Eight is Great

Back in July, this handsome boy turned 8.

We spent the day at Black Ridge Reservoir in Herriman with our good friends the Snedakers.  The boys had an absolute blast playing on the sandy beaches and in the warm water.  We will definitely be going back there next summer.

For his birthday, Carson had really wanted a dog.  My boys have wanted a dog for the longest time but we have always told them no because our backyard isn't fenced.  Jeff had challenged our boys to keep their Legos cleaned up for 2 weeks(a really big challenge because with four little boys we ALWAYS have Legos on the floor somewhere!) and he told them that if they did, he would consider getting a dog. Well, our boys sure wanted a dog and they were very diligent about keeping their Legos cleaned up. After considering a lot of options, we decided we wanted to go with a medium to large sized dog because we felt it would be more "durable" with four little boys. Carson kept praying really hard that Heavenly Father would send him a doggie that would be perfect for our family.  One day about a week before Carson's birthday I decided that we'd better get looking for a dog and decided to set up an appointment with some people who were selling a dog online.  I also told the boys that we would be going to the shelter to look.  I told them we were NOT going to get a dog that day, but that we needed to start looking around so we could decide what we wanted.

We went to the shelter first, and after a quick walk through, Carson picked out a few big dogs that he wanted to look at more closely in the "getting to know you" rooms.  As we walked through the small dog area, I noticed a cute little terrier that looked very friendly and was the only dog not yapping at us. After being told that one of the big dogs Carson wanted to look at was not recommended for kids and the other one had been returned to the shelter for destroying property, I suggested looking at the little terrier. My boys instantly fell in love with this sweet little dog.  I reminded them that we weren't getting a dog that day, and we were just looking.  I asked the shelter worker if they could hold the dog for us until Saturday and she said that they don't hold dogs.  She also said that the terriers are usually adopted in a few days.  We had to leave the shelter to go meet our appointment with the dog that was being sold online.

We drove to our appointment and met up with Jeff to see a 6 month old Boxer mix.  Jeff had a Boxer dog when we were dating and he loves those kinds of dogs.  Carson, again fell in love with the dog (I think he'd love any dog!) but Mason and Jonas were scared of the bigger dog and didn't like that she jumped so much. In fact, Jonas wouldn't even get out of the van to go see the dog. We told the man we'd have to think about getting the dog.  Since Jeff was now off work, we drove back to the shelter to show him the little terrier and to look at the other dogs again.  As we walked through the shelter, Jeff and the boys picked out another big dog, a Walker Hound, to look at it.  It seemed nice enough, just high energy, and it frightened Mason and Jonas.  We looked at the terrier again and the boys were in love. The shelter was running a special for July and all dogs were $17.76 and they came neutered, with a rabies shot, microchip, voucher for a free vet visit, and a bag of food.  This made it very easy for us to choose the little terrier! He is the absolute sweetest little dog and we love him so much.  After trying out several different names on him, we finally settled on Oliver.

Carson loves his little dog and his favorite thing is to have Oliver come hop on his bed at night and sleep with him.

29

Shopping at City Creek

To start off, I have to say that I have an amazing husband. Seriously.  In June I turned 29, and he made it the best birthday ever for me. For the longest time I'd told him that my 19th birthday had been my favorite. Clear back in '03 when we were dating, he'd surprised me by coming to my parent's house (I was home on summer break from college) and decorated my bedroom while I was out on a morning walk with a friend.  He had made me a bedside table (that is still in our room today, ironically, on his side of the bed) and then he took me to Downata Hot Springs for the day. It had always been my favorite birthday, until this year.

This year my birthday was on a Monday, and Sunday night I was kind of dreading that he had to go to work. I told him that I would probably take the kids to Thanksgiving Point or swimming for the day so we could do something fun for my birthday. He told me that would be a good way to spend the day and then when he got home he'd make me dinner and we'd have family over for a little party.  The next morning my alarm went off at 7:00 (when Jeff is supposed to start work) and when I went to roll over to shut it off, I noticed Jeff's arm was still around me.  I immediately panicked and yelled at him that he had slept in and was late for work. He shouted, "Surprise! I took the day off!" but in my groggy state I was still a little confused and asked, "You mean you don't have to go to work?" He then got up, made me breakfast in bed, and took care of the kids so I could have a relaxing morning getting ready.  Then we headed into Salt Lake so I could go shopping for a birthday present.

I was on the hunt for new bedding as ours was getting quite old.  We first stopped in to Target to look around, and I found a beautiful pin tuck comforter, but I'd had my heart set on a pin tuck comforter from West Elm, so I passed it up.  Jeff bought me two shirts and then we headed off to grab some lunch at Cafe Rio.

Umm, Pork Barbacoa Salad for my birthday lunch?? Perfect!

After lunch we headed to my SIL's house to drop our kids off for a few hours. We went over to City Creek so I could hit up West Elm and drool over all their cute stuff.

I seriously love West Elm.

  In the end, I decided to go with the Target bedding since its price point also allowed me to get new sheets. An awful picture of the bedding, but you get the idea.  Next up on the list is a new bed, or headboard...Christmas maybe?

After a full day of shopping and feeling spoiled, we came home and Jeff cooked me the most delicious ribs for dinner. I love that man.

 Then his family came over for cake and ice cream and my SIL made these super cute cupcakes.

Jonas and Mason snuggling in the new bedding with me.  Love these guys a "million-gillion".

For my birthday I had also gotten money from several people and I saved it up to fund our board and batten project. You can read about it on my other blog here. Overall, it was a spectacular day and I am so thankful for my wonderful husband and little boys who made it so great.

J is Five

My baby man is five. FIVE.  It's always a hard age to wrap my mind around because it marks a turning point from them being a small child to entering middle childhood. I am so happy with the wonderful little boy Jonas is becoming.  He is such a sweetie and has the most hilarious personality. He seriously keeps Jeff and I rolling in laughter.

As I mentioned, my boys are into Star Wars right now.  Jonas has been wanting a certain Star Wars Lego and as he opened it the first words out of his mouth were, "Mason you can have my R2-D2!"  (Jonas already has an R2-D2 and knew that Mason had wanted one too.) His selflessness totally amazed me.  I think the following pictures say it all. So glad I had the camera to capture it!

 After presents we dug into this yummy Obi Wan Kenobi cake that my SIL, Kris made.  Jonas loved it because Obi Wan is his favorite Star Wars character.

Happy Birthday Jonas, we sure do love you!

The Husband's Birthday

I seriously hate that I got behind on blogging.  It really stinks to try to get caught back up, but I'm almost there, and hopefully I'll be able to post a lot more efficiently from now on, with our new computer. I'm not kidding, I cried the first time a did a blog post with it and it took me a fraction of the time that it had been with my old computer.

Since Jeff and Porter's birthdays' are only four days apart, I didn't really plan on having two parties.  Jeff and I decided that we wanted to go on a date the weekend before his birthday to celebrate.  We decided to go to a movie, and I was sure that he was going to pick The Hobbit, but a few days before we planned to go, he told me that we should go see Breaking Dawn, Part 2, before it was out of theaters.  I was a little shocked that he wanted to go, but went online to see if it was still playing anywhere.  I found one theater, the Cinemark at Jordan Landing (right by where we first lived when we moved to Utah).  Jeff's older sister graciously volunteered to come to our house to watch our boys for us.  We headed out to the movie and got there about 10 minutes before it started.  We walked into the theater and it was completely packed.  The only two seats we could find together were in the first row.  Yep, the first row.


 When everyone was over at our house for Porter's party, they insisted that we have another one for Jeff on his birthday.  I didn't think everyone would want to drive out to our house twice in one week, but they were more than willing to come.  Jeff's sister even made the BEST German Chocolate cake!  And Jeff got to celebrate his 3rd Birthday (just like Mason!) because I thought I had two number three candles, but didn't. Sheeesh, he's getting old.

(Yes this table is super ugly, its getting painted black very soon!)

The family.

Porter-man Turns One

Yep, I'm just a little slow on blogging. On January 3rd, Porter had his First Birthday. We celebrated by having a birthday party with our family.  He was spoiled rotten, but mainly received clothes and shoes, at my request. I had just moved him into 12-18 month clothing and realized that after three boys, the clothing was pretty sad looking. Plus we were on toy overload from Christmas and I couldn't possibly think of any toy he needed. 

I attempted to make him a monster cake, but we all know how awesome my cake decorating skills are, and part of the monster's head fell off. So the top of his head was flat, but I'm pretty sure Porter didn't care because he loved getting to eat cake. As you can tell from the pictures, Jonas was right there in all of the action helping Porter open presents.  These two have such a special bond and Jonas is Porter's protector.  I can't tell you how many times Jonas has probably saved Porter's life by pulling something out of his mouth or shutting the basement door so he doesn't fall down. Porter absolutely adores Jonas and gets a big smile on his face when Jonas plays with him.

So thankful for this sweet baby boy. He is becoming such a Daddy's boy and likes to follow Jeff around the house.  He gets heartbroken and throws himself on the ground crying when Dad leaves the room without him.

My Three Year Old

Our little Mason monster turned three clear back in December.  We had a fun filled day with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen coming to visit, going shopping at Scheel's, and a birthday party that evening. Mason is obsessed with the color blue right now.  When I asked him what kind of a party he wanted the only answer I got was "blue".  Here's what he ended up with.

Last summer Mason fell in love with our neighbor's Cozy Coupe.  About a month before Mason's birthday, a friend called me and told me that Toys R' Us had them on sale that day only for $39...a steal if you've ever priced out Cozy Coupes.  So I went over to Walmart and price matched it, and within a few hours of the phone call I had it all tucked away in a corner of my garage.  The night before Mason's birthday, Jeff and my step-dad put it together, and when Mason came out of his room in the morning, he was so excited!

Mason really is a joy to have in our home.  He has such an enthusiasm for life. He is also our Type A personality. He is a control freak.  He is often heard bossing around Jonas, and Jonas obeys because he is such an easy going kid. We butt heads sometimes because he thinks that he's the boss. I can definitely see him being a great leader one day. He is also such a Momma's Boy.  He often wants me to lay by him in bed after I read him bedtime stories.  About 20 times a day he comes up to me and says, "I want you to hold me."  So I give him a big hug and tell him that I love him. Also, he doesn't like it when I get stern with him and tells me, "Just be nice to me.  I want you to be nice." He tries so hard to be independent and doesn't like it when I try to help him.  Often he will be saying a blessing on the food, and stop because he doesn't know what to say.  So Jeff or I will try to prompt him and he'll yell out "I don't need help!" He will go quiet again and then finally demand "Help me!" We do this scenario at least once a day.

At his 3 year check-up he was:
Weight: 28.5 lbs   20th percentile.  (Wahoo! He's moved up from the 10th!)
Height: 36 3/4 inches    30th percentile

He's a lot smaller than Carson and Jonas were at three, but he's staying on his own curve and finally gaining weight.

My Little Man is Seven

I can't believe that my little man is another year older! For this little boy, it was a day that started out early.  To accommodate Daddy working the night shift, we celebrated when he arrived home in the morning.  He surprised us all and showed up with a dozen doughnuts and a gallon of chocolate milk. We then opened a few presents and sent Daddy off to bed.

Carson spent a few hours doing his favorite thing: building Legos!  Then it was off to watch a 3-D movie at the Museum of Ancient Life...my first attempt at taking all four little ones to a movie by myself...and we survived! 

We got home from the movie in time to have some birthday cupcakes with Daddy and open the rest of Carson's presents before Daddy had to rush off to work again.

Later in the week we had Carson's real birthday party with family and friends.  We chose to show a movie in the back yard and have a 'Night at the Movies' theme.

Grandpa Larry paid for Carson to take archery lessons as a birthday present.  Carson loved it! 

July in iPhone Pics

Once again time has flown and I find myself doing a monthly recap in phone photos.  At the first of July we went to Idaho for my Grandma Butler's funeral (post coming soon...).  While we were in Idaho, Mason got sick with some sort of stomach bug, and after we returned to Utah, all of the kiddos were sick with it. We spent a day camped out in the living room feeling yucky.

After the boys were feeling better we took them to the Children's Discovery Gardens at Thanksgiving Point.  They loved it.

Porter learned about how itchy grass can be...

We launched rockets from our back yard with Uncle Shane and Uncle Jason.

Then we headed back to Idaho for two weeks because my dad had a knee replacement surgery.   He's needed it done for about 10 years and finally got to the point where he had to do it. He had a difficult time recovering and ended up having a second surgery after I came home.

 While I was there to help my dad, the kids were there to get spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa Larsen.  Jonas got some new swim goggles for...

 the swimming pool they bought while we were there.  My mom and I talked about getting a little wading pool for the boys to play in while I was gone during the day.  We mentioned it to Grandpa and then he comes home with this kind of a pool.  The kids were in heaven!

Grandma treated us to The Lorax with some tickets she'd won from work. Mason wouldn't share the popcorn :(.

In the middle of our stay, Jeff came up to visit us for the weekend. Carson had found my old BB gun in a closet at my dad's house, and so they went out back for some target practice.

 Before we left Idaho, we celebrated Carson's birthday early with a party at my dad's house.  It was the first time in 23 years I've sat down to a dinner with both of my parents.  It was kind of weird.

After two weeks of being away from home, this is how we all felt.

We got home the day before Carson's birthday.  At the time, Jeff was working nights and brought home breakfast doughnuts and a gallon of chocolate milk for Carson .  We opened presents and then Jeff went to bed.

While Daddy was sleeping, I let Carson build his new Legos all morning.  Then I took them to a 3-D dinosaur movie at Thanksgiving Point. It was my first time taking all four kids to a theater by myself.  It was a little hectic, but totally worth it to see Jonas and Mason (in their 3-D glasses) stand up and try to touch the dinosaurs.

The very next day was my nephew's birthday and we went to a Bee's game in SLC.  Four kids, at a baseball game, without Jeff there to help.  Enough said!