Payton's Birthday Party

 For Payton's Birthday this year he wanted to have a water party! So Megan made him an ice cream "cake" that looked like a swimming pool.

 We set up a large piece of plastic and some PVC pipe and made our own big slip-n-slide.

 The kids had a blast on it! (Payton's facial expressions are the best!)

 And the adults were able to enjoy it too!

We had a few different water activities set up for the kids including a kid pool, squirt guns, and water balloon toss.  It was a lot of fun!

Payton's Preschool Graduation

 Payton graduated from preschool this year.  This is his graduating class.

He got up in front of everyone and said his Nursery Rhyme - Humpty Dumpty.  He is getting so big!   

Kindergarten here we come!

Easter Fun

 This year we melted crayons on our hot hard boiled eggs.  It was pretty dang cool to do and watch.

 Here comes the sugar rush!  Every kids favorite, the Easter egg hunt.

 The cute Eater outfits on the cute kiddos.

 They were good sports posing for mom.

Happy Easter everyone!

Kauai - A Break from the Cold

The kids anxiously awaiting our turn to get on the plane.

They are so excited to finally be in Kauai!

Payton has become a good little swimmer with his life jacket.  We think he is part fish!

They thought it was pretty cool that we had a banana tree at the house.  They were delish!

We hiked to a beautiful secret waterfall where Megan (and Wendy, Kimberly, and Emma) got many mosquito bites. The weird thing though was that the boys didn't get any.

Megan got the record of 77 bites.  Not fun.

 
Of course we got some Puka Dogs!! They are a favorite for all of us.

Payton did his toad hunting with Dad and Papa.  Of course he loved every second of it!  Dad said he was pretty good at catching the toads all by himself!

Marcus got to do his snorkeling, one of his favorites, while Megan relaxed on the beach with the kids.

Payton loves getting buried in the sand every year.

Emma wanted to join daddy and Payton, so she grabbed her own boogie board and headed toward the water.

We went up Waimea Canyon lookout and we were in a cloud!  You couldn't see anything, it was actually really cool.

We decided to try out a Luau, which was a first for Marcus and the kids.  It was pretty fun.  Our favorite was definitely the fire dancing!

Cute little munchkins and their silhouettes in the morning sunrise.

Emma trying out the boogie board.  She actually did pretty good floating by herself!

Our family with Megan's parents...

and Marcus' dad and step mom. We love traveling with the grandparents!

Winter Fun

 Megan and the kids went sledding with some neighbors.

 Emma was a little unsure of it.

 But she discovered the art of eating snow and sure did enjoy that!

Payton was very proud of his snowman.

Christmas!!!

Oh, how we love Christmas!!  It is so much fun with little ones, and seems to get better each year as they understand it more.  Christmas Eve we spent with Megan's parents and her sister, Tiana. We had an amazing meal (made by Tiana of course).  Grandma dressed up Payton and Emma as Joseph and Mary.  They thought it was really cool, and were so cute!

Christmas morning was so exciting to see what Santa had brought.  We made the kids sit for a picture before they could dig in, this is the best we could get (I can't blame them).

Emma got one of Megan's dolls from when she was a kid.  She LOVED it and was so excited (so was Megan).

Payton got a matching tie with his Daddy, he thought that was super cool!

It is so much fun having a kid who can write. Way to use up all the space and squeeze that last letter in there!

The wrapping paper pile is almost as fun as the new gifts!  Almost.

After our house we went over to Grandma and Papa's to have the traditional breakfast of whole wheat pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Love it!

Later that day we went to the Haroldsen's with the whole family and continued the Christmas festivities there!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

December

We started off December writing letters to Santa.  This was a first for us and was a lot of fun, the kids were so excited.  They had fun drawing pictures of what they wanted.

We made a visit to Temple Square to see the lights. It was quite chilly, but well worth it! So beautiful!!  

We rode Trax downtown, the kids thought this was just as cool as seeing the lights.

Payton really liked the tree with all the orange lights, go figure!

We made lots of Christmas goodies for our neighbors.  The kids really liked "helping" Megan by cleaning off the spatula.

Halloween

This year we went to the Halloween Symphony with the kids.  They thought it was pretty neat.  Payton even recognized some of the songs they played from Little Einsteins.

For our costumes this year we did a family theme, we were all Lego's.  Megan made the costumes out of boxes, cups, and 4 different colors of spray paint.  

They turned out pretty cool! They even looked cool just stacked up in the corner.   

A few days before Halloween the kids got the stomach flu.  That was fun - not!  They had it for 3 days, on Halloween they felt better, but still low on energy, so we were able to drive around to a handful of houses for the kids to have fun and get some not so needed sugar. (Sugar that Megan would likely be devouring for days)

We carved our pumpkins after the holiday, the kids had lots of fun cleaning out the guts.