All About Spencer

While home this summer Spencer had a birthday!!! He was excited to spend it with his cousin, aunt, and Grandma and Poppa. I asked him this year, as I do every year, what he wanted his birthday cake to look like. He thought and thought and thought, and decided he wanted a skateboard cake. Seemed easy enough, so I agreed.

We celebrated by going bowling with the whole family. It was quite fun and Spencer was loving it, I believe he did quite well in the scoring too. After eating at the bowling alley and bowling and playing arcade games with Wyatt we went back to my parents house to have cake.

Here is the masterpiece I could make. I found a website where they used doughnuts and Twizzlers for the wheels. And Spencer wanted the design of flames on the skateboard. Turned out okay I guess?

Spencer opened his presents that night too, and he got his first iTunes gift card?!!? I think he's spent it all on App games. I can't believe he already uses these.

Grandma and Poppa got him a Pillow Pet!!! He did not know what these were until we were in the States and saw a commercial for them, and once he saw it all he talked about was getting a pillow pet. He loves it.

Seeing how the pillow pet feels.

Happy Birthday Spencer!!

We love you!!!

Also about a week and a half later Spencer had his first day of school. It was the same day we were moving into the bare apartment we got. So we were still in the hotel that morning, so here is his first day of 2nd grade picture in the hotel room.

He is getting so much older, and I'm not sure I'm a fan of it, but he is so dang cute. :)

Summer Recap 2011--take 3!

After our trips in the east and getting Tyler up in DC, we came back down to my parents house and got ready for our trip to NYC to find an apartment, after those ten days were done we came back to the parents house for a week, and then got packed up again to go to Utah to see the other side of our family!!

When we go to Utah, probably the number one priority besides seeing family is playing games with the family. WE LOVE IT!!! I really mean it, I would say we play on average at least two or three board games or card games a day. The board games we play are not just easy games either, they are 2-3 hour games too. Oh we love it!!! :)

This little fellow is one of our nephews. He was such a happy boy. I had a difficult time this summer with all of the nieces and nephews because they are ALL of my favorites!!! I just couldn't get enough of the smiles and giggles they had. We all miss them greatly and did not like leaving them.

Such a sweet innocent face!

Here is our other nephew and his sister so our niece. They were snuggling, and it was so cute! They were both smiling the whole time.

Cute little nieces' feet. I can't get enough of baby feet.

Here's Carter!!! He is such a crazy, fun, silly little boy!

Okay remember how we saw Dawson last summer right after he was born?? This was him last summer, so this is what I remember him being.

Well, this is him this summer?!?!?!!

Crazy how much he changed over a year, right? He's still such a cute stinker. :)

He was unsure of Tyler, me and Spencer because he doesn't remember us. Once he got used to us he started showing off some of his tricks. He would go sit on the edge of the fireplace, then we would say "Ready, set, go!"

Then he would get up and just throw himself onto the floor, sometimes he would take a step or two, but mostly he threw himself onto the ground. It was hilarious because he just kept doing it!

Going to my brother's house was so great! The kids there are so awesome, and Spencer has a cousin who is just four months younger than him, and like ALL the same things! Here they are hanging out in Austin's room. Whenever we went over there Austin would say hello to all of us, then they would just disappear into Austin's room, and then we didn't see them until we left. Good buddies these two.

This is princess McKaylee, and she has grown up so much into a beautiful little lady. She has quite the fashion sense, and is a great dancer!

While there, my brother had to go coach a soccer team, actually Austin's soccer team, so we tagged along. Here is Dawson watching daddy coach.

And Austin listening to Seth's coaching. Seth was a great coach to watch, he got the kids moving, as well as himself, and had them all giggling and having fun while learning about soccer.

I turned around at one point and Dawson had gone after a pink soccer ball that was to the side of the field, and he got just close enough to put his big toe on it, I thought it was quite a cute little thing.

Austin the star soccer player!!! Woot! Woot!!

While in Utah we also went and visited my Grandma Rigby. She is a wonderful lady who I look up to quite a bit. We miss living in Utah so we could see her more often and chat with her about basketball and all that is going on. She's a pretty awesome and beautiful lady.

Summer Recap 2011--take 2!

As I said this summer was very busy for us. Before Tyler joined us in the States Spencer and I were able to go and visit some family.

We got back into the States at the end of June and we went to my parents place for a week then headed up to Kentucky to see our nieces' baptism, she had just turned 8 earlier and waited for Spencer to be there with her. Spencer and her get along so great together, so it was wonderful for him to be there for her special day and to get ready for his own baptism next year. So we stayed there for a quick weekend trip, and went back to VA to celebrate the 4th of July!!

The 4th of July is a big deal in my family, and an even bigger deal if we do it out in Lewiston, Utah. We love this holiday! Unfortunately we were not able to go to Utah, but stayed in VA to do it up big with my parents, and my sister and her family. My brother earlier in the day had sent a picture of all of the food he was eating in Utah when he was celebrating out there, so I had to send a picture back of our spread that we had...pretty yummy, right??

I even painted my toenails for the 4th of July. This is pretty much unheard of, because I do not paint my nails very often. I do not see the need for painted nails. Anyway, I did it so I had to take a picture of it so others could see I actually did a bright red for the 4th of July!

After our celebration of the 4th, we hung out at my parents for another week, then went on down to Alabama to visit one of my friends from growing up in VA, Emily. Her family lives down there now, and I hadn't seen her in a long time, so I asked if I could come crash at her place for a little while. Being the bestest friend ever she said yes. :)

This is Spencer with Emily's kids. The best thing about this trip was that all the kids played nicely with each other!!!!!!!! I know everyone's mouth dropped opened, didn't they?? But, really, sometimes it's hard to find other kids that will just play nicely with each other. I could not believe there was almost no fighting at all, it was awesome. It gave Emily and I lots of time to talk, eat, and reminisce with each other.

Cute Emily and her boy!! He was so great and fun. He has the CUTEST dimples!!!!

The little princess of the bunch, and the snuggler. She would always just scooch up into me if I was sitting on the couch. I adored it!

And this is her oldest, and the one Spencer just loved playing with. She is just four months younger than Spencer, so they were perfect to play together, plus she was tough, and would play sporty games with him. :)

And THIS little girl, sigh, this little lady stole my heart by the time I left. Mollie dog was my best friend while I was there and did not leave my side whenever I sat down on the couch. She would just look up at me, then snuggle right into my leg. Emily said, that anybody who is not a dog lover, Mollie will find and make them one. Well, I am not a dog hater, but dogs are not usually my thing, nor Spencer's, but we did GREAT with Mollie dog. She made me want to take her home with me. :)

Thanks so much to Dannon and Jenelle, and Emily for letting us crash at your houses this summer and being great host/hostess and letting us have an awesome time with you guys!!!!

Hello Again!

You know there is a saying that "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and I'm hoping that is the case for us. Sorry there has not been a posting on here for the past 3 months!!! YIKES!

We have been busy.

Wait, no that doesn't describe it well.

We have moved from Zimbabwe, been on a plane every week during the summer (no lie), gone to Kentucky, Alabama, DC, Utah and Virginia, found an apartment to live in in NYC, lived in a hotel for a week before moving into the apartment and finally moving into the apartment with no furniture. Yes, there, much better description of our summer. :)

Well, let's get the recap started!!

As you all know by now, there are a few places we like to hit up as soon as we have landed in America.

First off we go here:

Then we stop here (everyday):

Then we have these for breakfast:

Look at that happy faced boy!!! :)

The next thing we always do when we get back to the states is go watch Wyatt play some baseball!!!

We missed his regular season, but here he is on the All-Star team trying to win the Districts Championship.

How did they do?? Well, this is us on our way to the State Championships!!! YEP! His team won District!!!

Hello Little League State Championships!

We love going to support Wyatt playing baseball, but this trip was H-O-T-T! Everyday we were there it was around 110 degrees heat index. We were hot, but made do. Even Liza's best friend Alexis came to watch a game with us! She is the best and is like a sister (and one who could pull off being our sister) to our family.

This is Liza in game mode. She is usually the scorer and keeps tracks of pitches at all the games for the team. She gets stressed about how well they would do, and so we didn't talk to her much during the game. :)

Wyatt's feet. :) I loved watching all the different stances the boys had while getting ready to hit the ball.

Unfortunately, they lost all their games. It was hot, and for some reason some heads were not in the game. Wyatt took it alright, and even played a bit with Spencer. Oh and by the way, Spencer idolizes this guy right here. He loves him to death, and for good reason, Wyatt is an awesome young man!