our little girl

Fiona reached 18 months the end of last month, but I never got a chance to get her pics and post them until now. She is such a doll and loves her brothers so much (unfortunately, they don't always appreciate that love). She is such a joy and so happy. It's been so fun to have a girl. She's very balanced, loves girly things but also gets a kick out of playing cars with her brothers. She even likes bug (she's definitely my girl). This rocking horse was made for me when I was about 2 years old by my father. It has a lot of sentimental value for me, and I'm surprised I've never thought of using it in pictures before. The children really enjoy it, right now it's one of Fiona's favorite toys.

flying high

we went to the spanish fork kite festival on saturday. it was fun, though not exactly what i expected. i had been hoping to show the children some fun kites being flown (the advertisements mentioned a hundred foot octopus and a chinese dragon), but we didn't get to see too much of that. they had some interesting kites but most of the ones we saw were just on display. and they had some fun activities and crafts for the kids. it's just hard to do the crafts with 3 little ones under the age of 4. the kids loved riding on the segway, and the golfcart, playing at the playground and watching the airplanes drop rolls of paper towels. it was a good time for no money, what more could we ask for. next year we'll just time it better to see the cool kites and i'll make sure that i have help with the crafts.
these were my favorite kites
i made these hats (ian insisted on 'just white', i couldn't talk him into anything else, but it still turned out fun), and i think fiona looks absolutely adorable in hers

the boys loved this four-wheeler, they thought it was so cool that it was just their size and they insisted on taking a picture with it to show daddy



ian and his cousin paityn, the kids were really funny about pictures this day. they kept running from kite to kite wanting their pictures taken with all of them. even fiona would pose in front of a kite and yell 'cheese'.

first day of school

wesley and ian ready to face their first day of preschool of the year (and for ian, his first day ever). they were very excited and in a very silly mood.
fiona wanted to get in on the "back to school" action so she was toting her ABC book around all morning and wanted her picture taken, too.
wesley in front of his bus, he gets to ride the bus to preschool. ian doesn't get to ride this year, but seems to be okay with that (i was prepared for the worst). he says that his bus will be bigger when he gets to ride one.

and again fiona, not wanting to miss out on all the action. sorry for the hair, she won't keep anything in it right now.

getting ready for school

we had a special family home evening last night. our theme was "back to school and working hard". the boys start back at preschool this Thursday and they are really excited. Austin and I both feel that the most important thing in school is to work hard. you can accomplish anything if you just put your mind to it and work for it. we've both been very big on the motto "we can do hard things" lately as well.
so for family home evening we talked about working hard at what our teachers want us to do. we reminded the boys of the things that they've accomplished and the new skills that they've acquired from lots of practice and working at it. we also had some backpack races in which the boys raced to one end of the yard, filled their backpacks with books, zipped them up and ran back to the finish line. We did it a couple of times and they both loved it and each won at least once. For our treat I made back to school cupcakes that really turned out cute. And before bed Austin did father's blessings for all the children. It was a great family home evening, one that you could tell they are going to remember for a long time. it's so nice to have a successful family home evening.

lots of fun pics

here are some more pics of the kids from a few weeks ago. we had a lot of fun taking these pics.

getting it done

i've had a lot of projects "in the works" lately and i've finally started to get some of them finished. it's so nice to feel the satisfaction of completing something you've been working hard on.

Last night we had a great time with Dawnelle and Josh at the ranch. We were so glad they made the long trip to come see us. The children had a wonderful time; they love to see Dawnelle. Austin & I really appreciate being so close to her and her fabulous family.

just some more pics

we got some fun pics the other day when we went for a walk.

Salem Days

What a great year at Salem Days! We really had a lot of fun, as the kids get older, it gets better and better. We went to the gravity grand prix, the little buckaroo rodeo, the baby contest, the children's parade, tunes in the trees, the grand parade, the library auction, and the fireworks. Saturday was especially full of fun things to do and the children arrived home that night completely exhausted (Austin & I as well). At the gravity grand prix we watched several fun races, we even saw a spectacular crash. The car rolled twice and fortunately no one was hurt, though the poor little guy driving was bummed that he lost. The baby contest didn't go as great as past years. Fiona woke up that morning with a high fever. She was even more clingy that usual and refused to let me put her down even for the picture (the main reason we do the contest). I suspected she wouldn't be the judges favorite this year, but she did look adorable and I got some pics of her later in the day that were much happier.

At the little buckaroo rodeo the children really enjoyed watching the mutton busting, and Ian was quite upset that he didn't get a turn to ride the sheep. Fiona just loves the horses and was thrilled when they would ride past us fast.
Friday and Saturday were by far the best days. We went to the children's parade. Wesley dressed as Buzz Lightyear and Ian was a cowboy (sometimes Woody, sometimes not), Fiona rode in the wagon and got to wave the little wand that I'd made for her.
We stayed after the parade for the tunes in the trees and had a picnic dinner,
played with cousins and listened to the music (Alli did a great job).
Saturday Wesley and Ian rode in Amberlee's little train for the parade, they loved it.

Fiona and I watched the parade and Fiona loved the marching bands and the tractors. We caught several balls at the helicopter ping-pong ball drop,

and got some great prizes (bubbles, suckers, $1, and a large tootsie roll). Later that night we went to the library auction and Austin bought me a tricycle (I've always wanted one), it's beautiful. Shiny red and has a cute basket in the back. Now all we have to do is sale our home and move downtown off the hill where I can ride it. I donated a chocolate lover's dessert of the month, which ended up being bought by Nadene and Karen for $60 (not too bad). After the auction we went to Grandma Davis' house to let the kids play during the pageant and await the fireworks. The fireworks were quite delayed because of a thunderstorm and we ended up leaving before they started. But when we got home we saw them from our front porch and the kids had a good time watching them before going to bed. Fiona was absolutely mesmerized by them. All in all it was a great day. And I'm looking forward to doing it all again next year.