Bath time fun and more...

Casey has grown to really LOVE bath time, as you can tell. He gets really excited when he is standing by the tub waiting to get in. He is almost impatient. :) There are quite a few pics here mainly because I like all of the different expressions on the boys faces.

Oh, so happy.

So much for trying to get both boys to smile at the same time.

Casey enjoys carrying things around in his mouth these days without the use of his hands. He recently discovered that this frog fit in there quite nicely. I also like Ryan's face in the background.

Monkey see monkey do. It didn't take very much coaxing for Ryan to join in on the fun.

I think Ryan is growling or Rarrrring (as he calls it).

Another cute expression of Casey's, during this time Ryan kept trying to grab the frog and put it back in Casey's mouth.

This is typically what I get when I ask Ryan to sit by Casey trying to quickly catch a cute moment. Ryan is in position and then Casey sees the camera and makes a mad dash for it.

Now I think he's just trying to get away from Ryan, such a loving brother-most of the time. A few days ago Casey was playing with one of DVD cases that Ryan was playing with, Ryan likes to line them up and then pick them up and do it all over again, Ryan apparently wasn't too keen on sharing and proceeded to walk up, pull Casey's hair and say "No Casey, don't touch." :)

This is Casey's new favorite location. Since he likes to spend quite a bit of time here, he has discovered all of the buttons. Just in case you don't recognize the picture on the screen it's "The Incredibles," A current favorite of Ryans.

Singing Time

Ryan LOVES letters. He loves his ABCs and goes through all of the letters and all of their sounds at LEAST 3-4 times a day. If your child needs to learn the ABCs I highly recommend the video "The Letter Factory" by Leap Frog. Ryan has been able to recognize all of his letters, upper and lower case, since his 2nd birthday and it's all because of the TV. :)
So now he has added singing the ABCs to his list. And he can never sing them just once, it usually comes in sets of 3. When he first started singing this song it sounded like he was singing "Ryan know my ABCs" instead of "Now I know my...". He has also recently omitted the letter K. I try to correct him, but he gives me the "No, No, No," that you'll see in the video. Enjoy!

Goin' to the Temple.....

Meet the newest member of our Family, Jamie Lee . Not to be confused with the Jamie Leigh that my cousin Jason married last year on my birthday. As previously mentioned we flew out to the east coast for the occasion and had a great time. Although J.D. and Jamie make a very cute couple and both looked beautiful (and handsome) on their day, there just might have been another little pair that occasionally stole the spotlight.

All together now.....AHHHHHH!! They were so good at the reception. One activity that they did for at least an hour was walk around holding hands. We would tell them to go find the Christmas Trees, or Grandma, or Daddy and off they went hand in hand. They could have cared less if we were following them, they were in their own little world. Their little activity of holding hands worked out just fine as long as they were equal partners. If Ryan would start to pull Payton to go this way or that way Payton wouldn't have anything to do with it and would start to resist. We tried to get a video of Payton and Ryan (the mini bride and groom) walking down the hallway in front of J.D. and Jamie but by that time the novelty had worn off.

And who could forget about Casey. The tuxedo shop didn't carry Casey's size, but he's still as adorable as ever.

Here's our little stud. It's the exact tuxedo that everyone else was wearing, cuff links and all. I think he enjoyed wearing it. The shoulder pads in his jacket were huge. When we buttoned Ryan's jacket it was quite tight around his waist, it actually brought his jacket to a triangle around his back.

We were so proud that Payton kept the flowers in her hair. We didn't have any expectations and she blew us away. Either she forgot that they were there, or she saw Jamie's nieces wearing them and decided to keep hers on to.

The greatest babysitter of the night was the dance floor. The girls were walking around and twirling in their pretty dresses and then there was Ryan pushing his cars around . At first I wasn't too happy about him crawling around on the floor in his tuxedo, so my cousin Tyler (groom's man), showed him how to kick Mater across the floor. :) And yes, my son is wearing blue socks with a black tuxedo, the one thing that I forgot to get.

I think he's up to something.

I guess he thought he could climb the wall because of the decorative "steps."

Me and my Casey.

I think the staff at the reception hall enjoyed having our group there for the reception. No alcohol was served (enough said), there were kids present (that were very entertaining), and we let them go home early. The reception was from 6-10pm but we could have stayed until 11pm. So, in true LDS fashion the place was a ghost town just after 9:30pm.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow....

Yesterday Jennifer and Payton drove out here to visit for the day. It has been very wet and rainy down here on and off for the last few weeks. With this last storm the snow level dropped down to 4000 feet, so Jennifer and I took the kids to the snow. We drove up to the local mountains which are just about 1/2 hour from here. We would have preferred to have their Dads with us in hindsight so that we could have forced them to have a little more fun with the snow. When we first got there and got them all bundled up they (especially Payton) kept giving us looks like we had snowballs for heads. Jennifer made the snowman that is in the pictures, I was holding Casey so I wasn't much help and neither were the kids. I think they would have had more fun sitting in the car watching their Moms have fun in the snow. The video definitely shows how much our kids LOVED walking in the snow. ;



I really wish I would have ignored Jennifer's wishes for me to turn off the camera. Let's just say that the sledding experience didn't exactly turn out as planned, but she could have done it on purpose (right, Aunt Jenn?) to make Ryan smile again after his mean Mom made him walk in the snow. I found it hilarious that he lost his balance on the very first step he took, talk about negative reinforcement.

So adorable!

This is one of the only smiles we got out of Payton while we were there.

We couldn't find anything for the facial features for the snowman, so Casey donated his Binky for the picture. Thank goodness he didn't need it after that, it was a little cold.

Sometimes I don't know what is going through my sons head. Prior to this picture we were trying to get him to eat snow, Aunt Jenn and I were eating it but he wanted nothing to do with it. Then when we were leaving I told him to say Bye Bye to Frosty and he did, then I said give Frosty a kiss and he did. I was surprised. He doesn't want to walk in it, doesn't want to eat it, but he'll kiss it. Go figure.

Hopefully next time we'll be able to do snow angels with the kids. It has always taken a couple of exposures to get the kids, especially Ryan, used to new things. Hopefully next time he'll feel like he can venture out a little more. Maybe next time Tyler will come to, although he feels that playing in the snow with Ryan doesn't sound fun at all, well, maybe a little fun. (He wanted me to add that last part after reading what I had posted.

Gatta Gatta....

A few nights ago Tyler had to go to a Scout thing at the Stake Center, so I got the boys down for the night. Ryan was having a hard time winding down so I told him that we would get him a baba (sippy cup), put on his PJs, and then we'd play a game before bed. He says "Okay Mommy" and runs off to the kitchen to get his baba. When we finished playing the game I said "Okay Ryan it's time for bed." He immediately jumped up and ran, which typically means I'm in for a fight. But then he said "Wait Mommy, baba gatta gatta fridge, be right back." He put his baba in the fridge and then ran to his room to go to bed. "Gatta, Gatta" or "Gada, Gada" has been Ryan's filler word from the beginning. He's definitely getting better in creating sentences lately but every so often we get a "Gatta, gatta."

This morning I put Casey down for his morning nap then came back out to get some things done. Ryan said "Mommy, sit down," which means Mommy come play, so I did. We started pushing his cars around the alphabet mat he's sitting on in the pictures. After a few minutes of driving Ryan says, "Oh Mommy, I so excited," and then said it 4 or 5 more times over the next few minutes. I guess that's my cue to spend more time driving cars with Ryan. :)

This mat has been great. We finally figured out that Casey is allergic to our carpet, he's had these little bumps all over his legs for quite a while, so this has been great in keeping him off of it. Also Ryan LOVES his letters and loves to put this puzzle together everyday.

If you want to play cars or trains on this mat you must be sure to drive your car along the track, where the pieces intersect, or Ryan will say, "No, Mommy, no, car (train) on track."

We're Going On A Trip....

My brother J.D. got married over the holidays, December 27, 2007 to be exact, in the Washington, D.C. Temple to the lovely Jamie. So we all boarded a plane and flew across the country for the occasion. Ryan is a big fan of the Little Einsteins on the Disney Channel and so he kept calling the airplane a rocket, hence the title of the post (it's the first line of the opening song to Little Einsteins, just in case you're not a fan).
We really got lucky on the plane ride there, the plane wasn't full so we were able to get a seat for Casey. He sat between Grandma and Granddad while Ryan sat with Tyler and I. About halfway through the flight Ryan was getting a little restless and wanted to go see Grandma which resulted in the following video. He is such a character.

Payton actually took a nap during the flight, as you can tell. We weren't quite so lucky with Ryan, but he was still really good. Casey actually slept for 2 hours which NEVER would have happened if we hadn't had his carseat.
I didn't realize it at the time, but Ryan kept hitting the chair of the lady in front of him during the video and she kept turning around to see what was going on. Ryan was so entertaining at the time that I didn't even notice. Oops

It was finally Casey's turn to get out of his seat and explore the airplane. We flew with the airline Virgin America and they had the most amazing on board entertainment. Every seat had their own TV with was actually a touchscreen. There was TV, video games, music (you could actually create your own play-list with the touch of a button) and more. Mom is using her earphones to let Casey listen to Burt and Ernie sing "The Rubber Ducky Song."

We finally got Casey better headphones, he really didn't like having the little ones in his ears. These ones stayed on better and made for much cuter pictures.

I Finally Gave In!!!

So, who is going to mark this day down in history?? My sister Jennifer has been bugging me for quite some time to start one of these things, so here I am. I am making no guarantees regarding the number or frequency of posts. But I can make one promise, within the contents of this blog you will see the cutest, sweetest boys that will always make you smile, if not laugh. Uncle Daniel, this one is for you! :) HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY KRISTIN!!!!!

Welcome,

Melissa