First Day of School!

It has finally come around again. The start of the new school year. This year Dallin will be in 3rd grade and Isaac will be in kindergarten. It will be nice to have two kids in school for at least half of the day. I will love to have that little bit of time alone with Kaden, so that we can play and not get interrupted as we sometimes do. It will also be nice to have some alone time when Kaden goes down for a nap.

Here are the first day of school pictures:

Last Hike of the summer

At the end of July, I realized that our family hasn't been on a hike in almost a month so I picked a hike that I have wanted to do all summer. I thought it would be fun to hike up and tour the Mt. Timpanogos cave. Jeff and I have both done the hike and tour before, but all I could remember from the tour is that we would hurry on ahead of my parents to sit on the next bench.

So we went to Utah County and we started up the mountain. I knew that the hill was steep, but I was not really prepared for how steep it was. I was exhausted when I got up to the cave, but it was worth it. Jeff was a tropper and carried up Kaden all the way in a pack or in his arms. Isaac was my partner and stayed behind with me and we helped each other walk up the mountain. I was so proud of him for making it up.

The cave was nice and cool, and was a nice break from the heat of walking up the moutain. The kids did get a little bored in the cave, but they still had a lot of fun. The cave was beautiful and it amazes me the process in which a cave can be made and still live.

Here are the pictures:

This is the best picture of Jeff and Kaden. Kaden loves hiking for the most part.

Isaac was just so excited to finally get to the cave and be able to sit down. Every bench we came to on the hike he wanted to take a break.

We try to take a picture of the trailhead, or cave head here, to remember. Dallin was not happy when we got to the cave. Every picture that we took he was frowning

Kaden did not like me taking this picture because the light was too bright. He was also really tired he ended up falling asleep while we were on the cave tour

Here is what they call the heart of Mt. Timpanogos. It looks a lot like a real heart and I can see why they call it that. Jeff told me that he remembers them turning on a red light behind it, but our tour guide didn't this time.

Manda's wedding shower and wedding

It has a been awhile so I am going to be putting some together.

First off, my baby sister got married in August and in July all of the sisters in the family threw her a shower. The shower had a movie theme because she works at a movie theater. I helped a little with decorations and I think I went a little bit overboard making things for it. Most of the wood things that I made, she was able to take home, actually they were also used for her reception too, so she got a 2 for 1.

In August was the blessed day, and it was beautiful except I forgot my recomend so I had to wait for a little bit to get approval to enter. After the ceremony I stalked the photographer and got a couple of pictures.

For the reception all of us put up and down the decorations. It was fun to put everything together and get it all set up to how we wanted. It was fun.

So here are not all of the pictures but a few and they haven't been edited:

All of the decorations that I made.

 The kids waiting for Manna and Scott to exit the temple

 The didn't want to cooperate with pictures of all of them.

 I thought this was a cool idea it kind of gives them a red glow about them

 My sister and I wrapped the ivy and the lights on the back drop. It was hard work.

 The cake table

This was the coolest idea that my sister Debra came up with. We took a lot of photos of Scott and Manna and placed them on a string and it was the first thing that the guests could look at when they entered the cultural hall. It was fun to arrange the pictures. I edited some of these photos

Dallin's Birthday and Baptism

This summer was a very special one for Dallin. He turned 8 and he decided to get baptised. It was also the first year that I let him have a birthday party. I never had one when I was a child so I never had the want to throw my child one, but I finally got over the fact that it is for him and I let him invite a coupld of friends over. Dallin loves Phineas and Ferb, so that was the theme of the party. I think that the boys had fun, the only problem was that it was a little warm outside, but the boys all had fun and got to take away a wooden car that we made from a kit that I bought.

In July, it was time for Dallin's baptism and he was really excited. He was a little scared to have to go under the water, but he went second and was able to see how it went and it was better. I didn't think about until he was stepping into the water how proud of him I was. I actually started to tear up a little bit he is a wonderful boy and I love him a lot.

Lagoon and Family Reunion

This year our family was all alone on our trip to Lagoon. Dallin was excited because he is finally tall enough that he could ride some of the roller coasters. Jeff and Dallin spent a lot of time off riding the roller coasters. But they would come back every once in awhile and Jeff and I would switch. We had a fun time there Kaden and I spent a lot of time watching Isaac, Jeff and Dallin ride the rides, but we had fun all the same.

See he had fun just relaxing in the stroller

This is Isaac riding with his new friend Nick (one of Jeff's co-workers) you can see Dallin and Isaac riding together in the back.

This year my family decided to do a Howard Dee Stockdale reunion(my grandfather). It turned out that Dallin also had his first cub scout's activity so Jeff and Dallin stayed home and Isaac, Kaden and myself went up to Logan for the reunion. I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was busy taking care of Kaden, who had his first taste of pudding loved it by the way, playing volleyball, and playing games to take many pictures. The only ones I got was while we were waiting for the festivities to begin.

Kaden loves the swings

With all of the rain that we had this spring this is what the run of was doing at the end of June. It was really loud we couldn't hear each other talk.

Swimming and a movie

This year we put Dallin and Isaac into swimming lessons again. This year Dallin went into level 2 and Isaac went into level 1. I pick the first session and since spring was a wet and cold one, hardly anyone signed up so Dallin class only had two people and Isaac's had three. It was nice, because they got a lot of one on one time with their instructors. Dallin had fun because he was finally tall enough that he could touch the bottom of the pool with his head above the water. They had a lot of fun.

We went to our yearly trip to the drive-in theater. We choose to go a little early and this year the drive-in has been able to get the movies earlier so it was still a little cold outside, but we had fun. Here are some pictures

as you can see the boys were all taken care of for the long wait for the movie to start.

Kaden and I found other ways to entertain ourselves as we were left out of the fun.