Happy 4th of July!!

As Dennis Prager would say the 4th of July is "the mother of all American holidays." We are so grateful to live in the USA! Here we are sporting our red, white and blue attire for a fireworks show. Sorry about the fuzzy picture, but you get the idea. Carson was absolutely mesmerized by the fireworks show. I don't think I've ever seen him sit that still for so long!




Me & my cute sister-in-law, Natalie. She is getting ready to head up to BYU and we are certainly going to miss her!

Who needs a pool??

Who needs a pool when you've got a hose?! Look at the concentration on that little face and then he goes wild.

Ah, this is the life!

Carson, just chillin' on a pool float.

"Two, Tea"

I apologize for the overload of swimming pictures. As you can see this is our favorite activity! What else can we do in this Arizona heat?? This is such a great picture because of Carson's little fingers. He points and counts, "two, tea (three) before jumping off to anyone who's willing to catch him.

So sweet!

Thanks Kapri for forwarding me this cute picture of Carson from playgroup last week. Doesn't he look so sweet!? Shortly after this picture was taken he had to be put in time out for throwing shovels full of rocks out the window at his little friends. Oh, so sweet!

Popsicles + Swimming = Summer

Carson has really been enjoying summer. It's the only time of year that popsicles count as dinner.

Darling boy!

I look at this picture and am reminded how great it is to be a mom to this darling little boy. He has his moments of craziness, but I still love him to pieces!

Playing Hard

We have had family in town this weekend for a suprise 80th birthday party for my grandpa. We decided to take advantage of our time together and had dinner last night at Liza and Justin's new house. They have little ATV's for their boys and Carson couldn't get enough of them. He really just sat on them. I'm the mean mom who has Liza take the batteries out so he can't go anywhere. He still seems to little for those and I don't want him to injury himself or run any other cousins over. When he decided he was done with those he just cruised around the backyard and had tons of fun. This kid definitely needs a backyard at some point!

Me & My Little Man

I just love my happy little boy! I couldn't image life without him! He is at such a fun stage. He loves to play, laugh and to give kisses and hugs. I steal them any chance I get!

Fun in the Sun

We have had a fun Saturday! We woke up early this morning for family pictures and then headed over to Matt's parent's house for naps and swimming. I'm hoping to get Carson in a swimming class this summer. It has been so fun to watch him enjoy Grandma and Papa's pool! Sorry for the overload of videos below. You can tell I just learned how to get them on our blog! Very fun. Now if I could just make them better quality!

"I don't know"

Carson loves to imitate Matt saying "hello" and when you ask him questions he says "I don't know" and shrugs his shoulders. Too cute.

Diving Carson

Does anyone know how to make these videos look not so fuzzy??? Carson LOVES the pool and is brave enough to jump of the diving board. Sorry about the not so good quality of video, but you get the idea!

Go Diamondbacks!

Well, I've had several people tell me I fallen of the face of the earth. I have been keeping very busy with Carson, work, home projects, Young Womens, scrapbooking classes, etc. I look forward to my life slowing down just a bit, but who knows when that will happen! We did however have a very fun weekend. Carson has been loving the pool, so we swim every chance we get. Grandma Gail & Papa Dave watched Carson Saturday night so we could go the the Diamondbacks game. We had such a great time! It was lots of fun to be out with Matt! We went to the game with my parents, my brother and his wife (Dave & Karyn) and they brought their little girl, Kassie. Dave had some sweet tickets through PWC and we enjoyed a little baseball, chatted lots and ate greasy food. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Me & Karyn - seriously one of the sweetest people I know!

Me & Matt
Dave Kassie & Karyn (sporting the D-Back's colors!)
All of us! What a fun time. Thanks Dave!

Swim buddies

Carson and his swim buddy, Preston. Preston would ask "where's that guy?" when he couldn't find Carson. Obviously something very humorous was going on when this photo was taken.

Little dude!

Carson with his dad's sunglasses.

Spoon Skills

Just when I thought Carson was getting pretty good with his spoon I look over to find this after his morning yogurt. Apparently we still need to work on this skill.

Accident

We got home from church two weeks ago and Carson climbed up in his chair for a snack. He slipped and fell head first onto the tile floor. We felt so bad for our little guy.

"The Look"

Yes, we have a sweet little boy, but his new thing is to give us this look. When you ask him to do something and he doesn't want to....this is the look we get. I don't know where he gets these things! It's not like we look at him like that. Ha.

Check out that walk!

I saw this picture and started cracking up.

Carson with the guys!

Our good friends, Marci and Joe, invited us over for thai food and yet another pool party. Carson just loves Doe (Joe). Here are Carson and Joe testing out their trampline skills.

Carson and his absolute favorite guy - DAD! You can always bet Carson will be smiling and laughing when he has his dad around!

Just a few more...

Me, Carson, Audrey and Nicole. We were the only moms to get in the pool this day.

Carson cheesin' it up for the camera. I already apologized to Carson for making him wear these pink flowered floats in the pool. We were just testing them out to see how we liked them.

Memorial Weekend

This weekend we were able spend some quality time together as a family! We took a break from hours of paining and hit the pool. If you were to ask Carson he'd say it was a "poo" or "wadder". He is quite the little fish and LOVES swimming.

Enjoy his 1st tastes of watermelon. I'm sure he'll get to enjoy this several more times this summer too!
Check out our little guy!!

J-E-L-L-O

What kid doesn't love jello?! This little guy sure does. His right hand is now stained red.

Too quiet!

I always worry when the house gets really quiet. I was cleaning up paint overspray and things got a little too quiet. I went to find Carson and this is what I found. Apparently he was trying to give himself some facial hair. Matt said we should just let him go to church looking like this. Luckily it all came off. I was mad but of course had to get a picture and couldn't help but laugh!

All in a days work

We are STILL painting. This weekend our last two ceilings got painted. Thank you to a wonderful husband and our good friend Linus! I went to my sister-in-law's baby shower, so the boys were left to get the job done! It turned out great. My kitchen cabinets are the last project and hopefully that will be done this week!

Carson and the spray gun....probably not a good combination!

Carson enjoyed clean up the best. There was lots of water involved. I couldn't resist posting this picture. Carson's diaper was at full capacity with all the clean up water.

Carson, where is daddy??

I am so glad I captured this on camera. This is Carson's new thing when you ask him a question. I asked, "Carson, where is your daddy?" You gotta love that belly and his cankles.

This boy and his "whos"

Carson loves his "whos" (shoes). I have a feeling his daily attire at home will consist of a diaper and whatever shoes he hands me that day this summer. We had a funny exchange the other night. I took Carson's shoes off and he flipped out! He brought his shoes back to me and cried, "Peas (please). Whos (shoes). On." I was cracking up that he communicated that to me.

Sprinklers!

We had a fun time yesterday playing in the sprinklers with Audrey and Livvy. I'll have more to post of all the kids soon!

Carson ran errards with me in the morning in his swim trunks. I love them!

Toby

Toby is Carson's blankie. I thought I needed to get a picture of him carrying it around. No, I didn't name the blanket...PotteryBarn Kids did that for me! It's blue and green and has a cute little horse on one side. I wish I could sleep with it!

Next Project!

After the porch swing came a kitchen repainting project which is finished and we are thrilled with the results. Matt and I should start a painting business! We've turned into professionals and are quite the team! We ran out of paint and still needed to finish the laundry room, so I purchased more paint and surprised Matt by doing it all by myself. Now we are on to the BIG project!! I will admit I am proud of my next little project. I've been talking about doing it for years and have finally begun! Here is a picture of our lovely cabinets before. Don't get me wrong...I have nothing against these cabinets, but they were completely "thrashed" and in need of some love and updating.

BEFORE

As always - Carson was anxious to be in on the action! Matt was putting on the finishing touches and Carson kept inching closer and closer in hopes of grabbing at least one screw. Check out this picture...Carson just eyeing those three little screws on the ground in front of him. He'd act innocent and when he thought we weren't watching he'd reach his little chubby fingers out to grab one. His cute attempts were unsuccessful, but it sure was funny watching him try!

DURING

The finished product. I started on the smallest area to test out my skills. After the first coat of primer I thought it would be the end of me, but I am really happy with the results. I am now considering doing the rest of the cabinets in the house.

AFTER

Wish me luck on finishing the rest!

Sorry!

I apologize for my lack of blogging lately! I have a nice long list titled "home projects" and we've been working on a few. Our first project...painting the swing by our front door. I failed to get a before shot, but the swing wasn't anything exciting. The last time anyone gave it any kind of TLC was in 1986 I'm sure when it was put up. We took it apart, sanded it, painted it and now have a cute porch swing to admire. Below is the finished project.

Mountain View Class of '98

Class of '98 - Mountain View High School

We are trying to gather email addresses for our upcoming 10 year high school reunion. Please email your current email address to mtviewtoros98@yahoo.com. Your email address will remain private and only be used for reunion communication purposes. Feel free to spread the word, this email address and even post a similar message on your own blog!