Great Wolf Lodge

Last weekend, since we were unable to do anything fun during Fall Break, we decided to take a little trip to Great Wolf Lodge just past Cincinnati.  If you haven't been, you should definitely go check it out.  We had so much fun, and we really want to go again.  It's a cool hotel with lots of cool stuff for kids, and they have a HUGE indoor water park.  Our awesome friends Katherine and Taurean came with us, which made it even better!

Here's Parker and Taurean at the front of the park.

The boys in the little pool.
This is why you don't see me in the pool with them!

My cute little boys!

Parker must have gone down these kids' slides at least a hundred times!  He loved it.  In the past he hasn't always been that fond of water, especially water slides, but we were pleasantly surprised to see how great he did!
They even let the little kids go down all the slides, and Parker even loved all of them too.  The very last one we did was way fast, and he wasn't thrilled about that, but the rest he did quite a few times.  It was so fun to go down with him, because you could hear him giggling the whole way down.  Kaeson on the other hand, never cried or anything, but he never moved a muscle or made a sound.  I don't think he loved the water overall, but he was a real trooper.  
Parker going down one of the bigger slides by himself.
Poor little Kaeson in his life jacket!  He couldn't hardly move in this thing, but he tolerated it pretty well!
We are so mean, we even made him go down the slides by himself like five times.  But again,  although he didn't seem to care for it much, he put up with it!  He's such a good kid.

We definitely recommend this place to anyone who lives around here!  We can't wait to go back!  They even have storytime three times a day for kids, an arcade and game room, and a craft room with projects for kids.  They also had a lame haunted house while we were there, which we were told was going to be trick-or-treating, but it wasn't--just lame!  But everything else was great!

Happy Fall

Last week for FHE we had our annual pumpkin carving night.  Parker's is the painted one.  Our good friends, the Smiths came and joined us.  Thanks guys!  As you can guess mine is that ugly one in the middle! Mine's always the worst one.  I'm not so artistic, I guess!   

I tried to take a picture of Katherine and Taurean, but apparently the camera doesn't like Taurean, so this is the best we could get.  

Last week Parker and I went out and gathered all the pretty colored leaves laying around outside and made this beautiful fall tree out of them.   
Happy Fall Everyone!

Katherine and I also did a craft fair a few weekends ago.  Here is a picture of our sad little table!  The night before, when we were setting up, this sweet little lady thought we needed a doll for Katherine's hats, so she was so excited to bring one the next morning.  She brought this huge sad old doll with pen all over her face.  Lots of people that came by even thought that the hats were for dolls!  But look how cute her hats are.  I think every little girl needs one!  She even sells them on Etsy, so you can order them from her.  Her etsy site is cherrytreeroad.etsy.com, so check it out!  The fair was so fun and we are excited to do another one if anyone wants to join us!

Feeding and Chasing the Ducks

Ok, so I know it's been forever since I've posted anything!  Sorry!  We haven't really been up to much exciting lately.  Lance has been studying a lot this year, so things have been pretty boring around here.  

Quite a few weeks ago, we went to a park near us to feed the ducks.  It is such a cool park and the kids love it.  We actually go pretty often, but we don't take many pictures.  There are a ton of ducks there, and sometimes if you get lucky they will come all the way through the field to get the food.  One day, we started walking toward the river, and over a hundred ducks swarmed around us and literally ate right out of our hands for nearly an hour.  It was so cool and I wish I had my camera!  Kaeson started getting a little irritated at them, because they kind of bit his fingers a few times!  It was pretty funny to watch him try to shoe them away!  

So here are a few pictures from our last trip to the park.  Kaeson isn't much for feeding the ducks, he prefers just chasing them.

They have these walking/running paths all around  the park, so we went exploring for a while.  Parker loves to hold hands and walk with Kaeson everywhere we go.  Every time they do it, Parker just giggles with excitement.  I don't know what it is that makes him so happy, I'm just glad he still likes his baby brother so much.
Here's a picture of Kaeson trying to feed them.  They weren't as aggressive this day as the can be sometimes. It was a little hard to get them to come close.  That's about it for excitement with us the last month.  
I will post our pumpkin carving pictures soon.

Camping, Climbing, and Riding

Last weekend Lance went to camping with the scouts and decided to take Parker with him.  They seem to have had a good time, and it was fun to have a weekend with just me and Kaeson together. Parker came back full of exciting stories to tell!

Look how beautiful it is there!  

Kaeson is becoming more active and busy every day!  He is always wandering away and exploring something new everywhere we go.  He continues to climb on EVERYTHING!  I tried to capture a few of his recent climbs.
Here he's just playing at the park, and looking adorable.  He loves the park and loves to explore everything there.
One of his favorite climbing places!  It's nearly impossible to get dishes done when he's awake, because I cannot keep him out of there.
He LOVES the slides at the parks.  He climbs to the top all by himself, and slides down all on his own.  He's taken some pretty good spills at the bottom because he never waits until I'm around to catch him.  It's funny to see how different kids' personalities can be.  Parker was so old before we could even convince him to try the slides, and then he would do it one time and want nothing else to do with it!  

Apparently it's not fun enough to just sit and ride on his bike, but he has to balance on the little tiny sit and stand there!  Not only does he love to climb on things, but he always has to be as high as possible, so he is always standing on or in stuff.
Like so.  He won't sit in the stroller while we walk, he has to be standing the whole time.  And it doesn't do any good to sit him back down, because he just gets right back up again.
And again, climbing into the wagon, and then standing tall!
Here he is so proud of himself!
And again!  He climbs onto this table twenty times a day!  He hasn't mastered getting off of things just yet, so I have to get him back down, and then he's right back up!

He just learned this one yesterday!  It scares me to death.  Luckily so far, he's only figured out how to get to the second step, but it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to get all the way up.

And in other very exciting news: Parker finally learned how to ride his bike!  It was a very exciting accomplishment and he is very proud of himself.  He still has a tough time if he has to go uphill at all--it's a lot of work--but he is doing great and he loves it!  

Kaeson's First Birthday

On Friday, my baby boy turned 1.  It seems like just yesterday that we brought our little papoose home from the hospital! We love this little guy so much!  Every day with him adds new excitement and adventure!  He definitely keeps me on my toes.

We had a BBQ with friends to celebrate his birthday.  It was lots of fun.  We are so glad everyone came.

The birthday boy, right before he had his birthday cake.  It was way bright outside, so it was hard to get him to look up, this is the best we got.
It took him a while, but after a lot of poking and exploring the cake, he finally dug in and made a good mess.  We planned on making a fondant cake for the party, but had a few glitches in our day, so we put the half done cake to the side and went and bought a generic cake at the last minute.  We'll try again next year and plan it a little better.
Anna, Heather, Ella, Megan, and Brad
John, Janella, Katherine, Sarah, Ashley, Matthew, Ryan, and Anna again.

We had a pinata for the kids, and I wanted to let Kaeson take a whack at it too.  He actually really liked it.  I was surprised.  All the kids loved the pinata.

Most of the kids didn't want to wear a blindfold, but Dayna was so cute about it!  She had a headband on, and she was so excited that she had her very own blindfold.

Bethany Jansson

Dayna, Dax, Tyler, Tessa, and Parker 

Daddy and the birthday boy.
Kaeson with his birthday present from grandma and grandpa.  He is a little small for it, but he loves it!

Happy Birthday Kaeson!

Here are a few things he is doing at one year:

He has been walking for about a month. 

He loves to wave bye-bye

He signs "more" and "done"

He says, "uh-oh", "yeah", and jabbers nonstop.

He loves to climb on everything.

He is always exploring, and I frequently lose track of him as he does.

He LOVES his big brother!

He takes two 2-3 hour naps every day.

He is always sticking something in the toilet.

He occasionally points to his nose when you ask him to.

He gives awesome kisses--when he feels like it.

He just had haircut #6 today!

The Wild Wild West

Lance had a break for summer, so we took advantage and headed out west to spend lots of time with family.  We had an awesome trip, full of adventures.  Ok not really that adventurous, but lots of fun anyway. 

We started our vacation with the family reunion (see previous post) and then spent another week with Lance's parents.  We had a BBQ up in the mountains, went to Douglas' water park, and floated the river.  Then we went to SV and spent some time there.  My whole family was together for the first time in a really long time, which was awesome! We took a family trip to Lagoon.  The kids loved it!  We were sad Brandon couldn't come with us, but he was stuck at work. We swam out at the condo, the boys floated Salt River and went camping in the mountains by my parents' house, and Parker and Talan both rode sheep in the Junior Rodeo.  Lance, Ryan, my cousin Brian, and a friend all entered the Hog Wrestling at the county fair, and to everyone's surprise, took second place.  They did awesome!  Only in Wyoming, right Edie?! The video is posted on my facebook, if you want to see it.

Jess and I went up with the boys camping for a little while, and then went back down and slept in our own warm beds!
Parker coming out of the gate on a sheep.  This is the best picture I could get because that's as long as he lasted!  He wasn't impressed with the idea after he watched all the other kids fall off! I don't think he ever even held on!
Parker and Talan at Lagoon.  They were good buds this trip!
Parker and Hallie riding something at Lagoon.  I snapped this shot right before Hallie started crying.  She wasn't so fond of being lifted up in the air.
Parker and Hallie in the boats.
The kids with Uncle Boskey in the hot tub.
Parker at the Douglas water park.  He must have gone down this slide 500 times!

Anderson Reunion

This year for the Anderson Reunion, the family headed to Flaming Gorge for five days. We had so much fun!  We had lots of fun activities for the kids, fun games with the adults, lots of good food, and not enough sleep!  One day, Mitch and Marlin were kind enough to rent us all a boat, and it was so much fun! We all had a stick rodeo one night that was a blast!  And I won fastest overall time!

The girls right before we jumped off the cliff.  Those who know me won't believe that I jumped, but there's a first time for everything!  I was scared to death, and it took half the day, but I did it!
Lance swinging from the scary rope swing.

Parker thoroughly enjoyed his S'more!
The world's most adorable pirate!  Kayc took the kids on a pirate treasure hunt, and they all loved it!  
The cutest baby ever!
Kaeson and his wild hair.  He got so hot during his nap and his hair was dripping in sweat, and then Kaycee kept coming it back until it was dry, and this was the result.
The kids going on a dinosaur hunt.

We had an awesome weekend, and I am so excited for next year!