Hogle Zoo

Since Matt only had the weekends to play with us while we were in Utah, we made the most of them, and played hard. The last weekend we were there, we went to the Hogle Zoo. Matt had never been, and it'd been about 3 years since the kids and I had been.

The zoo's theme of Zoorassic Park was fun. Mechanical dinosaurs were placed throughout the park, and were very realistic looking. Complete with growling, sniffing, movement, and spitting from some. Morgan wasn't in love with this particular guy. She said he kept staring at her.

The Brontosaurus however, was a different story. Morgan tried for several minutes to feed this guy.

Morgan laughing at Gabe, who has just stuck his head in the water fall behind them. He was all about cooling off this day.

This elephant was like a water blowing jack in the box. The song would play, and sometimes water would come squirting out at the end of the song, or with a sneeze, or just randomly on its own. Morgan decided to challenge it.... nothing.,

Gabe was not so lucky.

Morgan having a staring contest with one of the dinosaurs. While we were watching the elephants, I noticed this guy carving a sculpture of them. It was kind of cool, and very impressive.

"Boy would I love to make some crowns for this guy!"

Gabe and I were walking along this large new bridge the zoo built to connect the new section to the old one. As we were walking, I noticed these warning signs posted about every ten feet on this metal bridge. Just as I'm noticing them, I hear Gabe yell out "Ouch!!! That's hot!" I could help but snicker, and pointed out the signs to Gabe, who also laughed, and we took this shot.

Chandler running away from the giant T-Rex.

Don't let the look fool you, he kept standing in front of this water spitting dinosaur on purpose.

It was a great day at the zoo as a family. We only had Matt on the Weekends, so we had to jam them full of fun activities.

Timpanogos Caves

I don't know why, but these pictures from our cave hike were all down loaded out of sequence, but you get the idea. We had so much time to climb the mountain before our tour time, that there was lots of picture taking, posing, and downtime. The kids did great, and so did Matt, who, if you know him, you know he seriously dislikes being out in anything over 60 degrees. This particular day was about 85-90.

This was at the beginning, during one of her, "I feel good" moments. Just wait, we'll start up another switchback in a minute, and that grin will fade.

The Boys...1/2 way up the mountain. Still breathing, and complaining about the heat was kept to a minimum.

They were tired, but did a great job of conquoring the mountain!

Gabe was a trouper, carrying Morgan's backpack most of the day... even while we were inside the caves, and he had to turn it around to the front so he could clear the jaged rocks.

At the end of the cave tour. I think they all had fun. I know I enjoyed it. Its fun seeing it through your children's eyes.

Princess Festival

When we got to Utah, a friend of mine invited Morgan and I to attend the Princess Festival with her and her little girl. We jumped at the chance and I registered Morgan for Friday, which worked perfectly because Matt wanted to take the boys to Cabbella's and The Dinosaur Museum. Daddy took us shopping and we found this cute little Rapunzel dress/pj's and some slippers and a little flower wreath for her hair.

Everywhere we looked there were prince's and princess's dressed up, and things for the girls to do.

Since it was set in the Garden at Thanksgiving Point, Morgan managed to get in some play time at the Noah's Ark water area.

It was a hot, sunny day, so we played around quite a bit.

Every princess was so willing to sign the girls books, and pose for pictures. It was like being at Disneyland. Here she is with Prince Charming, Cinderella, Fairy Godmother, Wicked Stepmother, and the bottom center picture is Morgan at the ball, watching the Prince dance with Cinderella.

Then we met the Princess and the Pea, the 12 Dancing Princesses, and Bell and the Beast. We also learned about the different charities we were helping out with our registration fee, and participated in several service stations like making little butterfly hair bows for unfortunate little girls, tying quilts for babies, and writing letters to the soldiers abroad.

Of course Morgan's favorite was Rapunzel. But we also met Ariel, the Frog Princess, Snow White, and her Prince Charming. Also there was Miss Provo, in the bottom left corner. The girls were very excited to meat the beauty queens there.

Here's our group of moms and Princesses. Holly and her little girl Aria on the left. And Stephanie and Alivia on the right. Thanks ladies! It was a wonderful day!

Morgan and I leaving the Festival. It was the perfect Mother Daughter day.

Dancers Workshop Recital!

I can' t believe its been over a month since my last post. Morgan had her big Ballet Recital earlier this month, at the same time the boys were all gone on an office fishing trip. So it ended up being a girl's weekend. It started with Pictures on Tuesday.

Then Dress Rehearsal in Anchorage Thursday. It was a long day for the littler girls, starting at 3pm, and not getting done till almost 8pm. Morgan was exhausted.

As chaperones, we were in charge of our girls dressing room. Keeping them organized, looking cute, and entertaining them for 5 hours each night.

They were pretty good about entertaining themselves most of the time.

Opening night flowers from grandma and mom!

I chaperoned Saturday night all by myself, and these girls were in rare form!

After their amazing performance! They did so good.

Final Bow!

The next weekend was the dance companies end of the year BBQ. We played badminton, had hot dogs, hot air balloons, and Morgan got her face painted.

Why do I have a dog again?

I have tons of pictures I should be posting from the kids end of the year school activities. But, I don't have time to go through and edit photos right now. So instead, I get to tell you about our dog. This is at times a source of contention in our family. You see, when Matt and I bought or first home, my SIL found a black lab in a Walmart parking lot, free, and brought it home to us. I thought, great! Free dog, black lab, great with kids, still a puppy, totally trainable, win win win! Wrong, wrong, wrong! During that first year, as we had Chandler, and then Gabe 17 months later, I soon discovered something about myself. I am not a dog person. This was a surprise to me, since I grew up with dogs, we always had animals around our house. I can't remember a time growing up when we didn't have some kind of animal in our house.

However, there is a difference between being a kid with a dog, and being a mom with a dog. The hair, the green fog that inevitably comes with them cozying up to you while you sit to watch tv at night, and in my case, with our lovely dog, it also includes burping and farting like a teenage boy.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Cupcakes. Ya see, about a year ago, I was on a cupcake baking trip, and was always baking in the kitchen. One day, I finished baking 2 dozen cupcakes, had just taken them out of the oven, and set them out on the counter to cool. I went about my business, getting ready for a childs birthday party. I came up from doing the laundry, and went to the kitchen to frost my cupcakes. They were ALL gone. I scratched my head, wondering if I'd put them someplace, and forgot them. No. Then my thoughts went to my children. Who was most likely to eat the cupcakes? I went in search of Chandler, who has a major sweet tooth. After he insisted it wasn't him, and I had quized the other kids, searched the garbages for wrappers, I was no closer to finding them. Then I looked down at the dog, who was laying on his favorite rug in the kitchen. Light-bulb! The crazy thing was, there were no wrappers, no crumbs, no evidence. It was like Never ending Story. If there had been crumbs, that would be something, but this, this was nothing! (in my best rock man voice) Since then, I have tried to be careful, but when I'm in a hurry, and forget to cover them, or leave them too close to the edge of the counter, (our dog is VERY tall, and stands at eye level with the counters in my kitchen) I am left with nothing.

Yesterday, was such a day. I was baking cupcakes for Morgan's unbirthday at school. (the plyte of a summer birthday child) I placed 1 dozen cupcakes on one counter, and 1/2 doz on the other. I noticed Bear eyeing them, so I pointed to the 1/2 dozen, and in my very authoritative voice, said "no! leave it! " (leave it is his command for paws off, cease and desist, do not enter!) Apparently I neglected to give him the same warning for the 1 doz cupcakes on the other counter, because 15 minutes later, after I returned from picking up one of the kids, they were all gone. The nothingness had made it way into my kitchen again.

THIS................................................

PLUS THIS............................

EQUALS one unhappy mama!

So why do I have a dog? Well, besides the fact that my family keeps bringing new ones in just as I manage to rid us of the old one.....

these guys absolutely love him!

Impromptu Photo Shoot...

I needed a shot of Morgan today, to enter the Mila Bonita Photo contest to win $50 in free product. (Who wouldn't want that, right?) So we grabbed my camera and took a few pictures. Which one is your fav?



I LOVE this one, except she's missing half her teeth. She LOVES this one, because she's missing half her teeth. Not very glamorous, but VERY Morgan.

Sweet, demure, Morgan.

This was the shot that made the entry. I originally bought this head band for me, but Morgan has commandeered it for herself. Check out those eyelashes and rosy complexion!

She looks SO grown up in this picture!