Our little Family trip 2010

Every winter since we have had Carsen we have gone down to Salt Lake City and stayed over at a hotel for the night so we can enjoy our time down there and not worry about rushing back after we take Carsen to see the lights. We have decided that this is going to be a family tradition for us tha we will go and spend a night in SLC as a family and just have fun spending time together and going to see fun things and the lights.
When we went last year Carsen was only 5 months old and didn't really understand much about the lights other than just staring at them, but this year I think he really enjoyed them and kept saying oooohhhhh. It was really bitter cold so we bundled all up and got to use Carsen's wonderful so warm bundle me thingy for the stroller!! It is amazing how warm he stayed :) I was a little worried. (I'm sure you can tell by how this poor little guy was so bundled up. He actually fell asleep after a little while he was just so warm and cozy :) what a sweetie!!
Before we went to see the lights we went out to dinner at the olive garden, it was pretty funny to see everyone's reactions as to why we had our little guy with us. It is definitely more work to take him with us, but I just really wanted to have this family tradition and enjoy the time together and just being a family.
We had such a great time and were able to have Doug and Luke come with us to see the lights, they were beautiful as always, and we went to the different visitors centers. We also were able to see the huge new model of the Salt Lake Temple. It was awesome, I have been wanting to see it for so long. I have grown up going to these places and have loved them, but somehow there is a new love for these places as I show my child what is important to me and why I love these places so much and to let him start to grow a love for them as well. It is so sweet and pure to watch a child look at the temple and to feel the spirit and to see a glimpse through their eyes!

The next day we walked around some more and then rode trax and went to the Gateway to do a build a bear for Carsen for Christmas. It was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of pictures but we forgot our camera at home and had to go buy disposable ones, the quality of the pictures is awful!! so sad. Oh well at least I have some pictures of our little vacation :)

The Gateway had their water squirter feature thingy (ha ha...I don't know what to call it!) going to the beats of Christmas music. Carsen LOVED it!! He just kept giggling and saying "ball, ball, ball!" I'm pretty sure that he could have watched it all day long.
We had such a nice time and can't wait for our next family vacation!

All bundled up
cute cousins
pretty Temple with lights
In front of the reflecting pond

Jumping on the hotel bid. He was in heaven!

He thought the dog was real :)
Loving the water show!!

Just picked his bear...
giving it to the sweet girl to stuff it...
Pushing the pedal to stuff his cute bear...
Picking a heart for the bear...
giving the heart a kiss before putting it in the bear... (so sweet!!)
Giving the bear a heart :)....
fluffing the bear...He didn't like this part much, the air was scary ;)

He picked a santa hat for the bear and then we went to name him. It is such a cute little process! When we sat down to name the bear I asked him what he wanted to name his bear and he said "GRRR!" Cutest thing EVER!!! So we named him Grrr and printed out the bear birth certificate and he has slept with him every night since. He gets into his bed every night and says GRRR and Grrr's hat! And he now loves him so much that he will share his binky's with grrr! Love it!! :)

Thanksgiving weekend

Slowly but surly I am finally getting caught up! I totally forgot to take my camera to our family's thanksgivings. I was pretty bummed but I thought I would write down a little about how our weekend went so we could remember it. We got to have our first Thanksgiving on the actual day with my family at my mom and dad's house. It was so nice and relaxed and my parents even gave us the sweet gift of watching Carsen for us while we went to a movie. :) We hadn't gone to a movie without him since I was 8 months pregnant with him. It was so fun to go out on a date with my sweet hubby! Thanks mom and dad! we love you!!

The next day we decided to put our Christmas decorations up. We had a blast doing it and since we didn't put up quite as much this year since it is way more crowded with toys and things around :) We put it up during Carsen's nap and he was so excited when he woke up to Christmas decorations. He LOVED the tree and the lights and every time he saw them he would saw "OOOOOOHHHH!" So cute!! He loved the little snowman that we have that sits next to the tree and every morning he would go and sit next to him and ask to have the lights to the tree plugged in so he could oooohhh and ahhhhh at them. I just love watching him get so excited about all the new little things that he sees and learns!
It got so cold that weekend that we had about and inch of ice on the inside of our windows and we thought it was picture worthy. Crazy cold Logan!! Something that I never thought that I would hear myself say but even though it is almost always colder up here. I actually really like Logan!! Crazy huh! ;)




Then on the Saturday right after Thanksgiving we went down to Sandy to Keith's grandparents to have their family's dinner. It was really fun there as well. We really enjoyed spreading the weekend out and getting to spend so much time with family. And so much good food!!! Thanks so much! We love you all.

Keith's Birthday at the Fun Park!!

I have been looking back at birthday pictures of Keith's birthdays and I realized that I have made him the exact same cake for the last 5 years! Ha ha, I guess he likes it :) We celebrated his birthday this last year by having dinner and cake with our friends and then going over to the Cache Valley Fun park. I was really surprised at how fun that place is and totally free for kids 18 months and under and adults to get in...perfect! We played on the big indoor playground and then we played a few of the arcade games. We will need to go back sometime soon to play laser tag, to bowl and go roller skating. Carsen loved going down the slide with his daddy and climbing through the tubes. I think his very favorite part of the night was the arcade game that you push a big blinking button and a bunch of bouncy balls fall and they bounce around until they go into the little slots that tell you how many tickets you get. It was so much fun to watch him laugh so hard! He was also loving the duck punch game, skeeball game and the Basketball game (which he is obsessed with right now!) He didn't really care about the tickets that he won until he realized that he got suckers from turning them in!! He is such a sugar junky like his daddy :) whatever makes them happy, right?!? ;)
The cake
singing happy birthday daddy
enjoying his piece of the cake

cute kiddos
love that smile

Monkey crawling


going down the slide with daddy
skee ball :)
What could be better than blinking lights, a big button to push and balls!!

Carsen was in heaven with this game and had so much fun!

so cute :)

We have since gone back to the park about 5 times and he loves it every time and especially when Maci is with him :) He LOVES Maci. He thinks that every little girl that we see is Maci and asks for her all the time. She is so sweet to him. He loves his cousins, it is so cute to watch him with them :)

3 cute costumes = 1 fun Halloween

It was too hard to choose just one costume for Carsen this year and since we were given 2 out of the 3 and they were all so dang cute... we wanted to use all 3! So we used them all just at different times of the day and for different parties :) Poor Carsen, I'm sure that he was sick of being dressed up but we had so much fun doing it!! We love you buddy!! Thanks for being such a good sport :)

Loving his sucker!!!
Trick or treating down main street. I just love these boys!!!
Trick or treating in the mall

Grandma B gave Carsen this darling costume! I Love the horns what a cute little dragon!
I just can't get enough of the horns and tail :)
Thanks grandma!
Our little yoda :) SOOO Cute!! Thanks for the costume Miss and Korbin :)

Playing in the leaves

Just before Halloween, our friends invited us up to their place for an early Halloween party and dinner. We always have a great time visiting and playing and Carsen loves his friend Elsa! They loved playing in the leaves and Elsa has this really great swing out under their tree that Carsen LOVED!! He would belly laugh the entire time! After dinner their ward was putting on a little Halloween party, it ended earlier than we thought and we missed it (darn!) but we still dressed up the kiddos and went on a walk. It was really fun! Thanks for having us over Tim and Brandi!













Oh and while we were out playing.... The guys were inside making this wonderful toy cubby!! We love it! Thanks for making it Keith! You did a great job!