Last Soccer Game

The boys played their last soccer game on Saturday.

They were sad that it was over because they have loved soccer this year!

Saxon had a really great game.

He got to play goalie for a while, and then played in the field.

Saxon scored a goal in the last few seconds of the game.

He was so excited because it was the last game and he really wanted to get a goal.

He has scored goals in every game so far and he's really proud of himself!

Bridger had a great game too!

He got to throw the ball in a few times, and would follow Saxon as they chased the ball down the field.

Bridger has improved SO MUCH from last year.

Last year he begged for us not to make him play.

This year, he plays the whole game every time!

Saxon:

Team cheer...they named their team the "Bulls."

We got soccer medals and otter pops to finish the season :)

Look at their red faces :)

They worked so hard!

Brothers:

(everyone asks me everywhere I go if they are twins.  I don't really think they look like twins, but maybe they do to other people?)

So proud of my boys!

We really are sad that it's over.

All of our friends were on our team and we had such a great time visiting with everyone on Saturdays.

Can't wait til next year!

The Sidewalk Chalk Festival

On Friday night we took the kids down to the Riverwoods Mall to check out the Sidewalk Chalk Festival.  It was really cool!  The art was amazing!  The kids weren't all that excited about the art, but they loved the fountain!

The other highlight of our night out was running into Brittany's friend Bob at the Texas Twister stand.  He gave the boys free twisters with TONS of cherries.

It totally made our night!

We also ran into a bunch of people from our ward.

It was such a fun family-date-night :)

The Gingerbread Man

My little Dalton has really been a stinker lately.

He is hilarious and smart and funny and charming...and naughty!

Example #1:

We were in a hurry getting to preschool yesterday.

I unbuckled Dalton from his carseat and set him next to the car while I got Bridger's backpack on.  He slowly started scooting farther and farther from me.  Finally when we started toward him, he took off running.

 Me:  "STOP Dalton!  There are lots of cars!"

Dalton:  "NO!  NEVER!"

Me:  "You get back here!" 

Dalton:  "Run!  Run!  Fast as can!  A no catch me!  A ginger-man!"

He learned the gingerbread man song from Saxon and decided to use it.

Example #2:

 I put Dalton down for a nap but I heard him talking and playing for a while.

I decided not to check on him because I was hoping he would fall asleep.

After about an hour, he was still talking, but not crying.

But I thought I heard the word "poop", so I went in.

(We've had a few incidents lately where he wakes up from his nap, takes off his pull-up, says "poop" once as a warning, and then poops in his crib.)

I walked in to find Dalton standing on the changing table, having obviously climbed out of his crib.  The discarded pull-up was laying on the ground.  He has knocked over the diffuser, and used the entire pack of wipes to clean it up.  A whole pack of wipes was crumbled up all over the changing table and floor.  Then he got out the thermometer and pulled out each and every one of those plastic pieces that cover the end of the thermometer and threw them all over.  

But he was in fact whispering "poop" and we made it just in time.

 Example #3:

Then yesterday, he peed his pants twice.

Twice!

The boy is potty-trained!  

I don't know what happened.

I said "Dalton!"

He said "Oh man!"

My cute-as-pie baby also goes with me every Friday to "Field-Trip-Fridays".

We get together with a group of group of girls from our ward and do fun things and go fun places.  It's great!  Last Friday was Bridal Veil Falls which now has tons of fish.

Dalton loved feeding the fish and playing with his friends.

Can't get enough of this boy!

He's crazy :)

Dalton's 2nd Birthday!

On Sunday, September 9th, my baby Dalton turned TWO!

On Saturday night, we kept telling him, "your birthday is tomorrow!"

So on Sunday, he told everyone in nursery, "my birthday tomorrow." LOL

Then, on the day of his party, everyone would ask,

"Did you have a birthday?"

He would always respond,

"No, my birthday tomorrow."

He's so funny!

On Sunday, we started off the day by opening his present from Mike.

An Iron Man mask, and glove, and chest piece.

He was so excited!!!

He LOVES Iron Man! 

For his special b-day dinner, we made Cafe Rio pork tacos and fresh peach cobbler :)

On Monday we had his party.

After watched both big brothers have parties, he was really excited to have his own.

Brittany found a bunch of cute Dr. Seuss stuff so we had a Dr. Seuss party.

Of course, right when we set it up, the wind started blowing it all away.

And then it rained.

We all rushed for the house with all of the party stuff and had the party inside instead.

It all worked out fine, but it would have been much cuter for pictures if I could have set it all up outside.

 Oreo truffle pops:

 Chocolate dipped marshmallows:

 Juice:

 And my garden.

Random, I know, but I love my garden.

While Nate was grilling hot dogs, and the kids were playing at the park,

Andi and I were working in the garden.

After eating, Dalton got to open his presents:

 

Thank you everyone who came to celebrate Dalton's 2nd birthday!!!

And Happy Birthday to my sweet Dalton!

We love you to pieces!

The State Fair

On Saturday night we went to the State Fair.

The boys loved it!

That might be an understatement...they played for hours and cried when we had to leave.

We went on so many rides that we didn't even have time to see the animals.

Mike had to get back for something, and we had early church the next day.

If it wasn't for that, we could have stayed for hours more!

Saxon had TWO grilled corn on the cobs for dinner!

And Bridger and Dalton split a hot dog and a corn on the cob.

Love my Bridger-boy!

At one point, both big boys had to go to the bathroom, so while Nate took them, Mike and I took Dalton to the little farm experience.

He started off with a basket and an apron:

Then we went on to feed and milk the cow.

Then he got to pick an apple from the tree and a seed from the basket.

We went to the next garden where he planted his seed.

The garden after that, he was able to harvest his veggies.

Then we moved on to the fill our tractor up with gas and ride it around...

After racing our tractor, we gathered wool,

and eggs.

Dalton was a little afraid of the chickens (which were fake), so Mike moved the egg up to the front so Dalton could put it in his basket and not be in danger of the chicken.

After doing our best farming, we went to the farmer's market and sold everything in our basket for a fake $1.00.

The best part of the whole thing?

Dalton got to take his fake $1 to a mini-store and buy a treat.

He picked strawberry milk, and he was very proud of his hard work!

To bribe them to leave without tears, Mike told them that he would buy them each a treat.  Bridger wanted cotton candy, Saxon picked ice cream, and Dalton got a smoothie.

We had SO MUCH FUN!

My boys are so lucky to have Mike in their lives to take them to do so many fun things :)

Saturday Soccer

On Saturday we had another soccer game.

This time Nate's parents, and Jon and Melinda came also.

Saxon was sooo excited to have a bigger audience cheering for him.

Bridger was sooo embarrassed to have so many people cheering for him.

Saxon had a great game and scored two goals!

Bridger did great too!  One time the ball came to him and he dribbled it all the way down the field.  We were so proud of him and we were cheering really loud!  Afterward, he gave us a grouchy face because he was so embarrassed at all of the attention.

Both boys worked really hard and were tired and sweaty and stinky after.

After the game, we went to McDonald's with Nate's family and the kids got to run around and play some more.  They loved it!

Palm Springs Weekend

For Labor Day Weekend, we decided to head down to Palm Springs with Mike and spend the weekend by the pool.  It's funny because I grew up in southern CA, but I've never been to Palm Springs.  And it was a little weird to be so close to home without going home.  We called my mom to see if she would meet us there, but she had to work all weekend.

The first place hotel we stayed at had a gorgeous room!

It had a huge jacuzzi tub and a huge shower with a TV in the bathroom.

My kids spent the whole first night in the tub and the shower.

Then, the next morning before we checked out, they wanted to take another bath and another shower.

It was that cool.

The crowd at this hotel, however, was a little scary.

As we walked in at midnight with our little kids all holding their blankets and their pillow pets, we were drawing some unwanted attention.

I locked the door as soon as we got to our room.

The next day at the pool, the scary casino crowed had cleared out and we enjoyed a pretty much empty pool area.

Once the kids got too hungry to be able to stand it anymore, we packed up and headed to Quiznos (which Saxon refers to as his new favorite restaurant).

Then we went to check out the aerial tramway above Palm Springs.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was amazing!

The floor rotates and the kids thought it was the coolest ride ever.

Some of the adults were looking a little pale.

The view was incredible and we went up to 10,000 feet.

The weather on the bottom was 105 degrees.

The weather on top of the mountain was in the 60's.

We hiked to all of the lookout points first.

Then we hiked down to the forest to do the 1 1/2 mile nature hike.

We discovered from reading the signs that a "Jeffrey Pine" smells like butterscotch and vanilla.  It was a game during the rest of our hike to smell all of the trees.

(Left- Bridger, Right- Saxon)

Even Dalton wanted to smell the trees.

The air smelled like a mix of vanilla and pine.

It was so yummy!

Mike and Saxon:

Me and Saxy:

Love the cheeseball smile!

Speaking of cheeseball smiles, Bridger did this one every time I pulled out the camera:

So I told him to open his eyes, stop looking up, and give me a real smile.

Then I got this:

After about 10 minutes of failed attempts, we got this:

Nate got the most exercise of any of us because he was always carrying a kid...

Brothers:

They were pretty tired and hungry by the time we got to the bottom, but I made them pose on this bench because it says where we are.

DAY TWO:

We went to go see the giant dinosaurs from the PeeWee Herman movie.

But first, we ate at the dinosaur diner.

It was true diner food.

Mike ordered biscuits and gravy and a huge slice of pie!

The Wheel Inn Restaurant.

LOL

I'm not a huge fan of diners and homestyle cooking, but my turkey sandwich was really good.

Speaking of food, we decided to try out some new places to eat this trip.

We went into town and ate at the Papaya Bay Thai Restaurant on Saturday night.

We were starving, and the kids were grouchy.

The guy who worked there was awesome!

He helped us order, talked to the kids, and even served them their food and cut it for them.  Ha ha.  Some people wouldn't like that, but I was so grateful for the help, and my kids were much better behaved for him than they usually are for me.

Then he promised them that they could feed the cats outside if they ate all their food.

That was all the motivation they needed.

They ate all their food!

The next day, they begged to go back and eat Thai food again.

If you're even in Palm Springs...Papaya Bay Thai food.

 

Bridger getting eaten by a dinosaur:

Bridger with the robotic moving dinosaurs:

The robotic dinosaurs were a little weird.

For example, this knight in shining armor, jousting the dinosaur with the monkey on it's back...

We weren't sure what to make of that.

The highlight was getting to go inside the T-Rex's mouth!

But panning for gold/gemstones was  a close second:

Bridger found four bags of pretty rocks that he wanted to bring home.

We spent a TON of time at the pool of our second hotel.

It was like a mini-waterpark.

The slide was the best.

It had jets at the top so it would launch the kids down the slide :)

So, our first trip ever to Palm Springs was a HUGE success!

We loved every minute of it!