My Toothless Wonder!

Last week Conner lost BOTH of his front teeth just a few days apart from each other. He now has that super cute little kid grin with the missing teeth and has had to start cutting up his food a bit more now.

 He was horrified when he had to actually cut up his pizza to eat it. "Mom, you aren't suppose to eat pizza like this!" he told me. He's figuring out how to eat with his side teeth till his front teeth grow in more. He was pretty excited about getting TWO visits from the tooth fairy in one week.

I keep telling him I know what he must want to Christmas!  Then I proceed to sing him the song "All I Want for Christmas is My 2 Front Teeth". He seems to think he needs other things for Christmas than his front teeth.....

And of course Landon cannot be left out of anything! He is trying to smile showing me his teeth here too. This picture just makes me laugh! He is such a funny little boy!

And a super cute little guy all ready go to go church. The girls in the nursery better watch out!

My Newest 3 Year Old

I don't know when it happened, but yet another year has gone by and Landon got another year older! It's hard to believe he is 3 years old already, but he is such a cute and fun little guy to have around.

He was pretty excited for his birthday!

One of the things he wanted more then anything for his birthday was a balloon. So on the morning of his big day I told him to get in the car and I was taking him to get a surprise. He was so happy when we got to the party store and he found out he got to pick out a balloon. And then he was too excited to sit still long enough to get a decent picture, but here he is with his coveted Elmo balloon!

He also got to go to McDonald's for his birthday dinner. He invited his favorite friend Riley to come along too. Riley and Landon are such cute little friends. They love to play together and he talks about her all the time. They had so much fun. These two are so cute together.... we are secretly hoping that they one day wanna get married! :)

After dinner and some play time at the Playland we came back home and opened presents.

He got a few tractors, a Chuggington train set, and all sorts of fun things little boys love.

He had quite a hard time deciding what kind of cake he wanted. He kept changing his mind from Elmo to Mickey Mouse. He finally decided to go with good ol' Elmo.

He sang right along with us as we sang "Happy Birthday" to him and he successfully blew all his candles out in just a few tries.

He had a great birthday and loved playing and celebrating with his brothers and Riley and her family.

Landon is just too cute, and he makes us laugh all the time. He LOVES to play outside in the backyard, digging and shoveling the rocks. He loves to watch Dora, Max and Ruby, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He is talking more and more all the time too. He is just about to get his own big boy bed, and he is very excited about that. He loves to eat cheese sandwiches, chocolate milk, apples, grapes, and crackers with PB. He LOVES to go bye-bye just about anywhere. If you mention going somewhere, he is running to get his shoes so he can go too. Although he is also starting to think he need to walk instead of ride in the cart at the grocery store, and I'm not a huge fan of that! He loves to play with his brothers and is getting to be pretty independent with everything. He likes to tease me by telling me he wants to give me kisses them comes up to me pretends to get ready to kiss me them runs off laughing and saying "no tisses for mommy!" and he thinks he is hilarious!

He still has a way of melting his momma's heart! He is just the sweetest and we love him to death!

Time Out!

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to attend Time Out For Women with several friends from my ward. It was such a great experience and so much fun to get to go listen to amazing speakers, laugh, cry, learn, and be uplifted and feel of the Spirit.

I was surrounded by really fun and amazing women that were there with me...

It was a good time and I hope we can all go again next time!

A "Wicked" Good Time

For my birthday this year, Patrick surprised me with tickets to...

I was SO EXCITED!!! I have wanted to see Wicked for yeaaaaarrrrrsssss! 

We got tickets for the balcony. We had never been to the Smith's Center before, so we had no idea about our seats. Patrick had requested handicap accessible seats. When we got there, we got up to the balcony and found our seat were not so accessible for Patrick, like at all. They were up lots and lots of very big steep stairs. When we told the usher about the problem and that we were suppose to have handicap seats she got her supervisor on her radio thing and within 5 minutes we were re-seated in A.MAZ.ING box seats just 5 rows from the stage. It was so awesome! Sometimes this "trial" of his has it's perks!

The show was just amazing! We both loved it. It was one of the best musicals we have seen. I loved the music and the set and everything. We had never seen it or heard the music before so we had no idea what to expect, but it was so good.... like gives you chills all over multiple times good! My favorite songs were "Defying Gravity" and "For Good".... I may or may not have had tears in my eyes during these songs.
Seriously. Loved. It.
Thanks Patrick for yet another wonderful birthday! It's gonna be hard to top this.... just sayin!

Once We Got To Jackson....

We had a good time just relaxing and catching up with family once we got to Jackson. It had been 4 1/2 years since we were last up there. Too long!

We stayed at Patrick's Aunt Jenny's house and the boys were in 7th heaven getting to run around and play outside up there is the cool 70 degree weather while it was 118 degrees back here in Vegas. Patrick and I also loved the weather up there, we would wake up cold in the mornings and enjoy the perfect weather in the evenings as we sat out on the porch visiting with our family and laughing till bedtime. We could definitely use a vacation home up there one day! 

While we were up there, we visited and helped Patrick's dad and step mom as best we could. We also got to celebrate our cousin's little girls birthday. She is just a month older then Landon, so they had fun playing together too. The boys had a blast running through the sprinklers, even though the water was SUPER cold. Even in the summer, the water in Jackson is freezing because it's all snow run off from the mountains. The shivering, goosebumps, and blue lips didn't stop the boys from playing for as long as they could in the water. Sad to say, but this was their very first time running though sprinklers in a nice big green lawn. That doesn't happen too much in this kind of desert we live in! It was so fun watching them play. No one else at the party was crazy enough to play in that freezing cold water. 

More party fun.... there was face painting too. They boys thought that was awesome!

I also go to help make the Princess Carriage Cake. I had fun helping to make it, it's probably the only girly cake I'll ever get to make!

While we didn't go around and do a lot of the usual touristy things while in Jackson this time, that was ok, we have done it all before. But we are hoping to go back next year and and take the boys through the parks up there. I think they would love it. But we DID go to Bubba's to eat. We love that place! It's a really great BBQ place, but they also have some amazing biscuits and gravy for breakfast. When we were there getting ready to order breakfast, Brayden was so bummed he couldn't get ribs for breakfast, so we just had to go back to get some ribs and other BBQ the next day! We also stopped by the town square with the well known Elk Antler Arches for a few photo ops. 

So after a week of lots of fun, visiting our wonderful family, stopping to see some of our best-est friends in Utah, and about 2500 miles we made it back home. It was such a nice little trip under not so great circumstances, but it was so good to see Patrick's dad recovering and doing well, and doing as many fun things as we could along the way.  

Traveling......

In August we took a last minute and unexpected trip to Jackson, WY. 

Patrick's dad suddenly got very sick and it was very scary how close we came to loosing him. He almost died from Spinal Meningitis and Sepsis (blood infection). It's quite impressive that his dad is still alive. He was literally minutes away from death when he was found by his neighbor and taken by ambulance to the hospital. To look back at the events and how they all played out, you can't help but see the Lord's hand in it all. Guiding, protecting, and comforting our family and the Doctor's and therapist that were helping his Dad over the weeks he was in the hospital and the weeks since he has been home. Many many prayers were said in my Father in Law's behalf and thankfully they were answered and he is recovering and doing pretty well. 

So we decided we needed to go up and be with our family up in Jackson for a few days and give Grandpa Patton a big hug. So we all packed into the van and headed north!

(By the way, this was our first trip in the van, and dang! It was much nicer then cramming all of us into our little car.)

We tried to make this little trip as fun as possible, considering the circumstances. And also we weren't sure how long Patrick's back would hold up on that long of a drive so we made lots of stops. The first stop was in Payson to visit Uncle Tom and Aunt Leah. As soon as we got there, Uncle Tom took the boys out to feed the chickens and help put them away for the night. The boys loved it!

They helped get the eggs from the chickens and then got to hold some of the baby chicks. Landon didn't want to hold one, but he loved looking at and chasing them!

Conner wasn't too sure about having it on his shoulder and neither was the chick, it didn't want to stay on his shoulder.

Conner, who has no fear, loved holding, touching, and chasing the chickens. He wanted to name this one "Pecker" and I tried to tell him that probably wasn't the greatest name for him, but he wouldn't listen, so this poor chicken has a crude slang term for a name. Nice. I guess you can only laugh at the innocence of a little kid!

Brayden wasn't too hip to the idea of touching the chicks and possiblly having them poop in his hand, so he didn't hold them for too long, but he did like seeing them and feeling how soft their feathers were.

And as for Colonel Sanders on the chicken coup, well I guess you would just need to understand Uncle Tom's sense of humor. But I personally find it pretty funny so I had to take a picture of the chicken with the Colonel! I love me some KFC! 

Then we were off to see Provo. We went to BYU and the boys loved it! We showed them where their dad spent most of his days while attending BYU (in the Tanner Building) and we went to the bookstore to buy all the boys BYU shirts, and one of their favorite things we saw there was the stadium.

 By the way, the boys were not big fans of getting their pictures taken on this day, so just ignore the weird faces they are pulling.

We walked around BYU a bit and it was fun for Patrick and I to go back and remember the spots where Brayden (as a new baby) and I would go meet him for dinner on the lawn outside the library when he would be on campus all day studying for finals and bring him dinner. Or seeing the new buildings that are now complete that were just barely under construction when we were last there. We drove past the old apartment that Patrick used to live in while we were dating and got lost several times driving around Provo. It's been a while since we were last up there!

Conner found these huge leaves and pretended they were antlers. It was kind of funny!

So naturally Landon had to do it too.

He thought he was pretty funny. I guess he was since I laughed and took his picture.

We also stopped by the Provo Temple and passed by the MTC and waved at my nephew who is somewhere among the thousands of missionaries there.

Before we left Utah and headed up to Wyoming, we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite Utah places.... Apollo Burger. (or Crown Burger, but those are all up in SLC)

 It was delicious and the boys loved it! 

We didn't have time on this first day to go to the BYU Creamery, so he hit that on the way home. It was just as delicious as I remember it and all the boys thought so too!

And yes, Landon is wearing the same shirt as the week before, but he went through all his clothes and all his extra clothes while on vacation, so the last few days it was just a matter of finding which clothes were LESS dirty and that was what he would wear. 

In case you couldn't tell, Landon really enjoyed his ice cream!

We loved seeing some of Utah again. We loved our years we lived up there! It was great to get to go back and visit.

Wearing Our Big Boy Pants!

I finally built up the courage and patience to potty train Landon. I hate potty training. I mean REALLY. HATE. IT! I know the end result is worth it, but the process is just not great. Thankfully it wasn't too terribly bad this time. The other boys were both trained a few months before they turned 3, and since Landon will be 3 in a few weeks, I decided about the beginning of August that I would just bite the bullet and do it. 

The first day was horrible! The second day was better, but not by much. By about the third day he was actually doing pretty good, just a few accidents, but not bad. By the end of the first week he was doing awesome! Then we ended up making an unexpected trip up to Jackson, WY and that kind of threw him off. He had accidents everyday! I feared that once we got home, we would be starting all over from square one again. But once we got home, he was almost a there! Only 1 or 2 small accidents a day. 

Now he is officially a pro, no accidents and he doesn't even need a Pull-Up at night. In fact, a few nights ago, he woke up just as I was getting into bed and was crying, so when I went into check on him and asked him what was wrong, he said he needed to go potty! So I took him into the bathroom and he went, and then was back in bed and fast asleep in no time! Awesome!

So thankfully it wasn't as painful of a process as I feared. And we are totally diaper free at our house!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

He's pretty proud of himself!

I am all about the bribery when potty training. It's what motivates and worked for all of my boys. They get candy for going pee and small toys for going poo in the potty. They are always excited to get the toys! I just let them pick out some things they like from the dollar bins at Target and 1 or 2 bigger toys that are still inexpensive. Landon got a new Mickey Mouse book, an Elmo coloring book, a new Hotwheels car, and a tractor that lights up and makes noise. Then for being accident free for several days he got a helicopter that also lights up and makes noise. He loves them! He also got to pick out his candy he would get and he picked out all of his new underwear. They are pretty much all Toy Story or Cars themed. I guess we know what he loves right now besides big trucks!

He is growing up so fast. I actually had a bit of a hard time wanting to potty train him not only because I hate it, but because I hate that he is growing up so fast! I wish I could keep him this small and cute forever. He is so much fun at this age. Although he is quite the trouble maker also, he's a pretty dang cute little boy.... which is his only defense to all that trouble he gets in!