Alpine Loop

Bryan and I drove the Alpine Loop route when we were dating in 2001. We went again back 2007 and loved the rocks in the river and the beautiful fall colors. We've talked about going back b/c it was so beautiful to see all the aspen's in bright fall colors.  This year we decided to go this year early so we wouldn't miss it.  Oops, we missed it-his time too early.  We did see several leaves starting to change, had a fun short hike, ate pb&j sandwiches and carrots for dinner and took some fun pics.

More summer fun

Girl Tea Party

June

  From left to right- Jeni, Sarah, Emily, Maegan, Ashley.  We went to Gardner Village for a very lovely dolly and me tea party.  The treats and drinks were bite size and scrumptious and the dolls got cute dolly sized treats to take home too.  We got to put on hats & aprons while there.  Truly girlish, totally fun. 

Emily's Friend B-day Party

Thursday July 19th

 As uncle Garrett was graduating on Emily's 8th b-day, we did her friend party the day before.  She wanted  glasses party (mostly b/c she planned the theme right after she got her new eyeglasses), so we planned drinking glasses & sunglasses fun.  Maddie, Sarah and Jeni came.

Pin the glasses on the face. 

 Heart shaped glasses cake with sprinkles around the edge getting snitched by the birthday girl.  She got a magic set for a present the girls all loved putting on a magic show.  

 On her actual birthday she woke up to breakfast crepes in bed, surrounded by 8 or so family members who were in town for baptism/graduation. She was loving all the attention. Until it came time to eat and then it was too much as my siblings too it overboard- so funny!

Baptism Day

July 21st Saturday

The whole beautiful crew (except Moultries)

 Our fab five

Ashley loses a tooth

July 29th

 She pulled this tooth out by herself.  It took four days and lots of patience and bribes by mom.  Her other top tooth came out a few weeks later with a lot less drama.

Sunday Cereal
Our Hanks family tradition of eating junk food cereal on Sunday morning.  I started it when Bryan was trying out new Sunday habits/ beliefs and I thought of a way to make Sunday mornings more fun.  This is our new organic junk food so not as junky as we've had before. Recently I've switched a lot of our foods to more natural and fresh which means less snack foods around, which means if I leave Sunday cereal in the pantry Bryan will eat it all before the week is up.  So I now hide these boxes so we don't have sad kids.

Catching up: Summer fun

Been a long lonely, lonely time

So many things have happened!   Best news of my night is that we DO have a cable to connect our camera to the computer and now I can share all our happenings.
Ashley's Kindergarden Graduation

May 23

(Emily was at the snack table.) Grandpa took the picture.  Her cute butterfly shirt was made with her painted hand-prints.  We loved Mrs. Wilson.  We loved Ms. Bedford too of course.

Houseboat Trip to Lake Powell

May 27-29

Dance show on the top deck by the 3 ladies.  Lots of digging in the sand by the 2 men.  Lots of fam came out- Gpa David & Marlene (caught some fish, cleaned up shards of glass on carpet from wind storm that broke lots of dishes), Garrett & friend Jenna (did some power kiting which was highly entertaining on sand and on boat), Cameron & Spencer (lots of water sport fun, sculpted a sand goon), Grammy (kept us fed & organized, la cap-ee-tahn), Kade, Carlie and Cedar (drove the boat during major water fight, kept us fairly quiet, sucked bracelets), and us (Aaron didn't drown!, all loved tubing or wakeboarding & chillin).

Aaron's 3rd Birthday

June 5

Eating cupcakes with Toy Story /Buzz Lightyear ring toppers.  We had over Isaiah, David and Jonathan and had a lunch b-day party.  Perfect party for our little man.

Cute Boy Words

Aaron and I read "If you Give a Pig a Pancake" for the first time today.  It's about a pig who gets a pancake, then syrup, then a bath and then a ducky bath toy, packs a suitcase...
We read that story this morning around 10am.  Around 4pm he and I were sitting in the bathroom together (a very common occurrence in our house these days).  Part of our conversation went like this-
Aaron: "Mom, the pig turns into a mil-li-tion."
Me: (I am quiet and smiling, racking my brain for what on earth he could be talking about)
Aaron: "Yea, the pig is a millition and he does a magic trick and turns himself into a duck."
Me: (I smile for reals because I know now he is talking about a magician)
Aaron:  "Like the one at daddy's work, the pig turns into a duck, and then a puppy and then and alligator."
Me: And then it turned into some sort of combo of the following statements and questions: How do you clean yourself, yes shake shake, wipe, flush, close the lid, to the sink, don't pick up your car/airplane/motorcycle yet b/c your hands aren't clean, please turn on the water, with soap, wash all the bubbles off, don't put your hands in more bubbles, water turned off, dry hands, put towel back up, are your undies wet, okay put on undies, put on pants, no we haven't zipped up yet you can't go, is the bathroom floor cleaned up, please put your books and toys away, turn off the light... (30 mins later we are moving on in our day)

My take away-  The boy is a crazy rememberer of the past, and associater with the present.  At Bryan's work party back in June there was a magician.  He was amazed and we talked about it for a couple of weeks.  (In the show there was nothing of pigs, ducks, or any other animals).  And the book makes a comment that because the pig was holding the rubber ducky he missed his family on the farm.  And somehow that all got converted into 'the pig is a milition.'

Side note- We have been potty training now for 4 weeks.  He did great for a couple of weeks and the last two weeks have been lots of wetting himself.  Pull-ups again?

Double Nickels Birthday

Personalize your own digital ecard

Puttng vs. Pudding

Conversation between my three year old Aaron and myself a few minutes ago on the stairs.

Me: "Come upstairs and we'll eat some pudding."
A: What are we putting?
M: Huh?  Oh!  I see- putting.  Aaron there are two kinds of putting.  One kind is putting- like putting your toys away.  And the other kind is a treat- pudding.
A: I don't want to put my toys away.  That's three kinds of putting.  I want to get treats!

Family Chain

Today I re-found this paper chain hung in my closet and finally decided to read all the names on it.  The girls made this a month or two ago.  I remember vaguely the discussion going as follows:
Emily: I wrote all the names for our family.
Ashley: We need more names to make a longer chain.
Emily: Okay.

In the end here's what our family looks like
Ashley--Ginger (the hores)--Emily--Ashley Rose--Jenny E.-- Jenny A.--Dash the engine--Thomas the engine--Maegan--Dad (Bryan)--Bikealeena--littl moovr--Scoody Scooses (Princess)--Scoody--Aaron--Anna (the car)

Interpretation:  Jenny E and Jenny A are the twin American Girl dolls belonging to the Em & Ash, Ashley Rose is the newest American Girl doll with Ginger her horse, Scoody is Emily's scooter, Scoody Scooses I assume is Ashley's scooter, Dash & Thomas were Aaron's newest trains at the time, and Anna is the name of our van.  Bike-a-leena and little mover are new to me, but why not join the family? We could use some more names on the family chain.