Strawberry Days Rodeo

On Friday night, Mike took us to the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days Rodeo.
According to our program, it's the biggest rodeo in Utah!
We've learned, from living in Utah, that the rodeo requires a certain attire...
After borrowing some stuff and inheriting others, we were set.
(Pops loaned us his belt buckles, BB gave us some cowboy boots, and Walgreens had hats on sale)

ABOVE: Pops said he would loan us some belt buckles for the rodeo. I never dreamed he would send this one, I was afraid to let my kids touch it. It's his "Grand Slam Club" belt buckle with his name and grand slam number (675). I let each kid take pictures with it, then we traded it for one of the others because I didn't want anything to happen to it.

BELOW: Poor Bubby hadn't been feeling good and was REALLY tired. This is him during his turn with the belt buckle. He was crying about the picture, not the belt. When I took the belt off, he was even more upset. He wanted to keep wearing it.

Saxon LOVES rodeos!
He screams and cheers and claps through the whole thing.
The Strawberry Days Rodeo has a special event called "Wild Cow Milking" that is now Saxon's favorite. It's where teams of 2 or 3 run out after milk cows and try to hold them down and milk them within a certain time. The team with the most milk wins. Usually the cows get scared and are hard to chase and hold down, so it's funny and chaotic. This time, a few of the cows got mad and started snorting and slobbering and ramming into the teams. The milk cows started acting like bulls and charging the players. Even the cowboys had a hard time rounding up these crazy cows after the event. Saxon laughed through the whole thing!

Bridger like the rodeo too, but he wasn't feeling good, so he just wanted me to snuggle him. He clapped after every event, and then laid back on me. Anytime he got nervous, he would hide under his hat and look out through the holes on top. It was so funny!

Mike and the boys...

My boys are so cute! It's so funny to see the difference in their personalities. Saxon is wild. He's not afraid of anything and everyone is his "friend." He will try anything and has been that way since he was a baby. At the rodeo he claps and cheers a shouts encouragement to the cowboys.

Bridger is more timid. He wants to check things out first and then decide. And once he decides on something, there is no changing his mind. He's my snuggler when he's tired, and he LOVES his brother. He wants to know everything and is always pointing to things and asking "that?" Once I answer, he tells me "ohhh," and then asks about something else.

I love watching their little personalities develop and I can't wait to see what #3 is like.

"The Boys"

Brittany's boys are in town for the summer,
which means,
my boys have playmates again!!! :)

On Thursday after swimming lessons, we met Brittany, Johnse, and "the boys" at the pool so that my 2 (soon to be 3) boys could hang out with her 3 boys.

Here's our beach babes:
Brittany & Johnse ordered pizza and soda and Britt brought juice and snacks.
My boys thought it was a party!

My cool little dude in Eliot's hat:

Today, we met Britt and the boys at the mall to get pretzel bites and walk around.
The big boys even helped watch my little boys so that Britt and I could get some things done.
We can't wait to get together again next week for another play date :)

Just for the record...
-Bridger: he now says "that's cool!" whenever he likes something. He won't say it if I ask him to, only if he feel inspired by something. Lately he has been inspired by his new "rock star" hair cut and "How to Train Your Dragon" jammies.
-Saxon: My little charmer. He tells me all the time "Aww Mom...you're such a sweet girl!" or "love you babe!" or "love you to the moon and back" (and then he winks and gives me the "thumbs up"). He sure knows how to win me over.

Swimming Lessons: week 2

Today was the end of our 2nd week of swimming lessons.
The kids had a party to celebrate and got to go down the slide and get certificates and candy.
Can you tell Bridger is tired? He was up ALL NIGHT wanting to watch "Kung Fu Panda."
Saxon, however, fell asleep at 6 pm last night and slept all night and was ready to go...

This is the closest I got to a picture of them together.
Bridger (big surprise) didn't want to cooperate.

On the left is Bridger going down the slide with his teacher (Andrea) and on the right is Saxon going down with his teacher (Alexa).

Since Bridger wasn't cooperating, Andrea let him sit on the steps and watch Saxon's class go down the slide.

Bridger's preschool class:
Left - playing ring around the roses, Right - practicing ice cream scoop arms.

Saxon's Level 2 class:
Left - playing the train game, Right - practicing back floats

The boys showing off their certificates:

Swimming lessons was such a good experience.
We can't wait to sign up for our next session!

Iron Man

Nate brought this home from work and now my kids think that it's a permanent addition in our house...

Summerfest

Mike took us to Orem Summerfest last weekend.
Of course it rained.
It rained on us last year too.
The kids still had a blast though!

Nate took them on the spinning strawberries, and then Megan went with Saxon on the swings.

And finally, Saxon got to become a dragon!
That was probably the highlight of the day.
He LOVES getting his face painted.

Before we left, we stopped by the Twister booth to see Brittany.
She made all of us Twisters and even put "a thousand" cherries in Saxon's at his request.
Next up...
Strawberry Days!
We're crossing our fingers for better weather :)

Catching on...

Bridger's first poop in the potty:

We're so excited for him!
We haven't taken him anywhere in undies yet (he's not that reliable) but I'm glad he can get the hang of it at home. Smart baby!

MAD Tea Party!

My Dad sent the new Alice in Wonderland in the mail the other day, and my kids are so excited!
Saxon decided that we needed to have a MAD Tea PaRtY...

So, after swimming lessons, we did.

He was very specific about how he wanted his tea party.
He wanted cake that would make you BIG and drinks that would make you SMALL.
He assigned all of us a character...
Me: Red Queen, Nate: Mad Hatter, Saxon: Mad Hare, Bridger: Mouse:

We had a TON of "cakes" so I let the boys decorate their own.
You might not be able to tell amidst the mounds of sprinkles, but one plate has "Saxon" shaped cookies and the other has "Bridger" shaped cookies:

Saxon even had to include the part where the mouse yells "DUCK" and starts throwing food.
Yeah...I have quite a clean up to do after this mad tea party.
My little guys are so funny!!!

Swimming Lessons Week #1

We just finished our first week of swimming lessons.
Every morning, Saxon holds Bridger's hand and walks him over to his little class:

We LOVE swimming lessons.
It is such a fun start to the day.

Saxon is a level 2 this year and learning some new strokes. He is doing so great! Hopefully with Aunt Brookie's help when we go to California, he will be swimming for real... He's really brave, so I'm excited for him to do it on his own.

Bridger is in the pre-school class and has a really short attention span, so I'm not sure if he's learned anything, but he has fun :) He did learn to put his face in and blow bubbles, so now he blows bubbles in the pool, in the bath, and in every drink he gets his hands on. He's not really old enough, but he's big, so I thought it would fool them. His poor sweet teacher has to always chase him around when he gets distracted and wanders off. If you notice in the picture below, all of the kids have their noodles off so they can practice real swimming, except for Bridger. He's not reliable enough to be in the deep end without a noodle :)

We're looking forward to next week's lessons...

Supermodels

Guess who got to model for LOVESTITCHED?

That's right...Saxon and Bridger! :)
Brittany called and told me that she had a product review for us to help out with since her boys were too big. She brought over the cutest shirt ever for them to "share". Yeah, the sharing isn't going so well. Both boys are sure that the new robot shirt is theirs. I might need to order another. Good thing she's offering a discount through LOVESTITCHED.
Check them out here!