Funny Kid

OK, so sorry we're not writing more right now, but I thought we'd post this funny video of our youngest at Burger King last night. He's crazy (and takes after his dad). Gotta love this little guy!

Up, up and Away!

In hopes of helping to create some fun memories for the little ones, we decided to be a little overzealous for last weekend's Freedom Festival Children's Parade (it runs down Center Street in Provo; any kids and their families are invited to participate). We planned for several weeks (OK, this was all Rachel's doing), and eventually decided on doing a NASA space shuttle. So, we borrowed a red wagon and got to work.We spent two nights until some after bed-time hours trying to figure out how to make it work. Rachel made cool hats, shakers and capes to make things a little more festive. It was a lot of work, but I think our kids loved it!
We even made a little smoke compartment with a dish of bubbling dry ice for a little take-off effect. That worked for like 7 minutes.We were even lucky to get one of what was probably several trophies recognizing those people who were weird enough to spend lots of time decorating an entry.

Our Preschool Graduate

Yay Ty!
I can't believe how fast a school year can go by.
I loved the graduation, but it also reminded how fast he is going to grow up.
I always beg him to stop growing and he thinks I'm a little crazy.
He has even asked his Dad to help Mom not be sad when he grows up.

This is Ty with Michelle. They are great friends!
We carpooled to preschool and when I drove they would play "car crash" in the back.
Every time a car passed us they would say "ahhh" and hit their heads on their car seats.

Ok, the kid can move.
He wasn't too into the actions of the songs, except this one.
I love it.

Happy Easter

Our Easter celebrations started out at Macey's. The kids loved the Easter bunny and running around the store getting candy. It was a lot of fun.

After Macey's we headed down to Cedar City. We visited Grandma Seaman and went swimming and them the kids fell asleep to a movie in the hotel.

The next morning we headed down to Zion National Park. This is the kids eating their lunch in Grotto Park. I must say I am highly disappointed with what they have done with the park. They made trails around it and blocked off all the grass area. How is anyone supposed to have fun there? It's really quite sad that they have made it unusable to park patrons.

Luckily we did find a place for our egg hunt. This was really fun for all the kids. Thanks everyone!

Here we are at Weeping Rock. This is such a short hike and it is so so pretty!

Easter morning at home. The kids loved the candy the Easter bunny brought but the highlight was.......

the Easter Bunny's helper who came to visit us!

The kids LOVED the real bunny. Ty's first questions where, "Is it real? Is this going to be our pet? Are we going to keep him?" Yes. No. No. We haven't taken him back yet and he really stinks.

April Fools - On the Kids

Rachel had some fun with the kids tonight with April Fools. We had some friends over for dinner and Myles (the little guy in the middle) along with our two, were pretty had with this trick (especially our little guy -- he was pretty frustrated). Check it out below.

Shawn Turned Two

Yep it's been two great years!
Shawn had a great birthday. First we had a party at Grandma and Grandpa Knutti's house. While everyone was singing Happy Birthday Shawn was pointing at me and saying "don't". So funny. By the second party with the Shumway clan he was much more comfortable with everyone singing to him. Although he kept trying to touch the flames.

So happy to have cousins and friends over!

For Shawn's birthday I did basketball and baseball stuff because he loves to throw balls. Anyway, Shawn has been so much fun to have despite his consist demands for food and drink that need to be fulfilled immediately! He sure does keep me busy. He keeps us smiling and laughing. The other night Ethan went to check the kids before we went to bed and found Shawn asleep on the floor with his fingers underneath the door. Just an example of the many silly things he does. We love him!

December

Christmas morning!
We had a great Christmas and the kids loved what Santa brought them.

Nativity at the Shumway's. Ty was a shepherd and Shawn a wiseman.

Sledding- I must admitt I was a little scared to go down.Ty loved sledding this year, which is a huge improvement. He even went down a big hill all by himself. Christmas break was awesome! It's the best to just be together.

I love October

We got to do so many fun things in October. This is definitely my favorite time of year! This is the boys at the Scarecrow Festival in the kids haunted house. We had a lot of fun and will do this again next year.

This is Ty after our Halloween Cruise down the Provo River. Shawn was pretty much unwilling to get in any pictures while we were here!

Happy 4th Birthday Ty! This is Esmirelda (Ty's aunt Gina) at his birthday party. She comes to his birthday party and makes a potion. The kids love it and she is so great! The best was when she came in and Ty said "Hey you're not Gina your a witch." Thanks Gina, we loved it!!!

I can't believe he is 4! I love him like crazy!!


We have a huge tree in the back yard so we made a huge pile of leaves and jumped in.

Shawn doesn't really pose for pictures so here he is kicking his legs in the leaves.

These were our pumpkins this year.
And finally, Halloween. What a great day.
As you can see the boys chose to be chickens together, I was a witch, and Ethan was facebook.
Halloween night we went over to the Trunk or Treat party at the church and then set out for the real deal, Trick or Treating. The kids had the best time. The were running from house to house and trying to eat their candy in between running and trick or treating.
What a great month! We'll see you next year, October.

Summer's Outa Here!

It's pretty sad to say it, but summertime is pretty much outa here. It's not like we had a ton of time to enjoy everything this summer, but, nevertheless, it was a good one. We had the chance to do a few really great things as a family.

I (this is Ethan here) thought I would take the time to post some of my fav's from this summer. Interestingly enough, all my favorite times were with the family, doing little things and trying to make memories. Without a doubt, it's been the busiest summer of my life, but it will be one to remember. So...in no particular order, here they are:

1) Camping trip up AF canyon. I don't know how we do it, but we get rained when we go camping. Last year: rain. This year: rain. No good. But, it was really fun hanging out with the family in the tent. It's amazing how fun a bunch of pillows/sleeping bags and an air mattress can be for two little guys.



2) California. This was such a fun trip for our family. One of my favorites was probably the Dodger's game. Even though we didn't last too long, there's just something special about an MLB game! The kids won't likely remember it, but I will. You can't beat spending $40 on two nachos, two hot dogs and two drinks!

I was only half surpirsed at how eager our littlest one was to get it the water at the beach. Despite the water being FREEZING cold, he just didn't care, as evidenced by this video. These are the kinda kids you need to watch! Our oldest?? Not so much. He spent most of the time begging US to stay out of the water. Gotta love these two kids!



3) Rachel's Half Marathon. I was so stinking proud of my sweetheart for doing this race in August. It was pretty fun to get the kids bundled up to cheer her on -- even though I failed to get her on camera as much as I wanted to. She's pretty inspiring to me! This video shows us missing her on camera (kinda) then Ty being disapointed that she didn't stop and come home with us!



4) Fourth of July. I really love this holiday. It's been fun to start a tradition of getting up to see the hot air balloons. Our oldest isn't so scared of them now. I think watching the helicopter at the hospital come and go, and seeing some balloons take off here and there has helped out!



4B.) Learning that my oldest son looks totally awesome/weird in some of his photos. Check these babies out! He doesn't even look like he's from around here in these. Holy Cannoli. I got to talk to him about these.















5) I just gotta post about this project Rachel's been working on! Early this summer, Rachel was offered an older, out-of-date and out-of-style piece of furniture that has been in her family for probably like 60 years??? It had the laminate finish on it at the time. I was hesitant at first, just because we weren't sure how to best use it. But her awesome dad and she had a great idea to TOTALLY refinish and refurbish it. The result: it's beautiful. I just can't believe how well it turned out. The photo on the left below shows the left half of the "before" piece. It's tough to tell, but it was a pretty big change.

The steps of the project included:

A. Stripping all the laminate finish with a heat gun and blades. Then, they sanded down the entire piece.
B. Since they didn't want to or couldn't reuse some of the wood that was uncovered, Rachel's dad pretty much reconstructed the top part of the furniture by himself. He purchased all the wood (pine, bead board, trimmings, table-top, etc.) and created pretty much everything that appears new on the thing.
C. Rachel spent a few trips to and from The Wood Connection in Murray. They were very cool about teaching her how to refinish the furniture and get the look she really wanted.
D. After it had been sanded down and prepped, Rachel spent like 5 days, each a week apart, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, antiquing, sanding, finishing, sanding and finishing it.

It looks pretty impressive. I'm very proud of her. Now, we're hoping the kids get used to not being able to climb all over it BEFORE we put the hardware on it. That'll be the final touch.



Anyhow, life is totally crazy busy now, but I'm so glad to have the most important things in relatively good order (my fam may disagree!). But I'm sure a lucky one.

CA Trip

So we decided to take a trip to CA to spend some time together before Ethan starts his MBA Program. It was so much fun! We just kinda took it easy and enjoyed each other. The kids did great on the drive (besides fighting with Ty to eat a hamburger) and slept all night in the hotel.

We stopped at the M&M Factory in Vegas on the way.

Having some nachos and hot dogs at the Dodger's game. We made it through the 6th!

Dad and his boys at their first major league baseball game.

We spent a lot of time at the beach.

Shawn loved the water.

Ty loved the sand.

We also drove by the Newport Temple. Wow! It is beautiful!
We had a great trip. It was fun to just be together.