Princess party!

Today was Allie's princess party. We had all of her little friends from the neighborhood come over for lunch and cupcakes.

All of the little girls seemed to have a great time eating chicken nuggets and french fries, playing place the crown on the princess and then opening presents.

It was a lot of fun to have everyone in their princess dresses and glass slippers!

Allie sure got spoiled! Thanks everyone for making this party a great time!

Happy birthday to you!

Okay, so I stole this idea from Lisa, so thank you Lisa for you super cute idea!

Allie turns 3 on Friday! I can't believe how the time has gone by, but because the rest of the week is going to be truly crazy I figured I would get this post done now and than for the rest of the week I can post fun 3 year old birthday pictures.

Here is Allie's life story!

Allie came into this world just shy of three weeks early. After 24 hours of labor she finally joined our family, but had some complications. She was having trouble keeping her oxygen levels up and was having problems with infection. She had to spend an extra day in the hospital to keep the pure oxygen in her system to help strengthen her lungs.

Even with all of the tubes she was so cute. She was born with tons of dark hair, that everyone assumed would go light after a few months!

Allie has been a girlie-girl from the very beginning. Grandma gave her the doll in this picture, but everyone that she got that year she would kiss and hug. Look at those cute pig tails!

Allie loves Disney Princesses and her second birthday she was spoiled with everything princess. Allie girl has always had such a great smile!

Here is our baby girl now. Almost three and still as darling as can be. She is a light in our home and a very special little girl.

Happy birthday Allie Grace! We love you so much!

Look What I Can Do!!!

I figured out today while exploring "blogville" that I was able to join Kelsey's "team" so that I can post my own blog entries too. So you girls will have to put up with an occasional posting from some weird guy as well as my cute wife's posts. Sorry!!! But this way Kelsey will actually get the Kudos that she deserves instead of always talking about the rest of the family.

-Ryno

ps Babe - I am going to finish the Twilight series before you! (What GREAT books......even if they were written for teenage girls....)

Big news for Ryan!

Sorry, no pictures today, but I wanted everyone to know that if you are around the Draper area on Friday night, Ryan will be singing the National Anthem at the Draper Rodeo! I'm really proud of him and I know he will do a great job!

Swimming lessons

My kids aer now int he second session of swimming lessons at Shinsel Swimming School. They love the water and really enjoy the lessons. This is really great for me, because I am very afraid of water, and I don't want my kids to have the same fear that I do.

Allie is really taking to the water again this year. She loves the fact that she is a big girl and gets to go in the water by herself without mom. She loves to float on her back and tummy and loves to jump off the side and splash her teacher!

Sheldon really had a hard time because they wanted him to put his face in the water so much and he hates to have the water in his eyes. So this session I bought him a pair of goggles and he is doing so much better. He will even go to the bottom of the pool and grab things now.

Okay so he looks a little bit like a nerd in his goggles, but he has a bit of OCD and always has to tighten them and so the sides poke out so that he can tighten them whenever he needs to.

They make them swim the last couple of feet to the stairs by themselves, Sheldon is starting to get the hang of it now and doesn't fight so much to get there.

Ethan and I just sit on the side of the pool and watch, but I am thinking that I might try to get in with him for the last session in August. He loves bath time so much that I think he would really enjoy being in the water twice a week. We will see if they have any openings!

Sunday night surprise

After dinner on Sunday Ryan and I were getting the kids ready for bed when Ryan got a call on his cell phone. Now this isn't such a surprise, because his cell phone is always ringing. The surprise was that it was two people from his mission that he had baptized.

They were in town and going down to Temple Square and wanted to see him.

So we packed up the kids and headed down town.

Here we all are. I never though we had a big family until I see us all together in a picture! :)

Julio, Ryan, Sara

They did there best to try to include me in the conversation, but it was a whole lot easier for them to speak in Spanish. I could pick out a few words here and there, but not enough to really know what they were talking about.

After we were done talking, we walked around a little bit and took some pictures of the kids. Sheldon was very happy to pose for some pictures.

This picture is a good example of what happens at our house all day long. Allie is trying to figure out how Sheldon is standing that way so she can do it too.

Monkey see, monkey do, and monkey get in trouble too!

Doesn't she look so sweet! She loved laying on the grass and smelling the flowers.

I don't realize how much my kids look alike until I see them all together like this. Ethan's first experience with grass... he actually didn't mind it too much.

I kept lifting Ethan up in the air and them bringing him down to kiss his cheeks. He was laughing every time and as a result so was I.

I just had to end with the beautiful picture Ryan took of the sunset. It was so beautiful that night and the sky was awesome.

Fourth of July Fun!

Every year my family goes up to our cabin to spend the fourth of July.

This year was no exception.

We have a horse shoe tournament. I haven't played in it for a few years, but Ryan loves it and his team took 3rd place this year! Way to go Babe!

Allie loves watching the horse shoes, but she loves to pose for Daddy's camera even more! :)

We did bubbles with the kids. The best way to do bubbles in our opinion is with fly swatters. It blows a ton of bubbles without having to actually blow the bubbles!

We also did a treasure hunt, boys vs. girls!

And a coloring contest!

Ethan even got to have some fun with his first taste of Salt and Vinegar potato chips.... he wasn't a fan! :)