Birthday Celebrations

Birthday, Birthday, Birthday!!!. Wow this kid is spoiled. We have had lots of celebrations, lots of presents, and lots of cake these last few days. WARNING!!! LOTS OF PICTURES!!!!

Gary's mom and husband came up to visit on Sunday. We had a yummy birthday dinner and he opened up a few presents, then decided that he was too tired and too onery. We ended up skipping out on the rest of his presents and cake and decided to wait till morning.

The next morning we continued the celebration and finished opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa Bill.
There is nothing better than cupcakes for breakfast.

Bennett did not mess around. He is just like his mommy and loves his treats. Way to not disappoint Bennie!

That afternoon we went to the zoo. Bennett loved the animals. It was so much fun. It was so nice spending time with our boys.

Bennett was right on the level of the meer cats. It was so cute Bennett was following the meer cat as it ran back and forth. He got so excited and would just giggle.

After the zoo we had my family over for yet another birthday party.

Surprise Surprise!! Bennett loves presents and loves showing off to his cute little cousins.

Bennett became quite the present opening fool!

Jax struggled a little with Bennett getting all of the presents and attention. Luckily Bennett is still fairly passive and allowed Jax to share in his glory.

ELMO CAKE!!!

My sister and I had a lot of fun making Bennett's cake.

Jax helping Bennett blow out his candle.

Bennett did a wonderful job destroying his cake, including decapitating and dismembering Elmo!

Bennett loves his cousins. He idolizes older kids! He thought it was great having everyone focus on him. He soaked in all of the attention.

The finished product!

Happy Birthday Bennett! We love you so so much! We can't wait to celebrate more and more and more birthdays with you.

Happy Birthday Bennett!!!!

My baby boy is 1!!! I have had a very emotional week, remembering back to when I first found out I was pregnant, when he was born, and the wonderful first year we have had. I can't picture life without him. He is my pride and my joy. He makes me laugh and smile each day. I love being his mommy! I am so grateful for God's timing and that Bennett joined our family when he did.

Happy Birthday Bennie Bug! I love you so so much, and am so lucky to be your mommy!

Trip to Manti

We had the opportunity to attend Gary's mom and step dad's (aka Grandma and Grandpa Bill) temple sealing in the Manti temple. It was such a wonderful day, and it was nice to spend time with family. We love the Manti temple, it is so beautiful. Here are some pictures from our little day trip.

Jax and Bennett loved the fire hydrant. Kind of a goofy thing to be obsessed about, but it made for some cute pictures.

Our Little Family.

The beautiful temple (and out little miniature family, you have to squint, but we are in there)

All of the grandkids on Gary's side. It was a difficult task getting 5 kids under the age of 4 to sit still. We unfortunately could not get one where the kids were not crying or looking at the camera.

Our little family

I am so grateful for the temple and the blessing that come from the temple. It was such a beautiful day!

Our Crazy House!!!

Wow what a mess!!! This is what happens when I assume that the boys are playing nicely. Don't get me wrong I think they were getting along just fine, they were just destroying my plant and making my house a mess. Lesson learned, when the house is quiet assume the worse!!!!

Bennett is a magnet for dirt! He loves to play in the dirt and will put anything and everything in his mouth including but not limited to: dirt, rocks, grass... This has made being outside and yard work quite the challenge. On this day we decided to just let him have at it since we were going to do baths later on that night. This is the product! WHAT A MESS!!!!

Jax is getting too big and is SUPER tall. Jax is one of the youngest in nursery and is one of the tallest. He towers over most kids his age. Gary thought it would be funny to put him in his old baby toy. What a ridiculous site and he absolutely hated being cooped up.


Busy Bennett is getting busier by the day. He has conquered walking and is becoming quite skilled at it. He is now becoming quite the climber. He climbs stairs, our large rocks in our back yard, and the dishwasher. Bennett LOVES the dishwasher. I myself hate doing the dishes! Doing dishes when Bennett and Jax are awake is an impossible task!

We have adopted a new member into our family. This bird decided to chill out in our garage.

My Baby is Walking!!!

It is official, early this last week Bennett started walking. It was about 3 days before he turned 11 months, when he really started walking several steps. Now that it has been a few days, Bennett is initiating walking on his own and doesn't even need us to prop and encourage him. AHHHHHHHH Scary! Here comes trouble and even more work!

At 11 months Bennett....

*Walks

*Says Uh-OH (I am loving it when he throws his food of his tray and then says "UH-OH", yeah like that was an accident)

*Says Mom and Dad (he walks around and says "mom mom mom mom mom" until he is acknowledged)

*Is eating most table foods

*Points his finger

*Loves to be outside, and loves to eat everything outside, including rocks, grass, dirt

*Gets into trouble constantly

*Loves to open cupboards, pan drawers and pull everything out.

It is crazy to think that in one more month Bennett will be 1. It makes me so sad to think that my baby is growing up and becoming a toddler. If I had the option I would keep him a baby forever!

Easter!!!

So we had a wonderful Easter. The Easter bunny decided to come while the boys were taking there afternoon nap. They both did very well finding the eggs, and we all ate way too much candy.

Bennett discovered very quickly how to open the eggs. We haven't given him very many sweets yet, but he quickly decided that he LOVES candy!

My handsome boys in the Easter outfits!

We dyed eggs.

Jax loved dying easter eggs and liked to put stickers on them. He was so proud of his eggs!

Bennett just liked sucking on the eggs! Hopefully the dye really is non-toxic like it says!

Our eggs. I love how Bennett's mouth is blue from sucking on an egg!

We had an Easter egg hunt the day before with the DeVries cousins.

Bennett was thrilled with his find. After finding this egg he didn't care about any other eggs.

My boys love being with their cousins.

Jax actually gave the older cousins a run for their money. He found 12 eggs.

We had such a great Easter weekend. It was so fun spending time with family, and spoiling our kids.

Recent Happenings

My boys love their bath time. They are so funny to watch they now think it is funny to gang up on mom and splash her. They are really quite the team!

Bennett has learned from the best and holds his own, when it comes to splashing!

This is me after bath time! I am always soaking wet.

Bennett is getting so big. He can now stand on his own for pretty much as long as he wants to. And it is official he took his first steps on April 25. He will still only take one or two steps and then he sits down and crawls to where he wants to go. Hopefully a video of him walking will be coming soon (that is if we can catch it!).

Jax has been in a big boy bed for quite some time now. Recently he has started sneaking out of his bed, along with his pillow pet, and trying to sleep in the hall. We discovered that he only does this when we forget to leave the hall light or bathroom light on. It made me giggle!

Our First Instacare Visit!

So if you haven't gathered from my other post, I think I have the busiest, craziest, and most active kid out there. He will seriously not sit still. He has been so determined to stand up and pulls himself up on everything. Because of this crazieness, we had to make our first instacare visit and he got his first set of stitches (3 to be exact). Bennett was pulling himself up on the door frame when he slipt and hit his eyebrow on the door hinge.
The Instacare visit was awful. There is nothing worse than having your child look at you in horror and scream as they are sewing him up. I seriously felt like the worse mom ever! Anyhow we both survived and luckily and you can now barely tell that he has a scar.


After being all sewn up! He was such a brave boy!

Showing off his cool scar!

Rough Couple of Weeks

We have had a very rough couple of weeks. Lucky enough I think things are finely getting better. Our boys have been sick sick sick! They both had an ear infection, runny faucet noses. Jax had a sore throat and Bennett had chest congestion and wheezing. This all adds up to ornery babies, sleepless nights, and tired mom and dad! I am so done with cold and flu season! I am ready for it to warm up and ready to have healthy babies again! Poor Bennett had to have Albuterol treatment 3 times each day to clear up his tight congested lungs. Sitting still for that long was torture for this wiggly baby! Poor Bennett! I can only imagine what he is thinking "SAVE ME"

On a much happier note here are some cute sleeping pictures!

Jax loves his pillow pet! This was the best investment ever!

Sleepy Bennett!