Well, Saturday was a hectic day, but I was able to get everything done and made for the party just before it got started. Jordyn burned her hand on the stove burner, and that put me behind by about two hours, but she was okay after she fell asleep and we gave her some pain medicine. Thank goodness Jared was there to help me. If he hadn't helped me make the frosting, I probably never would have finished everything in time.
I can't take all the credit for this big guy. I found the idea online and I knew I wanted it at the party, so I asked my artist brother-in-law to carve it for me. I appropriately named the shark Adam, after its great creator :)
The blue "ocean" jello around him was yummy!
Ice cream cone cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Yummmmm!
Now this I can take credit for. I worked super hard on this Lightning McQueen cake and, for my first time, I don't think it turned out too bad. Next time I will do a few things differently, but that's why you keep practicing!
Jordyn really liked the cream cheese frosting!
Uriah got 6 CARS cars for his birthday. He was really excited, but we had to help him share them with the other little party guests.
He also got a book called, "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly".
This is a coin jar that counts your money. It was a great gift because the piggy bank we were keeping all of our coins in was stuffed to the max and couldn't hold any more coins.
Uriah got 2 Mr. Potato Heads, or as he calls them, Mr. Dodo Heads. One is a kind of retro style and one looks like the Toy Story potato. He plays with them every day and is obsessed with them.
Jordyn really likes Uriah's new book.
This is a counting game where you get the trains to race if you answer counting questions correctly. Uriah doesn't count super well yet, but we will definitely be playing this game to work with him on his counting.
All in all, Saturday was a great yet tiring day. When Jared asked what we were going to have for dinner, I said, "I don't know, but I'm not making it! I'm all maked out!" :)
My little monkey turned 3 years old yesterday. How much he has grown, considering I still remember when he was born and, being my first child, I hope I never forget it. Because he will be having his official party on Saturday, we decided to give him his biggest present on his birthday and do a small celebration with just us.
I put this banner up when I was getting ready for work. When Uriah saw it, I told him it was for his birthday and he was pretty excited to see Lightning McQueen and Mater on it.
We gave Uriah his first bike for his birthday. We couldn't wait to try it out.
We also got him a Cars helmet, or "brain bucket" as my sister calls it. He thought he was cool stuff with that on.
While Uriah was learning how to ride his bike, we were trying to keep Jordyn out of the road...
Waiting for daddy to finish putting the bell on the handle.
He loved ringing the bell, and there was a little boy across the street who was out riding his bike and whenever Uriah rang his bike bell the little boy across the street would ring his bike bell, like they were communicating somehow :)
Look at him go!
Then we went out for ice cream!
Jordyn liked hers a lot but it eventually hit the floor.
Uriah kept saying "Yummy in my tummy!"
We had a good day and look forward to the party on Saturday!
Okay, so I thought they were called the Terrible 2s! Honestly, Uriah's second year wasn't a bad one. He learned to talk a lot more, learned how to use the big boy potty, and has grown in more ways than we could imagine. But now that he is going to turn 3, it just seems like he has become our little terror. He says "no" to EVERYTHING we ask him to do, his new favorite past time is beating on his little sister, and he seems to whine over the tiniest things. Yes, I know that he is little and that at this age he is learning how to express his emotions, but BOY does it wear on me pretty quickly!
When Uriah started going to day care he fell in love with puzzles, so when we went on our big trip to Utah we bought his a giant dinosaur puzzle.
He puts it together almost every day, and he can put it together without any help now. He is so smart!
June has been the busiest month I can remember in a while, but we have had some great events happen. On the 4th, we got to go to the Idaho Falls temple where Jared's uncle got his endowment. He had been inactive from the church since he was a teenager and it was a great blessing for Jared's family to see his uncle in the temple, something they had been waiting and praying for for many years. On the 11th our apartment complex had it's annual garage sale and we put out some stuff we couldn't wait to get rid of. We sold about half our things and made around $50, but then we walked around the garage sale and bought some things, like this:
Jordyn's new toddler bed. We decided she was active old enough to be taken out of the crib. It was the first time we have had our crib taken down since Uriah was born. When we put the bed in her room she was so excited that she could get in and out of it whenever she wanted. For $15, I felt like it was a pretty good deal. The only problem we have now is that if we put the 2 kids to bed at the same time, then Jordyn will climb out of her bed and go stand by Uriah's bed and bug him so he can't sleep. We decided that it would be best for Uriah if we put Jordyn to bed first and then when she was asleep, put Uriah to bed. That seems to have fixed that problem, for now.
This last weekend (the 18th) we got to go to the temple again to see Jared's uncle get sealed for time and eternity to his beautiful girlfriend. It was the first time ever that all of Jared's family had been in the temple at the same time. Emotions were high because everyone was so happy. It really was a spectacular day! (Silly me had left my recommend at home, but thanks to an awesome bishop, I was able to attend the sealing!)
Yesterday was Father's Day and I planned a nice BBQ for my hubby and bros-in-law. We made some yummy kabobs and steaks and I also made some homemade cupcakes with cream cheese frosting on top.
Don't they look yummy? I must say, I was very pleased with how they turned out, and they were eaten very quickly!
I got Jared an air compressor that was on sale at Lowe's.
Every time I asked him what he wanted for Father's Day, he would say "eh...I dunno". So, I did my own searching around and decided this would be the best gift and that he would never expect it. When he opened it yesterday, he said "Awesome, this is EXACTLY was I asked for!"
"HOLD IT!" I said, "you didn't ask for ANYTHING, so don't you try to take the credit for my awesome gift!" Hee Hee. He was happy, and that's all that mattered to me :)
Tomorrow is Uriah's birthday, and this weekend is when we will have his party, and I'm pretty excited. I think tomorrow we will give him one present so that he feels like it's actually his birthday, and we will save the rest for Saturday. He is going to have a CARS themed party, and I am going to try my hand at making a Lightning McQueen cake. I am pretty nervous about making it, but I am also excited to try it. If it looks like crap, you definitely won't see pictures of it on here ;)
In other news, we have discovered that if Uriah is taking a bath and Jordyn isn't, it doesn't stay that way for very long. The other night we decided Uriah needed a bath because he was dirty, but Jordyn had just had a bath the day before. Well, as you can see...
...Jordyn felt like she deserved a bath too, and the next thing we knew...
...we heard a big SPLASH, only to find Jordyn in the tub with Uriah and all her clothes on. *sigh* How is it that such a big mess can be so cute??
I know that I promised I would put pictures up of our adventure to Utah a week and a half ago, but I took over 200 pictures and I just don't think that they will all fit on here, so I will have to pick and choose which ones to show. We left for Utah Friday morning, May 27th, and went straight to Thanksgiving Point. We went to the Museum of Ancient Life, but Thanksgiving Point is so much bigger and has so much more to offer than just a dinosaur museum.
The first thing you see when you walk in is a giant T-Rex. Very Jurassic Park-esque.
I think Uriah wanetd to have big eyes like the dino in this painting. He was so excited to see everything that he wouldn't look at the camera.
Big dino leg. Uriah isn't even knee-high to this dino.
Some kind of ancient lizard. It was dangerous, but I got just close enough to snap this picture before it could have bitten my arm off.
An exhibit of the beginnings of the dinosaurs.
The long neck dino that was just too big to fit into my picture. Instead of having a wide angle lense, I had to take 4 different pictures of this beast and tape them together to make one picture of the whole body.
One of the rooms had a large sand and water table that you could play in, with toy dinos and fake trees. I put Jordyn's hand in the sand and you can tell that she wasn't too happy about it.
The head-butting dinos. (That's all I can remember about them from Jurassic Park 2)
It took us a little while to convince Uriah that this shark wasn't really scary, but I don't think he ever believed us, even when Jared put his hand in the giant's mouth.
This was a huge exhibit of a mammoth skeleton being taken down by some human skeletons. I decided to show the picture of the guy getting crushed by the mammoth and the other guys ingorning his pleas for help.
Another room was really just one large sand box, no water this time. There were fake fossils in the sand that kids could uncover with brushes. Jordyn decided to use her brush as a shovel.
Probalby one of my favorite parts: Two large T-Rex dinos next to each other. You'd just have to be there, it really was quite a treat.
After we spent a few hours at Thanksgving Point, we drove to our hotel in South Jordyn. One of the first things we did was head for the pool. I had bought Jordyn a few new things just for this special occasion.
First, I bought her her very first swimsuit. I saw it at the store and just couldn't pass it up. She looks so stinkin' cute in it!
Then I bought a baby floatation device that I thought would be perfect, but as you can see, she didn't want to stay in it longer than 3 seconds. She was so wiggly and loved to kick in the water that she just wanted someone to hold her the whole time.
Uriah got some water wings for this trip. I discovered what a little fish he is. He could keep himself afloat and actually swim around all by himself with those water wings. He really surprised me!
Me and Jordyn, having a good time. This was one of the moments I could actually get Jordyn to hold still long enough to take a picture. We had a great time.
Okay, now to the good stuff. On Saturday morning we got up and left the hotel to drive to Heber, Utah. It was a beautiful drive. Heber is nestled in the Utah mountains and everything was green and gorgeous. If I ever got the urge to move away and live somewhere in the mountains, Heber would be the place. It is surrounded on all sides by beautiful green mountains. After stopping to get some snacks, we finally came to Heber Valley Railroad and guess who we saw?
Thomas the tank engine!
Uriah couldn't believe his eyes. He was SO excited to see Thomas, and his excitement really showed. Unfortunately, we still had about 3 hours before our train ride, but thankfully there were lots of other things to do.
There was the Imagination Station...
...and getting temporary tattoos...
...and getting pictures taken with Sir Toppham Hatt...
...and playing with the performing musician...
...and getting to look at all the old engines in the rail yard!
Finally, it was our turn to ride Thomas. We were all excited to see Thomas pull into the station and to give our tickets to the conductor. We could hear Thomas' shrill whistle as we pulled out of the station, and waved to everybody who was waiting for their turn to ride.
Uriah said bye-bye to the people standing outside the station. It had been a long day and he was ready to finally get a turn to ride Thomas.
After about 4 hours of fun it was time to say goodybe. As we were walking away with all of our memories and goodies, Uriah said, "I so glad I see Thomas!" I smiled and thought my heart was going to burst. I was so happy that we all had a good time and that Uriah could tell everybody about the fun things he did when we got home. It is a weekend I will never forget, and one that I hope we can share with others for a long time.
Video: Us playing in the pool. Jordyn was pretty brave. She just walks right off the edge of the pool.
Playing in the sand/water table at Thanksgiving Point.
