Up The Canyon

It was HOT last weekend!  105* to be exact....so we headed up the mountains where its quite a bit cooler for some relief.  Austen had never been and he was beyond excited.  He packed all sorts of gear for himself, even a rubber mallet.  We found a good spot at a picnic area by a river.  It was still pretty hot, but Austen was in absolute heaven!

He was hitting everything with his mallet.

 Our setup

 My cute mountain man!

 It was really cool down by the river, so we played down there for quite a while.  Austen loved it of course.

 So did the baby.

 We even found this GIANT spider.

 And Austen built his first fire with kindling he found himself!

 Brian hiked up and found some firewood

 And whittled a spear for Austen

 Which he then used to eat beef jerky from.

 Archer loves to be outside and he loves looking at all the trees, so he was pretty happy the whole time too.

 Then it was time to roast some hot dogs.

 When it was time to go, Austen cried and cried.....he would have stayed up there for a week if we let him.  Luckily I have my very own Sherpa, so we made it back to the car with all of our stuff in only 1 trip.

 Austen was asleep in about 3 minutes....

 and he had dirt everywhere, even smudged on his face.

I think we'll be spending lots of time up the canyon!  It's perfect for a kid who likes to climb, get dirty, and go exploring!

Happy 4th Of July

We had a really fun 4th as usual.  We did sparklers the night before and Austen was terrified!  It was giving him serious stress....he hated that the sparks were going every where because he thought they were going to start something on fire.  Brian, who loves fireworks, was so disappointed, but I am secretly glad that we don't have a pyromaniac on our hands.

Can't you just see the sheer terror on his face?

 The morning of the 4th, Brian played in a golf tournament and when he got home we went up to decorate my Dad's gravesite.  We even did a few fireworks up there to celebrate with him.

 Then we went to a city celebration with food and fun.  Austen loved all these blow up slides they had.

 He played on these

 While Archer and I watched from the shade.

 Then Austen found the police and wanted to hang out with them.

 Later, we made our way to the park with the whole family to watch fireworks.  Brian brought the huge chair of course.

 My happy, patriotic family.

Uh Oh

This little stinker already likes to watch T.V. and the ipad. 

Three Months Old!

Archer is three months old today!  Time goes by way to fast, but I am trying to enjoy every minute of him being little....well, young.  He is def not little!

He is in size 12 months in clothes and size 3 diapers.  He is loving his hands.....he eats them and plays with them a lot and he's starting to grab things (not reaching out grabbing, but anything that touches his hand he grabs).  He loves talking and has discovered his feet which he watches all the time.  He has slept for 2 separate 6 hour stretches and a bunch of 5 hour stretches, so that is nice for me.  He loves watching his big brother and he loves being outside.  He doesn't mind the car and he's pretty good about sleeping anywhere.  He is a really good baby and just the sweetest, most smiley baby ever.  I have only gotten a laugh out of him twice, but it's not for a lack of trying.

I know I always say I posted a lot of pictures, but today is really overkill.  I couldn't narrow them down because they are all so cute (I know I'm the Mom, so I'm a little biased).

 He's totally trying to sit up here....not cool Archer.

A little behind the scenes look, he loves his Brother!

And one for a laugh....babies make the weirdest faces!

A Race, A Cutie, And A Pinterest FAIL

On the mornings Austen doesn't have summer school, he loves to race Brian as he leaves for work.  It's super cute, he hops on his bike and off they go.

 Archer LOVES to be outside! How cute and grown up is he looking?

 He loves to look up at trees.

 I get lots of great ideas from pinterest, but the home made moon sand recipe was not one of them.  It called for flour and baby oil which seemed easy enough.  Well, it was easy, but it was a HUGE mess!  Austen had fun playing with it though, but I will never make that again!

For The Birds

For our "Summer Of Fun" we made a list of all the adventures we want to have this summer.  We tried to think of things around here that we have never done or don't do enough.  One thing we love to do, but don't do often enough is visit the downtown farmer's market.  So that's what we did last Sat.  Brian and I loved it, Archer was great, but Austen got bored fast!
Afterwards we were going to visit the Utah Art Festival, but Austen was kinda done walking around looking at booths.  We decided to be spontaneous and go visit the Aviary instead.  I can't believe this is the first time we have taken Austen there.

Austen wanted to feed some of the birds, but couldn't wait for Daddy to get back with quarters, so he was shaking the dispenser until food would come out.  I hope all his crazy antics are just normal boy behavior!

Baby wearing again....see, this is how we leave the house.  I love Archer's face in this one!

They had this cool chain reaction water pump that Austen thought was really neat.

The owl forest was awesome

And Austen loved this really cool treehouse.

Austen was determined to pet this poor peacock's tail.  He was trying to sneak up on him at first,, but then he gave up that for full on chasing.