First Laugh

Jared's parents came up for Crue's birthday and spent the night that night so they could go to a farewell the next day in Cedar. Jared's dad got Cooper to laugh for the first time. It was hilarious! I caught it at the end but was still able to catch it. He would fake a cough and Cooper loved it.

Happy Birthday Crue!

Crue turned 2 today so we had a fun party at the park. The first park we went to ended up getting taken right before we got there so after some trouble, we finally found another park. It worked out great.

Jared and Max had fun talking while they watched the kids on the toys.

Birthday Boy! Gotta love the belly and the twisted shorts. He sure is cute!

Grandma and Grandpa guarding the gifts.

Crue waiting to blow out his candles and eat his cake (it was a sad attempt at making him his own small cake by using two Bugs Bunny cake pans to make small cakes and accidentally making the frosting too thin).

Brian (Max & Jenny's) sure loved the cupcake!

Dylan (Jeremy & Molly's) enjoying his cupcake too.

My mom found a Black and Decker workbench at DI for $2 so we got him a set of tools to go with it.

Crue sure loves cars (and he got lots for his birthday!). James (Christian & Tamara's) helped Crue unwrap presents, along with all the other kids.

More cars.

Grandma and Grandpa Little gave him a four-wheeler (since his other one is pretty small - click here to see him try and ride it). His favorite part is the buttons.

Crue playing with his new wheelbarrow. Dylan is riding the four-wheeler and Bret playing with Crue. It was a fun time. Thank you to everyone that came.

Skyfest

We got up early to go to Skyfest again this year. We got my parents to go too, along with Desiree and Loni. We thought the balloons weren't going to be able to take off because of wind but luckily they did. On Friday I looked out my kitchen window and saw a balloon so I took Crue, Lara, amd Halee on the back deck and there were a bunch more. They were flying pretty low and were so close to our house that you could see the people in the baskets. Here are some pictures from Saturday.

Dad and Jared watching the balloons inflate. (Jared loves to have his picture taken.)

A bunch of balloons. There's two guys in the bottom right of the picture. It took both of them using everything they had it seemed, to hold the rope attached to the top of the balloon on the left. Probably to keep it from bumping the others too much.

Goodbye party. Crue still says bye-bye every time he sees pictures of hot air balloons.

There was a flying school that had a booth with this plane set up that the kids were allowed to climb in. We let Crue in long enough to get a picture and play with the controls for a minute because there was a bunch of other kids waiting.

Loni helped get Crue in and out of the plane while I got the pictures. I love Crue's expression in this one! I have no idea what he was doing or looking at.

There's an RC airplane club that flies their planes after the balloons take off. We watched it a little this year. It was pretty cool. The red and yellow plane in the picture above is huge - the wings are about 8 ft across!

More of the planes.

Jared and Crue watching them fly the planes.

Crue took Desiree's camera and was "taking pictures" of everyone. It was hilarious! His face in this picture is about what it looked like every time he took one (or thought he did).

I'm shocked too - Grandma holding Cooper. Okay, not really. I'm not always the best at taking pictures of Cooper (I was the same way with Crue when he was a baby) so I made sure I got one of him having fun too!

Cute Boys

Just some funny pictures from the last week. Having a toddler is really fun!

We had used the stroller the other day and it was just sitting on the floor by our kitchen, folded up. Crue likes to pull the tray down and sit on the stroller.

The other morning I poured the last of some cheap frosted mini wheats into a bowl and then had to go get Cooper. Cooper had slept all night (his first time!!) and leaked out of his diaper so I had to change his diaper and get him dressed. When I came back in the family room Crue was sitting on the floor with my bowl of cereal like it was no big deal, he was just eating some breakfast. All I could do was laugh. What a cute boy!

Cooper's shirt says Jr. Mechanic on it and says Broken Engine with an arrow pointing at the engine in the car. Then his shorts have some tools and it says My Tools with an arrow pointing to the tools. I took a picture of Crue and Jared when Crue fit in it to have a picture of my two mechanics, so I had to get one with Cooper and his daddy too!

Labor Day camping

For Labor Day weekend we went camping. Jared's aunt and uncle have some property in Beaver that they share with his uncle's siblings and mom. They have been improving it the last 3 summers and it's a really fun place. They have grass that the kids played on and that we put our tent on. There were four wheelers and a motorcycle. The creek runs through the property. And on Saturday Jared's grandma took everyone to Maria's for an early dinner. It was really good food and the pineapple and lemonade drinks are the best! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

They like to "race" rubber ducks down the creek. Jared and Crue are watching to see if Crue's duck wins.
The ducks floating down the creek.

Kendra and Crue cooling off in the creek.

I tried to give the boys a nap but the tent was so dang hot, it wasn't happening. I had tried putting them down in just their diapers so when I gave up on the nap idea I just left them in just a diaper.

Nothing better than sleeping on grandma's lap when you're camping. This was Cooper's first camping trip.

Watching and cheering during the corn bag throw with Great Grandma Spendlove.

Having fun on Dylan's truck. Dylan also had his Tonka dump truck and we had brought Crue's dump truck and tractor. Good thing because all the kids loved them!

Jared took his cousin's Yamaha 450 out for a ride. It's similar to the Kawasaki he worked on for trade work. The 450's have good power and after riding a couple of them he's starting to be more confidant on dirt bikes. We may end up getting one in the future. :)

After Jared's grandma took us to dinner on Saturday we went to try and feed some deer. Crue fell asleep on the way. This picture makes me laugh because he loves to wear his sunglasses. They are now in the car with our sunglasses and I give them to him every time we go somewhere. He'll push them up on his head like we do sometimes too (which is how they were until he fell asleep and then they fell down his face a little). It's hilarious. Thank you Loni for the glasses!

If you had seen what happened in this picture you would die laughing every time you saw it (I sure do!). Crue has been scared of animals lately. He's ok around my parent's dog (it's not a big dog) but other dogs and animals scare him. We had gone into town to get a new glass for our lantern after dinner so we just went straight to where we'd see deer. Everyone else went back to go from lots of vehicles to only a few. While we were waiting for them we saw some deer. Jared took Crue to see them and he started freaking out. He tried climbing, yes climbing, up Jared so he'd hold him because Jared wasn't picking him up. Jared had to literally pry Crue off of him as they were walking back to the truck. When I took this picture Jared had thrown his head back because he was laughing so hard and Crue is screaming and crying.

Jared's Grandma Spendlove feeding the deer. We had gone too early so most of the deer didn't come to eat. A few of the kids and grandma got to feed the deer. Some of us went again later when it was their usual eating time.

This time the deer were wanting to eat. Crue actually let me get close to the deer while I was holding him. He did really good. You have to be quiet and you have to approach them from the front so they don't think they're getting attacked. And you can't touch their antlers or any other part of them or you might get attacked.

Jared took a few pictures of me and Crue and then he fed the deer too. These are wild deer - not on a deer farm or anything like I used to go to in Arizona.

The one above and below are of Crue feeding the deer. I put his hand on top of mine and used my thumb to hold his fingers out so he wouldn't pull away and scare the deer. He actually fed a couple of deer and loved it. If you ask him about feeding the deer now he'll hold his hand out and show you. It's pretty cute.

It was a really fun weekend. It sounds like they're going to do it again next year. I'm excited. It was really fun hanging out with everyone and talking to Jared's relatives since they all live in St. George and we don't get to see them much.

Random

I started watching kids again last week. I always have them take their naps at 1 pm, right after lunch. That's when I get my break. The other day I noticed Crue had fallen asleep on the chair and a half before lunch. Then I looked at Halee, one of the girls I watch, and noticed she was pretty tired. Sure enough, a minute or two later she was out too - both leaning the opposite direction. It was hilarious.

When we go to my parent's house Crue usually does one of two things - he heads straight for the toy room or he'll get on the trampoline out back. He loves to "crash" (fall over) and jump. It's so cute.

Gotta love static hair!

Two Months

I can't believe it's been two months already - and how big he's getting.

Look at those big cheeks! They're so dang cute, especially when he smiles really big. I just love my little boy!

Check out those big legs! He's actually not extremely chubby (as in roll after roll after roll). He's about as long as he is tall, percentage wise.

I took Cooper to the doctor on August 14 because he's had a terrible cough that sounded congested plus a runny nose sometimes and sneezing. Loni, my sister that had been living with us, found out she had bronchitis so I figured I'd better take him to the doctor to make sure he didn't have anything major. They quickly weighed him and he was at 15 lbs 7 oz (with a onesie and diaper still on). Luckily he was ok and the next day he started sounding lots better. He had been gagging before from coughing so hard. They used a machine to vacuum out the mucus in his nose. He had a TON. He hated it, poor kid. He cried more for that than his shots. I took him on August 21 for his regular two month check up. Here's his stats:

Weight: 15 lbs 12 oz 98%
Height: 25 1/4 inches 97%
Head: 16 3/4 inches 94%

Cooper started smiling and talking a lot this month (especially to mom - I love it!!). He's been such a fun baby. He does like to scream sometimes but that comes with the territory. His smiling sure makes up for it. We love you Cooper!!!

Jared's new ride

Jared got this Blazer for $300 a while ago. The kid that owned it before had gotten it impounded for DUI but then came and got it out of the impound yard at Jared's work. Not too long after that it got impounded again for the same thing but this time he didn't come get it out. It went to auction and no one bought it so Jared was able to get it. He's done a lot of work to it - swapped out engines, new axles, put the driveshaft back on so it would have four wheel drive (the kid before had put a different exhaust on and had to take the driveshaft off which was dumb because it made it only have two wheel drive) and a bunch of other stuff. There's still a lot to go but at least he can take it out and have fun with it now. Max and Jenny invited us to Three Peaks with their family and with Max's brother, Lowell and his family. Jared took a couple of pictures before taking the Blazer out and then took a couple more when he was on some rocks. The best part about the Blazer? It's not in the best condition so he doesn't care too much if he dings it or scratches it.

Crue in front of the Blazer (the tire is about as tall as he is!).

When Jared was taking pictures he was careful to not get the GMC on the front (he wants a bowtie there) so I took this one from the truck to get a better picture of it.

Climbing some rocks.

Now that's more like it - it's a lot steeper in person. Looks like we'll need a roll bar. :)

We got there before everyone else. I wasn't feeling too good (neither was cooper so either he shared what he had or I think it was just a lack of sleep from being up with a sick baby plus Crue getting out of bed a few times a night) so I stayed in the truck with Cooper and Jared and Crue hung around outside until everyone else got there. Then Crue went and played with Bret and Jared took the Blazer out a few times and rode the pit bike a couple of times. The first thing Crue did was squat down and rub his hands in the dirt. I told Jared he was in little boy heaven. We were talking for a minute when I looked over and Crue had raccoon eyes made from dirt. It was pretty funny.