We had a visitor...

 Uncle Brennan came and stayed with us for a couple days and Chase loved every minute of it.  Besides following Brennan EVERYWHERE, he talked Brennan into fixing his toy drill with his "sire iron" (Soldering iron).

He also took over Brennan's Computer to watch "Tom and Jerry" and I could hear him randomly telling Brennan every couple of minutes "Brennan I can do it all by myself right?  I can find Tom and Jerry by myself!"

Chase was sad to see him go, but I was even more sad because I rarely get some free time in the middle of the day.

Brody turns 1 (with a whole lotta' pictures)

 I'm definitely not a cake decorator, but I spent a lot of time on Chase's first cake so I wanted to do the same for Brody.  I found the idea for a candyland cake in Parents magazine and decided to make my own.

 Complete with Lollipop land

Ice cream cones

Gingerbread men and the candy path the follow.


I really didn't think it would take all that much to make this cake, but it ended up taking me all day.  And when all was finished I set the cake out of the way to wait for Daniel to get home.  Turns out the ice cream cones were too heavy for the cake to hold up that long and a couple hours of sitting on the table I noticed this:


 A hole in the cake that took me ALL DAY to make :(  I decided to just shove the ice cream cone back in the cake more towards the middle and a couple hours later....

a BIGGER hole in my cake :(


Oh well, I just turned that around to the back.  See can't even tell there is a complete disaster in the back.

The birthday boy checking out the cake

 The many expressive faces that came from the next twenty minutes.

 This was the only handful that made it in his mouth and it came right back out.  He thought it was lots of fun to pound and smoosh with his hands, but not good for eating!


A birthday kiss from Chase

My boys

A quick family shot with the remote (seriously the greatest invention for the camera!)

And here's my big boy.

I took him to the doctor today and he weights 23.5 lbs.  He is catching up to Chase pretty fast.  Despite the chunky legs and cheeks this kid is only 50% for weight and a bit higher for height.

Ugh!  Again with the snow.  So we took Chase to see Tangled, which happened to be our first 3D movie in theaters.  Unfortunately it was too lovey-dovey for him and he just wanted to leave the whole time :)

I was in a pretty bad mood from being tired and waking up to snow, so I found a way to turn things around and enjoy the snow.

Watching Chase trying to make his "funny face" today but bursting out with laughter before he would mold his lips into the right shape provided a lot of laughter in my day.

Chase, "Mom are we in the back yard?"
Me: "Nope, we WERE in the back yard, now we are in the front yard."
Chase:  "No mom, we are in the BELLY yard!"
(Get it back/belly :)
We no longer have a front yard, just a belly yard.

Playing at the playground today
Chase to little girl: "HI!  What's your name?"
Little girl: "Mel-A-nie, what's your name?
Chase: "My name is Chaser.  Do you want to play with me?"
Melanie: "O.K.!  Are we friends now?"
Chase: shrugs his shoulders.
I wish making friends was that easy for me.

A weekend in Moab

 (Several weekends ago....)


We headed out to the sand dunes, and what's a trip to the sand dunes without sleds.

 We tried to get a family action shot-

instead we got a baby with a face full of dirt.

 I had to crop my face out of the above picture because I was laughing so hard at poor Brody, and I want my kids to think I'm a good mom who would NEVER laugh at their pain :)

 If you havn't noticed by now, I attempt at any opportune (or for Daniel inopportune) moment to try and get a family snapshot to look half-way decent and this trip we got two thank to my mom's help.

 It might be better without the bottle covering Brody's face, but it's so much a part of what makes him happy right now that I don't mind it :)


I'm not going to tell you what was going on here, I'm just gonna let you laugh at it like I am.

Ok, ok Aiden is trying, in the most creative way I can think of, the push my mom down the hill.

This is my favorite sandhill sporting event, but these sleds just weren't cut out for the job.

This kid is always as happy as can be when we are in a huge pile of dirt.