Karen's Family Photos

On Sunday I went out to Karen's house and took her family pictures. About 5 mintues before we head out it starts stroming and then as we drive to the spot it starts raining. Karen has everyone get out anyway! We take a few picture and then as we are heading back into the car and everyone is wet the rain stops so I made them stay for a little while longer. Anyway, here are some of my favorites.


Notice the rain pouring down on them in this pictures. Jason Welch has a very nice voice and sang us all, "singing in the rain!" At least I know they had a good time.Below: Ashlyn

Alex: I can't believe how big he is now!

All the kids together.

Max
Elsie
Jason Welch

Recent Pictures

Before Mike's Dad left to go back home we had him take a few quick pictures of us. Here are some of my favorites.

I included the one below so ya'll could get a feel about how big I'm getting. I feel huge but maybe it's just the summer heat!
And another one of my boys!

Mike's sister, Christine and her family came into town just before we left to Yellowstone. We had a great time hanging out for a few hours and here are some highlights. Ryan had a really great time playing with his cousins. We just wish they lived closer!

Family Time

So we took our first real family vacation together this last week and had a blast! We went to Island Park, which is about 20 minutes from West Yellowstone.
Ryan and Mike at Mesa Falls.
Edpa and Alex happened to be in the area so we got to hang out with them for a day and go into Yellowstone with them.
It was windy at the geysers but they were very beautiful.

Ryan loves to be in his hiking backpack and it gave cousin Alex a good workout.
The next day we tried our luck at fishing. NO FISH in a kid's fishing pond but Ryan had fun anyways! Below: Edpa fishing with Ryan.

Above: Ryan and Daddy fishing.
Ryan trying his luck all by himself.
Then of course, we just did a doing things outside. Mostly playing in the dirt.

And throwing rocks into the lake while daddy fished.
We also did a lot of swimming since our resort had a kids swimming area. Ryan said that was his favorite thing, but no pictures of that.

We had a blast and would love it even more if there weren't so many mosquitoes!

Warmth

Ryan and I left freezing Utah to go hang out in California this last week. It was so fun to see cousins and hang out at the beach and zoo! I took a TON of pictures, but for time sakes... here are just a few.

Lexi

Ryan & Elsie at the Zoo

Lexi just having fun

Elsie, Ryan at Lexi at the Zoo

Jaxson holding Ryan at the zoo

Ryan enjoying the beach

Elsie at the beach

Ryan chasing birds. He did this ALOT! "Pet, Pet!" he kept saying!

Good Bye Beautiful California.

Just look at these BOYS!

"Edpa" and I took Ryan, James and Johnny to the Living Aquarium.

Johnny is such a lamb. He is so happy all the time. Just look at that grin!



James and Ryan having a blast. We will really miss our cousins. I know Ryan really liked following James around this Christmas time.

Welcome Christmas

I love Christmas time! Everyone seems to a little happier. This Christmas we are starting some new family traditions.

1-Looking at Christmas lights....we just drove around while Ryan sat in the back seat yelling, "More Ites! More Ites!"

2- Make sugar cookies. Our ginger bread men didn't turn out so good but Ryan was excellent at the stars.

3-12 days of Christmas. We weren't very sneaky and David & Constance figured out it was us, but it's been fun.

4- Listening to LOTS of Christmas music.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones I can remember right now.

SNOW

Ryan's first encounter with snow.
I've tried to get him to walk in the snow before....but he had his snow suit on so all he would do is cry and want me to pick him up. Without his snow suit on he LOVES the snow. Thankfully, he will actually wear little mittens. (He likes them because they have a dinosaur on them.)






















Below:
Big Cheese because we were playing peek-a-boo!



























Above: These pictures are from a few days ago. Jade came over to play. Ryan, being the gracious host that he is, got into our pantry and took out everything that he could reach and then piled it on Jade.

At first, she said, "Thank you," and "More." But when it was becoming difficult to see out she got a little worried look.

We went to Zion's this last week. (We as in, me, Ryan, my Dad(Edpa), and Ashlyn.) Here's a few pictures from our adventure.


This one was just taken yesterday and I am just posting it because I like it.