Hiking

We went on our first family hike for the year a few weeks ago. We got up early and headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon where we found a random trail. It lead up to a beautiful waterfall. Karissa loved riding on my back and Tyson had fun climbing around. We had a good time and the weather was perfect!

Scary pictures of me...UH!





Is it just me or does Ben look like he is about 12 in this picture?




Ben helping Tyson down the rocks.

Bath time!

Karissa loves, loves, loves her baths! She likes to lay on her tummy and scoot through the tub. Sometimes when she is really being cranky we will take a couple of baths during the day. It's my saving grace when she is giving me a hard time!

Looking at these pictures you can't help but love her...so cute!

4 Years Old...I can't believe it!

Tyson is officially four years old...once again, where has the time gone? I was looking at pictures and video clips the other day when he was just a baby. At that time I remember wishing he was a little older so that we could play together. Well, that time is here and now I find myself missing my baby. It has been a wonderful four years and I love him more than words could ever express! He is full of so much energy and yet he still has that tender side that just makes my heart melt! He tells me all the time that he loves me and showers me in hugs and kisses, I LOVE IT!!!

I really try hard not to cry in front of him, but I will admit that there have been times for various reasons that I just couldn't control the tears. He so lovingly will stroke my back, arm or leg and tells me that "it's okay, Mom, it's alright..." and then he will give me a great big hug. He sits right with me and the look of love and concern in his eyes for me is simply Christlike. There is nothing better than to know that my son deeply and unconditionally loves and cares for me as I do for him!!! Tyson is such a blessing in my life. Whenever I am having a hard day I can always count on Tyson to make me smile!

Now that he is the big "4" he loves to help with everything. Anything from pulling weeds, unloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, vacuuming, to helping with whatever Karissa needs. I'm sure he would even attempt changing her diaper if I let him.

He is also great at reminding me to do things...
"Mom, do you have your wallet?", before we leave for the store.
"We need to read the scriptures and say a prayer!", before bed.
"I need a bath tonight, Mom!"

Everything he does is, "Let ME do it!" It's good for him to be more independent, but sometimes it is just so much easier for me to just "get'r done"! I have to really restrain myself and just step back and let him do it. He finds such joy and a great sense of accomplishment when he has completed something. It's good for his self esteem!

Tyson was SOOOO excited for his birthday this year! I decorated the living room the night before so he would be surprised when he woke up. He LOVED it! He got to choose what he wanted mom to make him for his special day and he wanted "pancake balls", or ableskievers (not sure of the spelling). Of course half the fun of having ableskievers for breakfast is licking the powdered sugar off your plate, so he did a lot of that.





Later that morning we went with grandma and grandpa to the mall where Tyson and I rode the little train. He had been waiting for months to go for a ride on the train. We told him that he could on his birthday. It was so fun to see his excitement the entire ride! After that grandpa took him to ride the carousel (mom and dad can't handle spinning rides), then for another ride on the train and finally over to the play area to play with the kids while grandma and mom did a little birthday shopping for her. He had so much fun! Thanks grandpa (Doug) for making his day extra special!




Ben was supposed to cook me dinner for my birthday that night but he ended up coming home late so he brought take-out instead...Italian food, YUMMY! We barely got finished eating before family started to arrive for Tyson's little party. One of his gifts was a Nerf dart gun and I have never seen him get so excited over a toy before! That was definitely his favorite!


Tyson's very own slot car track. Daddy's is a little too big to set up in the house very often but this one is the perfect size.


Can you tell that he loves books?

The generic transformer cake, but Tyson loved it!


About a week and a half later Ben and I threw him a "friend" birthday party. He insisted on a Transformer theme so that is what we did. I made him a Optimus Prime cake, that actually turned out pretty well for my first time attempting a buttercream transfer. I put together a Transformer bingo game that we gave out for party favors (found the idea on-line), decorated, yet again, and invited five friends. There are quite a few kids Tyson's age in our ward but there is NO WAY we could have accommodated more than five other kids in our living quarters!


THE CAKE!!! It was kind of fun mixing all the colors, although I couldn't bring myself to eat the frosting. Black frosting just isn't appetizing!

Tyson had SOOOO...much fun! Ben made a pinata for the kids but ended up making it somewhat "kid proof". All the boys loved to take their turn in attempting to spill the enclosed treasures. Ben ended up cutting it open when the kids were starting to lose interest. I was amazed at how quiet it got once they had the candy. (You can see part of Ben's pinata in the picture).

Overall Tyson had a great day. He kept getting confused though when someone would ask how old he was. After all, you do turn one year older with every birthday and since he had two this year he figured he was five years old.

Getting caught up!

The whole family (minus Jeremy)

I just realized that my last post was January, and I don't have many pictures of anything until this month. Where has the time gone?

I missed writing about Tyson's first talk in primary in February...he did so well. I just wrote a short talk for him, got him excited about it a few days before and when it came time to get up there he had no reservations. The only thing was that he whispered the whole thing because I was whispering it in his ear. He thought that because mom was whispering that he needed to keep his voice down too, like at home. It was too cute, I was so proud of him. I will be honest that I almost cried as I walked out of the room...my little man is growing up WAY to fast! He did such a great job!

March was pretty much a blur up until our vacation to California at the end of the month. We packed up the kids and headed to my parents house for a week. We got to spend Easter with my family which was great! It was so nice to be around my WHOLE family again! It makes me wish we lived closer so that I could spend more time with them! I met my sisters little baby boy for the first time and what a cutie he is! It is hard being away from everyone, I feel I miss out on so much and my kids don't really get to know my siblings too much.

Much of our vacation was spent just relaxing. Ben took part of his car audio project to keep him busy and I just enjoyed the family. We were hoping to bask in the sunny California weather, but of course it was cold and raining or snowing up until our last day there. The day after Easter we woke up to eight inches of snow, UUUHHHGGG! Luckily it all melted off by the end of the day.


Decorating eggs with Auntie Elyse and cousin Megan.






Tyson LOVED playing with his Uncle Jeremy!


April, Leonard and family

Nigel, Sabrina and family


Karissa with Uncle Shawn



Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids



Karissa with cousin Megan

Ben's Car Accident

Our Civic when it was just one month old on our wedding day.






A few weeks ago Ben was in a car accident. I am SOOOOOO....grateful that Ben walked away with minor injuries!!!! Our little car didn't fare so well though. Ben was on his way home from work on a Friday when he was rear ended by a Suburban. He was getting off the freeway when traffic backed up pretty quick. Ben was totally stopped when the Suburban hit him going about 50 mph pushing Ben into the SUV in front of him. He was on the phone with me when it happened although I had no idea. I was mid sentence when I thought the call was dropped. I remember thinking in that moment that "I hope he wasn't in an accident", but I didn't want to entertain that thought and figured he would either call back or just talk to me when he got home. Well about 5 or 10 minutes later I got a call from Ben telling me he was just rear ended. He reassured me that he was okay, but that his ribs really hurt. I could hear the pain in his voice. I can't describe the feeling of panic and helplessness that came over me when he told me! The emergency vehicles arrived shortly there after so Ben had to get off the phone. About 30 minutes or so later I received a phone call from a nurse at the hospital letting me know that Ben had been taken to the new Riverton hospital, which is just down the street. Sue came with me and held Karissa in the waiting room while I went in with Ben. They had taken x-rays, given him an ultrasound and wanted to do a CT Scan but Ben, being deathly afraid of needles, declined that. Everything came back okay, but the doctor told him that without the CT scan they wouldn't be able to detect any internal bleeding or cracks to his ribs. We were told to watch for any swelling in the abdomen and cramping, but both Ben and I felt that everything would be okay, especially after he received a blessing, (Thanks, Scott for not even hesitating when I called)! Anyway, Ben was in quite a bit of pain the first few days after the accident and he did end up going back in for that CT scan due to some swelling. Thankfully the swelling was just due to the internal bruising and trauma to the soft tissue in his abdomen. A couple of Ben's ribs are still pretty tender, but we are just so grateful that things didn't turn out worse!!!!!!!!!

Our poor little Civic however, didn't make it. It is pretty sad for us actually because Ben and I bought that car one month before we were married. There are so many memories we have with that little car: we took it on our honeymoon, it was our commuter car when we lived in So. California (hence the excessive miles that were on it), lots and lots of trips to the beach, our move to Utah, the car we had when we added Tyson to the family...the memories go on. It was sad to see it all crumpled and know that we will never see or ride in that little car again. Yes, you can say I am sentimental! We are grateful that we had it paid off though and that we had good insurance coverage. Ben was able to replace it with another Honda Civic, same year and color, although this time he got the SI model that he had always wanted. Another plus was that it had half the miles on it, only 60,000. Ben definitely got an insane deal on it and we were able to pay cash for it with our insurance money, so this one is paid off too...YEAH!!! Our new car was even originally purchased from the same dealership we bought our Civic from in Southern California.

Anyway, our little car will be missed, but more importantly Ben is hear and recovering quickly. We have been very blessed!

Love my Kids!!!

Here are just a few random pictures I took in January of the kids. I need to get back into taking more pictures!


I love my little girl, but sometimes (actually quite a lot) she makes this really irritating sound when she wants attention. This expression is the one usually on her face when she is making the sound. To give you an idea just how unpleasant it is at times; those of you who have seen the movie Dumb and Dumber, there is the one scene where Jim Carey is driving the dog van with three other characters and asks if they want to here the most annoying sound in the world...yep, that is pretty much what we hear from this little girl. We love her though!