Texas State Fair

So it is Friday and I told myself I was going to post every Friday a weekly update...yes yes I know I haven't been too good at this. But anyway, nothing to exciting has been going on here. Two weekends ago we went to Dallas! We were planning to go to the State Fair on Sat with our friend Kirby from college and her husband and daughter. I was so excited to see my old friend whom I haven't seen since our wedding. It's always fun to get together and remember all the old times. Anywho I have pictures from this excursion though not many and not many good ones. I was out of it this day. Probably from the crazy night in the hotel with Caroline who didn't want to go to bed and Jack who woke up like every 10 minutes. Also where we stayed didn't have continental breakfast. WTH. So all I had eaten that day was a nutty butty and diet coke and of course the Texas State Fair is the capital of fried food, so I ate real good that day. There is a contest to see who fries the best food. This year fried sweet potatoes won. That sounded semi-healthy but I never found where they were selling them. Fried butter came in second. Yeah nasty. Anyway we had corn dogs and tried fried cheese cake! That was good!! The Texas State Fair really was awesome. I'm just sorry it was such a cold dreary day and that I was soooo tired. It was huge and there was tons of stuff to do and see. There is no way you can see it all in one day. Well here are some pics plus a couple of others. Sorry if there are no pictures for a while after this. Our camera has been acting weird again. It does this from time to time but this time I think it has done itself in. That camera will be 5 years old on my birthday this year...which reminds me my birthday is coming fast...not as exciting as it used to be.
On another note the little monkeys are doing good. Mr. Jack is trying so hard to crawl finally, the little fatty. He is still such a happy boy! He was especially cute in the bath tub tonight. He was sitting up as he usually does and noticed a duck out of reach that he wanted. So he reaches reaches, can't get it. So he is like this sucks I can't move. So finally he reaches again and this time falls onto his belly. Now he realizes hey this is great I can get around in the tub this way. So he is swimming around and finally he corners the duck. And he grabs and as he gets the other hand up to help maneuver the duck into his mouth, splash, and his head falls in the water. He didn't realize that he wouldn't be able to hold and play with the duck in that position without his head under water. So he promptly puts his hands back down and pulls his head up looking around like oh man I didn't think this all the way through. So he proceeds to chase the duck around the tub and just tries to get it with his mouth. Of course he has no luck with this. He is too cute. Caroline is still as crazy as ever. I wonder when all this craziness is gonna end? She is getting a lot older and smarter too! We lost our bag of random crayons that we have collected over the past year or so. Some are reminisces from boxes of crayons some taken from restaurants. We are just always finding crayons all over the place and we put them in this bag. Anyway we can not find this bag the other day. I think I left it at church opps. So I take Caroline to the store to get some crayons and of course she wants to big box of the small ones that aren’t WASHABLE. So I agree under the condition that she keeps track of her crayons and makes sure they are always put back in the box when she is done. She has been sooo cute about it. She gets one crayon out and colors and then puts it back and she is so careful with them. Hopefully this doesn't change and I'm not back to finding random crayons everywhere. Caroline loves to color though. I have to say she has pretty sweet coloring skills for a 3 year old. She recognizes every part of a picture and colors each part a different color. Not that she can stay in the lines...I can hardly do that...but she tend to keep the color in the correct region of the part she is coloring. I would have taken a picture of the picture she colored tonight, but you know about our cameral. Hopefully we can figure something out by the time Halloween comes. Caroline is going to be a bumble bee and Jack is a skunk...what Caroline was two years ago when she was about 15 months and Jack is about 9 months and the costume is kinda snug.
Wish me luck with another busy week, which will include YW in excellence. Hopefully this goes well.



Me and my handsome boy!

I thought Carolie looked cute here in her Texas dress.

Fun at the park on Columbus day.

"Daddy got me McDonalds!"

Naughty Daddy.

Sweet little boy.

Caroline on a ride at the Fair

Daddy and Caroline on the carosaul

Caroline doing one of her favorite things. Coloring a leaf to put on a fake try they were making. I have to say Carolines leaf looked awesome. I should have taken a picture of it. She sat here and colored her leaf for about half an hour.

Haha they said Caroline was too short to go on this one by herself and she needed an adult to acompany her so I volunteered Ryan hehe.

This one scared Caroline a little.

I thought this cow was beautiful. Which I am sure sounds weird. It was so clean and its colors so rich and look at them utters hehe j/k



Look at the size of that one. Everythings bigger in Texas especially when it comes to cows!!

Little miss biggy even eating in the picture.

Mr. John Deere

They had this whole cute little make believe farm for the kids to play in. Here is Caroline pretending to milk a cow.

First picture we got of all four of us. We should of had Kirby take one of the four of us at the fair. But I had everyone dressed up for church so I made Ryan ask the neighbor to take our picture. He was willing and this is what we came up with. Ryan looking annoyed that I made him ask the neighbor. Caroline all the sudden at the time of the photo not wanting her photo taken and me looking chunky...at least Jack is cute even though he looks chunky too. Sadly this may end up being the picture on our Christmas cards if we can't ever find the time to get pictures done for real.

It's finially Fall!

So I decided I should post something considering I haven't posted in a while. Our fall has been so busy I don't know where to start. We had flat Max come visit us from our friend from Utah's class and we showed him around. Caroline was sooooo excited about it. She ended up ripping his poor little arm off during all the excitement. But we taped him together so he will arrive back in UT in one piece....good thing he was with us and our military ins. hehe....little guy had the full military experience. I think the little boy who sent him will enjoy the picture of all the tanks, trucks, ect...Pictures to follow.
Caroline and Jack are getting so big. It is so sad Jack isn't a little baby anymore. He is rolling over all the time now (finally) and scouting all over the place and trying to crawl. He says Dada as well as Mama now, along with plenty of other sounds. He also waves. And this past week he finally got his first tooth! The poor boy had been waking up so much at night and not napping well. I was starting to wonder what was wrong with him. It is always better after they get that first tooth. Caroline LOVES music. She loves the sound of music especially "My Favorite Things." She knows the whole song. She also loves primary songs. "Book of Mormon Stories" and "Follow the Prophet" are her favorites. Everyday it seems like she is singing a new song and I'm like where did you hear that one? Caroline has also finally learned her letters. We checked out this book called "A is for Annabelle" randomly from the library and Caroline loved it and can recite the entire thing. It goes, "A is for Annabelle, Grandmothers doll." It does this for each letter for the alphabet and we say the A, B, C is for thus and such part and Caroline finishes the second half for each letter. I don't know how she remembers so much. I wish my memory was that good. I will try and find the book and post it on here for everyone to see. (it is at the top) Music, Books and Oreo cookies are probably Caroline's favorite things, as the song goes. We tell her to sing it now when she says she is scared...hehe..and it works!
So it is finally cooling down here. We can go out and play again! Though, it doesn’t feel much like fall. It mostly just rains…a lot. But this is good for my garden…as you can see below. Apparently here in Texas you want to do your garden in the winter basically cause everything I planted in the spring died this summer, but the stuff I planted at the end of the summer is doing great! It is really more like spring here. Everything is very green now and in the summer everything is brown. The trees instead of turning all the beautiful fall colors are nice and green. (not that there are many trees where we live) So, here are some more pictures of Caroline picking these pretty purple flowers that grow everywhere in our backyard. Sorry there are a million pictures, but I haven’t posted in a while and there is more to come from our trip to the Texas State Fair in Dallas!

My garden. Peas and zuchinni and squash.

The tomatoes I planted this summer were

looking really pathetic by the end of summer.


Caroline loves to pic flowers and put them in

mine and her hair.

YeeHaw

Between Caroline not looking at the camera and Jack trying to take his hat off we are lucky we got this picture. They look so cute though!


Evidence that Caroline got a hold of the camera. I have to say her skills are getting better and it makes us laugh when we find what she has photographed.

Of course she took a picture of her favorite movie these days.



Our two little monkeys

We have crazy storms here in Texas! One night they sounded the tornado warning and we had lightning like I have never seen before in person. It has several bolts going accross the sky it was wild. But this is the result a beautiful rainbow.



Caroline loves to sit on top of the car

Sweet little boy


The fam minus Mommy with flat Max in front of Ft. Hood

Whose that sexy army guy with my family?

The boys


These pics are from the military museum on post.

This huge thing is used to like tow helicopers.

Ryan called it the Wasp.


Caroline sitting on a tank with flat Max, though, you are definitly not supose to do that.

Flat Max in Austin



One of my crafts. These are the things I do to avoid the things I should be doing. But I thought Jacks room was empty and he needed something to hang on the way so we went to hobby lobby (amazing store) and came up with this! Caroline helped paint too...and by paint I mean get paint everywhere except the board including the carpet.


I also love to knitt. I made this blanket for Jack.

I have made much more than these two but I usually give them away so i don't have them anymore.


I managed to get a picture of this one before I sent it to my sister.

It is my favorite thus far of all the blankets I have knitted.

More to come. I am currently working on a few.

Charlotte - 2 teeth =...

So getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Not so bad. I was so terrified. I was 20 questioning the denist and he was trying to make jokes and it was not making me feel any better about the situation. But he did a great job. Tooth number one on the right side came right out, but tooth number two was a little more subborn. He had to drill it into a few pieces and then finially got it out. Unfortunantly that side wasn't very numb and he popped off one of my crowns in the process. But it wasn't that bad. Afterwards we got Caroline and Jack from a friends house and went home for a day of rest and being waited on hand and foot. I was feeling just fine only the left side needed stictches and was bleeding. After about an hour it stopped. Once I regained feeling in my mouth, I felt some pain and swelling and took 200 mg of Motrin and was just fine and was able to nap with no pain and didn't need any until the next day. So since I was ordered to do nothing but sit up and watch TV, I watch Oprah...one of my favorite shows..and it was all about abusing prescription medication. I felt so lucky that I didn't need any narcotics as most do when their wisdom teeth are removed. Anyway all in all it wasn't that bad and I got totally pampered by nurse Caroline and Dr. Ryan. Ryan even made me homemade chicken noodle soup. Just like my Mom's...maybe even better(sorry Mom).


Dr. Ryan and Nurse Caroline

Mommy looking "lovely" after loosing two teeth

quick update!

So the past few weeks have been slow for us. We have been kinda sick and things and haven't gotten out much or haven't taken very many pictures. So sorry for no pictures with this post. But I thought I would let everyone that tomorrow I am having my wisdom teeth pulled. I have been super nervous about this and have cancelled 3 times in the past because I was too scared. So like I gave birth without the drugs you think I could get through this...but still scared for some reason. So everyone wish me luck, pray for me, whatever you do, tomorrow. I am gonna need it. So on a lighter note I saw an awesome bumper sticker today on a van at the commissary. It said, "the best health care program starts with breastfeeding." Awesome right? I wanted to leave her a note on her car I loved it so much. Everyone who knows me knows I am a huge breastfeeding advocate. And it is also one of my favorite topics of conversation. People probably think I'm crazy cause I talk about it so much, but I just love it so much! It's like spreading the gospel, something that gives you so many benefits and brings you so much joy, you want to tell everyone about it. And I will talk about it to anyone...I mean anyone, male or female. But anyway now everyone who reads this will know I'm one of those "crazy" breastfeeding mothers. But no I really do love it and no offense to those who don't. But we have had some fun this weekend which I will post about after I get better from the whole teeth pulling episode tomorrow!

Labor day weekend and other funness

So last week went as crazy as the week before. Between surprise babysitting, sickness and locking our only set of keys and my phone and wallet in the car it was a very eventful three days while Ryan was the field. You don't think that many disatrious things could happen in just three days. But we have survived. Thank goodness for road side assistance. We had a fun filled labor day weekend. Ryan had four days off which was a nice break following him being in the field. Friday we went to the Central Texas State Fair along with some friends from Ryan's work. There was lots of yummy food and rides. Caroline rode a pony and got to feed a bunch of goats and whatnot. There were some deer in the petting zoo...random...that kept trying to eat my dress. There was also a baby bison. I think I enjoyed the petting zoo as much as Caroline did. Anyway as you can see from the pictures that follow Caroline had a blast!
On Saturday we had the opportunity to go to San Antonio to help out with the youth's temple trip. First the youth and Ryan and I babysat for a bunch of people in the ward while they attended a session and then we went in to help out with the youth. Our girls were so good in the temple. I was so proud of them. I was a little bummed that I didn't get to perform any ordinances but I did love getting to just be in the temple. It is so beautiful. I meant to take pictures but it never happened. I don't know when we will be able to go again. It is 2 1/2 hours away and it is hard to leave Jack for too long. Afterwards we ate at Marie Callendars!! Mmmm!! After getting lost twice while we were there I think it is save to say we now know our way around San Antonio. It was funny it felt very crowded and busy there compared to our little town here. But I love it there and can't wait to visit again.
So recently Caroline likes to watch home movies that we recorded of various times. She was watching a video of Jack eating his first solids the other day and Ryan turned to camera on Caroline and she is picking her nose. And when Caroline saw that she said, "that girls needs to stop picking her nose." Haha I had to laugh cause that is what I say to her cause her finger is constantly up there. So I said, "doesn't that look grose when you do that, thats why mommy asks you not to do it." We'll see if this will help put an end to the nose picking...I doubt it. Caroline said something else funny today. After dinner Ryan asked Caroline to go wash her hands before she went to play and she said no and he said go or you will be going to bed instead of staying up ect...this so finially Caroline starts to head toward the bathroom on her way she gives rasperrys to Daddy. So Ryan follows behind her to make sure she made it into the bathroom and she doesn't know he is behind her and he hears her mumbling under breath, "crazy daddy making me wash my hands."



Caroline in a fire truck ride. She had a little boy join her who really wanted to ride in the fire truck as well


Caroline on her bike




Her scared face on the rollorcoaster, which she loved and begged to go on again.


On the merry-go-round

Mommy and Jack on a pony

Daddy and Jackers!!

Caroline riding her pony

Me and Caroline

Caroline feeding a goat

Daddy and Caroline at the fair