Merry Christmas!

Chapter's Christmas Tree Pictures

We took a family picture a couple weeks ago for Christmas cards (just us with the tripod) but Chap was feeling grumpy and the shadow ended up being weird.  So I decided to take some pictures of Chapter in front of the Christmas tree for our card instead.  I decided to use the 55mm lens since we bought it and we never use it even though the quality is much better.  I took probably 50 pictures and got a handful of good ones (I never claimed to be good at it!) The results are just too cute and silly not to share.

And about that dang snowman shirt I made him.  Adorable.  But what the heck was I thinking making him a white Christmas shirt?  The first day he wore it he got fry sauce on it, too close to the orange nose for me to bleach.  I had to treat and wash that thing 4 times before I got it out.  He sure is a cute little monkey though, and he sure is making this the best Christmas I've had in years:)

27 Years

 Logan was a sweetheart and had this wrapped up for days before my birthday to taunt me.  I was so happy and surprised when I opened it.  Logan calls is a "Virgin Triple D" since there isn't caffeine:)  I enjoyed it very much since my last Dirty Dr. Pepper was in Lake Tahoe in July...

And guess who bought me this?  Me!  I think I buy little people more because I like them than because Chap does, but he did get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it as well.  Haha.  Someday I'll have all the holiday ones.  Someday when I'm rich...

Our Christmas Tree

This Christmas tree has been a year in the making.  In November of last year it became clear that our "normal" Christmas tree decorations wouldn't work since we have a destructive toddler now:) And I decided I wanted a Cat in the Hat tree. (Is anyone sensing a theme in my life yet?) Anyway, I didn't think of it soon enough to actually pull it off, so last year we had what may be the lamest Christmas tree ever.  Just a package of shatterproof balls and some ribbon.  This year however, all of my dreams came true.  I looked all over the internet for inspiration and I found very little that interested me as far as Seuss trees go.  There were very few period.  But then I got very lucky one day last spring when I was on a walk with my friend and found a yardsale that had a copy of the game "I can do that!" for $1.00.  It was filled with Cat in the Hat paraphernalia.  As luck would have it I was able to find 3 more copies of the game at DI over the course of the year (Logan says that must mean the game is pretty lame to play, haha).  We reused the coordinating shatterproof ornaments from last year and I bought some nice fat ribbon.  To top it all off we borrowed Chapter's Halloween costume hat.  Seriously though, this tree makes my heart sing!  I'm ridiculous, I know but I get so happy every time I see it!  I expect this to be in our tree rotation for many years so come.  And the best part is, Chapter loves it and it is completely unbreakable:)

Friends

This is Chapter and his best buddies.  They were watching Cars 2 (for about 30 seconds) and I thought they were so adorable snuggled under the blanket with their little bowls of popcorn.

Halloween 2014

This year for Halloween Chapter was Cat in the Hat and we were Thing 1 and Thing 2.  The costumes were fun and easy to make, and Chapter really liked his costume.  I was worried he wouldn't leave his hat on, but he liked looking like Cat so much that he did.  He even left his white gloves on all night, the cute little stinker.

Pumpkin Patch

While Logan was on a canyoneering trip (which will never get blogged about, since I wasn't there), Chap and I spent the day in Richfield and went to the pumpkin patch.

 Chapter had a great time wandering through the weeds to choose his pumpkins.

 Then we rode the train thing.  Chapter liked it.

 And so did Grandma and Auntie.  This picture will tell me without a doubt if anyone in my family even looks at the blog anymore because if they do, I will definitely hear about this:)

Yant Flat

About a week ago we went on an adventure to Yant Flat at the base of Pine Valley Mountain.  It's supposed to be sort of like The Wave, only not nearly as cool.  And that pretty much sums it up:)

 We didn't really know where we were going so we ended up climbing down this really steep spot, but once we got down we could see a better way to get up, thank goodness.

 Can you see us in the  picture above?

Chap had fun and he even climbed out of the slickrock and probably halfway back to the car.  We will make him a hiker someday:)

Logan's Birthday #33

I pretty much dropped the ball on Logan's birthday this year.  He's impossible to buy for, so I let him order his own stuff, and Chap and I wrapped it.  He got a new sleeping pad and a new Camel-bak backpack.  The only thing I surprised him with was some booberry cereal (which he loves).   Chapter had so much fun coloring daddy's presents though. This may have been Logan's favorite birthday yet, since I didn't try to buy him anything he had to pretend to like, haha.  Happy Birthday to my favorite old man:)

Red Mountain

Logan's been trying to hike more.  On Saturday morning he got up really early and climbed the Red Mountain.  I made him carry the camera because when we went several years ago, our camera battery died after only a couple pictures.  

 Logan found his dad's brand that he carved in the rock in high school.  He actually found 2 of them but posting 2 pictures seemed redundant:)

 We live in the most beautiful place in the world.  Every time I think I want to move to the mid-west (or last week I wanted to move to Lake Tahoe) I will try to remember this, haha.

Logan said he had never been up there when there were pools from the rain.  He said there were probably 6-7 pools.  These were the best apparently.  

Chapter turned 2!

I have been dying to throw a Cat in the Hat birthday party for a whole year!  And luckily, Chapter still really likes "Hat", as he calls him.  We invited some of our friends who happen to be the parents of Chapter's friends so it was a fun night for all of us.  We had "Hogogs" (hot dogs), and salads, and cake.  It was the perfect low-key, happy, stress free party.

 I have been dying to make a cake like this.  "You sank our toy ship, sank it deep in the cake."  Love it.

 Getting ready to blow out his candle.

 Sometimes, I love my backyard.  Logan and I had so much fun putting up the streamers.  I bought balloons to blow up and have them just on the grass, but they all popped.  It was so funny, everytime one would pop, Chapter would say, "GOSH!" It was so funny!

Here's the invitation.  We may have gotten a little carried away with the rhyming.

 This is Chapter opening his presents from us.  He got a small table and chairs, a wooden train, some playdough, and a hoodie.  The main gift was his fish.  His birthday fish as he calls him.  I, for some reason, cannot get a decent picture of this fish, but he's in the tank you can see on the far right of this picture, and he is a beautiful Beta named Bruce.  Happy Birthday to my little man.  He sure has made the last 2 years memorable:)

Swiss Days

This year Swiss Days was kind of a disappointment.  The parade got rained out, but that didn't stop the 3rd ward pancake breakfast that is held at our house each year.  Logan has got the pancake cooking down to a science and we were pretty amazed at how many people we could fit under our carport.

 The pictures are pretty bad from the lovely yellow glow of our porch light:)

The kids loved splashing in the pouring rain and puddles.  This is Chapter with Romney.  Wesley came a second later but I only got him in the video. These are some of Chapter's very best friends,

Chapter's got some big news!

This kid is pretty excited about the "bebe" in mommy's tummy.  Coming April 2015.

Bryce Canyon

Last week Logan had an engineering conference at Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon.  He and a co-worker drove up together Wednesday and Thursday and Chapter and I drove up to meet them Thursday afternoon since his class was only 2 hours on Friday morning.  We hadn't been camping all summer so we thought this was a great chance to have a mini family vacation.

 A pretty terrible family photo, I think we were getting pretty confident in our tripod family pictures since they all turned out so good at Lake Tahoe.

 I always forget how great Bryce Canyon is until I go again. We camped in the park, which we have never done before, and it was really fun.  National Park camp grounds are always so nice.  We didn't do any strenuous hikes, but we did a few that we could take the stroller on.  It was a little chilly at night, but Chap did great.  Logan cooked amazing dutch oven for us and Chapter even made a friend in the campsite across the road on the first night. I love these little weekend getaways.  We haven't been doing it nearly enough lately.