AZ revisited...

Ok, it's been a while but here are the pics from our AZ trip. When I say "our" I mean Koy, me, Chels and her girls because the boys were out hunting. We actually had a spectacular time without our hubbies and wish they would go hunting every year. . . as long as they send us on a trip first!!!

The first few days we spent at Heather and Sam's house. (Thanks again for letting us crash at your place!) Chels and the girls were in the valley so we got to spend some time doing stuff with the kids. Chels had heard of this fun little place called Schrute... I mean Schnepf Farms. It's a fun little farm where they have a ton of activities to do. We just rode the train, walked through the petting zoo and rode the carousel for like an hour... but that wasn't our fault. The guy that was running it was born a carny and he will die a carny. Really, he was a little freaky. Chels and I kept giving each other these looks like, "Where in the heck did this guy come from?" The kids loved to ride on the carousel though so we kept going. The carny guy was like, "There's no line so you can go around a few times." I felt a little dizzy at times because he wouldn't shut it down. Whew.

We went on a train ride that took you around the whole farm. It would be really fun at night because they had lights all over and it was about halloween so it had some cool decorations in the corn maze. Also, it would have been scary just with all of the crazy people that worked there...

We also did some shopping in the valley and got to visit w/Aunt Heidi and Uncle Jake too. It was a pretty good time and we can't wait to see everyone again next week! (We just wish Chels and Danny lived closer. Koy just loves playing with Camo!)

Then we rode with Chels and the girls back to Eagar to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa before Justin got home. Koy loves his grandparents! One of the first things Grandma did with Koy was jump on the trampoline and he LOVED it!!!! Kim also helped me make a blanket and I love it!!! It was so fun and we might have to make it a tradition when we go to AZ. :)

So here are some pics, in no real order because.... well, just because. Ta, ta!

G'ma and Koy Boy. He was crackin' up!

I love this blanket!!!

This is at Schnepf Farms. As you can see, Camo is the cutest little girl and so is Layne, but I didn't get a good pic of Layne. Sorry Chels, your face in this just cracked me up. It looks like you like goats a lot! :)

It was about 90 when we got down there so we went to Target and found some clearance summer clothes for Koy and it's a good thing! It was hot! Too baaaaad for the sheep in all his wool!

USU vs BYU

Special USU vs BYU shirts: $14

Buying tickets from a scalper: $20

Beating BYU: $0 ... its nothing new. :)

Not being related to Max Hall: PRICELESS

GO AGGIES!!!!

Laugh if you wish... we did!

Koy was reading a story one day in crazy jibberish and it was pretty funny so I thought I would catch it on video... The ending is the best.

Hunting in AZ 2009

We just returned from 10 days of Arizona fun. Danny talked me into putting in for a coues deer tag in the Superstitions. First off, I've never even heard of a coues deer. And the Superstitions? I've driven past them half a million times yet never imagined they were populated with deer. Initially we planned on taking horses, but with the crappy monsoon season and not wanting to turn myself into an outfitter, we decided to backpack. And yes, I've made fun of the granola-crunching booger eaters my whole life and used to say that if the good Lord intended me to walk I would have been born with 4 legs and a long tail. Anyway, I bought a pack, quit drinking soda for 2 months, and totally intended to exercise, but never have been good at voluntary exercising. Cap that off with my refusal to "go light" as backpackers would have it, I loaded my pack with clothes, my bedroll, camp chair, GPS, batteries, binos, and ammo, and it weighed in at 66 pounds. That was before I tacked on the food and 8 liters of water. (8 liters @ 2.2lbs/liter = 17.6) So that's 84 pounds before food, my gun, and Johnny's spotting scope. After walking 100 yards with that thing strapped to my back I was ready to set up camp. 4-5 miles later I was ready to turn the gun on myself. But that was the worst day by far. The rest were fairly easy.
The first day and a half I was hating hunting. I hadn't seen anything. I told myself I was trophy hunting, but it appeared that I drove 800 miles to look at the desert. Then I stumbled upon some pretty awesome sheds. I only got a picture on my phone and can't figure out how to get them to my computer, but I'm having them mounted and will show pics later. 3 points on one, 5 on the other, all in the classical basket shape of a white-tail rack. Nate and Johnny wanted to buy them from me, but it turns out that those 2 horns were all I came out with, I never even put a bullet in my gun. Still, the sheds made it all worth it. If you lay the sheds down next to each other they form a heart, and I told Sherrie that I was going to put our picture in the middle and a plaque on the bottom that said "horny love" but she wouldn't go for it. Guess I'll just have to get them mounted. The 3 experts I know (Nate, Johnny and Danny) all seem to think he'll be around 110 or 120 inches, which is pretty big I guess. Especially on a deer that weighs only 80 pounds and stands around 32 inches tall. So, that's my mighty hunting story. Here are some of the pictures with Danny and photo-genic Nate. I never would have guessed that in a million years, but it's true. I don't think I'm afraid of him anymore...
While us men were off killing beasts of the field to provide food and raiment for our wives and children, they were at home complaining that we were off trying to kill beasts to provide for them. Ungrateful little .... I'm only kidding. Mostly kidding. But nothing is stopping you women folk from organizing the female-version of a hunting getaway. We would be happy for you to have a getaway to allow you to get back to your cave-woman roots. As long as it's not during hunting-season I guess. And as long as you come home clean shaven and smelling good. How is it that men go hunting, much to the chagrin of the women, and come home ugly, smelly, dirty faced, messy, hairy, and tired, yet you are glad to see us? Women...
Actually, Sherrie was able to spend some good time with my sisters and my mother. No wonder she was glad to see me when I got home. But thanks again sisters and mother for letting us crash at your places. It's been almost 2 years since we were in AZ and it was a fun trip. Actually, it was only fun being at your places and hunting. The driving back and forth are the main reason why it's been 2 years since our last visit. But Koy did super good on the 800 mile journey, so it really was better than anticipated. Going home always opens my eyes to how fast life is. It seems like just yesterday Sherrie and I were moving in to our basement apartment and listening to a daily lecture from our 85 year old land lord about how fertile that basement is/was. (He either thought we were infertile or was too deaf to hear our many practice attempts to procreate.) And Sherrie made a quilt with Kimmy which she is super proud of. Thanks to everybody, and I guess that's all.

Birthday Boy! ... plus one week...

Koy Boy turned one last week! The last year has flown and the poor little guy was sick for his big day. Millie and Mom decided that he looked like uncle Fester (I think that's his name) from the Adam's Family. He really did. His poor eyes were so red! He had a pretty rough check up the day after his birthday. (I almost cried too!) He had 4 shots, a toe prick and few other things that weren't so fun.

His 1 year stats are: 19 lbs 10 oz - 10th percentile.

Height: 29 3/4" - 50th percentile.

He is kind of a shrimp but what he lacks in size he makes up with his personality. He's a crack up! These days he just jabbers almost all of the time. He likes to say "boo" and squeel like he's scared. He can say a few words like dut (duck), ma ma (na na if he's mad), da da, eth (yes) and everything makes a barking noise unless you correct him. He tries really hard to moo but it just turns out like mmmm. He likes real food and not baby food so much. Actually, it just turns into a spitting war so I gave that up. We had a fun little birthday party but he got cranky and he didn't really want anything to do with his cupcake so he went to bed early. Oh well! Here are a few pics from the big day. Enjoy!

I don't think he knew why we were singing and he looks kind of like he wants to Justin to save him from the situation. I don't blame him. We're not exactly Mo-Tab material.

He didn't really like the frosting. Wierd.

This made me sad. Here are his footprints almost one year apart. He used to be so little!

Sometimes being a baby

...wears you completely out.

Mr. September

Here is your Mr. September folks. This 11 month old boy will melt your heart with his giggle and his smile. Really, I'm not shocked he won. Just look at this cute little pose...

J/k. He really didn't win any contest but we're just still in amazement that Koy will be 1 next month. Where did this year go?! We were looking at Koy's pics w/Melissa on Saturday night and it made me so sad because he just grew up so fast. I had forgotten how sweet he was and his first giggle and the little coo-ing noises he used to make. It's enough to make someone want another one... but not right now.

On Monday, I won the bad mom of the day award. Really. When Koy woke up at like 6 I decided to just let him cry in his crib while I ran downstairs and made him a bottle. I figure two hands are better than one, so making a bottle without Koy in my arms would be a cinch. Nope. I got the bottle all ready and went to put the lid on and tipped the whole dang thing over. Arg. So then after that, I got another bottle made and Koy went back to sleep. At 7:30 I hurried and got my jogging clothes on so we could go when Koy got up. I picked him up and we rocked for a minute and then he sat up and spit up all over me and the chair and carpet. Arg again. We went on our jog and the rest of the morning went well. Then I went to put Koy down for his afternoon nap and made him a bottle. I carried him upstairs, grabbed his blanket and binki, and put him on our bed to change his diaper. He was drinking his bottle and he was being really noisy but I didn't think anything of it so I finished the diaper change. Then I looked up and Koy's face is covered in formula, he is grinning at me, the bottle is almost empty, his outfit, blanket and our bed is soaked. I didn't get the lid on the bottle tight. ARG!

Later that afternoon I decided to hurry and make some oreo cookies. I was trying to hurry and frost the cookies and get the mess cleaned up before Justin got home and Koy just starts to SCREAM! I look down and he had stuck his hand inside of the broiler box on the bottom of the oven. I picked him up and ran his hand under cold water until he calmed down. It didn't take long and when I looked at his hand I couldn't tell where it was burned. So I sat him in his chair and gave him a cookie to eat. He was having a hay day with the frosting so I went to take a pic and he grabbed the cookie with his burned hand. This almost made me cry...

That must have hurt so bad! Poor guy! So we ran his hand under water again and then I just plopped him in the sink and let him play in water again until Justin got home. It took a while for the blisters to appear and this is what his burns looked like yesterday...
One of the blisters popped last night, so I popped the rest of them this morning and put band-aids on them. Koy's a champ because he didn't even cry or fuss when I popped them. He's actually been doing pretty good but I feel like the crappiest mom in the world right now. It's a good thing he won't remember this and it's a good thing that Tyler's "Mr. Dr. on Call" and he knows what to do. Thanks Ty!

He makes me laugh...

Koy is pulling himself up to everything and getting into things he shouldn't and dancing to every clip of music he can hear. He learned how to flush the toilet the other day and then he couldn't take it anymore... I think he wanted a bath...

I was trying to put pictures on the computer and this is what was watching me...

... so I gave him some crackers... and he made a mess...

...and then he got kind of upset so I went to help him and this is what I found...

What a goober.

Orange ya excited?

I'm still not quite sure what to think about the orange color that we just painted the kitchen. We had our cabinet N'Hanced in June and then they blended into the wall and counter tops. I love the antiqued look but the walls needed to be painted something to make the cabinets stand out. Now we feel like we're living inside of a pumpkin or my dad's 70's trailer. It's a toss up. It's better today than yesterday and some more decorations would really help I think. (Thanks again for the cute shelf Melissa!) It is really warm but it might get another face lift on Saturday. :) (I promised I would give it at least a week...)

The big 1-0!

Yesterday was Koy's 10 month birthday. It's so weird but he's seemed to turn into just a little boy instead of a baby in the last month. He's getting so big and is just busy as can be. He's gone from baby food to more big people food and some of his favorites are:

• Mashed potatoes
• Mac and Cheese
• Basically any kind of noodle but sometimes they feel wierd in his mouth and gets grossed out.
• Cheese
• Turkey
• Chicken
• Cafe Rio
• Brazillian rice and beans
• Bugs... really. I try to keep an eye on him but sometimes by the time I've noticed there is something in his mouth there is like only a leg and a piece of the body left. Gag.
• Anything that starts with a "c" and ends with a "racker." He's also finally learned that he can't put the WHOLE cracker in his mouth at once or he'll choke. Yay!

Also, he's still army crawling and trying to pull himself up to the coffee table. He'll stand there if you help him up and he just thinks it's the greatest. He loves animals and he doesn't get scared watching his dad shoe horses even though it's loud at times. He sure loves his dad though! Whenever Justin gets home he just squeels and reaches for him. It's so cute! He's learned how to open the bottom drawer in the kitchen and loves to pull all of the towels out and suck on the knob on the front of the drawer. His hook-on chair FINALLY came yesterday after being on back order since May. So far he loves it and he loves dropping food on the floor even more. I vowed that I would never let my kid play in a diaper all day. Honestly, it's just a whole lot easier to clean him up after he's dirty than to keep changing his clothes.

Koy LOVES peek-a-boo so much! Also, if you pretend like you are going to chase him, he just turns around and comes toward you squeeling unless you're upstairs. He knows where the stairs are and tries to make a getaway any chance he gets. He's pretty fast too! I just don't get it. How does he know that the stairs are bad? He's never even fallen down them. Oh well! We still love him anyway!

Peek-a-boo with his shirt... goof ball

I think he just looks all grown up in this picture. :(

He loves to look out the window now.

Family Time

Last week, Justin's cousin Sheena got married in Salt Lake so most of his family came up to visit. We had so much fun with everyone and were so happy to see them! We went to the lake on Thursday and it turned out to be a pretty nice day. We rented some wave runners and they were out on the water almost every second. Koy had a great time w/Grandma and Grandpa in the water which he completely loved this time and only a few of us got slightly burned except for Justin. Poor guy. His little buzzed head got fried! Then we went and stayed the night in Layton and went to Sheena's wedding on Friday and then headed up to Evanston to stay with Grandma and Grandpa South. It was a really fun weekend and we were so glad to get to spend so much time with everyone! We wish Jason, Jen and the kids could have been here too. We missed you guys! Here are a few pics and I don't know why they are loading so fuzzy. Wierd...

Getting loves from Grandpa

Playing with Grandma and Grandpa
Chillin' w/Aunt Hil while Andy put on quite a show playing the guitar and singing. Andy is a hoot and we were excited to be able to finally hear the lyrics to his EFY song. It's so funny!


Grandma and Koy

This is a pic of Koy and Avery. Koy was born in October, Bridg was born in November and Avery was born in December. It will be so fun for those three to be so close in age, but right now Koy and Avery don't seem too interested in eachother.

I just had to throw this one in here...
Koy has started to crawl... not. He's actually just army crawling but he's getting SO fast!!! He also can go from laying on the ground to sitting up on his own and for some reason it just looks so funny to see him just sitting in random places. He just seems so old!

Yesterday I was working on my class and I looked down and could see the back of Koys little legs so I went around the front of the coffee table and he was just having a ball going back and forth under it.

Hay Baby

We went to Randolph last week for a few days so Justin could help hay. It was fun to be over there and Justin enjoys haying so it's a win-win situation. On Saturday I took everyone lunch and Koy and I jumped in the swather with Justin for a bit. I was just interested to see how Koy would be and if he would get scared but he did suprisingly well. He only got nervous for a few minutes when we first started off but then he got used to it and he had a good time. He liked to watch the wheels and push buttons he shouldn't. What a kid.

Not sure what to think...

After he decided it was fun...

Also, I helped Christi color her hair. Poor girl actually trusted me to help her! I wasn't nervous at first because Christi wasn't nervous and she was really good about explaining what to do. All I can say is that coloring hair is harder than it looks! You need like 10 hands! She had me weave blonde and a little bit of red into it. The blonde wasn't so bad but I about passed out after I put the 2nd section of red in. I folded the foil and I was kind of goofing off and trying to be funny when I squished the foil too hard and a big red splotch pooped all over her pretty blonde hair. AH! I felt so bad and about hit the floor crying right there. That was scary but we dabbed it up and all was well. It's a good thing you're so mellow Christi! And no, I will not be going to beauty school now but from what I know now, I understand why people drop out. It would be too stressful!

Peed my pants... but just a little.

J/k. But this is how our Friday went. Justin got home from shoeing horses about 11:30 and I asked him what his plans were for the day. He said, "I'm planning on going to Salt Lake and you can come if you want and we'll go SHOPPING and get something to eat." He then said that he called my sis-in-law Denise to babysit and the first thing I thought is that he was serious about this shopping thing which totally shocked me. Then he says, "I'm wearing my boots and hat and I think you should wear your boots." Ha, ha. It was supposed to be 100 degrees yesterday. Who wants to wear boots in that kind of weather and shop in them. He said it would just look really nice if we matched and he gave me a little guilt trip about never wearing the boots he gave me, so on came the fat babies. I asked if we were going to a rodeo or if it was George Strait's concert tonight and he said no and that the GS tickets were way too much and it was towards the end of the month anyway. So off we went to Salt Lake.

We dropped Hil's car off at the airport and then dropped Koy off with Denise and got back in the car and I was like, "Really, just tell me what we are doing." He gave in and said we were going to the concert! Little terd. It was on the 17th, just like I thought. J/k. I really had no idea. In the back of my mind I was kind of like, "Oh great, now we have to go and sit on the grass and wait forever and my butt is going to be killing me and it's going to be really loud and there are going to be lots of drunk people and we won't be able to even see him and we'll get home LATE. Fun." It would be cool to hear him live but I'm lame and I've never been into concerts. I always just thought it was way too much money to pay to watch someone on a jumbo-tron and Justin agrees. He said the only concerts he ever heard about with his friends were all metro-sexual bands that would have put him to sleep before they even took the stage. Grown men in girl's pants, nuff said. But it IS George Strait, the King of Country, more #1's than anybody in the history of the world, and he's getting old so we needed to take advantage of the oportunity. Anyway, back to the story...

Then Justin was like, "Guess where our seats are? Row D!" For those who don't know your ABC's, D is the 4th letter in the alphabet, therefore it is the 4th row in our section. But even better than being the 4th row in our section, our section was smack dab in the middle and the section closest to the stage! How exciting! I've never been this excited about seeing someone famous in my life that I almost passed out. We were infront of the VIP people too. We were so close that you could see the wrinkles on his face, and you could see him blink and breathe and if he sneezed, it would have hit us. Literaly. It was SWEET! And our chairs were padded, so as far as our butts hurting, that no longer was an issue.

The opening act was some chick that was pretty good but she sang wierd and it was kind of bugging me. Then Blake Shelton sang and he was having a rough day. Seriously, he looked like crap and it wouldn't suprise me if he was already drunk before he came on stage and then had 3 more beers while he sang. But George was excellent. He sounds SO good live and get he seriously even waved at us! I am not even joking! Eye contact and everything. (This was when it was still light outside so he could see us.) He just sang and sang and sang. He would stop for a couple of seconds between each song but he packed as many songs in as he could. It was really good. We even were shown on the jumbo-tron. Justin said he can now die a happy man. Only down side was there were a lot of people around us just getting really wasted and they were out of control. Also, the guy next to me looked like this: Hair EVERYWHERE, tank top, shorts, sombrero cowboy hat, sweaty and PLASTERED. He like kept saying things to me and I had no idea because I was getting drunk from the smell of him. He shook Justin's hand and wanted to be friends, went in and out about 10 times, each coming back with a full cup of beer and then he kept rubbing his arm up against me and so I almost ended up sitting on Justin by the end. Plus his dang hat was huge and kept hitting me in the head. Besides that, it was a good concert and we had a really fun time just to have some time together. The only way we'll ever be able to go to another concert will be if we're up close and if the group is worth seeing. So that narrows it down to another George Concert, rows A, B, or C. Special thanks to Troy and Denise for babysitting and a big thank you to the ticket people. It was a night we'll always remember.

9 Months and 2 teeth ago...

Koy was just a little guy. He was 9 months yesterday and still only has two teeth. He's our little comedian already... and he can't talk. He's just so funny. His first haircut is going to be any day now because the old man hair is driving me nuts. Koy, here are a few of our favorite things about you:

Huge kisses. You're so sweet.

Snuggles.

The way you laugh at EVERYTHING. You have a real laugh for funny things, a laugh when your nervous and a laugh for when you want something. You're a goof.

You think you need two hands to stuff food into your mouth sometimes and it's a killer to watch you smash them against your face.

You love anything that is edible... and everything that's not.

You are SO close to crawling, but right now you prefer to just nose dive into the carpet.

You love music, especially "Music and the Spoken Word."

The way you dance.

Bathtime is your FAVORITE. Especially because there is usually more water on the person that bathes you than left in the bathtub.

We love you!

Happy pretty much all of the time.

Giving a big ol' smooch to his monkey

Old man hair... arg.

Looking at the ducks by our house.

Lately

We've been up to a lot lately. My sis Laurie and her fam were here for two weeks so it's been busy, busy! First off we went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, Ikea, then camping, hung out at grandma's, went to Bear Lake (Koy HATED the cold water), went to the p-rade in Woodruff and back to Logan for the car show. We got to see almost all of my fam except for Ty, Camille, Kayden and the bambino-to-be (in two days!). We get to see them in August though. Yay! So back to Ikea really quickley. To be honest, I was dissapointed w/it. It's just so... so... Sweedish... and that wasn't what we were expecting. We kind of thought it would be like the coolest furniture store ever but it wasn't. They did have some cool accessories and storage ideas and stuff but their couches were just barf worthy and that was the main reason we went. Oh well. Back to the post now... Sorry there are a lot of pictures but it was hard to choose.

Koy playing cards w/Aunt Millie

Paigie Sue (I just want to kiss those cheeks!)

This is just sweet. Koy's first ride on the horse w/Dad.

He loved it!

My 13 yr old neice does point-ballet. Her shoes are hand made in Russia and she has to have new ones every 4 months. I thought that was pretty cool.

Wes and Koy on the 4th.

Eating a snow cone (and a few wood chips) at the cruise in.

Hiya

Crazy low-to-the-ground truck. Animal hanging out the back window was the coolest part.

The end!