Yearbook Photos

Alan's sister Amanda created these pictures of Alan from a website called Yearbookyourself.com. I think I will be wasting a bunch of time on this website in the near future.

Jared Loves Videos

This is mostly so Jared can have easy access to this video that he loves to watch.

I just love birthdays!

We had a wonderful little birthday party for Jared. We started out by having a yummy dinner with both sets of grandparents. Then we invited Jared's Stout aunts and uncles over for dessert and present opening. This little boy got spoiled!

opening presents

Jared's grandparents and Stout aunts and uncles. I love how Jared is a blur in the middle of the picture.

Jared's new toy lawn mower. He LOVES it.

Ok, I have to brag about this Elmo cake that Alan and I made. I'm not usually a creative or crafty person, but we are rather proud of how this cake turned out. The red is frosting (not licorice), the nose is a plastic Easter egg, and the eyes are powdered mini donuts with Junior mints. Jared loved it; he is still asking every day to see the Elmo cake (it doesn't exist anymore).

All About the Buddy

Our little baby turned two this week!!

I will post later about all the festivities, but here are some things about Jared at age 2 (sorry if you aren't interested, but this really is for me to help me remember):

1. Jared is talking a TON. He has a vocabulary of hundreds of words and speaks in complete sentences.
2. Jared can say the ABC's (leaving out only a couple of letters), and he can identify by sight about 7 or 8 of them.
3. Jared can say the numbers up to 10 and can identify all of them by sight (he doesn't know what it means to count actual objects yet, though).
4. Jared loves to have me sing songs from the Primary songbook and from a Sesame Street songbook we have. His favorite songs are "Elmo's Song," "In the Leafy Treetops," "Daddy's Homecoming," "O What do You do in the Summertime," and lots of the activity songs ("Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," etc.).
5. Jared can solve algebraic equations correctly (just kidding).
6. Jared can correctly say and identify almost all colors.
   
7. Jared loves to be read to. Lately his favorite books are Berenstein Bear books, which are a little too old for him, so we have to summarize the plots instead of reading them word for word.
8. Jared LOVES nursery. Every time someone at the podium in Sacrament Meeting says "Amen," Jared immediately says "Go to Nursery!!!" because he thinks it is nursery time.
9. Jared loves to talk on the phone and in the past two weeks has started to have semi-real conversations with Daddy, Grandma, etc. on the phone.
10. Cute things Jared says lately: "Mommy, where are you?" "Kiss it better (kiss). That feel better now?" "Go outside right now!" "Say please" (instead of just "please"), "Go to Matt, Brooke's house. Dama (Grandma), Papa be there."
    

Not looking old yet?

A couple of days ago some high school-aged girls knocked on my door. They were trying to sell fund-raising items for EFY and cheerleading camp. Anyway, when I answered one of them hesitated and then asked, "Is your mom home?"

I answered, "I am the mom."

I don't know whether at my age to be offended or flattered. :)

4th of July Festivities

Since the 4th was on Saturday, and Alan had work off on Friday, we were lucky to have TWO fun-filled holidays. On Friday we had a blast at the Thanksgiving Point Garden and Children's Garden, followed by a delicious dinner at my brother's house. Then we stayed up late for our own little fireworks display in the street.

Me, my mom, and my two sisters-in-law (not in that order)

Jared and Daddy and Jared's cousin looking at the disgusting big fish

Jared and his cousin on a bridge

At the lighthouse playhouse

Jared splashing with Aunt Brooke and two of his cousins

Jared was so intrigued with the water that this was the only non-back view that we got of him. Why is it so hard to take pictures at this age?

Brooke helping me kiss the llama

Me, my bro, my mom, and my two sisters-in-law about to demolish a yummy trifle

Our plans on Saturday for a wonderful picnic/hike with my whole family ended up falling through when Jared had been up all night barfing. (Yay for barf!!) So we stayed home, ate all the yummy food I had prepared the day before, and enjoyed ourselves. Then we ended up getting together with my former roommate and her hubby and kids who were here from out of state! It was a lovely little consolation prize for having to stay home. THEN, we had a delightful barbecue with my whole family and tons of my cousins (and all their kids!) at my aunt and uncle's house. Um, I think I have never eaten so much in a single weekend. Well, excluding Thanksgivings. And Christmases. Never mind.

Night Visitors

Last night we woke up around 12:30 to knocking on our front door. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then we heard it again! It totally freaked us out, but Alan went to check things out.

Here was my first thought: Oh, no, Jared called 911 and the fire department showed up to make sure things are all right. (By the way, Jared actually did call 911 a couple of Saturdays ago, and we didn't know it until we got two phone calls--one from the fire department and one from the police--to make sure everything was all right. I guess the thought didn't occur to me that Jared went to bed 5 hours before this knocking, and it would have been too long of a delay to actually be the fire department.)

My second thought that it was my brother or sister-in-law, who live fairly close to us. But then, wouldn't they have just called if they needed something?

The mysterious knocking ended up being a couple in our neighborhood, telling us that we left our garage door open. They didn't know our phone number, so they couldn't call us.

Hmm...was closing our garage really important enough to wake us up in the middle of the night? And was it worth scaring us to death?