going as madonna tonight.  haha

daniel is a typical little guy who is so good at entertaining himself and occasionally that ends with a big mess but lots of smiles.  i can live with that.  

he has also been working on feeding himself with a spoon.  always a huge mess but he loves it.  and sometimes uses the wrong end.

we were going to a party and decided it would be fun to have the boys match.  so cute... our future golf pro as chris calls him.  they are even both wearing puma shoes.  

one huge project i worked on for a couple weeks were these twin quilts for my nieces claire and cadence.  their mom told me what colors she was doing in their new room and i showed her a couple patterns and she chose this one and i found this super cute moda fabric.  took me a while to cut it out and make into blocks but i love that kind of work.  i think they turned out so cute and look really fun in their room.  

april was a good month.  we kept busy.  chris worked really hard at work as his residency was getting close to the end and he worked on some really tough cases.  he's learned a lot and likes working hard but is excited to get a break for a little bit.  i keep busy with daniel and whatever project i may have going at the time.  i love my primary calling.  teaching those kids music is hilarious.  i'm such a spaz and goof that they are totally entertained and just laugh at me half the time.  

the masters...

the masters is the greatest golf tournament of all golf tournaments... chris sheds a tear every time he hears the theme song played anywhere... last year we stayed home and watched all four days by ourselves... this year we decided to throw a party on the saturday.   we invited a bunch of our friends over... or i should say all our dental friends from chris' work... and their families... we had a couple kiddie pools set up in the back and the kids had a great time playing around in them!  daniel didn't... he slept through most of the bbq. haha which was nice for me to keep making food and getting all that ready and not having to worry about where my baby was.  we also had lots of food... i figure a good party has lots of food.  chris bbq'd a flank steak which is his latest favorite thing to bbq.  it was really yummy.  i also made a golf cake... it turned out so cute... the pictures just dont do it justice... that is a real golf ball and the masters flag i made myself. haha i'm such a dork...

we also had some super cute babies there... 

daniel was completely entertained by aubrey dropping a cup off her head... he laughed forever! it was too funny... this video was after he had already been laughing for 10 minutes...

our friend cason is also in the process of getting some implants so we can commiserate with one another about having to take out our teeth every time we want to eat... we are awesome and look so good!

sunday we hung out after church and watched the rest of the tournament... it was a good day... not as exciting as bubba winning last year but still really good!  daniel somehow figured out how to climb on this box while we were in the other room... pretty tricky...

here is our comparison photo from last year to this year...

the rest of a vegas vacation...

after legoland we did pretty much nothing!!! we just hung out and shopped and visited a few friends... i was able to meet up with my friends jared and marla and their son ben.  it was fun to watch our little guys interact.  we also had lots of playtime with cousin gigi.

we had fun visiting grandma doris and climbing all over papa vern...

we had lunch with grandpa kelly one day and even got to meet his fiance (now wife) roni... who is very nice!

we also had a nice easter sunday... i must say we look pretty good :)

the next weekend was general conference so we did the usual and headed up to beaver, ut to watch conference at our cabin up there.  daniel had fun crawling all over the cabin and getting into everything possible. and amanda was very helpful in entertaining him the whole weekend.  we took a few trips into town and grandpa gave them rides on the gator.  my favorite part was putting on the player piano and amanda dancing around too indian nation and slow dancing with daniel to somewhere out there.  hilarious!

of course we ended our trip with dinner at olive garden... daniel really enjoyed eating the bread sticks...  also chris' favorite part of dinner there... sad chris wasn't with us!

i also had a lot of fun taking pics of daniel for his one year photos... here are some of the best ones.

i also took pics for my sister and then edited them when i got back to NC... here are my favorites

it was such a great trip to see family and friends and just hang out with my mom... we will be back in july! yay!!

Legoland...

my mom was going to come out and visit us during her spring break from seminary.. and then decided it would be more fun to fly daniel and i out to vegas to see all the family... and then it turned out chris had a week long training in bethesda, md so we extended our stay another week leaving chris for almost 3 weeks!! crazy! we had a great day of flying!! daniel fell asleep the second the first plane took off and slept the whole flight. once we landed in atlanta and quickly changed planes we were off to vegas! he played for a while on this flight, mostly with the window (up down up down) and then i finally stood in the back hostess area and rocked him to sleep. he then slept for the rest of the flight! yay!

once we landed and found grandma we headed home.  it was nice to be in my old home.  i love that place. I got my hair cut friday by my favorite hairdresser jessica... she's the best! that night we had a fun visit from my brother sam and his wife meesha and of course gigi! who daniel loves!   Laura and her mom also came to town... it was so fun seeing little william again!   saturday was an awesome day! my niece amanda was sealed to her parents emily and greg in the las vegas temple for time and eternity! it was such a neat experience.  my mom made her the cutest little white dress which she will also wear for her baptism in may.  ed smith was the sealer... which was so perfect... he is my grandpa vern's business partner and friend and he was close friends with my grandpa virgil who passed away a couple months ago... ed started by saying how special it was for him to be there for his two closest friends performing such a special ceremony for our family... and he was glad he could be there to do it for virgil as he would have done it were he still alive... i was bawling at this point and made the mistake of looking at grandpa vern (who is the biggest bawl baby) and totally lost it... cried through the whole thing after that.  when it was all over ed smith looked at amanda and said "wasn't that neat?" and she just shrugged her shoulders and threw up her hands like... i dont know... perfect amanda answer, shy not really wanting the attention on her self like that.  after we headed to my moms for a big bbq and party.  lots of food and friends.  

on a side note... right before i came out to vegas i had to have my front tooth pulled (external resorption... basically tooth eating itself to death)  so i'm not getting an implant but we had to do some bone grafts first... for the time being i'm toothless... and wearing a flipper with a tooth glued into it to fill the space... actually my original crown that was drilled and filled and super glued in...

amanda had also lost that tooth the same week so we took a picture together...

she then pulled out the other front tooth on the car ride home. no more twinners....

sunday we went to church and daniel had fun sitting next to papa at church... handsome boys

monday we hopped in the car and headed to carlsbad,ca to go to LEGOLAND!!!!  that first night in the hotel was hilarious.  gigi and daniel had so much fun chasing each other between the two joined rooms... it was a serious party.

although he did face plant and get a pretty nice fat lip...

the park was so fun! filled with awesome things all over built out of legos! chris was so jealous he couldn't come as legos are his favorite!  we first stopped in the little duplo village where gigi and daniel rode a little train with grandma, and then daniel crawled all over the place climbing on everything.  it was the perfect place for him to play... otherwise he spent the whole day in the stroller.  

we took a little break to watch a silly fire truck show... with a song they kept singing over and over about water on fire something... we couldn't get it out of our heads and now ive blocked it forever...

there were a few rides gigi got to go on. but daniel was too little for most so we walked around a lot and watched people go by... and ate food :)  my favorite part by far was mini land... replicas of famous cities all out of legos.  vegas, dc, san francisco, new orleans, etc... and they just added star wars... very cool!! 

i just loved seeing all the different creations... like the mariachi band that moved and played music... the line of famous heads including lincoln, marilyn monroe, elvis, etc... the old man sitting on the bench was hilarious because i sat to take a pic and hit my elbow on his knee... legos are sharp and hard! ouch!!  i also loved the shark head which daniel is in and the pirate... daniel and i also took a pic with him but i forgot i had taken out my tooth to eat so... its a scary picture! haha

that night we had dinner and headed back to the hotel.  daniel had so  much fun playing airplane with grandma...

the next morning we did it all again... rode a few different rides including our favorite storybrook lane or something like that... it had the 3 little pigs, a genie, hanzel and grettle, and sleeping beauty... all out of legos. super cute... we actually rode it twice in a row.

the kids (and mom and sam) had great fun playing in the creation area.  just a bunch of duplo blocks all over to play with.  daniel kept playing with this one on an earthquake simulator... pushing the button over and over knocking down all the legos on it. and playing in the crane with gigi.... another place he could crawl all over...

after we had some apple fries (they were only ok)  we decided to leave and head home... the car ride we rough as daniel woke from a nap and was acting all funny and sure enough right as we were getting off the freeway he barfed... what? my kid?? car sick??? weird. he had never done that before in his life so weird. lucky for me my mom was sitting in the back seat with him and yelled out right as it happened so i threw her his big bib which is a hand towel so she was able to clean him more easily... we stopped at in-n-out... i couldn't eat so i hung out with daniel and aired out the stinky van.  we did make it home with no more incidents.... and still had a really great time and glad sam and meesha invited us on their trip and glad meesha's brother could get us discount tickets through his work!!