next stop: utah

after our trip to texas we were certainly missing tyler and were ready to see him again. of course he was ready to see us as well and also ready for a much needed vacation. with the boards not looming over his head, we all met up again in utah and with a very relaxed tyler. it was so nice to just play with the husband again and know that he didn't have to spend any of his time studying.

it has been so long since we were in utah, so i can't seem to remember what order these events occured in. no matter though because we had an awesome time spending part of our vacation with the hedin family. and i admit that i went a little crazy taking pictures while in utah, so this is a monster post. i can never decide which picture to leave out, so i end up posting too many.

the hedins were so nice to offer to host a bbq in their backyard with my sisters and their families and my grandparents. it was fun having everyone all together.



the crew. and might i add the food was delicious.





tanner decided he was a huge fan of corn. he was so mad when it was gone, and i took it away. he actually started crying, the poor thing. the way he was crying you'd think we were starving him. however, i was trying to save him from lots uncomfortable diapers.

why not teach the little one how to swing a bat while outside? katelyn thought this was a great idea.

since this would be the last time we would have these babies together with the great-grandparents, we did a mini-shoot of all of them together. again, the hedins were so nice to let us do this in their backyard.

these boys are hilarious when they get together. and poor caleb was forced to hold the dora ball.

the hedins also took everyone to lagoon. it was so much fun being back at lagoon and the weather was perfect! i loved that we weren't dripping wet by the end of the day. desert air is wonderful.

katelyn loved the rides and went on pretty much everything. we did have a huge problem while at lagoon though. katelyn decided she was deathly afraid of public bathrooms. the flush was too loud for her little ears, so she absolutely refused to use the bathroom while we were there. by the end of the day we literally had to force her to sit on the toilet while she was kicking and screaming. i'm pretty sure everyone in the bathroom thought we were hurting her. we felt bad for the poor thing.

and yes, tanner was there enjoying the day as well. mostly sitting in the stroller sleeping a little and eating.

we also had the chance to visit my grandparents for a day. i haven't seen them in a long time, so it was so nice to visit again. my grandpa has an amazing garden, and i absolutely loved seeing the it again. it brought back all of these great memories.

i just had to get a shot of them together in the garden. my grandparents spend a lot of time in the garden and a lot of time canning their delicious food to eat during the winter.

and i had to get one of tanner and grandpa snuggling together.

of course while we were there we celebrated father's day. tyler is an incredible dad to these kids. they love him lots.

katelyn made tyler a 'greatest dad award' in nursery that day and being the good wife i am, i made him wear it for a picture.

the weather was so nice while we were in utah, so we took advantage and went swimming at the nearby recreational center. the kids loved being in the water.

no, tanner's hair is not red. that would be my poor editing skills at work.

probably my favorite picture. i love these two together, especially when katelyn is being nice.

katelyn isn't exactly a little fishy anymore, but she still has fun in the water. as long as she doesn't get any in her eyes and she can stand or is being held.

of course while we were there we had to stop into utah county to see the sistas. we hung out at camille's place, got a snowcone and visited the bean museum.

we also took the boat out on another one of the beautiful days.

katelyn enjoying the water from the safety of the tube. and obviously she enjoing handing out with the guys as well.

tanner taking a little dip in the cold water.

kateyln's uncles were playing catch with her and she was thrilled she caught the ball.

the hedins were so nice to babysit for us so we could attended the temple together. it's been a while since we have been able to do that. we usually have to take turns so one of us can stay with the kids.

i must say, the view from up on a mountain never gets old, especially when standing next to a temple.

we really had a great time while in utah. we love being with the hedins and especially love seeing the relationships our children are developing with their grandparents, aunt and uncles even though we are so far away.

tey-hos

back in june the kids and i high tailed it out of wisconsin while tyler was cramming for the boards. partly to let him study in peace and partly for my own selfish reasons. i wanted to see my parents and my sisters and my brother! i love, love, love my family. everyone is so positive and happy, we get along amazingly well and most of all, everyone is such good example to me. it's hard not to miss being away from this crew after a while.

it's difficult for me to go through these pictures and try to sum up the trip. there's so much to say about a 12 day trip.

before we headed down to texas, we kept getting emails about my parents setting up a nice box garden in their backyard. i had no idea what that entailed until i saw the actual garden. it was beautiful! my parents have put so much work into that thing and it looked amazing. we spent a couple of morning out by the garden looking around, much to katelyn's delight.

my mother working out in the garden.

katelyn has never been a very good eater. she has never even eaten a carrot before. i think she was wondering why grandma would hand her something like that.

these boots were a favorite and were worn in and out of the house.

more bug chasing. there are lots of bugs here to look at just like in wisconsin, but the bugs are a little bit different and sometimes more exciting to look at.

even benson boy joined us on this trip. this was my first time meeting him. he is such a cute baby, and is only about a month and half younger than tanner.

katelyn and sam became pretty good pals and played together a lot at grandma's house. don't be deceived by all of these outside pictures. we really didn't spend a ton of time outside. it was way too hot out.

we spent one afternoon letting the kids play in grandma's blow up pool. no, we don't have a real one in our backyard. we tried to convince our parents to install one while we were growing up. there's plenty of room, but we could never convince them. we still tease our parents that we are the only ones left in texas without a pool in their backyard.

all of the kids in the pool. i had to wake katelyn up from a nap to come and play, so she was acting a little shy.

my sister, sarah, holding tan the man for me so i could snap some photos

we did so many fun things while in texas, but i barely pulled my camera out. i did manage to get some photos while playing at the bounce house place, but only of the adults. these are two of my sisters and my sister-in-law which we consider one of the sisters.

katelyn was terribly afraid of our outisde cat, but finally warmed up to him by the end of the trip. i think the cat loved the attention. everyone else just ignored her now.

tanner thorougly enjoyed himself on this trip. he won over the hearts of everyone with his million dollar smile as my dad calls it. he had a huge smile plastered on his face literally the entire trip.

i had a chance to take some pictures of these three cousins together. they are so close in age, so it was really fun to have all of them together at the same time.

and of course, we had to take a picture of the boys in the tub together. i'm sure they'll all thank us someday for that.

we had the best time in texas. we were sad to leave everyone, but were grateful for the time we were able to spend with everyone.

bug watching

katelyn is obsessed with bugs. not as in catching and collecting bugs, but as in finding them and killing them. she is not a big fan. i think she developed her dislike for bugs from me, but i promise i tried really hard to act brave.

one of her new favorite past times on the way out to the car is to stop and find some kind of bug, it doesn't matter what, watching it for a bit, then stomping on it.



this girl has a great sense of style. her brothers link chains as bracelets? who would have thought?



you can't forget the sunglasses while bug watching.

found one. and did anyone notice how short katelyn's hair is? the back of her hair has been cut at least 4-5 times in her short three years of life, but not the front. it's taking forever to grow!

the birthday bash

*thank-you so much to everyone who took pictures for me! i wouldn't have any without you guys!

this year i promised myself i wouldn't go all out for katelyn's party. well, that promise was thrown out the window when i saw martha stewart's idea for a carnival themed birthday party. i enlisted two other moms whose daughters had birthdays around the same time of year, and we got to work planning a joint birthday party.

we had four carnival games where kids collected tickets for winning, a prize table to redeem those tickets, and way too many sweets available for everyone to eat. now that all is said and done, i think the party was a success. i absolutely loved that the kids could run around from game to game and play as many times as they wanted without much adult supervision needed. probably my favorite thing about the whole party.

all of these pictures are out of order, but since this is my third attempt at posting about the party, i'm just going to leave it that way. just know that katelyn had a great birthday due to her friends and family who gave very generous gifts, well wishes, phone calls, cards and emails.

katelyn turns 3

we are very excited to say that we celebrated katelyn's third birthday back at the beginning of may. i can hardly believe she's three already. where does the time go with children?

this birthday was much anticipated by katelyn. all we had to do was say the words presents and cake in the same sentence, and she was sold. all she could talk about for weeks was that she wanted to eat a white cake on her birthday and open candy for her presents. not too demanding, and definitely something we could handle.

we did do a little more than white cake and candy though. that morning we took her to eat at denny's where she ordered some chocolate milk and pancakes with chocolate chips.

tyler had to study most of the day, but when he came home we gave her her tinkerbell cake and let her open and play with her presents. she loved the cake and really loved the frosting. that's actually all she ate when we gave her a piece of cake. and yes, we ordered way too much cake for our small family. i did ask if they made smaller cakes, but sadly, they didn't.

we love our sweet (and very sassy), giggly, happy, joyous, loving, sensitive, funny, stubborn little girl. seriously, she is one happy little thing. she (almost) always has a smile on her face and she really loves people and being around them. lately almost every other sentence out of her mouth has made me smile or laugh. what would we do without our katelyn?

tanner's first encounter with a balloon

wow, i feel like i'm buried in pictures i still need to go through and edit. but putting it off isn't helping any, so i'm finally sitting down to take care of some of my pictures.

we went to a restaurant a while back (i don't even really remember when anymore) where katelyn got a balloon on her way out the door. tanner couldn't keep his eyes off of the balloon, so we let him have his turn. he was having the time of his life! i love that babies can be so easy to please.

eyeing the balloon. i'm pretty sure he was trying to figure out how he could get his hands on it.



touching the balloon=one happy baby



watching daddy play



obviously daddy is hilarious



and i do realize there is no balloon in this picture, however, our little guy has six teeth. a whole mouthful. he seriously got all six teeth in one month. he didn't have any teeth at six months and had all of those suckers at seven. needless to say we weren't getting much sleep during that month.