Aaron's 2nd Birthday

October 11th - 2 years old

Weight  25.4 lbs               18th percentile

Height  34 in                    37th percentile

Head Circumference  49.5              72nd percentile

I cannot believe my baby is two! He still seems so little -as you can see from the statistics above he is! We had a toy story birthday party which he loved. Although he did not notice the toy story decor was just excited to jump in all the balloons. For the boys birthdays I always fill their room with balloons (when they are little I just fill the family room) it is always so fun to see their expressions when they wake up in the morning.

The boys and daddy had been sick earlier that week with fever and sore throat. Thankfully they were doing great by the weekend. Although Ian's allergies have been full blown. Poor kid can hardly breathe. Sure enough that night I got a wonderful high fever and sore throat too. But, the celebration must go on and thankfully my parents were here to help out (I don't think I moved from the couch).  Aaron opened presents throughout the day which was great -he was able to enjoy everything and not get too overwhelmed.

Ian picked out these Toy Story Cars for Aaron. Ian wanted so badly to help Aaron open all of his presents, Aaron just wanted grandma to get everything out of their box. Aaron's expressions were wonderful when opening his presents.

In usual birthday tradition we had juicy rolls for breakfast. The boys could hardly shove then in there mouths fast enough they just wanted to go and play.

Aaron and Grandma cuddling on the couch.

After naptime Aaron opened some presents from Nana and Papa. He was beyond excited for the big cars.

He loves hiding his little toy story cars in the toy story garbage truck.

My mom made Aaron's birthday cake (homemade marshmallow brownies) which we all loved. It smelled and looked so good that we had a "backwards" dinner. Yep, we had cake first! Then about a half hour later we had spaghetti dinner. one of Aaron's favorites. 

Later on that evening Aaron got one more big surprise. A new balance bike that looks just like his brothers bike.

The first time he got one his balance bike he went down the drive way then dropped the bike. Turned around and ran back to grab his tricycle to speed down the hill. Thankfully after watching his brother on his bike he decided to hop back on and give it another try. I can't believe how quickly he is catching onto balancing. If only I could get him to sit on the actual seat and not the bar -I think it would be much more comfortable.

This past week the boys have wanted to be outside riding their bikes all day long. Ian now enjoys biking up the hill and down the street. He then hops on his bike petals as hard as he can and comes flying down the hill.

Yes, Aaron tries to follow as well.

These boys can't simply just ride their bike in the driveway. It is much more enjoyable to race each other down the hill and of course you have to look good while doing it!

Here are a few highlights from this year....

After continuous ear infections and rupturing your eardrum the doctors finally agreed that you needed tubes. In March you had surgery and have not had an ear infection since!

You love to color and are an amazing scribbler.

We always thought maybe you would be our mellow child, or blob that would just be good with anything. That is proving to not be the case. While you can be so sweet, affectionate, and love to cuddle -you are no mellow child. You enjoy pushing your brothers buttons when given the opportunity, and if you don't get what you want you throw an awesome tantrum that we happily ignore.  

A few weeks after have tubes put in your vocabulary exploded. You are now saying complete sentences. You also say "please" when asking for things and always remember to say "thank you" on your own.

You enjoy "putting on a show" for mom and dad when we take you to nursery and you have for the last 5 months. We mention nursery or begin to leave the Chapel and you pout your lip and being screaming. Brother Bawden happily takes you and the moment the door closes you jump down and being playing. Literally the moment I shut the door you are done. 

You try and usually succeed at doing most everything your brother does.

I was dreading moving you to a big boy bed, but the joke was on me. You sleep even better in a big bed than you did in a crib. In the morning you come walking into our bedroom and say, "ood morning mommy, ood morning daddy" and jump in the bed to snuggle. You will just lay with me in bed until Ian gets up and then you excitingly jump up and shout, "ood, morning Ian!" 

You love changing your own clothes throughout the day and are obsessed with wearing and putting on socks. You prefer the socks to not match. 

You love airplanes. You can hear and spot one from anywhere.

People are always surprised that you do not like fruit snacks. You also just enjoy sucking the butter out of popcorn and then spitting it out. Your favorite foods are pizza, mac n cheese, chicken, anything with ketchup, rice and beans. 

Happy Birthday Aaron!!! 

Monkey Bars

This happens to be out of order but I had to post anyway...

 We stayed in Logan on Saturday after my parents 50th birthday party. This is a picture from my cell phone in Sardine Canyon...no I did not enhance or color edit the photo the leaves truly were this gorgeous!

We stayed Saturday so the gals could attend the General Relief Society Conference, while the boys all attended the USU Homecoming game. We had sometime to kill before both events so we took the boys down to the elementary school playground. I cannot explain how in shock we were when we watched Ian go from beginning of the monkey bars all the way to the end. I remember having contests in elementary school (yes this exact playground was there while I was in school) to see who could make it the furthest...and my four year old just cruised through it like it was nothing??? We though maybe it was just luck. Then after he swung across them all a few more times we decided we better record it.

Which brought about a little competition. See how far the rest of us could make it.  Clearly given my toothpick arms my chances were not high.

Even Aaron got in on the fun!

After we were all exhausted from swinging on the monkey bars we headed back to my parents house. My mom ended up staying home (she did not feel well) and Aaron ended up staying with her (he did not want to leave grandma's sight. My dad and his dad at the game.

We headed back home late that night after a great weekend!

The next day we enjoyed coloring outside in the shade..

And inside when it got too cold. The boys were coloring pictures for a halloween contest. 

Fall cleaning began and quickly came to an end. Aaron enjoyed helping wash the baseboards. I really can't believe how dirty the lower half of ALL of our walls get :( I have only completely the top floor of our house and now need to get the energy to tackle the basement.

The boys have been getting along and playing together very well. Don't worry they still have their moments. They love to take turns pushing each other in the tikes cars. 

They have also been going a little crazy with halloween stamps. It is much more fun to decorate yourself than a paper. Ian's scary face does look quite frightening.

I think next year I may have to pull the halloween decorations out closer to halloween. We still have weeks to go and everyday they ask is it halloween yet? 

Fall afternoon!

It has been a beautiful fall! We have been enjoying going on bike rides along the new canal bike path and can't wait for it to be 100% complete! Each time we go Ian just keeps improving! We don't allow him to ride down the steep hill on the way to the path but he bikes the rest of the hills (there are only a few small ones) and does awesome. We usually go a couple miles out and he is always the leader. Then about half way through the way back he decided he is a little tired and hops in the charriot to ride home with Aaron.

After a wonderful morning bike ride we came home and enjoyed some lunch then headed to Hee Haw Farms. It is a great family owned farm with tons of activities for the kids to do. Jumping around on the hay bails, sliding down the slides, pony rides, corn buckets, animals, cornmaze, pumpkin picking, etc.

I think the slide was the favorite! I can't tell you how many times Ian and Aaron hiked up the hill to slide down. It was a little fast -thus the great expression of surprise on my face :)

After a good solid 30 minutes on the slide we headed over for pony rides and to feed the goats. The best part about Hee Haw Farms -there were only a handful of people there! The goats were very friendly -even more so when you have food. Ian thought it was great feeding the goats, Aaron was a little freaked out.

The day before this mama pig had just had six cute little piglets!

The boys also enjoyed playing ring the milk jugs. Then it somehow turned into a hula hoop contest -which was soooo entertaining. 

After some fun playing games and feeding the animals we headed out to try our luck in the corn maze. This was not as much fun as I remember them being. The boys enjoyed it for the first 2 minutes and then decided it was boring and wanted to play in the dirt.

So we quickly exited the corn maze and took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

The boys loved actually picking their own pumpkins off the vines. I was surprised how pokey the stems were -ouch! 

Aaron choose three small pumpkins.

Ian got a big one that has green veins all on one side. I bet you can't guess what he is going to what daddy to help him carve into his pumpkin for halloween! I'll give you a hint...it is big, green, and a superhero :) 

In the picture above he was begging me to quickly take the picture because his pumpkin was getting really heavy. Unfortunately my camera battery died so I had to use my cell phone for a lot of our pictures that day. Looks like I should always carry a spare battery as well. It was such a fun day but the kids were exhausted. Ian's allergies were awful by the time we got home but thankfully some allergy medicine and he was passed out in bed in a second. Probably all that biking and sliding. 

50th surprise party

I am not sure how we pulled it off but we did!

It took some careful planning but everyone was on board! There were a few hiccups along the way but eventually we all came together to celebrate both of my parents turning 50! We got into Logan that afternoon and headed to the church to begin setting up and decorating for the surprise party. Hiccup number one the key that we "borrowed" from my dad did not work. Thankfully another lady in their stake was able to let us in. Hiccup number two: I assumed that the church would have a ladder to hang the lights. As you can see that was not the case. Thankfully Andrew and Tim were able to find an alternate plan -don't worry no one (and nothing) was harmed in the process. 

The decorations were ready, the guests had arrived, the food was ready to go (thanks to my grandma and Steph for getting it all ready), now all we needed to do was get my parents there without having any idea what was going on!

They had gone four wheeling that afternoon with the Reeds. No worries the Reed's told them they had dinner plans that night with their family. I knew that they would not come home after four wheeling and want to get ready so then the lies started rolling :) We told them that we were heading up to Logan later in the afternoon because Tim had to pick up a couple of transcripts to apply for the accelerated BSN program (which was true). Then we wanted to go out to eat at Fredrico's (which was on the way to the church and just hoped they would get ready) and we would pick them up in our new van so we could all ride together. However since "the kids had been in the car all day" they needed to get some energy out so we decided to stop and let them run around and play at the church :) Surprise!!! 

The party turned out great! A couple weeks earlier when we went to the Brigham City Temple open house Andrew had slowly been going around collecting all of my parents scrapbooks. Which made for the perfect decorations. Below are some of the pictures that were set up and displayed throughout the church.

 

After dinner we lighted the candles (all 48 of them -somehow Aaron was playing with a pack of candles in the car and they disappeared). I don't think anyone but me actually knew :) I did not realize that you were not supposed to have "fire" in the church. Oops! 

Thanks to everyone and celebrated with us! Happy 50th birthday Mom and Dad!

Boys Swimming, coloring, and everything in-between

It may be getting a little cooler outside but that has not slowed these boys down at all. Since all of the splash parks close after labor down we have enjoyed running through our own sprinklers. Aaron thinks it is hilarious to put your head right in the sprinkler.

Ian and Aaron have been getting along really well lately. They have there moments (as I am sure they always will)- like when Ian pushed Aaron over as he was dipping his head in the water. But, for the most part they get along well. 

Aaron loves to mimic everything his older brother does.

Ian has always been in swimming lesson for the past 5 weeks. He is loving every minute. He scares his swimming instruction because he has no fear but atleast he is happy and will do anything she asks him.

At swimming Ian wears goggles. Both him and Aaron have decided that the bath tub is pretty fun when wearing goggles.

The day Ian came home from school and informed me that he had bad handwriting. His handwriting is actually amazing. He can write all of his letters! I guess another students told him he had bad handwriting because he wrote his name and then drew a barn around it. I wish I could find that paper to take a picture. I told him that it looked amazing and that it was very creative. He has decided to draw a barn around his name all the time now :) Oh well

Ian decided Aaron's back would be a good place to practice his writing skills. I stopped him before he finished the 'A.' Aaron thought it tickled and was funny.

Ian loves to draw as well. Below is a picture of our family

Aaron has become quite the chatter box. He loves singing songs before bedtime. With mommy we always sing, "Choose the right" and daddy always sings, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Tim was able to catch this video of him after lying him down for a nap while I was in California.

Speaking of California. While I was in California Tim sent me this video with the statement, "This reminds me why I decided to have kids." I could not stop laughing. Poor children!

I love the comment at the end, "Dad stop pushing me over." 

Aaron is obsessed with cars and trains lately. He can usually be found in his diaper vrooming away.

As usual the boys have continued to play dress up. This costume gave us a good chuckle. 

Ian has become amazing on his bike. They is the perfect bike trail they are putting in just below our home that we enjoy riding. Ian tend to go a couple miles with us. 

 Remember the "no fear" I talked about earlier? As you can see he likes to live a little on the dangerous side. Oops bad mommy moment -he wasn't wearing his helmet. He now finds sliding his back tire a little boring. So he rides his bike up the hill as far as he can go (usually a house up) then come racing down the hill into the garage and spins his back tire all the way around. Yes he has fallen a few times which you would think might make him nervous. Nope, he just jumps back on his bike and keeps going.

Besides Cars, Aaron is also obsessed with food! I made juicy rolls the other morning. We usually only have juicy rolls when family is here or it is a holiday but on Tuesday I just felt like juicy rolls. Aaron was so excited he sat and watched the juicy rolls cook for a whole 15 minutes. 

When Aaron gets really excited about something he tends to gallop. It has been very difficult to catch on camera because when I start recording he starts running. I finally got a few seconds of him galloping.

Ian has decided that Aaron need to wear big boy underwear. When I am not looking Ian will change Aaron into his cars underwear. This has not been a joy. Our potty training has gone slightly backwards since breaking my foot. Hopefully sometime this month we can tackle that obstacle. 

                                            

I cannot believe how fast they are growing up. I am not sure where the time has gone but we are definitely loving almost every moment ;)