Silly kids....

This week is the start of Brayden's last track break. 

He's home for the next month, which is a good and bad thing. I love not being in a rush in the mornings, but somedays he just really needs to be in school. He loves to be with his friends and keeping busy. So what does one do on track break you may ask.... 

Well this is what kept the boys entertained for a while today... It's Halloween in May!

The boys found some of their old Halloween costumes and begged me if they could put them on. I let them, in hopes of being a "cool" or good mom. They loved it!

Some things that I loved about it... Conner's 1 black sock, the Star Wars light saber as a weapon for the Power Ranger, and the Iron Man missile launcher as Batman's weapon of choice. 

Love these boys and their imaginations!

Patrick's mission...

It has been a little over 10 years since Patrick came home from his mission. It was shortly after that that we met and got married. Ever since we have been married, Patrick has asked me to make a scrapbook of his mission. Well, it only took me 10 years... but I finally did it! I spend all my extra time over the past month working on it. It was such a great experience to do this for him. Looking through all his pictures and listening to his stories behind them or experiences he had was kind of a testimony boost for me. Patrick served in a very hard mission and he was very successful there. He served in the Budapest Hungary mission. The church is not very big there, and the closest temple is in Germany. He struggled and grew a lot on his mission. He made lasting friendships with people he served with. It was a privilege to make this book for him.

I made this book for a few reasons. First and foremost: to preserve his memories of those 2 years in Hungary. His mission is a big part of his life so I wanted him to have something more then just pictures in an old school album. He was very good about writing in his journal while on his mission too, so that also helps to preserve those memories for him.

I also wanted to document his huge accomplishment of serving an honorable mission as an example for our boys. I hope they chose to follow in their father's footsteps and serve a mission as well. Patrick has told me time and time again that his mission made him the man he is today. I hope that for our boys as well. I hope that they will learn and grow and develop a greater testimony just like their father did.

I am so proud of him for serving the Lord for 2 years, even against many obstacles that were put before him before he ever even left home. I am so thankful that he served honorably and that he set a solid example for our boys to see.

Take a look at the book if you want. It's fun to see how young he looked back then and to see old friends from back in the day!

Click here to see it!

I am grateful for so many missionaries that chose to go and serve the Lord! But I am especially grateful for the one I married!

Crafty...

Well I'm not a super crafter by any means, but I really do like to do crafts once in a while. I got this idea to make these blocks for Landon's room way back when I was very first pregnant with him. My BFF Melissa made some for her girls room, and when I saw them, I knew that I wanted to make some too for my baby's room.

Melis is my crafting buddy! We used to be neighbors in Utah, and she is so dang creative and crafty it will KILL YOU! I miss crafting with her! But we still get ideas from each other and craft whenever we get together.

So a little while ago I finally did my own blocks! I thought they turned out pretty cute. Now to just find a cute little shelf to hang in his room to put them on... but for now they are just on his dresser.  

I wanted to embellish them a bit more, but couldn't think of anything "boyish" enough to put on them.  Flowers and bows just don't seem to fit into his room decor. (or lack of!) Anyone have any suggestions?

I scream... You scream... We all scream for ICE CREAM!

Last night we took the boys out for ice cream at the local DQ. It is a rare treat, so they thought it was awesome! They thoroughly enjoyed their chocolate dipped ice cream cones. This is the best way to spend the hot summer months here!

Landon was happy to tag along even though he didn't get any ice cream.

Maybe some fingers would taste good....

Ummm, but not as good as toes taste!  Delicious!!

He'll settle for eating his feet instead of ice cream! He loves to eat his feet!

Loved it!!

Today was just a normal day. I went to pick up Brayden and a neighbor kid from school since it is my week to drive the carpool. We dropped off my neighbor's daughter and then had to run Patrick's pants to the dry cleaners. (Landon so nicely spit up all over them yesterday in church, right before Patrick had to teach in Elder's Quorum! lol!) On our way home, I had let the boys roll their windows down. I'm a mean mom, and rarely let them do this because I find it super annoying that the wind blows my hair in my face while I drive. But today, I let them have the back windows open. As we were driving down the street, both boys were reaching their arms out the windows to feel the wind as we drove. As they do this, I hear Conner say, "Ahhhh, this is the life!"

I love how such simple things can make their day! 

It made me smile!

7 Months already?!?!

Yup, my little Landon is already 7 months old!

He is so fun!

I love this age. He has his little personality and likes and dislikes. About a month ago I told him he needed to stay this sweet, cute, and little forever. He's not really listening! :)

Here are some things about Landon at 7 months:

*He scoots/rolls/army crawls all over to get into things... he's going to be full on crawling any day now... yikes!

*He finds anything on the floor and puts it in his mouth

*He sleeps all night, but wakes up early (wish just one of my kids liked to sleep late!)

*He tries to roll over while you change his diaper

*He still loves his excer-saucer

*Still has no teeth, but drools like crazy... so maybe soon he will

*His hair is getting thicker and a little darker and sticks up on top.... I LOVE it!!!!

*He now loves to sleep in his crib, in fact he rarely sleeps if he's not in it. What a difference just a few months will make!

*He's learned to screech at the top of his lungs... it is really loud!

*He can sit up by himself.... but not for too long yet, he's still a little unsteady

*He is starting to wear size 9 month clothes... he's getting kinda tall

*He is ticklish on his ribs and will laugh pretty hard if you tickle him there

*He still thinks his big brothers are the most hilarious things ever!

*He gives his Daddy smiles when he sees him
*He can hold his bottle

*He always tries to eat my hair when I hold him

*He "talks" to us all the time. I wonder what he has to tell us??

*He's noticed the cat! He just freezes and stares at the cat as she walks by. He would probably give anything to touch her, but Maggie won't have any of that!

*He sometimes plays in his crib when he wakes up, and has gotten his feet stuck in the bars a few times, then he gets pretty mad! 

*He still melts my heart when he smiles at me... we just love this little man!

(Don't mind that Landon is in the same outfit for the last few posts!!  :)  I just realized that. The funny thing is he has only worn this outfit twice... and he got lots of pictures taken of him each time I guess!)

Better late then never

Today I finally got the boys dressed in their Easter clothes. Between General Conference and a few weeks of sick kids, we haven't been to church to wear the new outfits. So today I finally got them all dressed up in their Easter clothes and took their pictures. (Much to their dismay! I don't know why they hate to get their pictures taken so much. Is that a boy thing???)

Such handsome boys!!! I love being their Mom!

Landon's 6 month pictures

Last week I took Landon to get his 6 month pictures taken. I loved how they turned out. Here are just some of my favorites...... 

So Serious!!!  lol!!

In this picture (below).... he looks IDENTICAL to my older brother Russ's baby picture. I guess this is the "Shumate" side in him! Such a cutie!!

I just love this little boy!!! He's too cute! How can you NOT just love those big eyes and sweet smile!?!? And I absolutely love how his hair sticks up!

I can't believe how fast he is growing!

Shark Reef Field Trip

Last week Conner got to go with his preschool to the Shark Reef. He was so excited. He has gone a few times before, but he was still way excited about seeing some sharks. He has been really into sharks lately, and had even just got a book from the library about sharks, so his excitement level was pretty high! Landon and I even got to go along. It was a fun day!

They got to see lots of different fish. Even some piranhas! Those were pretty cool, but man, did they look mean!

Here he is pointing to a Zebra Shark, that was his favorite shark he told me.

They got to touch sting rays. Well If they got close enough to you that is. Conner was very disappointed that he didn't get to touch one. They wouldn't get close enough for him to reach them. He's touched them before though. The last time we were there it wasn't so crowded, so we were able to spend more time at this spot.

My favorite part is the jelly fish. I just think they look so cool! My camera didn't do them justice, they were glowing! It was so awesome!

Conner thought these alligator skulls were pretty cool. They were in a classroom that we got to go in after our tour of the shark reef. In here they talked to the kids a little more about sea animals and let the kids look at different fish they have in there, feel what things would feel like if you touched them, and they even had a snake in there! Yuck!! Why that was in there, I don't know... I kept away from it, but Conner went over and checked it out.

They got to make their own sea turtles! Conner's turned out so cute. I wish you could see the cute little face he drew on it. It was in a really light color of crayon, so it was hard to see, but it was super cute!

Landon enjoyed his first trip to the Shark Reef. He just hung out in his stroller and loved looking around at everything. He was so good!

Little did I know that poor Conner had pink eye. That is why his right eye looks a little swollen and pinkish. It kept coming and going for several days, and it was just kinda red sometimes. So I just thought it was maybe allergies or something in the air. By the end of the week, his eye were both so red and gross, and he had a fever, that I finally took him to the Dr. on Friday, and the poor kid had double ear infections and pink eye! I had no idea. Don't ya hate it when that happens??? He's all better now....

BUT he was kind and generous and shared his pink eye with..... ME!!!! How annoying! No worries though, the Dr. gave us plenty of extra eye drops for any of the rest of us who get it in our family. Hopefully no one else will get it!

All in all it was a fun day with Conner and his preschool at the shark reef. We had such a good time. Conner just loved it. We topped off the day with lunch at McDonalds, and he thought it was a great day! I love being able to go on his field trips with him.

BINGO!

Last week in Primary, the boys got "Conference Bingo" to play while they watched General Conference this past weekend. We let them use their jelly beans from their easter baskets to mark their spots. Each time they heard certain things like the word "Prophet", "Jesus Christ", "Family" or several others, they put a jelly bean down. They didn't do so hot at first, but after a while (once they realized they actually had to listen to put a jelly bean down) they were really doing great! In fact, before conference was over, Brayden had eaten so many jelly beans he asked if he could stop playing because his tummy was starting to feel sick. Silly kids...

This was a great idea! I don't think my boys have ever listened so intently to conference before. We will be making this a new tradition for conference to help keep the kids attention during the sessions.

Thanks Sister Lea for the game! :)

Easter!!

This year, we started our Easter weekend by dying Easter eggs. This was the first year that I have been brave enough to let my kids dye eggs. I have always feared that they were going to get more dye on themselves then on the eggs and it would just be a huge mess. But this year I thought it was high time to let them get in on the fun of dying eggs. They did a great job, it wasn't nearly as messy as I had feared it to be for so many years. And the kids thought it was a blast! This will defiantly be a new tradition at our house.

Landon was a good sport and sat in his high chair being a happy little boy. He had fun watching his brothers coloring eggs.

They turned out great. The boys had so much fun, and I'm not gonna lie... Mom and Dad had fun too. You can see that poor Conner got a little bit sunburned at the park earlier that day. He is still a cute little boy with those rosy cheeks.

Then early on Sunday morning, the boys woke up nice and early, anxious to see what the Easter Bunny had brought for them. They were super excited to hunt for the eggs that the Easter Bunny hid for them. They looked high and low, all over the downstairs.

The boys got lots of candy, mini kites, new Bakugans, and a fun "scoop" ball games. You know, one of those things that looks like a big scoop and you throw and catch a ball with it. They loved it!

Landon was so intrigued watching his brothers run all over the place. He was totally content sitting next to his basket. The Easter Bunny brought him a new bottle, new binky's, and some baby food... carrots of course... what else would a bunny bring???

He's still learning to sit up, so after a while, it was more like he was folded in half. He was super excited about his first Easter!

A great date night!

Since living here, we have been fortunate enough to find wonderful friends and neighbors to swap babysitting with every few weeks so we can have date nights. I love them! Some nights we just go out to dinner, nothing fancy, but we just take our time, and enjoy our time together chatting and catching up after a busy week.

A few weeks ago, for our anniversary, Patrick surprised me with tickets to see this....

We went to go see it last Friday. It was AMAZING! I have seen this show before, a few times, but never the Vegas version. It is a little different, a little shorter then the original, but still amazing! The special effects and pyrotechnics are above any other Phantom show I've seen. Patrick had never seen this play before, so I was super excited for him to see it, and for me to see it again, I haven't seen it since I was in high school. I was like a little kid all day waiting to go. We decided we wanted to go eat somewhere close because we weren't sure how much time we would have, so I went online to look up what restaurants were in the Venetian (where Phantom was playing) and found this place....

Now I realize I may be behind on the times, but I have never heard of this place. It is apparently a "sister" restaurant to The Cheesecake Factory. And dang, was it good!! Not painfully expensive either like many places are on the strip. We loved it, had a wonderful yummy dinner complete with cheesecake for dessert. We are now huge fans of the Grand Lux Cafe!

Then we were off to the show!!

I had explained the basic story line to Patrick during dinner and told him which songs were my favorite, and how I was anxious to see what was going to be different in this one. We have heard nothing but good things about this show.

Once we got to our seat (which were awesome by the way! Using our "local's discount" we got such close seats {I don't think I've ever had such great seats at a play before} for barely more then the balcony price!) I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning, I was so excited. I was looking all around, checking out the Chandelier, and talking to Patrick more about the play.

It was a great night. We both L-O-V-E-D the show! Patrick was laughing at me because I was almost crying at the end... it was just that good! He said it was good, but not good enough to make him cry! Whatever! He's a boy!! It was that good.

Best anniversary present!!

Thanks Patrick!

It was a great night, except when we went to go pick up the kids, my friend/neighbor told us Landon screamed most the night!! I felt so bad! For both him and for her! No one wants to put up with a screaming baby, especially if it's not your own. I'm so grateful for good friends to put up with things like that! No worries, we are making her some kind of baked goods tomorrow for FHE to try and make up for the crying baby all night.