our projects

 The living room downstairs flooded and so the homeowners paid Brent to fix it instead of hiring someone else.  He was excited to get the chance to spend some time doing it with the boys so that they could have the chance to help him out just like the good ol' days before Brent went back to school.

Griz is a tease sometimes and when you ask him to smile he'll purposely close his eyes. (That is sheetrock mud on his ear and toes and fingers)

We went outside to watch as the sun was setting.  Griz (the boy who used to try so hard to be ticklish) is now a very ticklish boy. No one will ever be as ticklish as Chico though, I don't think it's possible.

The fenced in backyard is getting close!!! We just need to find some time to stretch the fencing on there!

For some reason I suggested a different project (re-landscaping some rocks by our driveway) and so Brent started doing that which turned into a big project. Last week Brent (with a very tiny bit of help from me) finished it and it looks SOOOOO good (should take a picture of that).

Here are the boys bustin out their moves.

chillin' on a sunday afternoon

Brent pulled out the camera a couple Sundays ago to just capture our family as we were hanging out.

 

Splash Pad

We met up with my sister-in-law and her kids at the splash pad. I pulled out the camera before they got there and got a few of Chico. Then I put the camera away and forgot (or was too lazy) to pull it out the rest of the time. Chico really got into it right away. It took their cousins coxing and excitement to get Griz excited about the splashing water though.

Handcart Days Parade

We met up with Brent's mom and step-dad to watch the Handcart Days Parade this year.  After last years parade we had decided we were done with parades. This year there was going to be something pretty cool to see in the parade so we decided to give it another shot.  I was standing down on the sidewalk with Ellen and Simon but Brent found a spot better for the kids to see from and stayed up there with them.

We waited through the whole parade in anticipation of seeing the "2000 Stripling Warriors".  

It was cool to see what that number of young men represents.  I had just watched a video of the guy who was playing Helaman telling the story of it. The video was quite moving and sobering as was the scene as they marched by.  

I thought it was cool that they had the missionaries march with them.

Cute Kids!

I was getting ready for a photo shoot and needed some models to get my lighting set up right.  Here are a couple pictures of my cute boys. They're just in their play clothes and they each have a toy which I think is actually kinda cute. Hey and their hair was combed (thought Grizwald's is already all disheveled by this picture). We did pretty good for being in a rush!

When the photo shoot was done some neighbor friends came to play.  The crib is the place to be I guess!

Gift for my boy/Long time Craft project

For the past couple years I've been promising these paintings to Chico.  I showed them to him a LONG time ago but kept telling him I had to finish them first.  I kept putting it off and putting it off. Finally the night before his birthday I finished them so I could give them to him on his birthday. For how excited he HAD been about them, the toys were much more exciting and he practically blew me off when we opened the box. Oh well.  I hung them on the wall a day or two later and he was so excited to see them up there finally.

If you're interested to know how I made these, here are the not so clear instructions on how to do them:

So I sketched all of the images out on my own with some referencing from google images.  After I sketched them out, I traced it out onto good quality white paper which I then cut out.  Then I mod podged it to 8x10 canvases that I had painted beforehand.  Then for the temple and the handcart I painted in by hand the areas that needed to be filled in (the wheel and the details on the temple).  I also painted the paper white so it would be the same texture as the rest of everything. Then I modpodged back over the entire thing.  It worked out pretty well I think!

Chico's Fourth Birthday!!!

Chico and I had a fun morning making his bulldozer cake. Then Grandma Coy gave them a pre-birthday present that they had fun playing with.

I finished the cake hours before the party and wasn't sure it was still going to be standing by the time the party started that night. So I snapped a picture before hand and it did have some serious leaning and one of the tracks tipped over.   Someday I'll know more about cake decorating and will secure it the right way and work with level pieces of cake. :) Chico loved it though and I got TONS of compliments on it. I think people were trying to make me feel better since it was SO obviously about ready to fall over at any minute.

Chico's friend brought some balloons over that morning to wish him happy birthday since he couldn't come to the party. They were a hit and I was glad they brought them since I had dropped the ball in that department!

And finally the time arrived for us to go to the park and celebrate with family and friends.

It was a little windy, therefore hard to light but it all worked out. :)

Brent once again amazed us all with his amazing stunts on the playground. How he has the energy to do what he does on there is beyond me.  Someone commented that he should have been a stunt man, he really is good! (He's taking a break in the picture below, probably contemplating what thing he should flip off of next).

Chico discovered to his delight the fishing pole and grabbed it out of the pile of gifts before we did the official gift opening.  He was so excited about it!

He got a beach towel and beach ball AND a little kiddy pool to play in, in the backyard from Grandmom and Grandpop.

An art kit from Grandpa Hatch which we were excited about. He LOVES painting.

An excavator from Grandpa Hatch, it was a huge hit!

And this giant gun from the Maynes.  He is so cute with it.

Other people came too and everyone was so generous with their gifts, unfortunately I can't post pictures of everyone, these are just the best pictures from the night of Chico.  Thanks friends and family for coming and supporting our sweet boy on his birthday.  We really appreciated it!!