Best Friends

With the first day of school coming near I can't help but think about my first day of 1st Grade. That's when I first saw my Best Friend Maryann. I played with her hair and she played with mine, we were best friends from the start. Who knew we would be friends 21 years later? We didn't.









I got to see her today for her birthday. It was worth driving an hour and a half to surprise her and sing her Happy Birthday.
Today after 21 years of Friendship
Happy Birthday Maryann!

Cali-forn-i-a

Laura went through the Temple for her first time and wanted to do it at the Oakland Temple. We were so excited for her Temple choice because Matt and I have attempted to go to this Temple a few times but circumstances never allowed it until now. That meant we finally got to check this Temple off our list and we got to go to California as an added bonus to visit family.
The boys amazed us by being so good both there and back. Never cried once, literally!
We left pretty late in the afternoon on Thursday so that made us travel all night but we weren't that tired. First thing we did was visit Grandpa Thompson. We did rest a little since we got there pretty early but he fed us and we were on our way for some fun. It was Julie's first time visiting so we took her to the Hilmar Cheese Company near Grandpa's house in Turlock. Unfortunately the top portion of the factory was closed due to a private party so we didn't get to see people making the cheese, but it was still fun sampling the different cheese's they had and walking around the place.



After that and having lunch with Grandpa we went our separate ways. Our family went to our Aunt and Uncles new house that we were staying at. They gave us the grand tour. I love their house! We had dinner with them and all of us together went to Josh's (cousin) Sport Banquet and had our second dinner. The banquet happened to be next door to Best Buy. After we were done we all went inside to show them the Kinect and to buy the new Michael Jackson Kinect game. It's fun splurging!
The next day was Laura's special day. It was raining pretty hard. We had an umbrella but I still managed to look soaked everywhere but my head. By the end of the session it stopped so we were able to take pictures.

Another great reason having Laura choose the Oakland Temple is that more family got to be there. I love that I married into such an amazing family and it made the sting of Mom not being there light. It still hurt but it made it easier. We had lunch together and went our separate ways again but got back together later that evening to go visit Grandma Haymore and have dinner.
Sunday we went to church and later went to our Aunt and cousins house the rest of the day/evening. We got to relax, play games and have yummy food.
Monday we planned to drive home early but we were stuck because there was a snow storm through Donner. We couldn't believe that we were snowed in and it was June but it allowed us to tour the Jelly Belly Factory :). We wanted to do it after the Temple Saturday but it closed early. If any of you are in the Fairfield area you need to take two hours or so from your time and go. It's free and it's an amazing tour for being free. No cameras were allowed but I quickly got a picture of this Jelly Belly sculpture of a duck. This is for you Julie!

I also got these of the boys and Matt with their hats before going in. Evan was excited!



During the tour we got to sample jelly belly's and some without the outer shell. The outer shell doesn't make a difference in taste but since they were so fresh they had more flavor.
Fun facts about Jelly Belly:
-It takes 24 days to make 1 jelly bean but it takes a second to eat.
-Blueberry flavor was created for Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration in 1981 to make red, white and blue.
-During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Jelly Belly beans were served in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. A holder was designed for the plane so the jar of Jelly Belly beans would not spill during turbulence.
-The most popular Jelly Belly are Very Cherry, Butter Popcorn and Black Liquorish.
After the tour they gave us a bag each of Jelly Beans and we got to go to their taster table to sample as many Jelly Belly's as we wanted. That's a lot of free candy for a free tour!
We made it out just in time for the pass to open so it was worth it.

Party Continues

We had our friends Aubrey and Aaron over so we can have a mini party for both Alex and Aaron since they're just a day apart. Alex was born at 1:43 pm on May 11th and Aaron was born at 12:13 pm on May 12th. They're about 22 1/2 hours apart.
I loved being pregnant at the same time as Aubrey but more importantly I love that our two boys are just hours apart from each other.
9 Months Pregnant

1 Month

3 Months

8 Months

1 Year

Pictures

Thanks Amy for taking these pictures. I think they turned out great!

Park City

Alex's Party





Here's a few lost pictures from different times where I used my camera phone. For a while I couldn't find the charger to our nice camera.

I thought Alex was so cute in these carts at Home Depot. I love carts like these to make shopping a little easier.


I don't see how kids can fall asleep like this.
Evan and Alex's first bath together.
Evan posing in his new pj's that Aunt Laura gave him.
I find Alex in this sleeping position all the time. How this is comfortable?
We went to a fun fast food place in Heber called the Dairy Keen. There are fun train displays, trains and toys to even play with and a train outside that you can eat in. Afterwards we went to the park across the street where Alex couldn't get enough of the swings.

Yes!!

No more diapers for Evan!!

Bye, bye diapers
Bye, bye mess
Bye, Bye dirty under pants :)

He's been diaper free for over a week now and doing awesome! This includes naps and night time.

Alex Turns a Year!!

I can't believe it!! My Baby is a year old. It seems just like yesterday I held this little guy for the first time in my arms. He went from this... to this! We were in Park City the day of his birthday so we didn't have his party till today so our family and friends could celebrate with us. We couldn't just not do nothing for his birthday so we had some fun at the park!
He loves slides!
That evening we sang Happy Birthday to him and let him practice eating cake.

It was his bedtime so he wasn't the happiest kid but still so cute!

He loved the cupcake!

And ate it all up!

He also loves ice cream!

Clean up in the sink.

Since I'm on the subject of Park City and these are the only picture I have of the trip I will just write a little break down about it. We went up with Matt's family. and rented Condos for the week.
Monday was the day we went up. For FHE we invited the Jensen's up to eat Pizza at Pizza Hut and to swim.
Tuesday I spent the day relaxing with the boys in the Condo waiting for Matt to come back from work. He did commute back and forth through the week for work but he wasn't the only one. We went out to dinner again as a family to Ruby Tuesday. Yum!
Wednesday was Alex's birthday. Not only did we play at the park and had a mini party for him, we did some shopping at the Outlets.
Thursday Amy, Cadence and Kory came up to spend a good portion of the day with us. We went shopping and swam. She did snap some photos so I will eventually get them from her and put them on here later.
Friday we shopped and swam some more :).
Saturday we came home and had Alex's party. Over all it was a fabulous week of relaxing, swimming and shopping!
I washed Alex's 1 shirt so he could wear it again because it's so cute on him.

He of course didn't wear it for long. Since cake is messy we had him open his presents first.

Evan and Cadence making sure the toys are safe for him to play with.

His loot

The cake



I was surprised he didn't eat the cake like he did the cupcake but we had a good laugh the way he ate it though.
Blogger is having a hard time uploading the video of us singing Happy Birthday to him and him going at the cake for the first time. I will try again later. The pictures show he doesn’t like the feel of the icing so he just uses his mouth for the most part.
How old are you Alex?

Ok I'm done!

Or maybe he was just thirsty because he normally loves baths.


Alex's friends came to party with him. They're just a few months younger then him but it's amazing how fast they grow in the first year.
Brynlee

Kory

Thank you to those who came and partied with Alex. We're so grateful to our Heavenly Father for blessing us with him. He's so fun and we love him.
His 1 year Baby Well Check Up was re-scheduled for next Friday. I will post how big he's gotten.