A long 6 months...

In case you were wondering...

We are still ALIVE!

we didn't move...

we didn't have a broken computer...

we didn't have a family tragedy...

Somehow, I simply neglected this blog entirely for like half a year! I would tell you I have been busy, but that's no good excuse... I am simply terrible at keeping an updated blog! I will now try to make up for it by giving the cliff notes version of our life for the past 6 months. Here I go:

6/8/09: Stockton started t-ball.

6/21/09: Kailee caught her first fish (with some help of course)

7/1/09: Kristin turned 24! (old -- pretty soon I'm going to have to start lying about my age)

7/4/09: Happy 4th of July!

7/25/09: Datenight for Zack and Kris: Secondhand Serenade concert. It was so fun!!!

8/13/09: Fun at the Davis County Fair! Yeah, that IS a tarantula.

8/15/09: Alpine slide!!!

8/21/09: tie-dye kids.... (we made tie dye shirts while on a trip to Park City!!)

8/23/09: Trip to Pineview. It turned out to be a disaster (long story) It WAS Zack and my first trip to any kind of beach together though, so definitely worth remembering!

8/25/09: Stockton started his second season of soccer!

9/1/09: Stockton started preschool! I can't believe he is already so grown up!

9/11/09: Kailee turned 1 year old!!!!!

10/4/09: Zack is a quarter of a century (25) heehee. old.

10/6/09: We got Kailee's one year old pics and our family pics taken by the incredible Jen Herem and they turned out simply adorable!!!

10/10/09: Datenight at Nightmare on 13th. SO fun!

10/26/09: Family "Trunk-or-Treat" Halloween party!!!

10/29/09: Carving Pumpkins!

10/31/09: Happy Halloween!

11/9/09: Dinner @ the Pie w/my daddy! Haven't seen him for a while!

11/11/09: Zack shoots an enormous elk! Good job baby. :)

11/19/09: Stockton's first Preschool Program. SO cute!

11/26/09:Happy Thanksgiving!!

12/4/09: Stockton and Kailee got to sit on Santa's lap at the Festival of Trees!

So that's it! Our life in a nutshell... (sorry, no pics for the last couple, I haven't gotten them on the computer yet.) I promise to keep better updates going from now on. It's good to be back! I have actually kinda missed the blogging world!

...till next time... ;)

Dreamnight

Have you ever heard of "Dreamnight at the Zoo"?

I hadn't either.  Not until a month or two ago...

  Sherilyn, (the woman who comes to see Kailee and work with her vision) told us about it.  It is a very fun, very special night that zoos host once a year for children with any type of disabilities and their families.  It's free, fun, and they even provide dinner!  There is limited entry so everyone has to put in their name for tickets and see if you are one of the lucky people drawn.  We were lucky!  So, on Friday, June 5th at around 6 p.m., we packed up and headed up to Hogle Zoo.  Upon arriving, we got a delicious dinner... compliments of.... 

Chick-fil-A.  

Yummmmy! 

 

During dinner, there was a live band playing, which Kailee loved!!  She absolutely LOVES music!  She was kicking her little feet the whole time.  

We then got to: 

see the animals, 

do face painting,

 and Stockon and Kailee even pet a snake! 

 

It was such a fun night and the coolest thing about it was to see all the kids and their families there.  It's so neat to see those children with all the different problems being able to experience something like that.  It really wasn't an ordinary trip to the zoo.  There were zoo volunteers to help the children get a more "hands on" experience.  There were shows, animals to pet and more.  You could tell by looking at them that they were truly 

enjoying themselves. 

 It really was incredible!  We all thought so!  

Thanks to Hogle Zoo for doing such a wonderful activity!

we're still here.

wow it's been awhile.  

since I last posted, we have been doing some pretty cool things which I will proceed to list.

1.  Mother's Day!  

I got to spent the whole day with my two beautiful kids and wonderful hubby.  Being a mom is the hardest and best thing I have ever done in my life and I can't imagine my life any other way.  I feel so blessed to have been given such wonderful kids.  They are both incrdible and they are my life.  I love them more than I even know how to explain!  Thanks Stockton and Kailee for being my little angels, teaching me so much and making me so happy!  And Zack, thanks for making this such a perfect Mother's Day!  I love you so much!

2. Stockton gets a bike!  

He was such a natural riding it!  I failed to show him how to use the brakes though and he ended up rolling down the parking lot and crashing into a dumpster.  Now, after that traumatizing event, he is a little nervous riding up or especially down hills.  We are still working on it :)

3.  Kailee loves the piano

This girl loves music in every way, shape and form.  When my mom and I sat down with her at the piano she absolutely LOVED it!  I'll bet she plays when she is older... 

4.  Family Fishing Trip!

We went on a family fishing trip a little while ago and had a blast!  Stockton fished with Zack and Kailee and I stayed in the truck due to an annoying amount of mosquitos.  She had fun chewing on a fishing lure while the boys caught some white bass.  Happy fishing!

That's all for now.  I have a few pics from father's day etc to post but I'll do it later.  

mueller park/wheeler farm

This week we had the opportunity to do two super fun things!!  

(aside from that spectacular family night!)  

First, we went up to Mueller Park and built a campfire! We decided to leave Kailee at my mom's because we didn't want her to be around all the smoke... those poor little lungs!  So, after dropping her off, Zack, Stockton and I headed on up.  We got there and began to light our fire.  It was seriously the lamest little fire you have ever seen!  We had sticks and logs, paper towels and matches.  You'd think that'd do the trick, but for some reason, we couldn't get it going!  There was the teeniest little flame and it kept almost going out.  I was the one (yes me not Zack... I needed to clarify) who had the ingenious idea to blow on it.  Fires need oxygen right? Looks like my girl's camp skills paid off because it worked!  For a minute.  Then I had to blow on it again.  I continued blowing until I was dizzy and felt like I was going to faint.  Probably not a smart idea, but the fire was going great!  Then Zack took a log off and it kept right on burning rather than going out again.  I'm pretty sure that if we needed to survive in the wilderness together, we'd be in trouble.  I mean, if a little campfire was that much trouble....?  Anyhow, once the fire was burnin, we got to roastin!  We started out by roasting hot dogs.  Basically, we all sucked!  All three of us were roasting hot dogs that turned out like this:

Yum Yum.

They actually weren't that bad though.  After the hot dogs, we moved on to marshmallows.  We made s'mores, and even roasted starbursts!  

If you haven't tried it, do.  It's delicious!  They get all hard on the outside and soft and melted on the inside.. MmmMmMm!  After our bellies were all full of junk food, we packed up and left to pick Kailee up.  She had been having fun with "Mimi" and was happy to see us again!  It was such a great night all around and I look forward to doing it again soon!

Next item on the list is Wheeler Farm! Wahoo!  We went there yesterday morning and it was also so much fun!  We saw sheep, cows, horses, chickens, roosters, turkeys, ducks, geese, goats, and pigs.  Stockton loved seeing all the animals he was getting so excited!  Kailee also loved it there.  I think she just loved taking it all it and especially loved the animal sounds!  It was great!  Stockton even got to ride a pony! (after some convincing.)  

He was scared at first, but after putting Kailee on the saddle, he decided he would try sitting up there too.  Once sitting up there, his fear diminished.  He rode all around and actually asked why the pony wouldn't run!

We then fed the ducks and geese!  There was this one goose who actually ate out of Stockton's hand!  Cool!  It was so cute to watch too!

So yeah those were our weekly highlights.  Go to wheeler farm it's great!  Later y'all!

family night.

So we decided to have family night last night and we started out with the best intentions!  

The plan was as follows:  dinner together, prayer, scripture story, song, games, treat, get ready for bed.  Sounds pretty fun/simple right?  

Well, this is how the night actually went.  We ate dinner semi-together.  I bought this rotisserie chicken from Costco and was home at like 7:30 with it.  Stockton was hungry, but Zack wasn't getting home till 8:15.  Fine.  I didn't make Stockton wait.  He ate his chicken and was waiting for the rice that I didn't manage to have ready till like 8:20.  Zack and I started eating our dinners at like 8:30.  Stockton had his rice at the same time even though he'd finished his chicken almost an hour ago.  So dinner was a little unorganized.  Big deal.  

Moving on to prayer/singing/games.  One problem.  The house was a giant mess!  Toys COVERING the living room floor.  I'm trying to teach Stockton to clean up his toys so we told him that he needed to pick up his balls.  I told him I would help with the rest, but the balls were his responsibility.  He then threw a FULL BLOWN temper tantrum.  He was laying on the floor, balling.  All the neighboring apartments could probably hear this:  

"Stockton clean up the balls, it won't take long.  I'll help with the other toys." 

 "That's not fair!  Help me with the balls too!" 

"No, you need to learn to clean up messes when you are done playing.  Hurry and pick them up so we can have family night."  

"But it's too hard, there are soo many.  It will take sooo long" 

"Stockton just do it.  Look, I already finished my part.  See, that was fast!"  

"But I'm so tired." 

"Oh then are you too tired to have a family night treat?"

"OOOooohhh I just want you help me clean up the balls!"

"Stockton you need to do it yourself.  That was your part of the job."

"No!  I'm so mad at you!  You are so mean!"

This went on for like an hour.  Seriously.  Finally he gave in and did it. (took all of like 5 minutes)  Sure glad we had such a fuss over it!  By now, it's like 10 p.m. (past bedtime) but I had promised to have family night and a treat.  Well, we just hurried.  No time for games.  We ready a VERY short story.  Then, Zack was dishing up a small bit of ice cream for stockton.  He started crying again because we only had pink, white, or brown ice cream.  He wanted blue.  Zack was a great sport and whipped out the blue food coloring and mixed some blue ice cream.   Problem solved.  I tried to do a song.  I tried "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam", "I love to see the temple", and "Popcorn popping on the apricot tree."  Stockton then freaked out again and wanted me to stop singing!  Wow.  Fine.  I will stop singing.  After this it was like 10:30 p.m. and Stockton took a bath.  He then threw another fit when Zack got out his toothbrush because he wanted mommy to do it!  So I did.  Finally, after going potty, I tucked him in at 11 p.m.  Yeah, that late.  

It didn't go quite as planned, but we got through it.  Happy FHE!!

6th folder, 6th picture

So I got a tag a while back from AnDe for the 6th folder, 6th picture post, and have taken forever to do it!  You are supposed go to the 6th photo folder on your computer, then take the 6th picture and make a post about it!  Then you tag 6 more people to do it too!  Here's mine...

This is a picture of Stockton and I in July 2007... July 1st to be exact!  It was actually taken on my 22nd birthday!  Wahoo!  Stockton was 2 here... isn't he a doll? We were just hanging out on my mom's lawn, waiting for the family birthday party to start!  It was such a fun day and I miss Stockton being so little!  I love my mommy's boy!!

I tag:

Amy

Mandy

Karlee

Michelle

Whitney

Jen

Stockton plays soccer

Stockton started soccer again for the spring season!  He has been loving it and it's so cute watching the games!  I totally forgot my camera at the first game, so I missed a pic of the goal he scored for the wrong team.  It was too funny!  At half time, Zack and I told him to get the ball!! and don't let the other team get it!  We got him all pumped up to score, but he didn't realize they had switched directions!  Seriously, adorable.  Anyway, these are a few pics I got from the second one... He did such a good job!  Here is him with two of his teammates...

Look how much fun he was having!

And lastly, the team cheer!

Seriously I can't believe he is old enough to be on a soccer team.. he is growing up way to fast!  It is so much fun though.. I love love LOVE it!