July...

People keep asking me "So, how many days?" .........well I stopped counting and haven't been really thinking about it all that much because it still seems like ages away to me. Well, I decided to take a minute and count. 58 days. Then we'll be in Scotland. It stills seems too long because I want to be there now, but the time is flying by and we'll be there before I know it.

These last few days have been flippin' roasting here. Torture actually. I can barely stand it. Poor Ryan had to drive the whole way to and from Medford in 98 degree heat without air conditioning in his car. He was soaking wet when he got home.

I cut Peter down to one nap a day because he was staying up way too late at night with the two. Now he'll take one 3-4 hour nap in the middle of the day. It's nice, but if I want to do something with friends in the middle of the day it messes him up and he is a nightmare grouch. I can't complain too much though, now he goes to bed at 8pm and sleeps till 7-8am. Oh how I love getting to sleep through the night again.

I was going back and forth on putting Jack into a preschool this coming Fall. We decided to wait until next year. For now I'm going to do a little playgroup with a few girls in my ward who have kids the same age as Jack. We'll take turns teaching the kids in our homes a couple of days a week.

We went to a Rodeo on the 3rd July. I loved it. I probably won't take the wee ones to the evening show again, but we'll definitely take them to the carnival again during the day. Jack got to ride on a pony and go on a mini-roller coaster. He had a brilliant time, but both kids were wiped out by the evening.

At the end of last year I won us a family photo session. We set up an appointment to take the pictures in the middle of August. Here's the link to the photography blog of the mother/daughter team that will be taking the photos: http://kateandjessphotos.blogspot.com

She wants to know what kind of setting I want.....I need help, I have no idea. ( If you scroll through her blog she has pics in both kinds of settings) We can either do trees, grass, etc, or old walls, train tracks, stairs, etc. What should I do?

He's 30!

Yesterday was Ryan's 30th Birthday! He had a board meeting in Medford(5 hours away) on Tuesday night and then stayed the night at his Aunt and Uncle's house before heading back up on Wednesday. Jack is really into birthdays at the moment. When I told him it was Dad's birthday his initial reaction was "No, it's not dad's birthday, it's my birthday!" ...he got over that pretty quickly though and was really excited to help me make Ryan a birthday cake and get the presents wrapped. Then, of course, he decided he didn't want Ryan to get the presents and that they were actually his instead...ha.

Peter gets really excited when he hears Ryan coming home each evening from work...and usually ends up here on daddy's shoulders.

Ryan with the wee ones after singing "Happy Birthday"

My friend, Ashley, offered to watch the kids while Ryan and I went out to dinner. It was so nice to get out by ourselves. We went to the Cheesecake factory and even though I had make this pathetic birthday cake (pictured below) we couldn't resist getting a slice of banana cream cheesecake. It was incredible. We stopped off at Barnes and Noble so Ryan could use a gift card he got from his parents and then we headed back.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY again Ryan...the wee ones and I think you're the bees knees. Love you.

June continued...

The rest of this month has been pretty low key...nothing too interesting going on. Ryan's mum came and spent every weekend with us until she left for Florida yesterday morning. It was nice having some extra help with the wee ones. I think she was really ready to get going though, she and Chris have been apart for 2 months now. Jack misses her already and frequently asks where she is, but she'll be back in about 3 weeks. Ryan's sister, Rachel, is graduating from BYU-I at the end of July and Liz is coming back through here after the graduation to pick up her truck and drive it back out to Florida.

So, here's a few wee pictures of stuff we've been doing these last few weeks:

Peter and Jack loved all the extra attention they got when Liz was here...

We took them to a place called 'Safari Sams'; it has the biggest jungle gym in Oregon, a mini-golf course and arcade games/air hockey.

Jack got in a quick game of air hockey right before we left...we'd been there for 3 hours...he was pretty good at it actually.

Peter has spent quite a bit to time wrestling and sitting on top of this soft toy Jack got from one of his wee friends at his birthday party. I think he likes that it doesn't wrestle back...unlike his big brother.

Ryan and I left Peter at home with Liz last Saturday and took Jack to his first film in the cinema, 'Toy Story 3'. He was so excited. He is currently obsessed with Buzz Lightyear. He thought he was pretty cool getting to go out with us by himself and he sat great through the entire film. At the very end he told me he was ready to go home and see Pete...cute.

We watched Avatar later that night (I still hadn't see it) and looked after my friend's wee boy, Lincoln, for a couple of hours. He's just a few weeks older than Peter and they were having a brilliant time going in and out of the little coupe car the entire time. Peter is very possessive of me and got extremely jealous every time I held Lincoln..ha.

On Monday Liz and I took the wee ones to a park up in Wilsonville, where we used to live before we moved into our house. They have some water features that the kids can play in. The last time we came Peter was only a newborn, so it was fun watching both of them run around.

Peter was terrified at the beginning when the water got high and would run away as fast as his wee legs would carry him, but later he got very confident and walked right through all the sprinklers.

Peter and Liz

The weather has finally turned to summer here and we're loving getting to go outside more frequently. We also went with some friends to pick strawberries last week at a local farm....I loved it...and the strawberries were the best I have ever tasted. We're going again this coming Friday...this time I'll take my camera.

The Party

Ryan woke up at 5:45am to go and play golf with some friends this morning...crazy....but he loves it. Normally I would have obviously stayed in bed,but today I knew I had to get an early start before the wee ones arose...I had a cake to make.

So, I tried the cupcakes....it was a fairly tedious process and they did not turn out how I wanted. Definitely not like the picture I posted in my previous post. They were kinda tie-dye rather than stripes. I was disappointed, but decided that I would make a cake version instead(I had seen this one on a different blog I read).

As I was making the individual cakes I got really excited.....the colours were just so gorgeous.

Here we are right after singing 'Happy Birthday' to the boys

Here's the "before we dive in and eat it" picture of the finished cake...that took WAY too long to make...but it was so worth it when we cut inside and all the kids saw it.

Jack and Peter had a brilliant time running around like maniacs with all the other kids. I made my own version of 'pin the tail on the donkey'....mine was 'pin the funnel on Thomas'.

Here is wee Peter, looking all old and not like a baby anymore....I love this boy, he has such a cheeky personality.

Jack loved the cake and had a lot of fun blowing out the candles.

Peter had his first taste of cake, but was way more interested in smashing the cupcake to smithereens.

Our friends the Stocks, Daltons, and Wraughts came...thank you again for the lovely gifts!

Happy Birthday boys!!!! (Even though it's not till Tuesday).

Birthday cupcakes

(Picture taken from "The girl who ate Everything' blog)

Jack and Peter have the same birthday, June 15th. We're going to have a small party for their birthdays on Sat.12th. here at the house with a few friends and then we'll do a family dinner on their actual birthday. I came across these cupcakes on a blog I look at and just loved them. I want to make them for the party. I went out and bought everything I need to make them this afternoon.

Baking intimidates me...not just baking actually I always get supper nervous when I try a new recipe. I'm terrified that it'll turn out just awful and everyone will smile pleasantly, but secretly think I'm the worst cook ever.

I'm going to do a test run of the cupcakes in a wee bit...I can just see it being a disaster if I leave it till the day of to try making them. Wish me luck!

Going private

If you want to keep reading my blog leave your email....I'm going to make it private.

Paint colour

Here are two shots of the paint colour we went with on our upstairs walls.