Parker's First Birthday

I can't believe this littly guys is actually ONE! I was pretty much sad all day long because by baby is soo old! For his special day we had a big party and he was totally clueless as to why all of the celebrating was going on, but Taggart and Maddie sure were excited for it all. We got a big bounce house for our back yard and the kids had so much fun playing in it. Even Parks thought it was cool to sit and bounce in it.

Here are the kids at the bottom of the slide showing how old he is. Maddie was having a meltdown, so excuse the puffy, crying face/ forced smile.

We had dinner and cupcakes. Here he is, but hasn't quite noticed the cupcakes yet.

Now he noticed them and is going for my favorite, the coconut one.

I know it is weird, but he still doesn't put food in his mouth, he usually just throws it around, which is what he did with the cupcake. So I decided to show him what he was missing out on and put some into his mouth. He loved it and kept wanting more!

Me with my sweet boy! One year later and I still can't get enough of him!

He got some fun new clothes and toys for his birthday. Taggart was more excited about his gifts than he was, and T opened them all up for him. It was a great night and we all had fun celebrating Parks' first birthday.
Here are a few things about him at age 1:
* He weighs 24.1 lbs (69%) and is 30.25 inches long (64%). He still has plenty of rolls and we love them!
* He is still not crawling on all fours, but gets around quite well bu scooting on his bum and army crawling. He rocks back and forth on all fours, so it won't be long before he figures this out. I am not too excited for him to be fast at getting around.. it was much easier when I just sat him down and he stayed there. I guess those days are gone!
* He has 5 teeth and they are pretty big chompers! He got 5 teeth from 10 to 12 months and now he looks soo different with them. He was hardly fussy while he got these teeth and it was so nice.
* He is still such a sweet content boy. Every time we are with new people they comment on just how good he is. We are soo happy and lucky to have him!
* He still wants me to feed him. He doesn't want to pick up food and do it himself, but I know that he knows how because he seems to do it when I give him a rice krispie treat! He is allergic to cow's milk and eggs and had pretty bad allergic reactions to both of them so far. We hope he grows out of both of them sooner than later.
* He loves to clap, wave (although not very good on command), play peek a boo, and give loves and kisses. He can say mama and dada and babbles a lot of baby talk. It is so fun to hear his little voice.
* He loves balls and dogs or animals. Everytime he sees a ball/dog/animal he just oohs and ahhs and gets soo excited! Balls are his favorite toy.
We sure love our Parker and are soo happy that he came to us a year ago! Happy first Birthday Parks!!

Girls Trip to Europe

A few years ago, Cam, his brother and his Dad went fishing in Alaska while the girls stayed home. We had been having a hard time finding the perfect time for a girl's trip since between babies and nursing it has seemed impossible. Several months ago , Katrina and Marion drove up to my house and asked if I was able to finally take our girl's trip to... EUROPE! I almost died! I thought for sure it was going to be to New York and was thrilled and amazed that Europe was the place Marion and Frank thought would be fun. I was like, HELLO? For sure I was in! We decided to see a few different spots and it was really hard to narrow it down since the only place I had been in Europe was Germany, so we decided on France, Switzerland, and Italy. Here is a quick peek at our trip. These are only a few pics, but I just don't have the patience to download more.
We started and ended our trip in Paris, France. it was amazing to see the Eiffel Tower. It was much larger at the bottom than I expected and the view from the viewing area is incredible. We saw it at night and it was beautiful to see the city with all the lights and bridges.

Here we are at Arc di Triomphe. It is a major roundabout that has a TON of traffic. It was pretty crazy! I would hate to drive in Paris!

We went to see the only church in Paris that is dedicated to Christ,Sacre Coeur. This is a the view of the city from the Church. It was beautiful!

Here we are in the Louvre with Mona Lisa herself. The painting was much smaller than I expected.

Here I am eating Escargot. It was surprisingly good and not at all slimey like I thought it would be. The sauce was delicious, but they sure are hard to eat!

We went to see the Versailles Castle and Gardens and it was all so incredible. The gardens were huge! If I lived there, I would just take the day and go hang out in those gardens!

Eating our french baquette sandwiches in the park. We did not really enjoy the food in Paris, but their bread is to die for!

Here we are in front of Notre Dame.

We climbed up all the way to the top of Notre Dame and is was one of my favorite things that we did the whole trip. We climbed up a bunch of tiny, circular staircases all the way to the top. It was an amazing view of the city below and it wasn't very crowded, so we just hung out up top and enjoyed..it was awesome!

We then flew to Switzerland, rented a car and drove to Bern, Switzerland. I don't have many of Bern, since we were so tired that we went to bed at 8 pm that night! The next morning we woke up to rainy skies and drover to Interlaken. We stopped in a little town called Thun and took this picture. Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is so green and the mountains are amazing! So green and straight up and we couldn't even see the tops of them because of the clouds. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't go on the tram and see the view because of the crappy rain!

Interlaken, Switzerland means 'between 2 lakes' and it literally is a little town between 2 lakes. It was beautiful! Just look at the color of that water!

I loved all the Swiss architecture! All of the shops and houses are so quaint and charming. I opened our window in the morning and wondered how lucky the people are to live where everything is so beautiful!

We then took the train to Florence, Italy. It was such a drastic change from Switzerland and France and it was AMAZING!! Here we are standing by the Duomo, the famous church in Florence. Our hotel was just down the street from this and we had so much fun wandering the cobblestone streets, eating wonderful Italian food and gelato, and SHOPPING! We saw the statue of David, of course, but did a lot of shopping in their fun outdoor market.

We hiked up to the top of the city for the look out point. Isn't this an amazing view of the city?

On the way to the look out, we got lost, but didn't care much because everything that was saw was sooo beautiful! Can you believe people walk these streets everyday and call this place home?

After Florence, we took another train ride to Rome, Italy. It is such an incredible city with such history. Here we are at the Colosseum. It was one of the coolest things that I have ever seen.

We took a tour of the Colosseum and Palatine Hill and all of the ruins were truly amazing! Here Katrina and I are walking on the same exact street that Julius Caesar did ages ago.

Here we are at Trevi Fountain. I did toss a coin over my right shoulder into the fountain and I hope that I will return to Rome someday. It is such a spectacular city!

Here I am standing in front of the Pantheon. It was amazing to see something so old still standing.

Here were are at Piazza Navona, which was pretty close to our hotel. Every few blocks in Rome is a Piazza and they are all so pretty. We had some good times people watching and watching the street performers here.

That is basically our trip in a nutshell, but here are a few things that I will never forget about the tip:
* Mare and Katrina eating 'chicken chest' in Paris. We became a little leary of eating meat in Paris after this. If you go to Paris, don't try it!
* Lugging our luggage through the Metro system in Paris up and down stairs until we thought we would die. Took us 2 1/2 hours to get to our hotel due to problems with their Metro system that day. Not fun at all...so much for trying to save money! We didn't do that again!
* Acting like gargoyles and the hunchback of Notre Dame while we were in Notre Dame. Hilarious! We must have been exhausted because we were being way too silly!
* All the smoking in Europe! It did not stop and we hated it!!
* For some reason when I would try to speak the native language, it always came out Spanish.. Weird, I know.
* Pumping my life away! I was still nursing Parker and wanted to continue, so I lugged my pump through the whole trip and then got home to Parker not wanting to nurse anymore! I was soo mad! I pumped everywhere: dirty bathrooms, on the train, in the airplane, in the car, in the middle of a park in Paris, it was crazy!
* The train ride from Switzerland to Florence traveled through some amazingly beautiful scenery and tons of tunnels!
* Our flight on the way there was cancelled so we were bumped up to first class. It was incredible and completely ruined ruined flying in coach class from now on. Oh those seats reclined soo nicely, the warm nuts, the nice blankets and pillows, the food was fantastic! It was a great start to the trip!
* Our friend Tryan in Rome. He worked at our hotel and was hilarious! He told us his life story! Such a nice guy! oh, and our sweet housekeeper.
* Walking soo much and too fast for Marion. She told me to slow down several times.
* All the people in the Vatican. We thought we would go nuts! We saw the Sistine Chapel and bolted!
It was a wonderful girls trip and we saw some amazing countries! Hope our next trip will be as good as this was!

Tag's Summer Sports

This Summer Taggart was pretty busy playing all kinds of different sports: T-ball, Golf, and tennis. He had a lot of fun doing all of them and is getting better each and every lesson. He was on his friend and neighbor, Patrick's, team for T ball and he really enjoyed having his best beddy with him. He really hit the ball pretty hard sometimes..it was awesome!


He loved going golfing with his Dad and never seems to get bored. He loves it!


He had his tennis lessons with 2 of his friends from school and they all had so much fun.

My Little Graduates

Maddie had a great first year of Preschool. She started out being quite hesitant when it came to dropping her off at Preschool, but she has gotten quite a bit better. Still some days, when she is being rather dramatic, she acts like she doesn't want me to leave, but I think it is all an act. She has learned a lot this year and has gotten very good at writing her name, coloring, and drawing. Her graduation program was very cute and they sang several songs from the Magic Tree House books. Here she is with her diploma and they each got their very own Magic Tree House book.

She was very shy on the day of the program and would hardly even participate or sing the songs. Cam and I were so mad because we knew she was just doing it because we were there and she was giving us attitude...the drama queen! Needless to say, I didn't get any great pictures of her because all she would do was open her mouth and not smile...crazy girl!

Taggart graduated from Kindergarten. He has had such and amazing year and I can't believe how much he has learned! He is beginning to read and is doing 1st grade Math and getting the best grades. His teacher gives him a topic each day and he has to write about it and I love to see what he comes up with and how he figures out how to spell things..it is hilarious! He has behaved very well and has gotten outstanding or satisfactory every single day. I have been sooo impressed with how well he has done in Kindergarten and I have to say that I totally underestimated him! I glad that his amazing teachers didn't! Here he is with his teacher Mrs. Larsen. She is amazing! She is very sweet, but firm at the same time and I can't believe how well she gets those kids to behave. When I would go in to volunteer I was amazed at how quiet and obedient they were.

Here he is with his bed buds, Max and Daimen. We carpooled with them and they really have a lot of fun together.

For his Graduation program they sang some songs and recited some poems for us. Each child got an award and Taggart's was "Mr. Giggles" because he is always so happy and funny.
We did have a great year of school, but we are all ready for a break. Bring on SUMMER!!

My Little Performers

May is the month of dance recitals and we sure have been busy the last couple of Saturdays. Maddie is taking dance at 2 different studios (I know. CRAZY, but only because we had so much trade) so therefore, she had 2 different recitals. Let's just say that we pretty much got worn out this year!

She did great for her first recital and danced very good and loved performing! She said that she wanted to do it again and I said..sure, next weekend you will! Here she is after her big show with flowers from Grammy. Doesn't she look soo grown up in this picture?

Anyway, the next recital came and let's just say it was major DRAMA! She hated the costume because it was soo itchy and made me put a T-shirt underneath it for the performance. Nice huh? She danced Ok, but wasn't very into it because of the stinking costume. Needless to say, we will FOR SURE only be doing dance at one place next year, that's enough dance for us!

Taggart did an amazing job at his recital for Tumbling Tigers. They did a Rocky theme and did a little dance and then showed off their cartwheels, backbends, somersaults, etc. He was sooo serious about this dance and poses and did everything to perfection! He is so good about following the rules and doing everything he should..it is so cute! He did a great job and hardly took his gloves off for the next couple days after his recital.


It was very fun to watch them both perform and they had a great time too!

Easter in Vegas

This year for Easter we went to Las Vegas with my family. We met Jason and Claudia there and had a great weekend in the sun. The minute we got there the kids were ready to hit the pool.

Taggart loved when Uncle Brody threw him in the air!

This was Parker's first time swimming and he loved it! We dunked him a few times and he didn't even care.

We loved floating around the lazy river in the tubes. It was very relaxing and could have done it all day long! Maddie did great swimming and is getting more daring every day. She would put her head under the water and try to swim. It was good practice for this summer.

Daddy snuggling with Parks. He was such a good boy the entire vacation.

We hardly saw Taggart the entire time we were at the pool. He spent most of his time under the water... he is such a fish!

On Easter Sunday we went to church in Las Vegas.


Then we came home and the kids found their Easter baskets.

We colored Easter eggs and did a couple Easter crafts, thanks to Auntie Claudia. We also frosted sugar cookies and had a big Easter egg hunt. The kids loved it and found a ton of eggs filled with even more candy!









Parker is 9 months old now!! He weighs 21 lbs 8 oz (69%) and is 28.7 inches long (65%), so he is a healthy little boy!

He continues to be such a happy, content baby. He loves his siblings and is always laughing at them when they pay attention to him.

He loves the bath. He gets so excited everytime that he almost falls over because he is splashing so hard! Just look at all those rolls! How darling are they?

We just barely stopped swaddling him when he sleeps, but isn't this just the sweetest little bundle?

He loves to suck on anything and everything. Here he is chewing on his tag blanket.

When he wants something to eat or gets really excited, his wiggles his hands and feet and grabs with his little hands. It is hard to explain, but it really is the cutest thing to see. He also is very good at giving hugs and he loves pat-a-cake.
Everyone loves his beautiful blue eyes and I really hope that they stay this color.
We love him sooo much and can hardly get enough of him! Can't believe he is almost a year old!