The United Stakes of America

No It's not a typo! Last night Dylan's homework assignment was to work on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I could not help but laugh at his new toothless grin and funny word mix-ups, so I had him do it again for the camera.

Ladies and Gentlemen for your viewing pleasure

United Stakes of America...into the E-Public...One they shell under God....
I love this kid!

Free Zoo Day

Nothing says Fun like Free!
Alivia, myself and some good friends from our ward ventured out to Hogle Zoo today. I usually just stay home and vegg with Alivia while Dylan's at school, but who can resist Free admission to the zoo?

Looks like Dylan's love for trains has rubbed off
Alivia was ecstatic to be able to go on a train ride!

I tried to get some good pictures of Alivia while we were out, but mostly I got a lot of shots like these.

This is Alivia's "I'm ignoring my mom's incessant demand to look at the camera" pose.

This is Alivia's "I'll give you the back of my head" pose

This is Alivia's "I'm thinking about looking at the camera" pose.

This is Alivia's "well I'll pull a stupid face for you" pose

This is Alivia's "I'll give you a smile" pose

And finally, this is Alivia's "I've had it up to here with this stupid camera in my face" pose!

Another One Bites The Dust

Dylan lost another tooth this week.

Dylan's other top front tooth is just hanging by a few threads. I'm thinking that in the next few weeks I'm going to have a five year old with no front teeth. He seems so little to me, to be losing his teeth, but so far his permanent teeth have been right there ready to replace his baby ones.

Winterfest

My mom gave me the heads up on the Heber Valley's Winterfest activities at Soldier Hollow this weekend so I bundled the kids up and took them out to see the Dueling Chainsaws (an ice sculpting competition between two award-winning certified ice carvers) and some fireworks. I was so excited to get out of the house that it really didn't matter that it was freezing and the bleachers that every one was sitting on were more like death traps then a place to sit and watch the show.

It was amazing to watch these guys work.

The kids and I were late getting to the competition and the ice carvers were already making their second sculptures. This eagle was amazing, I'm only sorry I didn't get a better picture of it.

How cool is this giraffe!?!

After the ice carving competition was over, we were all treated to a little firework show.

Dylan was so funny to listen to as he ooooed and ahhhhed about every firework. I will always cherish Dylan's innocence and childlike joy over everything. He's so sweet sometimes, it breaks my heart. After the fireworks they let everyone come up and get pictures of the sculptures.

Trying to get a picture of my kids by the sculptures proved to be really difficult, so I guess I'll be glad I got what I did.

Livie and Grandpa Ward

Dylan and The Giraffe

After the festivities were over we headed to the lodge to warm up a bit.

We couldn't get Dylan to pull a decent face....

Except in this one where he's squeezing my head off!!!

We meet this sweet little girl in the lodge, who reminded me so much of Dylan, that it made me giggle. She showed up out of nowhere and introduced herself and chatted our ears off. She asked if I would take her picture, so I did. I asked her her name, but I could not understand what she was saying.

So here she is even if I don't know her name.

I'm just so glad that I'm not the only parent in the whole wide world that was blessed with an overly social and rambunctious little kid.

It really was nice to get out and do something this winter. I found out that Heber Valley's Winterfest is an all day long event with free snow shoeing, cross country skiing and ice skating. Maybe next year we'll go for all day and experience the whole event.

Giovannoni Girls Gone Wild

Sometimes I wonder where my little Alivia came from. She's into shoes and purses and looking her best. Every day she's picking out my outfits and begging me to accessorize her look (or mine) with any and everything she deems "pretty".
Maybe she gets it from Derik, because frankly I don't give a darn whether or not I'm hip, pretty or accessorized. The only thing I do know for sure is that I'm out of my league with this girl! She asked me on Friday if I'd paint her nails "pretty," so that's just what we did.


After I finished Alivia's nails she pointed to my toenails, that still had remnants of polish from like six months ago and told me to paint mine too!

Heaven knows I needed some one to keep me current, but who would have thought it would be my two year old daughter.

Mop Head

Stick straight hair that grows straight forward.

Plus a month or two without a trimming.
Equals something like this...

One hour in the bathroom.
Hair and patience gone (on both our parts).
Looks something like this...

I think he cleans up rather well!

I couldn't help but wonder to myself as I posted these pictures, where did my little boy go?
Dylan kept looking at himself in the mirror and saying "I don't look like me" and I couldn't help myself from agreeing.

Help

Our computer just died....
I knew it was coming but why did it have to happen when I'm in the middle of re-doing the blog.
Until I get my (I mean "OUR") computer back up and running, things might be just a little off.