The Hepworths

Still catching up on Christmas...

2012-01-22T21:14:00.002-07:00

Christmas this year was pretty magical. Adam even said, "this is the first Christmas I haven't missed Christmas morning with the whole family." Christmas Eve we went to Lyndsey's for homemade pizza, really good homemade pizza like pear, gorgonzola, pecan, and chicken thai, and bbq chicken, and goat cheese, sweet pepper, oh my gosh they were good. Santa's elf brought the kids new pj's and they had a dance party. The night ended with gourmet hot coco topped with whipped cream and chocolate chunks. We got home at 7:15, put cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots and celery on the porch for the reindeer, and the kids were in bed by 7:45, awesome.

Awesome picture of me I know...had just gotten out of the shower, no makeup and wet hair, but Davis is cute!

All ready for the morning.

A LOT of Christmas Festivities, Finally

2012-01-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Zoo lights and Santa with Grandma and Grandpa H!

Lots of pictures with Santa! Davis was good for like a half a minute. Then the arching back and screaming ensued.

Putting his letter in the mailbox for Santa.

Gingerbread House Making
For the first couple of weeks of December all Grant wanted for Christmas was a gingerbread house. He saw one of those gingerbread house kits at Costco and then at Walmart and couldn't get it out of his little head. Whenever someone would ask him what he wanted Santa to bring him he's say a gingerbread house! What an easy child:) Then at school he made a graham cracker ginger bread train and he was soooooo happy!

Nice Aunt Vanessa also indulged him in his gingerbread house dream! She had him over for a sleepover and they made one together. They planned it out for weeks and Grant was so excited about it. Whenever we'd see Vanessa they would plan what they were going to put on the house... "m&m's... definitely, candy canes...definitely," they had the funniest conversations about it. I wish I could have recorded some of them. Vanessa sent me these pictures of their fun times.

After the gingerbread house making, Vanessa, Rich, and Grandma H. took grant Elf hunting at Gardner Village and to feed the reindeer at Thanksgiving Point. He was in heaven and had the best time. Thanks guys!

More Santa!
Grant's preschool class went to see Santa at the mall and got chocolate See's suckers that were super yummy and SUPER messy!

Sarah and Paul and their beautiful little girls came to visit!!
I was so happy we got some time with the Mickelsens especially since their trip was cut short when Paul found out he had to go home early for work. We spent a wonderful afternoon together, had dinner, talked and talked, let the kids play, had a sleepover, went to the temple in the morning and then said our goodbyes. It was short but wonderful. Mickelsens' please come be our permanent house guests! That would be my dream.

It was our first time meeting little Lillie who is so happy, chubby and adorable!

The lights at Temple Square.

We were SUPER LUCKY and accidentally ran into the Smylies while they were in town from Africa! It was wonderful surprise!

Adelaide and Grant were fast friends. I love this picture. Such funny kids.

The Hepworth family Christmas party.
Vanessa put together a bunch of minute to win it games, one of which was how much Kleenex you could pull out of the box in a minute. Needless to say there was lots of Kleenex all over the family room. The boys had a hayday!

Vanessa gave Grant a reindeer "pooper" which he thought was the awesomest thing ever.

Family Pictures

2011-12-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Pie Night

2011-11-22T23:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Black (my mom's side) family annual pie night. We were talking last night about how many years we've been getting together to do this, and we decided we're on year 11. It's been awhile and the competition is pretty intense. Pie night originated when everyone's families started getting bigger and people wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with their immediate families. So the Monday night before Thanksgiving, whoever is in town brings a pie, the kids listen to a thanksgiving story, we cast our votes for the best pies, prizes are received and everyone has a great time. It really is the one time a year I see some of my cousins.

It was complete chaos but a lot of fun.

Yesterday

2011-11-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

During breakfast the boys were being so funny and Grant was making Davis do his belly laugh, which is seriously hilarious. I need to get it on video. I did snap some pictures though.

During Davis' nap Grant was playing the snake game while I cleaned. I came into the living room and this is what I found. He had made a dad and mom snake and 4 baby snakes, which were ALL brothers. No sisters. ha.

My friend Lucy came over for a visit with her kids in the afternoon, and for a snack I made them a smoothie. When it was time to leave I helped her carry some stuff to her car and was seriously out of the house for maybe 2.5 minutes. This is what I found when I came back in...Davis dipping his pacifier into Grant's leftover smoothie which he had somehow grabbed off the table. That little stinker.

And these are from the other day. Grant is obessesd with taking pictures and looking at himself. He loves taking silly pictures! So this is what we do while Davis is napping.

October wrap up

2011-11-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

My favorite month of the year...it's usually great weather, the leaves are all in color, it's my birth month, the new school year schedules are finally running smoothly, and it's Halloween, which I LOVE! We had a great October. There are five billion pictures in this post, but it's my only documentation of our lives, so here you go.

I'm 32! What in the? I still feel like I graduated high school like 6 yrs ago, but it's been 13?? I'm sure my young women think I'm totally old. We started out the day great with an early morning Daylight Doughnut run (which Adam and the boys did while I was still in bed). Awesome photo of me I know. Grant was so excited about the whole thing, I love that kid.

Grant had a preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch that we made a family affair. He really wanted me to go, so I called Adam and told him since it was my birthday he had to meet us there:) We were going to try and go the next morning, but since I was going with Grant already I thought it would be perfect to just get our family pumpkin patch outing in during the field trip.

They went on a walk through the corn maze and learned about different kinds of corn. Grant thought it was so awesome that we were walking through the corn plants.

Davis had great time too.

They had a little farm there that the kids loved.

Birthday pie at Adam's parents house.

It was kind of cold so Vanessa found this giant jacket for Grant who put his brother in it to keep him warm too. Don't know how much Davis liked it.

We carved pumpkins at Grandma's too.

The finished products.

Grandpa was cracking the boys up in these photos.

We went to dinner with my family for my birthday as well. Eric showed up as Mr. T? Really? It's Eric I promise.

Halloween morning Adam made jack o 'lantern pancakes while I was still in bed...love that man.

Grant had a Halloween party at school and wore his costume. I love Mrs. Redd's clown costume. Her nose even honked. All the kids got a chance to squeeze her nose. I really like her.

Keri invited everyone over for Halloween dinner and trick or treating with the cousins.

My contribution...dinner in a pumpkin. In high school, my friend Becca's mom would make dinner in a pumpkin every Halloween. We loved that tradition, and I've been wanting to try it. My filling was a little different, kind of like a stuffed pepper - ground turkey, brown rice, spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, some parmesan and cabbage. I know it sounds a little weird but it actually ended up being super delish. The pumpkin gets soft and you kind of scoop a bit of it out with the rest of the dinner. Yum.

Grandma Lucy was the cat witch. I thought her costume was pretty good.

Hank as a rooster and Davis as a turtle.

Grant had a blast trick or treating with the big kids. They were literally running from house to house. So fun.

Pierce and Davis assessing their loot.

Halloween!

2011-11-05T15:00:00.000-06:00

His locks are gone:(

2011-11-04T16:28:00.007-06:00

My sweet baby Davis got a haircut. I know it was time, but now he looks like a big kid, sigh. Here are some before shots of those lovely locks.

My sister in law's sister Lauren, who works for us at Jamberry, is also a hair stylist! So we went down to the Jamberry Warehouse/Office to get ourselves some haircuts.

Doesn't he look so much more grown up!! Still cute, but I miss the curls.

And here's one of this handsome boy who's looking really old to me too! He got school pictures today (preschool that is). He is drinking his whole carrot, frozen berry, frozen banana, full fat plain yogurt, flax seed, child chewable vitamin, prune, spinach, orange juice concentrate, water, smoothie and loving it. I can't believe how many things I can sneak into his shakes and he'll still drink them up.

Grant showing us his dance moves while Davis got his hair cut. This boy is crazy!

We took a trip down south

2011-10-30T22:25:00.001-06:00

Now that we have a child in school we get to go on trips during things like "fall break!" YAY! Grant had last Friday off school so we headed down to St. George to soak up some warmer weather, do some hiking, and take a day trip to Zion's.

I think Grant's favorite part of the trip was exploring in Snow Canyon. We took our bikes and the trailer and did a little ride up the canyon to let the kids play on "pancake rock." I love that Grant beat all of us to the top of the mountain in the picture below!

Adam and Davis saying "Hi!"

Grant doing some rock climbing.

This boy needs a hair cut sooooo bad!

Our first hike in Zions was the Emerald pools. Grant did awesome and hiked to the top pool all by himself. He did however trip and hit his head on a rock like 100 feet before we got to the third pool, awesome! So he rode in the backpack on the way down. It was perfect weather and absolutely gorgeous there.

We were lucky enough to even see some Fall colors.

The first pool of the three Emerald pools.

Hiking up to the second pool.

Almost to the third pool. I love this picture...Adam is so small and that mountain is so big! Pictures don't really do this place justice, it's so pretty.

We made it, with a sleeping Davis and Grant who had a giant goose egg on his head from his fall, poor kid.

Our second little hike was Weeping Rock...the rock that "rains" all year round.

Grant found a spider web with a spider in it! He is seriously all boy. He was distracted by that spider for like 10 minutes!

On the way down from Weeping Rock, Grant met some friends, and a squirrel. These cute little girls pointed out the squirrel for Grant. They could have watched that critter all day!

Our last little hike was the River Walk. We didn't do the whole thing, we were all pretty tired, but we got to see the river and the beautiful canyon walls.

Back at the hotel having pillow fights.

It was a great little get-away with our small family. I loved every second of it. It made me REALLY grateful for such awesome kids and a wonderful husband.

Family Night

2011-10-25T14:04:00.000-06:00

For FHE on Monday we drove the Apline loop and got dollar sundaes at McDonald's. Grant's favorite part of the week is FHE (hope that lasts for a couple more years). He seriously gets so excited about it and then talks about how it's his "favorite day ever." I was a little worried the leaves would all be gone since it snowed, but to our surprise it was still gorgeous! The aspens were bright golden yellow and there were even some red trees left.

The Cabin

2011-10-22T20:43:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to Adam's family's cabin for the weekend. The leaves were just starting to change and it was beautiful! I love Fall in Utah. The boys had a blast and Grant keeps asking me when we're going back.

Grandpa and Davis. We also celebrated Grandpa's birthday while we were up there.

We went on a little hike and found a pretty stream.

Grant caught a fish!

My Dad's 60th!

2011-10-16T21:36:00.000-06:00

All my dad wanted for his birthday was to have his whole family in Idaho at the farm. He also wanted to get a work day in with all his sons and sons in law. So that's what we did. While all the guys went to help build a fence we swam at the hotel, went to see the new colts, prepared a birthday picnic for everyone at the park, and did a lot of swinging. The kids had a blast, and I think my dad was really happy. And he deserves to have a happy birthday...he's the best dad in world.

Yes, it's what you're thinking...Davis WOULD NOT stop picking up old cow pies. Gross. He even tasted one.

The man of the hour. All the guys and the birthday boy took a break from building fence to eat birthday lunch.

The first day (a couple of weeks late)

2011-10-05T09:24:00.000-06:00

We tried to get a "on the porch first day of school pic", but he wasn't really in the mood and this is what we got.

Grant started preschool! He has been soooooooo excited ever since we went and checked it out way back in June. There are a couple of preschools right in our neighborhood that are taught out of peoples homes, so back in June we visited three different schools to see which one was the best fit. The Little Redd School House, run by Mrs. Redd, felt right, and we signed him up. Mrs. Redd has taught in the public school system for years and has taught preschool out of her home for like the past 12 years. She's older and wise and kind and patient and she sings lots of songs. There is also another teacher, Mrs Aaron, who is younger, probably my age, who taught kindergarten for 3 years, but now has children of her own so is helping Mrs. Redd do preschool. For weeks Grant talked about how he was going to school and all the things he was going to learn and how excited he was. Knowing Grant, he is a HUGE talker, I was a little worried that his excitement was going to fade on the first day. Sure enough it did. I didn't know how bad it was going to be, kicking screaming bad, or just crying, or maybe he was going to be totally fine, but I decided to drop Davis off at the neighbors so it would be just Grant and I. And that's when it started, when I dropped Davis off Grant started to get sad, "but mom I don't think I want to go to school anymore. Why do kids have to go to school? Where is Davis? How come Davis isn't going to school? Mom, I don't want to go to school anymore," and his little voice started to quiver and the crying began before we even got there. I tried to calm his fears telling him how much fun he was going to have, all the new friends he was going to meet, all the cool things he was going to learn, etc etc. As we pulled up, his school is 4 minutes from our house, he got really sad. It was a different sad. He wasn't resisting and wasn't making loud crying noises, he was trying to be brave, but was genuinely scared. I didn't really expect it to have an effect on me, but all of the sudden it was like I was back starting my first day of school! I felt all this anxiety for him, and I got the nervous stomach, and I almost starting crying as I was telling him he was going to be fine and it was going to be great fun! C'mon it's preschool, but it was strangely hard to leave him there. We went inside and found his name-tag. He was clinging to my leg and just as he was about to have a breakdown, and I choking back tears, his teacher came to the rescue....put her arm around him and said "Grant come sing the dinosaur song with me!" The day we observed the school back in June, the kids sang the dinosaur song and Grant was totally obsessed with it. He took her hand and everything was fine. It took about 3 days to get used to it, but now he LOVES school. It's weird to think that now he will be in school for the rest of his life! He will never be home with me all day again (he actually only goes two days a week right now, but ya know). He's a great little student and enjoys learning. Thank goodness.

He picked out his Toy Story back pack and LOVES it.

Our last summer hurrah...Bear Lake

2011-09-25T22:24:00.000-06:00

To end the summer we went to Bear Lake with my family. We go there every year and I love it. Maybe it's the perfectly beautiful water, or the raspberry shakes, or the cool mornings, or late night game playing that make it one of my favorite places.

I can't get over Hanky's little bum in this picture, the cutest.

We had to take the 3 babies on a tube ride. It almost put them all to sleep...they liked it!

Lily and Lucy, such girls.

Olive and Grant

Grant had the messiest face after eating lunch and wanted me to take a picture of it so he could see it before I washed it off! Kids theses days....

Can you believe how old Spencer is?! Adam and I have known each other ever since Spence was just a baby. I can't believe it's been that long.

Everyone had to show off their wake-boarding skills. Adam even did a back flip, what the ?? he's going to kill himself one of these days!

Keri and Andrew.

Mom and Eric enjoying the ride.

Davis in the car with his crazy hair!

Besides the lake, the hammock was the favorite place to play.

Another messy face and his famous expression when I say "Grant smile!"

A friend of Eric's from his mission in Guatemala came with us. It was his first time being on a boat and trying any water sports! He said he just wanted pictures to send home so his family could see he was really on a boat! We tried to get him up on the surf board, but it didn't really work.

Marlon and Spencer

The popcorn monsters on the hammock.

I think I was behind the camera the entire time, and this is like the only photo there is of me! What, no one captured my sweet wake surfing moves?

I love this picture of a mama and her babe. Meghan you're a hot mom.

We went to Bear Lake a week or so before Davis' 1st birthday, back at the beginning of August, (i know, i'm totally late in posting this) so we got a couple of videos of when he had just started walking.

Canning and my not so many garden tips

2011-09-20T13:42:00.000-06:00

I've never really done much canning. I've canned applesauce before but ALWAYS with my mom (so she basically ends up doing most of it), but I had so many tomatoes in my garden I decided I was going to do something with them. Salsa or spaghetti sauce? If I were to do salsa I'd still have buy a bunch of stuff from the store, more peppers, cilantro, garlic etc. Also, my sister's mother in law cans the yummiest spaghetti sauce so I decided to go with that and got her recipe. I was a tiny bit nervous since I've never done it by myself, but it ended up being super simple! I tripled the recipe and got about 14 quarts. I started at like 5 pm while I was making dinner and cutting food anyway. I used everything out of the garden (tomatoes, a couple of green peppers, one jalapeno, basil, and some parsley) except onions, which I had to buy. The other seasonings I used were dried, and you don't put oil in canned sauce so it ended up being fat free. All I did was throw everything in the blend tech and pulse for a few seconds. It took a couple of blender batches, but then I just put it in a big pot and let it cook down for about 3-4 hrs. So I finished dinner, cleaned up, (all the while stirring the big pot here and there) put the kids to bed and then filled the jars. They processed in a pressure caner (which I borrowed from my neighbor) for like 25 min. Hooray, I'm adding to my food storage! It made me happy to know that if I HAD to survive without going to the store I could not only eat tomatoes out the garden but spaghetti too:)

So a couple of you asked about my gardening secrets...I actually don't have any! My garden boxes were already in our back yard when we moved in. They are like 4'x4' and they are built up a bit, probably like 2 feet. I like how they are raised, it's better on your back for weeding and picking and also I think there are less bugs since they're a couple of feet off the grass? I mix in new soil every year before I plant, nothing fancy, just regular garden soil. This year I planted lettuce, beans, and parsley from seed. Tomatoes, squash, peppers, basil, I bought little plants.

My mom taught me a trick with planting tomatoes that has really made my tomatoes plants get huge and produce a ton...you plant about a third of the plant in the ground, not just the roots, and you lay it sideways. So you kind of make a little trench, lay the plant horizontally in the trench and cover with dirt. You kind of have to bend it carefully to make the top coming out of the ground vertical. This way the plant gets a really great root system and can grow huge!

I fertilize right when I plant with miracle grow and then use miracle grow like one more time a couple of weeks later. I also use this fertilizer, which I think has really helped my plants to grow nicely. I think I only used it once this past summer. And those are basically all the garden tips I have. :)

Wonder Woman

2011-09-20T00:15:00.001-06:00

This past Saturday my sis Lyndsey, friend Laura and I rode our first century! Lyndsey wrote the story here.

It was actually a really good ride, and I think I might be addicted to my bike.

loving our garden

2011-09-02T01:39:00.002-06:00

Grant's favorite part of the day is picking the garden. Am I'm being serious when I say EVERYDAY! He goes out to pick beans more than once a day, (and then he eats them raw, handfuls of them!) and he's always checking on the raspberries. I like the garden to. And it's grown so big this year. We have a billion tomatoes and zucchinis right now. I'm giving them away! And our peaches are ripe this week. They're so good. This picture was taken like a month ago when they were still green.

We've been eating from our garden everyday. Everything we had for dinner tonight was from the garden, minus the Salmon burgers. Btw, if you haven't tried the salmon burgers from Costco you should because they are so good and super fast to make!

And this is what I watched out of my kitchen window as I cleaned up dinner tonight. Then I went out to play and take some more picutres.

Davis has started smiling and posing for the camera when I say cheese. Here he is saying cheese!

Davis turned ONE!

2011-08-30T01:32:00.000-06:00

My baby is one. I really can't believe it's been a whole YEAR! Davis is the best little guy, pretty much always happy and super chill. He has definitely made me feel like I could have a couple more kids because he's so awesome. Watch, my next one will be totally opposite and make me think I'm completely DONE! He's a crowd pleaser and loves to do his fake, courtesy laugh to get a reaction, especially in the middle of sacrament meeting. He adores his brother and manages to quickly forgive him 100 times a day after being stepped on, pushed over, banged with a toy, etc. He's not a food lover and is a super dainty eater. He takes small bites of everything. He'll take like 10 min to eat a pretzel because he takes little teeny bites. He loves string cheese and will do almost anything for it. He's my snuggler and will cuddle with me in bed. He goes crazy when his dad gets home from work and can't stand it if Adam doesn't pick him up the minute he walks in the door. He's our little fish and loves the water. He started walking a couple of weeks before his birthday and now thinks he's king of the house. He makes me smile a thousand times a day and I don't know what we'd do without him. We love our Davis! We celebrated his birthday at the splash pad with family. Joy was in town so all the Engebretsen's were there too!

Hank. Oh my gosh, he's such a cutie.

Joy and Amelia

Lyndsey and Piercey poo

Davis was kind of obsessed with kicking this beach ball ALL over the park!

Hooray for CAKE!

Sharing with dad

Trifle for the adults. Yum.

Getting washed off wasn't as fun as getting dirty

Grant was SO excited to give Davis this present. It was some little toy from walmart that was seriously 75cents. It was the first present he opened because Grant couldn't wait another minute!

I was surprised at how well he did opening presents and how interested he was. He was actually all about it.

Davis and his buddy Pierce

Joy's little Theo and Davis are exactly one week apart. I couldn't stop taking pictures of these two they were so cute.

Vanessa and Rich

We tried a bunch of times to get a picture of the three baby boys, and this was the best we got.

Then Davis kicked the ball and they were off, with Hank crawling to keep up!

Grandma and Grandpa Hepworth couldn't make it to the party so they made a special birthday trip to our house! And I know there are too many pictures here, but I couldn't choose.

Happy Birthday Buddy. You're the best!

Tahoe

2011-08-22T00:34:00.002-06:00

We had a great time with Adam's family this year at Tahoe. I'm always slightly surprised at how beautiful that place is! We played on the boat, played at the beach, played with cousins, went on bike rides, swam in our own backyard pool "the hot tub", fished from the dock, went on walks, ate lots of food, and enjoyed each others company. It was wonderful!

Davis LOVED the water!

Grant was a little concerned about standing up on the tube, but he did it!

David showing us his stuff

Grant and Davis with Grandma Great Flynn

We spent quite a bit of time just playing at the beach. The boys could play in the sand for hours.

We went over to Emerald Bay to hike the falls, see the "castle", and go to the old fort on the top of the island. Grant was obsessed with this place, and kept talking about the treasure he needed to find, and how the nice queen was going to let us into the castle next time, and how he saw the treasure in a pot through the window of the castle!

Aunt Vanessa is Grant's favorite person in the world by far! There is the castle back behind those trees.

This is Grant peeking through the window and afterward telling me he actually saw the hidden treasure in there!

On our little hike to the falls we found this awesome tree!

Grandma and Grandpa with the boys. I took like 5 pictures and this was the best I got!

At the fort on the top of the island

Uncle David helping Grant on the hike down

Guess what, Bluehouse now makes paddle boards, cool right? We took two of Adam's new paddle boards with us and they were really fun!

Grant checking out a giant tree on one of our morning walks.

Hanging out on the boat!

Fishing with Grandpa

Shucking corn with Dad

Me and my boys.

Fireworks!

2011-07-31T23:12:00.000-06:00

Being a Utahn in July is the best because you get to do fireworks from July 4th to the 24th. We get two July holidays! We got together with my family on the 24th to celebrate our pioneer heritage and let the kids go crazy with fireworks.

This little man is walking! Oh my gosh I love him.

I love Grant's expression in this photo! AHHHHHH!

Davis' first haircut :(

2011-07-28T20:24:00.000-06:00

Morning bed head...before

After. He aged like 5 years!

July 4th Festvities

2011-07-26T00:19:00.000-06:00

Our 4th of July consisted of a BBQ in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard, children's parade, water-balloons, the slip 'n slide, fireworks, rain, and glow in the dark necklaces. It was great.

So sad this picture is blurry. Had to post it though cause everyone is smiling! The boys with Gma and Gpa Pierce.

Lyndsey's beautiful kids.

Davis was a little timid about getting "all the way in" the pool at the bottom of the slide. He went for just getting his fingers wet.

Getting ready for the fireworks to start. I just love Davis' smushy, smiley face here.

our summer so far...

2011-07-12T15:53:00.002-06:00

Davis loves his new pink toothbrush, and I love his long hair! I know he needs a haircut, but I just can't bring myself to cut off those curls quite yet.

We've been playing outside a lot and loving it. I think Grant turns on the hose at least 8 times a day. And we're loving the sprinkler more than ever this year. This is Grant and his little girlfriend Jaylee that lives next door. He really is obsessed with her. He asks to play with her first thing when he wakes up every morning!

Jaylee really wanted to wear her goggles when she came over to run through the sprinlker with Grant. So of course Grant had to put his goggles on too. They were so funny!

We got to take the boat out for the first time a couple of weekends ago. I hope we get in a couple more boating days this summer!

We've been to Bridal Veil Falls a couple of times. It's always fun to take the little walk up there and let the kids throw rocks in the water. Grant could throw rocks all day.

My friend Laura and I did the Little Red Riding Hood bike ride up in Cache Valley a couple of weeks ago. It was my first real, official ride and we did 80 miles. The course was beautiful and was lots of fun. I'm signed up for my first century ride in September so it was a good precursor!

The boys love playing in the tree house and looking over into the neighbor's yard. They have two dogs and Davis gets so so so excited to see them over the fence. He practically hyperventilates every time he catches a glimpse of them!

Grant has really taken a liking to the big brother role. He loves playing with his brother! Even though he can make him cry 20 times a day, he can make him laugh more than anyone else.

Grant is practicing his pumping!

How do you like our new beach? This summer they opened a new man-made lake like 3 minutes from our house. They brought in a bunch of sand so it's not muddy and there aren't any plants! We go here at least a couple of times a week. We were there earlier today!

More sprinkler time with the cousins.

Davis and his cousin Pierce. Buddies.

Girls Camp!

2011-07-11T16:52:00.001-06:00

This year we had ward camp (we never did that when I was young we always had stake camp), so we got to decide what to do and where to go! We ended up going to Star Valley WY where some people in our ward have property. We went on a river run down the Snake and spent an afternoon in Jackson Hole. I never knew girls camp could be so fun. We seriously had a blast.

Craft time!

Their hike was pretty much a joke. We drove the girls to the top of the mountain on the 4 wheelers and they walked down. But it was beautiful. We happened to be there just in time to see all the yellow flowers in bloom! It was gorgeous! fields and fields of them.

We even watched a movie on the big screen and ate popcorn.

S'mores and songs around the campfire

Getting ready for our big trip down the river.

We filled up our water bottles in this natural spring. None of us have gotten sick yet :)

Grant turns THREE!

2011-07-10T23:25:00.004-06:00

I cannot believe I haven't posted for two months! Grant actually turned 3 in May, and it's now July, but I have to post about his birthday or I won't have a record of it. I'm the worst journaler ever. Before we jump into the birthday festivities I have to post the TWO pictures I have from when Sarah came to visit. How do I only have two pictures and they're not even good? We tried to get a picture of the future couple, Grant and Julia, but to no avail.

Then we tried to get a picture of all three kids, Julia was hamming it up for the camera and Grant was like "what are you doing?"

And it ended up like this...of course:) It was so fun to have Sarah and Julia in town for a week! We got to see them more than once which was a dream! When they left Grant kept asking when Julia was going to come over. We can't wait to see you again soon!

Our Birthday Boy! We woke up to birthday donuts and balloons. He was in heaven.

We had our first "friend" party and it was a blast. Grant talked about his birthday for weeks before it came. He was SO excited for his big day. He picked out all his own decorations, a dinosaur party, and was especially excited about his pinata.We ended up having to do all the party activities in the house because it was raining. So we moved the kitchen table out so we'd have room for all the kiddos...12 three yr. olds!

Opening presents

The cupcake cake is a little hard to see, but it was a T-REX. Grant thought it was awesome!

Blowing out the candles.

T-Rex Pinata time!

I love Grant's expression in this picture!

Grandma Pierce got him a drum set! It also came with cymbals, and bells. He loves it.

Vanessa and Rich got him a spider-man fishing pole that he'd been wanting and had been talking about for weeks!

Grandma Hepworth got him a big wheel!

The boys with Grandma and Grandpa Hepworth

Grant's friends Libbi and Jaxon got him this armor which he is now obsessed with! He wears it all the time and can't stop playing with his new sword. And that's his awesome birthday big-wheel!

I can't believe my sweet Grant is 3. He's all grown up! We love him to pieces and laugh everyday at the funny things he says. He really is a ham. Some things Grant likes these days: going fishing with his dad, playing with older kids (especially his cousins Lucy and Andrew), playing in the sandbox, having sleepovers at grandmas, playing with his super hero guys, pretending with all the toys in his closet, miniature golfing, dancing, dancing, dancing, reading books with mom, singing songs with mom, watching toy story and super why, eating popcorn, peppers, cucumbers and popsicles, having his brother lay by him before bed, picking and eating things out of the garden, helping mom make food, helping dad fix things, his nursery class, and doing EVERYTHING by HIMSELF. He is a joy to have around and we love him so much! Happy Birthday buddy!
The weekend after Grant's birthday my sister's, mom, and I took our annual trip to St. George. I only have one photo but I thought I'd post it for the records. We had such a great time. I love my sisters so much!

We did take lots of pictures of our cute toes though! And that's probably the reason I haven't posted on this blog for the past two months...we've been getting everything ready to launch our consultant program. I'm happy to say our new website is not completely finished but is live! Hooray! So if you're wanting to have a Jamberry Party visit us at jamberrynails.net

Davis 8 months + a couple of Grant

2011-05-07T00:41:00.000-06:00

Katie at Peekaboo Photos took these beautiful pictures of my boys. I love them.

Easter

2011-04-28T22:08:00.000-06:00

We colored eggs

Had brunch and a hunt at Grandma's.

Davis's future best buds...Pierce and Hank

We were lucky to have some of the cousins come, Mindi, Phillip and fam and Maria!

We were also lucky to have Ryan and Alisha down from Logan with their kids and new baby Lincoln. Alisha did you REALLY have a baby 6 weeks ago??

And then we had a dance party!

It was Adam's Birthday so we celebrated that too.

And here are a couple pictures from today at the Zoo.

Olive and Grant with Baby Zuri and her mom. Grant was so excited to see the elephants!

Davis trying to steal Grant's peanuts!

Videos and a bike ride

2011-04-19T08:07:00.000-06:00

On Saturday Adam and I did a little bike ride. It's called the Salt Lake Bike Tour and is the same day as the Salt Lake Marathon. You actually bike the marathon course. So it's a 26 mile ride through Salt Lake, starting at the U of U and ending at the Gateway. It's not timed and there's not a winner, so it's just a ride, and it was so fun. You get all the perks of race day, crowds, a number, a shirt, food, and even a medal, but you don't have to race. We decided that we want to make it a family tradition! The hardest part of the ride was afterwards, biking back up to the U and over to Adam's parents house where we parked our car!

Davis is getting a top tooth and has been pretty miserable, poor guy. So I've been giving him his frozen baby food squares in one of those little baby safe feeder things. It's basically like a popsicle and he goes crazy over it. I just pop a frozen pureed apple or banana ice cube in the mesh pocket and let him go to town. He makes a giant mess, but it keeps him happy and probably feels super good on his sore gums.

Does anyone have any tips on what to do with your videos? Do you put them on a dvd or something? I've been going through pictures and have found a million and a half videos that I didn't even know I had. I want to organize them somehow so my kids can watch them but don't really know a good way to do it. Any ideas?

The other day I put Davis in Grant's room to play with him for a bit while I folded laundry in my room next door. I went to check on them a couple of min. later and heard Grant reading stories to Davis in his tent...so I grabbed the camera and sneaked up on them.

Here are a couple more videos just because...

We thought it really might be spring, but woke up to two inches of snow!

2011-04-10T23:08:00.000-06:00

I'll admit it, I'm getting onery about it still being winter in April. For real. We had a couple of nice days that we savored and played at the park (and by nice I mean jacket and blanket weather but no snow) and the rest of the weekend has been freezing.

What are those teeth!

Here's Grant telling me about what kind of Birthday party he wants to have.

Grant loves to play hide and "sneak" with Davis. We've told him a million times it's hide and seek, but he prefers to "sneak." And he's not a good hider. He hides under the blanket and then jumps out before you find him...but it's his favorite game.

This is such a classic Grant face. He does this face all the time!

It's to the point where the laughing has turned into pleading for dad to stop...

Another classic Grant face....and I love how Davis is just enamored with his brother.

Davis is 8 months TODAY! Ahh, my baby is getting big.

Anniversary and such

2011-04-03T21:54:00.000-06:00

This past week we celebrated our 4th anniversary. Adam surprised me with a little getaway to St. George. His parents picked up the kids in the morning and we were off. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed being in the car with ONLY Adam. A road trip without kids is a dream! I would have been happy to just drive there and back. We got in some good conversation, some laughs, some songs, and of course road trip treats. It was some concentrated time that we hardly ever get anymore, and I loved it.

We brought our bikes and decided to do the Snow Canyon loop because on the map it looked like a pretty gradual climb and not that bad... it kicked my butt. We climbed from the trail at the bottom of the mtn in the picture below to the top where Adam is. The way down was great though and it was beautiful.

It was like 80 degrees and perfect weather. We swam in the pool, went to dinner, saw some St. George historical sites, (not really, we just drove by the temple and such) and hung out at the hotel. Of course we didn't bring our camera so these are all iphone pics. We were only there for a day, but it was perfect. We should do it more often.

Here are a couple more pictures... the boys being silly

I still can't figure out how this is even possible

Davis's new pastime. Oh my gosh, I love him.

Family Vacation

2011-03-15T22:52:00.000-06:00

This past week we took a much needed little ski trip! We were able to stay in my Aunt's home in Eden for a week and ski with friends and family. It was really really wonderful. Thanks Aunt Marilyn!

Grant actually did awesome, and by the end of the week he couldn't stop talking about how much he loved skiing! We used the harness for the first couple of days and then Fri and Sat he skied all by himself.

Tuesday evening Adam's parents and sister and bro in law came up. They skied with us on Wed, and were nice enough to watch the kiddos in the lodge for a bit so Adam and I could get a couple of runs in together. They also watched the kids all Thursday morning so we could ski. What great Grandparents!!

Grant fell asleep in the lodge on the TABLE. This kid definitely needs his naps.

Stopping for lunch.

Our attempt at a family photo.

On Friday night some of our friends came up to spend the weekend. Grant was so excited to have some kids to play with. Here they are watching a movie...except for Grant and Olive who are of course horsing around!

On Sat. we went sledding...basically the kids just played in the snow and loved every second of it.

Lunch Time.

Hot Tub!

I love Olive in this picture. And Pierce is like "mom get me out of here!"

Jessi, Luke and their cute Millie. Amy, how do I not have a picture of you guys!!??

Amy's Mckenzie put on a little performance for us which then turned into a dance party. I wish I would have gotten Kenzie's dance on camera, but I missed it. She and her cousin choreographed a little number to Katie Perry's firework song. Here is Jessica's Millie showing us her moves.

6 month stats

2011-03-02T23:01:00.000-07:00

Davis had his 6 month check up yesterday...

weight: 17lb 7oz

length: 27"

I love this guy so much. He seriously makes me happy everyday. I think I tell Adam at least a couple of times a day how much I love Davis. I love Grant too, but I like Davis more...is that bad to say?

Sunday photo

Two Teeth!!!

Grant wanted to show off his teeth too:)

Grant has been being a really good big brother lately. Davis LOVES him. Grant makes him laugh more than anyone else.

And one of Grant cause I do love him he's cute