frustrated!

So I thought it would be cute to put a christmas background to the blog. I found a cute one with snowmen, but after I updated it, it erased everything on the side . . . my pictures and my favorite blogs. How frustrating! Anyway, hopefully I can get it back to how it was. Does anyone know of any christmas templates that don't change your blog?

oh christmas tree!

I don't have much time to blog, so I'm going to keep this brief. Last weekend we got ourselves a nice blue spruce.

It was too tall for our house so Clark grafted it. If you look close, you can see the top was spliced.

I was cracking up after I took this picture because you can barely see our tree. I had to take another one without anyone standing by it. :)

It's perfect for our little house!

Fantastic Weekend

Wow! Both of my kids are napping at the same time. I hardly know what to do with myself. I think I'll update you on our fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. Well, it was rough-going the first few days actually. We left Laramie Monday afternoon. I made sure to bring lots of snacks to keep the kids entertained and me awake. About 3 hours into the drive, I started to feel REALLY sick. I thought, "Oh great, I ate too many snacks," but that was not the case. I told Clark I felt like I was going to barf and the next thing I knew, I was barfing in a plastic bag while Clark pulled off the highway. Yes. Gross. I thought it was just carsickness. Wrong again. I threw up 3 more times during the next 24 hours. It was the darn flu. Clark and Rosie got it too. Somehow Will didn't get it. He must have a killer immune system because he and Rosie were sharing the same drink. Anyway, by Tuesday night we felt great. Clark went hunting everyday but didn't see one elk. We ate two turkey dinners, both amazingly delicious. And BIG news . . . Rosie turned 1!!! Libby helped me make a cake. Here are pics from our trip:

This is Will's favorite dog, Bubba. It is also Rosie's first word, Bubba. He is very loved by my kids.

Scary Pistol Pete

Ever since Will was 1 1/2 he has LOVED Pistol Pete! At football, basketball, and volleyball games, he scans the crowd for Pistol Pete. The Cowboys had a basketball game on Friday that we decided to attend. As usual, Will was asking if he would see Pistol Pete. I replied that maybe he could even shake his hand. During the first quarter, Will was in luck. Pistol Pete came down to our section. I waved my arms to get him to come over to us and took out the camera to get a picture. Clark took Will out of the row to talk to Pistol Pete. Anyone want to guess Will's reaction?

He was BAWLING!!! After we got him to calm down, I asked why he was sad and he said, "Pistol Pete have big teeth!"

Winter Wonderland

I woke up this morning, looked out the window and surprise, white, everywhere! I loved it! So did Will. After breakfast he stared out the window and asked, "Make snowman now?" After Rosie laid down for her morning nap, we quickly put on our snow boots and snow suits and headed out the front door.

After the carrot and coals were in place, I was ready to get out of the chilling wind. Will didn't want to go inside. He's much tougher than I am. Will asked if we could "Make bigger snowman?" So we added a few more handfuls of snow to the base. Winter is here and we are excited!

On a totally different note, after running errands, the kids and I were quite tired. I got out of the car to unload the kids and they were both fast asleep . . . holding hands! I love little moments like that. It makes all the craziness worth it.

We're Back!!

Well, it's almost a month later and we now have a working computer. I am so excited to catch up on all the blogs. Here's what we've been up to this past month:

Oh shoot, I forgot the pictures show up in reverse order. Oh well! This is my beautiful little sister Amy, Rosie, my cool brother Josh, and Will at my Dad's house. We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood and Will was in heaven. He couldn't believe all you had to do was knock on someone's door and they would give him "lots, lots, lots of candy!" Whenever they let Will choose what candy he wanted, without fail, he would pick a lollipop.

Here are the kids, ready to trick-or-treat. Rosie didn't like the bear head so much. She kept trying to rip it off during the night.

Clark turned the big 2-5! We had "Better than Almost Anything" Cake and celebrated the day Clark came into the world.

Our Computer Died!

Hello fellow bloggers! Our computer decided to be stubborn and stopped working and I'm suffering from blogging-withdrawals. I miss catching up with everyone! Hopefully we will get it fixed or maybe we'll splurge and get something totally new. In the mean time, just wanted to say I miss you all.

Will has been saying such funny things lately. Today, Clark let him wear his gun around the house (without the cylinder) and Will said, "Shoot Mama," which immediately eliminated his gun carrying privileges. So Clark took the gun away and told him that he needed to learn that we don't shoot people. After that, Will said with tears in his eyes, "Need gun!"

Then tonight, he was tossing in his sleep and he said, "Yes naptime, yes naptime!" Usually he fights me about naps so this was quite amusing.

Will is passionate about trains. Hmm, I wonder where he gets THAT from? :) While I was making some cookies, Will made a "spice train".

Rosie has been SO sick lately, it truly is sad. She has had a constant runny nose for 8 days now. Then today after storytime, she got a bloody nose out of the blue and a severe rash all over her chest, stomach, and back. I think it might be chicken pox, but do people even get chicken pox these days? I don't know how she could've gotten it. I think I'm going to take her to the doc tomorrow. It's her second time this week.

Nephew, football game, and nutrigrain bars

I'm going to keep this blog brief because I really should be going to bed. We all got a NASTY head cold and Clark's family is in town so we're trying to get over it quickly. Anyway, we now have a nephew, thanks to Steph and Ryan! We all fell in love instantly.





We went to the UW Cowboys game last Saturday and it wore Will out. Throughout the whole game, he scanned the field and the crowds for Pistol Pete. He loves that guy!
Rosie has been anxious to start eating real foods and one of her favorites is nutrigrain bars. This is her first time with it. She loved putting the little pieces in her mouth. It was quite messy but oh so adorable!

9 Months

Rosie is officially 9 months old today! We took her to the doctor and she went from the 80th percentile to the 30th percentile for her weight. She is still in the 80th percentile for her height (I think she is going to be tall like her dad). Here's a pic from when she was born:


Here is Rosie tonight after dinner. She has changed quite a bit in the past 9 months. She is such a sweet addition to our family. She has a smile that can melt your heart.


Will decided to highlight Rosie's hair. And when I say "Highlight" I literally mean "Highlight". I found her with pink streaks in her hair. I tried to get a picture, but she wouldn't sit still and then I gave her a bath and it rubbed off, luckily! Here is Will's highlighter.

Denver and mountains

Clark took me to Denver!!! We left Friday around 4 p.m. and headed out for an adventure. Clark's original plan was to go to the Rockies game, but we got stuck in rush hour so we ended up getting to Denver later than planned. We were both starving by the time we got there, so we checked into our hotel and then went to Old Chicago's. Our hotel was so fancy! There were huge horse statues in the main lobby, tall ceilings, mirrors and lights everywhere, an outdoor pool, and 22 floors. We were on the 20th floor and we had a beautiful view of downtown Denver. Here are the horses!


This is us at Old Chicago's. We tried at least 10 times to get a good picture, but we couldn't figure out how to make it look normal without the weird flash. We were cracking up trying to get it to work.
Yay, we got a good one!


On Thursday, we went to the mountains with Steph, Ryan, and Betsy. After dinner, Clark and Will hiked down a trail to look for fish. Steph, Ryan, Betsy, Rosie, and I left later and ended up losing the trail and taking a crazy way there. We were jumping off big rocks and walking through really tall shrubs. We finally made it to the lake and this was what we saw:
I don't know how the couch got there, but it was so adorable to see Will and Clark sitting on it together, just waiting for us.

Here are my beautiful sisters-in-law with Rosie.

Playing

I was really nervous when I found out our kids would only be 18 months apart. I didn't know if I was woman enough to handle it. However, now it is so sweet to see Will and Rosie play together. Yesterday, they played the piano together and then played with Will's crane/tunnel toy.



My sister Carolyn and her husband and daughter spent some time in Laramie and it was so good to catch up on everything! This is her adorable daughter Lainey and Rosie playing together.

Our garden is growing!!! Not as fast as we hoped though. We're a little nervous that the green beans won't sprout in time. Anyway, we did grow two banana peppers successfully. Yay!!

On a side note, I am so excited for this weekend. Clark is planning some romantic getaway and I can't wait! As much as I love our kids, I love my Clark time! We'll try to take some pics whatever we're doing (Clark's keeping it a secret).

Denver reunion

A couple weekends ago (yes, I'm behind on my blogs) we went to Denver with my family for a mini reunion. We were only able to stay two of the days, but they were jam-packed with fun. We got to Denver Sunday evening and it was blazing hot so we went for a swim in the hotel's pool. Here's Will, Clark, and my brother Josh.


The pool was quite cold because it wasn't heated. After a few minutes of swimming, Rosie and I were quite content sitting on the side of the pool watching everyone else. In this shot it's Rosie, me, Josh, Will (with his funny smile), and my niece Lainey.



Monday morning we went to Six Flags Elitch Gardens. I packed the diaper bag with all sorts of goodies and treats for the kids. When we went through the scanners, I beeped so they made me go to the baggage check. The lady in front of me got her bag checked and it turns out she also loaded up on treats and the man threw them in the trash and said she couldn't take food into the park. I got a little nervous when I was next, but luckily I got a lady and she gave me a wink and let me through. Phew! There was a little kid's section that Will loved. There were boats, airplanes, semi-trucks, buses, hot air balloons, and a train. Here he is with Josh.

My Dad took Rosie on the carousel. I'm not quite sure what she thought of it. I think all the music and the horse going up and down was a lot to take in.

Monday night, my Dad let me choose where to go for dinner and I chose PF Chang's. Amazing Chinese food! We got lettuce wraps, potstickers, eggrolls, and then I tried the ginger chicken. It was delish to say the least. Here's Josh, Will, and me. (As you can see in the pics, Josh and Will are quite close. He's more like a big brother than an uncle and I love it.)

We had to go home after dinner because the kids were exhausted and Clark had to work early Tuesday morning. It was a great reunion!

Quirks of mine

Thanks to Emily, I am listing 6 quirks. It took me a while to come up with them, but once I started, it was hard to stop!

1. When I read a magazine, first I flip through every page and I don't allow myself to read any articles until I have flipped through the whole thing.

2. When I take the kids for a walk, I have to have Rosie on the right side and Will on the left (in the jogging stroller). Clark went with us one time and he started putting Rosie on the left and I freaked out.

3. Even if I'm really hot at night, I have to sleep with some sort of blanket. I can't fall asleep without something on me.

4. I am always paranoid there is food in my teeth. In High School, I carried a pocket-sized mirror in my planner so I could check throughout the day. Now it is not as bad, but still after dinner, I have to check and make sure.

5. I use "just" more than any other word, in e-mails and in conversations. I don't know why . . .

6. My favorite way to eat french fries? Dipped in frostys or milkshakes. A french fry makes a milkshake taste so much better.

I tag anyone who wants to do this.

Anderson Reunion and other stuff

This past week was full of fun stuff! We went to Lonetree to attend Sylvie's baptism. She was a very brave girl and got baptized in the river behind their house (at 7 in the morning)! Then we went to the KOA for the Anderson family reunion. They had an Olympic theme with different events you could compete in. Clark and I both did the pogo stick. It was hilariously fun.

My facial expression here is actually excitement. We had a couple of practice rounds before the real competition and during practice I couldn't stay on for more than a few jumps. Then when the real event started, I stayed on for at least 10 seconds. I was pumped! I did lose though, to Betsy . . . the Pogo Stick Queen! Right Bets? :)

Then we went to the Pioneer Day Parade (see the next post).

Pioneer Day Parade

Here are the pictures of the parade. Clark's Mom did the float for their ward. She did a fantastic job! Notice the Tree of Life on the left, the Iron Rod, and it's hard to tell from this picture, but there were people doing service like chopping wood, baking, etc.


We were waiting for the parade to start. From left to right, Clark's Dad (Clark), Will, Clark's sister (Betsy), and Clark's brother (Eli). What a cute family we have!

I don't think this picture does justice to how much candy Will got. We were at the very beginning of the parade so people were extremely generous with the candy. Will's favorites were the taffys and lollipops.

Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts Concert

For Cheyenne Frontier Days, Amy and I went to the Taylor Swift/Rascal Flatts concert. It was soooo fun! I've been to 3 other concerts, but none of them had the special effects that this one had. There was a big screen in the background that showed clips from their music videos and other things pertaining to the song they were singing. At the end, they shot confetti throughout the arena.

Before the concert, we had a little bit of time to burn, so we went on the octopus ride. It was quite exhilarating! It spun and went up and down at the same time. Here's Amy looking as cute as ever, right before we got on.


If you look closely, you'll see Taylor Swift in a sparkly blue dress, holding a sparkly guitar. It looked really neat. There was one part where she and her electric violinst banged on trash cans with drum mallets. I think it was my favorite part of Taylor's performance.

Here's an intermission picture. Turns out one of my friends, Kendahl, went to the concert with her sister too and we ended up right next to them! Kendahl took this pic and then I took a pic of her and her sister.

Here's Rascal Flatts! They were incredible. You could just feel their energy. My favorite song of theirs was "Stand". During the chorus, the screen lit up with 100 inspiring words like, "passion, dream, courage" etc. It made me feel so alive!

Mountains

Friday evening we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and we headed up to Bert Creek.

Clark and Will built the fire. Clark used the back end of a hammer to chop the wood and Will carried the wood to the pit.
Rosie and I hung out by the fire most of the night. She was mesmorized by the flames.
Here's Clark wacking the tree with his hammer. I love my mountain man!