family pictures

when we first moved here we knew we needed some new family pictures taken. since our last ones we have added reese to the family! we enlisted the help of emily, tyler's sister, to snap some shots of us as a group. then i would take over for the kiddos. this was actually harder than i thought. my own kids don't really want to cooperate for pictures like this, especially tanner.

 

emily did a great job for her first time, right?

 

the neighborhood

we love our little courtyard where we live.  we have fantastic neighbors with the cutest kids.  i know it has made our transition here go much more smoothly having all of these little friends for our kids to play with.

thanksgiving point

we met the grover clan down at thanksgiving point on jacob's birthday.  it's always fun to get these kiddos together.

 

katelyn is always so helpful.  case in point, she even helps me when i need tanner to look at the camera.

they all got to ride the ponies, with the exception of ellie.  she's still too little.

the best picture we could get of katelyn.  her hair kept blowing in her face.

the kids discovered the jail and had fun putting themselves in it.

and the wagon ride.  it wasn't the longest ride, but everyone was contained in one shady spot.  perfect in my book.

dinosaur park

tyler was unable to see tanner on his birthday because of his busy work schedule that month.  so the next time tyler had a day off, we spent the day continuing tanner's celebration at the dinosaur park as a family.

 

i can't tell you how wonderful it is to actually see and talk to my husband during a busy rotation.  both the kids and i were enjoying every moment.

 

when we first arrived, tanner was running around with a giddy expression on his face. this was the perfect place to celebrate his birthday.

there were halloween decorations set up throughout the park.

later that evening we met up with grandma and grandpa hedin to eat a celebratory dinner at brick oven.  we chose this place because tanner loves pizza and breaksticks and also because they are very generous with free meals for birthday kids.

tanner's third birthday

it's hard to believe tanner is already three years old.  we love this kid so much.

 

we started out the day by letting him eat the breakfast of his choice. 

then we went outside and played balloon volleyball.  it was a little tricky for a three-year old, but he loved it.

for quiet time i let the kids do some painting, much to tanner's delight. no smiles for the pictures though.  he was concentrating hard on his painting.

later that afternoon we went to a highschool parade in the area.  grandma hedin was in the parade since she works at the highschool.  i think this was the shortest parade we have ever been to, but the kids walked away with more candy than they've ever gotten before at a parade. 

i know this is very grainy, but we ended the night with some glowsticks.  we played outside with them for a bit then went inside for a glowstick bath in the dark.  the kids loved it!

grandma bastian sent tanner some thomas the train jammies.  we had to get some pictures of him in them.  this is typical tanner always being a little ham.

 

we love this energetic, spunky, tantrum-throwing, sweet, loving, caring boy of ours. 

the canyon with some friends

since moving, we've had the chance to get to know some really nice people in our area.  there are so many good people here!  to get to know some of them a little better, we decided to invite some of them up the canyon with us.  we roasted hot dogs and ate some s'mores.  it was a delicious and fun night and hopefully something we can do every summer.