Fourth of July and Monument Park

Holy dang, I can not believe that it is already July 10th.  This summer is flying by WAY too fast!  Ryley starts his second year of medical school on August 1st, and we have heard that this year is killer.  He takes his boards next summer, so this is really our very last "normal" summer together.  But so far, it has been great, and we have lots of fun plans coming up.  Here is some of what we have been up to:

As usual, Logan and I spend a good majority of our time at the zoo.   Lately Logan has fallen in love with this "Gator" and loves to just sit on him and watch other kids play.

Love this kid.  Whenever he sees me chewing gum he ask, "What in Mouth?", and when I say gum he puts his little hand under my chin and demands that I, "Pit it out." :)  

About a week ago Logan and Ryley were playing with the neighbor's dog.  The dog got a little bit too excited and bit Logan on his tummy.  I was so worried, and cleaned it like crazy every 12 hours, but it has closed up nicely and is now just a little scar. 

Here is Logan on the 4th of July last year....

And here is our big boy on the Fourth of July this year!  He is such a little nut.  He is so smart, and loves to tell jokes.  He speaks in sentences, and can count to ten and recite part of his ABC's.  He loves to read stories and tell his own stories to anyone who will listen. :) He knows all of his body parts, and has recently started asking to "poop in the potty."  I just don't know if I am ready for that big adventure. :)  He has the funniest sense of humor, and loves to pull pranks on me and his dad.  Logan is very friendly, and as we walk through the zoo, or the mall, or the store, or church. he waves and yells, "Hi! How doing?" to everyone we see.  He is also a little mocking bird, and surprises us every day by reciting words we had no idea he heard.  The other day we saw a baby bunny, and when it ran away Logan asked me where it had gone.  I told him this long story about how it had to go home to it's mom, and read stories, and eat a snack, and say its prayers, and go to sleep (because it was also Logan's bedtime.)  He watched me with the most inquisitive eyes, and at the end of the story thought for a minute, and then said, "OK," and nodded his little head, like he was accepting what I had told him.  A little while later he told me the same story, but replaced "bunny" with "dinosaurs."  :) 

We had so much fun on the 4th this year, and I am so grateful to live in a country where I can celebrate and live with my family in peace.  We are so incredibly blessed to have a warm home, good food, clean water, and each other.  I am so thankful for all the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for the freedoms that I take for granted every day.  God Bless America!

He loves to go on walks and views the stroller as an instrument of torture due to the fact that he can't jump out and grab everything he sees.

At the neighborhood 4th of July breakfast in front of the firetruck with Daddy.  

The firefighters were spraying this big "slip'n slide" at the breakfast.  Ryley wasn't planning on going down it when we walked down (hence the jeans), but his Young Men talked him into it.  :)

At Liberty Park with a snow cone

Us!

We got to spend the day with Kayla, Aaron, and Zoa.  It was so much fun!

My 4th of July cheesecake.  Melskitchencafe.com has become one of my best friends. :)  I have seriously never ever been disappointed by a recipe from there.  

Another creation from Melskitchencafe.com.  Giant Cookie!

It really is giant... and SO easy.  It makes the perfect "Thank you" or "Welcome to the neighborhood" gift. 

Last week Logan and I visited This is the Place Park.  Logan loves running around with the baby animals, riding on the trains, and panning for gold.



Within the next month or so we will be heading to the beach in Oregon and traveling to St. George to visit family.  Yeah!

File Folder Games

This past month I was put in charge of creating tons of file folder games for a ward humanitarian project.  After figuring out what these were, I fell in love with them!  They are compact, simple, and Logan loves them.  They inspired me to make some family home evening file folders.  Here are the results:

(I used a friend's Cricut to cut out the characters, I cut out the backgrounds by hand, and used a laminator to Logan-proof everything.  Then I put velcro on all the pieces. )

The tree of knowledge, Heavenly Father, Satan the snake, the apple, Eve and Adam

Heavenly Father, Jesus,  The Angel Moroni, The Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith

Daniel and the Lion's Den

Jesus and Lazarus

Noah and the Ark (and Noah's wife)  I actually have tons more animals, but Logan stole them before I could take the picture.

Baby Moses, Pharaoh, Grown up Moses, Ramses

David and Goliath

Nephi, the gold plates, and Laban

Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors

Sheep, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Abraham's first wife and her  boy
I don't remember their names... :)

The Nativity

Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego with the Angel in the Furnace
Also shown are the king and his idol

Closed up in the furnace. :)

Summer time

Summer is here!

Logan doing one of his favorite things in the whole world... swinging!

Daddy and Logan on our date to Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta.  Yum!
And just look at those handsome men of mine. :)

Logan riding a trike at the village.  This is where most of the med student families live,
and Logan loves to come and play with all the kids.

Our little monkey

I think we know what we will be getting him for his second birthday....

Nakie boy in the backyard waiting for his pool to warm up

Enjoying a corn dog, because his raviolis were apparently full of "poop"

Mommy and Logan at one of the coolest places EVER.  At Liberty Park there is this
area called Seven Canyons, and it is this cool miniature model of all the canyons and rivers in the area.
There are fountains and splash pools, and the water is treated, so little kids can play in it.  The water never gets more than a foot deep (In the little miniature lakes) and the rivers are only a couple of inches.  There is grass everywhere and lots of shade and rocks... Logan was in heaven!  We stayed here for about 2 hours.  This is the coolest park, with a duck pond with paddle boats, a mini carnival, a giant playground, a pool, seven canyons, tennis courts, bbqs, an aviary, and a big green lawn.  One website called it the Central Park of Salt Lake City.  

Logan in a wading pool "jumpin"

Trying to float leaves

Our sweet little man

So, this was at the highest little splash pool.  It was taller than me, and
when I tried to get Logan down he climbed up onto the rock where I couldn't reach him.
So naughty

Hiding out on the rock

After taking a dunk.. he told me he "fell down in the water"

:)

Us!  We came to the park with the intention of swimming in the pool,
but found it closed when we got there.  (Luckily, we discovered seven canyons around the corner)  About a month ago Logan was terrified of pools.  But, this last Thursday we went to our Bishop's house to swim in their pool.  They are nice enough to have neighbor day every Thursday.  After a little bit of coaxing, Logan turned into a fish.  For an hour we kicked our way around the pool, and when he finally wanted out, he ran to the slide and I had to tear him off of the second ladder rung. :)  I also caught him trying to bounce of the diving board.  Swimming lessons, here we come!

:)  A few nights ago he tried to tell me that there were "scary dinosaurs" hiding in his closet.  

Liberty Park Duck Pond

My guys.


Summer has been wonderful to us so far, and is flying by too fast!  Ryley is really liking his research, and frequently volunteers for different studies going on at the VA to earn us date money. :)  I'm still training for our half marathon in August, and am staying busy with the primary, a humanitarian project, MSA, and keeping up with my silly men.  Logan is growing more every single day.  He loves to give us BIG hugs and kisses.  He also loves to run at us and jump into our arms when he hasn't seen one of us for  a while... a while can be 2 minutes. :)  He talks constantly now, and we love hearing his little thoughts and sentences.  Logan's so polite, and almost always says please, thank you, and 'scuse' me.  At prayer time tonight I told him he needed to fold his arms, and he said "and bow head and close eyes." At his doctor appointment he weighed in at 21 lbs and is about 34 inches tall.  Tall and scrawny. :)  During the day you can usually find us at the park, at the zoo, swimming, or baking cookies.  Hooray for summertime!

Here are some videos of Logie squishing bugs, jumping in water, and climbing up a slide.  He can climb up just about any slide out there... but he always has problems with the coming down part... :)

Missions, Memorial Day, and Marshmallows

These past two weeks have been packed full of fun and family... here is a little bit of what we have been up to:

Logan is the olive kid.  This is him asking for more of them....pretty sure he ate the whole can that night.  We were in Ely for Memorial Day weekend, so whenever his mean parents told him no, he had a whole mass of grandparents/aunts and uncles ready to bend to his every whim.  :)  (He is also wearing the shirt that his Grandma Enz brought him back from Ireland.)

Here's my brother, Danny, opening his mission call.  We are so proud of him!  He has been called to serve in the Mexico, Mexico City East mission, and will report to the MTC on September 14th.  Yeah!  We are so excited to write letters. :)  Also in the picture is my Grandpa Beckwith, holding up the phone with one of my aunts (Amber) on the other line, a phone on the table next to the plant which would be my aunt Summer, and my other naughty little brother, Aydan.

Logan has a new hero.  Ever since we left Ely all I hear is "Aydan, Aydan, Aydan....?"  I tried to tell him that Aydan is in Ely... Now I hear, "Open Ely? Open Ely? Open Ely?" :)  I love how his little brain works.

As usual, it snowed in Ely on Memorial Day.  I don't know why we are always so surprised....

Cammi's snow family.  She's such a creative little girl. :)  My favorite is the little snow-dog.  Shortly after this picture was taken, Logan licked all of the snow people until he got a brain freeze, and then Aydan knocked off their heads with his bat.  

I put a cup of water outside on our balcony so I could water our plants.  Then I went inside for about 2 seconds.  I came back out to find this.  The blue pot used to hold our money tree that Logan is now stirring the mud mixture in the cup of water with.  That pretty much sums up my life right there. :)

One of the books that we have has a little boy with a sack over his head in one of the pictures.  Logan wanted a "hat", and wore this around for about half an hour.  He thinks that golf cart he is holding is a vacuum cleaner, and will battle my actual vacuum cleaner for all of the crumbs in the house.  Sometimes he can get brutal. 

I love this little guy.  Later that day we went on a walk, and every time we would see a bug Logan would crouch down, wave, and say, "Hi! What doing bug?"  It really is the cutest thing ever.  Then he flicks the poor roly polies until they curl up into balls.  He's always so proud of himself... I mean, how many people can turn their favorite thing (bugs), into their other favorite thing (balls)?  

Logan at the neighborhood pool party.  He was so not impressed with the water.  He just liked the toys and the chickens in the back of the house.  He woke up the next day bawking.  I guess he dreamt about the chickens. :)

Logan and Daddy making smores on our deck tonight.  I don't really know what we were thinking... it was like 90 degrees on our deck.  Plus, Logan and Ryley really just wanted to torture the poor marshmallows.  They liked to drop them in the fire and watch them burn.  Then they would smear them around with sticks.  Oh boys. :)

I always forget to aim the camera the right way while videotaping... but here is a sideways video of Danny opening his mission call.