Happy 9th Birthday Spencer!

It's Spencer's 9th Birthday, and so I had to go back through some pictures to remember all of the joy he has brought to our family. Hope you don't mind all the pictures, but it gives you the perfect idea of what Spencer's personality is like. 

The day Spencer was born, one big boy, 9lbs. 2oz. 

I loved cuddling my little boy.

His first birthday!

Second birthday, and loving The Wiggles at their concert.

His third birthday, where he wanted the Care Bear cake!!! He is such a sweetheart!

Moved to Congo when he was three, he looks so young here!

I love this kid!!!!!

Being surprised at his fourth birthday.

He is also one very well traveled kid, here we are at Versailles. He has visited I think 9 countries now.

Spencer loves to just have fun, in fact, that is his goal every day to have fun!

Turning five and starting Kindergarten!!!!

Living in Zimbabwe and we are so happy.

He is one active kid too, he loves to play.

Holding Grandma's hand, see so sweet.

He is always willing to try anything, even riding elephants and standing next to them at six years old.

I know, I know. I love this face too!

On top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

Birthday number 7!!!

Eighth birthday and being baptized, and gaining a baby brother!

Spencer is the best big brother. Always trying to make Preston smile (which sometimes he's the only one who can), and always trying to teach him how to play with toys and....HAVE FUN!!! I love these sweet moments between them.

Silly Spencer.

In New York and learning so much.

Being crazy silly like his dad at Ripley's Believe It or Not.

 He was able to start up Scouts and he loves it.

These two are so connected and thankfully Spencer makes sure to always hold, hug and kiss on Preston everyday.

Being cool (now that he's older) with Goofy.

Spencer is one amazing kid. He has grown up way too fast, but has become a really good kid. His stats at 9 are 68 lbs. and 4 ft. 7inches tall (that is less than one foot from mom's height?!!?). He loves video games, is really smart in math, and gets puzzles like no other. He is always looking for fun things to do, and is super friendly with anyone, one good thing about moving around so much, he will always have friends wherever he goes. He is truly a good kid too, very honest, and doesn't ever want to hurt anyones feelings. I can't believe how lucky we are that we have this great kid in our lives. We love him so much! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPENCER!!!!

Random New York part 2

More random pictures, but they are fun!

I really like this picture Tyler took of me looking at Preston when we first got back to my room after having him. I was in awe of this little guy.

I also love this picture that Tyler took of Aunt Ya-ya and Preston.

Preston with his harness on at the doctor's office. This was when he first got it on. 

Remember the last Presidential Election?? Well, it got a little crazy political here in NYC! This is in Rockefeller Center. See that building straight ahead, where one side is blue and the other red, with the 270 mark, it was all to see who won!!! Pretty cool.

Tyler also went over to the ice skating rink to see the big U.S. map on it. 

In October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy came through our area and it was not good. Tons of people were flooded and lost homes. Our church was trying to help out as much as we could, so one Sunday instead of going to church they had all the adults volunteer to go over to the Rockaways to help any way we could. I stayed home, since I had just had Preston, and watched our boys with another families kids for the day so their parents could go help out. Tyler took these pictures of where he was working. Sand everywhere!

Around Christmas time every year, one Sunday in December we see A LOT of Mr. Santas and Ms. Santas walking around. We found out it's like a beer crawl, where you start at one bar and continue on to others. Everyone dresses up in Santa costumes and they start either up north or down south, and go the opposite direction. It's kinda weird to see SO MANY Santas.

While in Utah over the holidays we always go up to visit Great Grandma! She was thrilled to see Preston for the first time. He did really love sitting with her too. 

Great grandma with her great grandkids! Too cute!

Saw this in one of the financial buildings we live by one day. It's all made out of cans. These are the kind of things we'll miss just running into here in NYC. 

Random New York

After going through some pictures from around New York that we've taken over the past two years, I decided to put them all together....randomly. They each don't need their own post, so here are some things from around New York. 

Along the Hudson, some nights the sunsets are awesome.

Christmastime here in NYC is AMAZING!!!! Here is the Rockefeller tree!!! Gorgeous, huge and it twinkles!!!

Tyler was walking around for lunch one day and saw all these paparazzi's at FAO. So he asked someone who was outside and they said "It's Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and all the kids." WHAT?!?! So he joined the group and started taking pics. 

Here's Brad with two kiddos.

Angie and some kids.

Angie and child again.

Gorgeous sunset on the Hudson again.

So at the end of our street right by the Hudson they have some summer concerts go on, and George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic were there. I had heard of him, so we decided to go down and just walk around. It was really crowded so we just walked along the river. But then guess who we saw also along the river?? Josh Groban!!!!! It was pretty fantastic! No pictures of Josh because he was with some friends, and I didn't want to out him if others didn't realize it was him. He was having a nice evening also.

Here are some pictures of our visitors loving New York! This is my dad at the Mets Citi Field. 

And then eating at Carnegie Deli with Tyler. This was ONE sandwich for ONE person!!!!! I believe it was called the Woody Allen.

And here is Tyler's dad in front of the LDS Manhattan Temple. 

Palmyra, New York

Not very often do I share about my religion on the blog, because it is mostly about our travels, but my religion is a HUGE part of my life. It is the whole reason for how I live my life and the things I believe in and the reason I know our Heavenly Father is watching over us. The only reason I was comfortable with going along with this job of moving every two years is because of the prayers that were answered. 

We took this trip so we could see the history of the restoration of our Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and where Joseph Smith grew up and also where he brought the Church back to the earth. Also we wanted Spencer to see these special places that he has been learning about. 

This is where our first modern day prophet, Joseph Smith, lived growing up with his family. Can you believe his parents and 7 kids lived in this home!!! It was small and simple. 

We have scripture that is called The Book of Mormon, which goes with the Bible (we study both), and Joseph Smith was the one to find the Golden Plates, that were actually golden, and translated the words, put them down on paper and published it as The Book of Mormon. Which we were also able to go and see the publishing office that he used to publish The Book of Mormon.

 But while Joseph was in the process of translating a lot of people wanted to get the Golden Plates, so he would hide them, and the people would never find them. They would get incredibly close to finding them, but they never did. One time his sisters were in a bed and he put the plates between them, the men who were looking for the plates came into the room and looked everywhere, but never asked the girls to get out of the bed, so they didn't find the plates!!! 

Another place they were hid is right under these bricks Spencer is standing on. He had heard these stories and knew exactly where he was. He was quite excited to see the actual fireplace that Joseph used to hide the plates. 

This is a home that Joseph's brother, Hyrum, built. He built this in the 1820s, and when walking in they said that 85% of the home is of the original! Talk about a well built home!  

The place we were was the Smith's farm they had. We saw the barn that they had for hay, and also a workshop type place. 

After that we went into the woods. This place holds a special place in each of our hearts because it is the spot where Joseph prayed to Heavenly Father to know which Church he should belong to, and Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, came down and talked to Joseph and told him none of the churches were completely true. They each had some of the truths we believe in, but not all, and that Joseph was to build Christ's church again on earth. It was incredible to walk through these woods. Even though there were a ton of people walking through the pathways, it was SO quiet. I loved it. 

Preston was so good throughout this day, it was very hot, but yet he was calm and quiet. 

And cute.

Later that night everyone went to the Hill Cumorah pageant. I stayed at the hotel with Preston, because the performance starts at 9pm, and I thought Preston better get a good night sleep that night (which in hindsight, I should have gone, because he didn't sleep and I was up all night long). This pageant is about The Book of Mormon. It's pretty cool, and Spencer had a lot of fun watching it. He wants to participate in it in the years to come!

Before the show some of the actors come out to talk with the audience. Here is Spencer with Nephi.

During the performance. 

 This is a really bad picture, BUT it is a picture of us with our parents friends they had while they were all newlyweds!!!! We loved running into them and had lots to try to catch up on in a short amount of time. 

It was an amazing trip with lots of memories.