One Little Monkey "Walking" on the Bed...

...He fell off and bonked his head. Momma called the PA and the PA said "no more monkeys walking on the bed". Okay, so last Friday Taylor said he was "walking on the bed" and fell onto the nightstand. I didn't see it happen, but I'm guessing he was doing more than walking. Dave said that he fell straight onto the edge and I heard the horrible sound. Ouch. He immediately started gushing blood and Dave said that he "knew right away that it was going to need stitches". Lucky for me (and Taylor), Dave has the skills and he had just arrive home from work! But getting a 4 year old to hold still for the lidocaine shots was a struggle to say the least. Finally, he said he would hold still if we didn't hold him down and if he could lie on his "sport" pillow and watch the movie "Cars". We obeyed his wishes and he did pretty well holding still. So Taylor has already had his first stitches, with plenty more to come I'm sure. Here's the before: during: (This part made me a bit queasy. Dave put in 2 stitches.)
and after:
Dave took the stitches out on Wednesday. Much less dramatic than putting them in. No problem!
Oh, and here's a cute picture of McKenna. I had to put it in. :)

'Tis the Season for Family Reunions

On to the next reunion! We spent 2 1/2 days at a reunion for my side of the family, but this time it involved my grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

Day 1 (July 7th)

Dave and my brother, Scott, drove up to Hyrum Reservoir early in the morning. Us women and Doug drove up later. We ate lunch, played in the water, and rode in the ski boats. Taylor even rode behind a boat in one of those "water banana" thingys. I wish I had brought my camera on that ride.

My aunt Melva, sister Laurel, Grandma, and aunt Karen.


After the lake we drove a few miles to Paradise, Utah. We stayed at a "lodge" designed for family reunions. It had 8 rooms (all with their own bathroom) in the basement and the top floor was a large room with a kitchen attached. The aunts and uncles slept in the rooms and the rest of us were in tents out on the grass. As a child I loved camping...any kind. But now, this is my kind of camping. In a tent on grass and only feet away from air conditioning, a shower, electricity, and flushing toilets. Don't get me wrong, I am still willing to "rough it" in the dirt, but this was especially great while taking care of small children.
The view was gorgeous!

Day 2 (July 8th)

We mostly ate and played games. My uncle, Paul and his wife, Karen, prepared a "Survivor" challenge for all of us to play. We threw baseballs at terra cotta dishes, ate nasty baby food, put together puzzles, balanced a ball on poles, and played a fun water game. (I didn't take any pictures, but I am hoping to get some from my brother.) They put a lot of work into it and it was tons of fun! After dinner we watched "Over the Hedge" and stayed up talking until 2 AM.

Day 3 (July 9th)

This is always a sad morning...saying goodbye. It's usually a quick goodbye, if at all. People just seem to pack up and disappear. We always say that it ends too quickly. We just seem to get going and it's over. We pulled the kids out of bed, ate breakfast, packed up, said our goodbyes and drove home. It's all over. Sigh...until next year.

One last picture with the cousins from Oregon.

Derek loves his great-grandma (my dad's mom). When he saw her he said "I didn't know she was going to be here!" He looked at her like she was a celebrity. He thinks she is just the greatest. She always sends a card on his birthday and makes the neatest handmade Christmas gifts. She's a loving grandma to all!

Let's Get Together (Day 2)

To continue our family "get together", the next day we went to Cherry Hill Waterpark. I hadn't been there in years and it brought back so many memories from my childhood. I could just hear the 80's music playing in my head. Oh the memories of running from shade to shade to avoid the hot pavement and carefully stepping to dodge the cherries that had fallen from the trees. That part has not changed.
Traci, Kari, Scott, and Kurt in the lazy river.
Doug, Ethan, and Laurel. (Laurel and I were blessed enough to leave our babies with my mom.)


(No, we don't know the people in this picture, it's only needed for the story below.)

We had a fun day of water play. However, Taylor had a lesson on the importance of lifeguards. We had gone down the waterslide (shown above) several times and we convinced Taylor that he and his 4 year old cousin, Kari, would be able to go down together. Dave went down first and I sent Taylor and Kari down on their mat and followed next. Dave said that Kari came out of the tunnel off her mat, but there was no Taylor. He just figured that Taylor had fallen off the mat as well and was coming slowly behind her. But when I came down without him Dave really wondered "where is Taylor!". (From my perspective) So Derek and I were cruising down the slide when we turned the last turn and whizzed past Taylor, who was screaming, and standing up holding onto the wall of the inside of the slide. We were going too fast to grab him, so when we got to the bottom we yelled to the lifeguard and she walked up the grass hill and pulled him out for us. I can't describe the feeling of sailing past my stranded, panicked, little boy. It all ended well, but the rest of the day Taylor kept saying, "I will not go with little kids anymore". He still loved going with us adults though.

After the waterpark, the men went out for 9 holes of golf. Dave had never gone before, but I think he might be hooked. Great. :)

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fabulous fourth of July! This is one of my favorite holidays. It takes a close second to Christmas. My sister and brother came in from California and Oregon for a family reunion the following week. We tried to hold a family reunion, but Stephanie couldn't make it, so we just called it a "get together". I took a total of 175 pictures over the 6 days, so please bare with me. It may not seem like it, but I really am narrowing down the pictures.

We started the day by attending the Centerville parade. Smaller parades are great since they still throw candy...and lots of it! Every year about 4 or 5 planes fly overhead in a "v formation". It's always so amazing to see and hear them. I should have taken a picture.

Here's a picture of the grandkids that were at the parade (four were missing). I wish I had put McKenna in the picture as well...darn. My parents have a total of 14 grandkids with 2 on the way (Traci and Camille are pregnant).

Scott (my brother), Traci, Kari, and Kurt came in from Oregon.
Laurel (my sister), Madeleine, Ethan, and Doug came in from California.

Here's my dad and below is my mom, Dave, and Camille (my sister) .

Brian (my bro-in-law) and his daughter Elizabeth.

After the parade we returned to my parents' house and the kids played on the slip n' slide.

They played tag and some fun water balloon games that Laurel made.

Laurel also put together this fishing game for the kids. It's a classic!

My dad went out to buy a slip n' slide and came back with this pool. Slightly different, but it was perfect for all the kids...and Dave. :) After all the water play we had a BBQ out on my parents' new deck. I'll have to get pictures of that from my brother. After dinner everyone went to see fireworks at Davis High School. I wasn't feeling well, so McKenna and I stayed home with my parents. They live up on the hill, so we were able to watch 3 different firework shows from their front yard. I hear that the kids had a great time and loved the show. It was a classic 4th of July and I'm excited that I can help make the holiday for my kids now.

Taylor Turned 4!

My little Taylor turned 4 years old. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. He has been such a fun boy and cracks us up daily. He's our little "people pleaser", but don't get me wrong, he can sure throw a fit when he's tired. :) He told me that "this was the best birthday ever", which wasn't hard since he can't remember past his last birthday. :)

In the morning I heard Derek wake up Taylor by saying "Taylor, Taylor, it's your birthday". And then I heard Taylor say "nu, uh". Derek said "yes it is". Derek opened the door and saw the streamers and balloons hanging from the door jam and said "Taylor, yes it is...look!" I then heard Taylor jump out of bed and squeal "it is, it is my birthday!". Derek then told him "I'll bet they'll sing Happy Birthday to you". So I had to sing to Taylor the moment I saw him. Birthdays are so fun to celebrate when you have kids. They are so easily pleased.

He chose a Superman cake, which sort of surprised me since he's not into Superman at all, but I went with it.

If you remember one of my previous posts, then you'll know that he's been riding the neighborhood girls' bikes. He's been complaining lately that he needs a bike to ride and that the only ones his size are too "girly". We thought it was time that we stop mooching off the neighbors and bought him his own bike. He was very excited.
After cake and presents we went to Seven Peaks Waterpark. Our brother-in-law, Devin, works as a manager there and hooked us up with season passes for an awesome price. (Thanks again Devin!) The boys have been dying to go, so they were overly thrilled when we told them we were going.
The water was a little too cold for poor McKenna. At first the boys wouldn't even go down the orange kiddie waterslide (in the above picture), but after bribing them with an extra quesadilla at Cafe Rio, they were running for the slide. And not too much later they were going down these adult slides with us. We were excited that they went down them since it freed us from standing in kiddie land.

After Seven Peaks we went to Cafe Rio for dinner. The kids love the quesadillas (only $.95) and we LOVE the burritos, so it's a win win deal for us.

Here's a little spotlight on Taylor:

Favorite Color: red and yellow
Favorite Movie: Transformers (the animated movie...not to be confused with the PG13 version)
Favorite Toy: Ninja Turtles and Legos
Favorite Treat: Oreos that Daddy brings home from work.
Some interesting things about Taylor: 1) He has always loved to organize things. Even when he was 18 months old he would sit by the bookshelf, unload it and place the books in piles. He wasn't being destructive, but just wanted to organize. Now he loves to line his cars up according to their color and unload the dishwasher just so he can pile all the similar cups together. 2) Whenever he gets a snack out for himself, he arranges 3-4 different snacks all on a plate, instead of just getting out a box of crackers and eating it. 3) He has a habit of running without watching where he is going. His bruises and scars on his forehead are a testament of this. 4) Taylor can really bust a move! He does the best dances with his hips and shoulders. I really need to capture it on video. He's a nut. :)

Taylor is generally our peacemaker. He is very good at sharing and loves to make people happy. He knows how to push Derek's buttons, but he is a sweetheart the majority of the time.

Happy Birthday Tay Dawg! We love you!

The 2nd Annual Family Reunion

Day 1 (Saturday, June 14)
After 12 hours in the van, we arrived in California on Saturday night. We LOVE visiting Grandma and Grandpa and don't get to do it enough. It had been years since we've all been there together. That evening Lindsay (Dave's sister) was going out for a run and Dave decided to join her. Here is the before picture....Twenty minutes later Dave came running into the house to get the van keys in order to go pick up Lindsay. It was too dark for Lindsay to see a dip in the gravel road and she fell on the rocks and cut her knee open. Here's the after picture...
Dave brought his "battle bag" in the hopes that he'd be able to stitch someone up. Well, poor Lindsay was the lucky winner. Dave put 3 stitches in her knee. Brave girl. It looked painful. I wish I had taken a picture of Dave sewing her up.

Day 2 (Sunday, June 15)
We went to church in the morning and returned again later to listen to Lindsay's talk in her ward. She did a very good job. After church we played games and talked with one another. Here's a picture of Uncle Jason teaching Taylor how to play Chess. Taylor really got into it. He'd sit and scratch his chin as if he were really thinking about his next move. I hear that Taylor won.

Okay, so this next game was hilarious to watch. As usual, the grown boys thought up a simple, silly, and fun game to play. We had just finished playing Cranium for which we used some kids play molding foam (not sure how to describe it). They rolled it into a ball and proceeded to play a game in which they tried to keep it off the ground and counted how many hits they could get. It started with just Dave and Matt and spread to a five player game. They played this for a good hour and it was so funny to see how into it they became. Their record was 109 hits.