We love animals!

Garrett is definitely an animal lover. It all started with his dad's obsession of monkeys that we have seen since Garrett has been born. Then, I randomly gave the nickname of "chicken" to Garrett and has been most consistent on saying "bock, bock" when we ask what a chicken says. I think right now Garrett loves birds the most, but he definitely has an interest in all animals. We thought it would be a fun thing to get a family pass at the zoo to enjoy together this year and we recently went to Wheeler Farm to see all the animals too. He was definitely more into watching the animals this year and said many of the animal sounds too! I think we have many more years ahead of us with his love for animals and hope to have some great times as we see and learn more about them.

Tractor ride at Wheeler Farm!

Garrett with the preschool kids at Wheeler Farm.

What a great spring day for the zoo!


Proud as a peacock!

Garrett loved the exotic birds!

Garrett signing, "bath" as he watches the penguins play in the water!

Mommy and son watching the penguins.

The elephants were active and eating.



"choo-choo" says Garrett!

Getting ready for the train to start. It certainly wasn't too exciting, so we were glad that we have a discount with our zoo membership!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPER BABY!!!

Garrett is so hilarious. If you can't tell from the title, he is obsessed with two things lately...BIRDS and AIRPLANES!!! It all started about a month ago when I was outside playing with him. He was crawling around in the grass, having a great time playing with dirt and sticks and anything else he could find (little round hard pieces of.....poop!) he he he Anyway, back to the story....so as he was playing, I was just watching him explore and quietly observing as he was discovering the beauty of the world around him. Then came an awesome, "mommy moment" as we could hear some birds chirping in the trees! Garrett immediately stopped what he was doing and looked toward the sound of the birds. He looked back at me, then back up to the tree and did the sign language for "bird!" As I mentioned before, I was sitting "quietly" watching him and did not say anything about the birds in the tree! I thought it was amazing, given that was the first time I had seen him do the "bird" sign. We obviously had been "teaching" him it while we were reading books, but I believe we had never associated the "real" nature sound with bird or the sign. It was too impressed that my baby was such a genius! Moms love to brag, right!?! :)

Well, ever since that day, that child has been OBSESSED with birds! I think it helps that we love to go outside, there are lots of trees around, and it is just one of those wonderful sounds of SPRING! Another reason he has learned to love birds so much is because Colin's mom breeds canaries. She has a "bird" room at her house that is full of cages and right now, 5 birds. It is a constant "symphony" of chirping whenever we are there and it was fun to see Garrett's reaction at first when he could hear them from the other rooms of the house and wondered where they were! Imagine the kid's excitement when he can actually be up close and personal with the birds in the very same room as he is! Needless to say, he pretty much wishes he could just stay there in that room all day when we are over there. You can only distract him for a few minutes until he can hear the sounds of the birds, does his bird sign, and is off crawling down the hallway to find them again, and again, and again!! Pretty silly and cute if you ask me! (and I know that Colin's mom loves that there is another bird lover in the family with her now too!)

Garrett's birdie LIPS! His has a cute little "tweet" that he says along with the cute lips!

Garrett's birdie hands!

Helping Daddy gather sticks to build a nest! :)

Garrett has his own wings! If you look close, you can see his hair that comes over his ears. It is funny to see the hair "fly" when the wind picks up!

Now for the airplane obsession. Since we live just a few short miles from the airport, planes pretty much fly over our house all day long. There is always a constant stream of them flying overhead. You definitely can't miss the sound of an airplane especially when they seem so close to you and Garrett has definitely has learned quickly to recognize that sound! So, between birds and airplanes, that boy constantly has his head looking up toward the sky and pointing at one of those objects. It is cute and fun until I am trying to get a photo of him outside and he won't look at me because he if following a bird or a plane with his eyes! (but what kid does look at a camera....right?!) It just amazes me how much he is learning everyday and how much he knowsfor being so young!

Look Mom and Dad! It's an airplane!

Last, but certainly not least.....Super baby! I thought it was a fitting title for our little man! He definitely has seemed to grow up a lot lately with his cruising around on his knees every where and pulling himself up to things! I was totally dreading him crawling up the stairs, but he is doing awesome! We haven't had one fall yet in the past two weeks! He does really well going down and always claps when he gets down to the bottom stair! It is so dang cute to see him pulling himself up to things. He loves to pull himself up to the couch to be closer to mom or dad and think it is great to pull himself up to the piano and reach for the keys to play a little song! Another way that he likes to be super baby is in his swing that he got for his birthday! He loves to "FLY" in his as we push him higher and higher! We at least go out into the backyard once a day to swing. Even though we are sad that he is growing up so fast, we are sure having fun at all his new fun tricks and love that he is learning and enjoying so many things!

HIGHER DADDY....HIGHER!!!!

"Rollin' with my Homies!"

WOW....this is crazy! It is waaaaayyy past my bedtime and I have to get up early tomorrow, but I just couldn't resist. These pictures are way too cute and I had WAAAAYYYY too much fun tonight on our family bike ride. I have wanted a bike trailer for TWO years now ever since I got my bike for my birthday back in 2007. Well, it didn't make sense to do it then because we didn't have Garrett yet or knew that he was on his way! Last year, Garrett was only three months old and couldn't quite sit up yet....so we still didn't think it was the best idea even though I wanted to IGNORE the age requirements of "one year." WELL, this year we did it! I have been looking online and searching for a good one! We found this one on sale and it wasn't exactly what I was "dreaming of," but we decided that for the price, I could live with it and probably LOVE it just as much! SO, my cute husband surprised me and got it for me for Easter! I was dying to put it together and so right when he got home he worked on it and managed to get it all hooked up just in time for a nice roll around the neighborhood before dark! YES!!!!!! I can't wait for all the fun this Spring and Summer! I think it will especially be fun to take camping! YIPPEEEE!

"Hoppy" Spring!

We hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend!
What a beautiful day it was! We had a fun day that started with homemade cinnamon rolls! They are as close to homemade as I have ever gotten. They were made from Rhodes bread dough, but I added the cinnamon, sugar, butter and homemade frosting!! I must say, it was a definite step up from the cinnamon rolls in a can! Maybe one day I will be brave enough to make the bread dough from scratch! I must not forget the yummy strawberry smoothie that Colin made to add to the deliciousness! :)



We went to Stake Conference and enjoyed that. I especially enjoyed the beautiful Easter songs that we don't get to sing very often. After church Colin made some yummy egg salad sandwiches with some baby carrots on the side! Sounds like a perfect "bunny" meal to me! We thought we would then venture out to do some pictures with Garrett outside. It is hard to get a 15 month old to look at the camera, especially when he wants to play with the plastic eggs. We did manage to get a few good ones. Garrett got some new blocks, bubbles, and a xlophone in his Easter basket. Colin got a new camping chair and I got a bike trailer! I can't wait to go on a bike ride!!! Spring is the best! I just want it to stay warm, (but not too warm)! I think we are going to get some good use out of that bike trailer this summer! YAY!!!!!



I think the background of these pictures turned out great!
It is the shed that Colin repainted last year! It matches Garrett's
outfit and definitely brings out the blue in his eyes! He was being so funny.
He loves to "sign" bird and that is what his hands are doing in that
one picture above! Garrett is too dang cute! We definitelythink Garrett is
"some-bunny" special!

"Snow" much FUN!

I know that we are ALL wanting Spring to be here, but I got a little blue sled for Garrett for his birthday and we wanted to try it out while we still could!!! I had pulled him around in our backyard, but we wanted to go to a place with a little more space and go as a family so that Colin could use his muscles to push and pull so I didn't have to hurt my back! There hasn't been much snow on the ground lately and so a few weeks ago we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon! We didn't know quite where to go, but found the perfect spot at the bottom of Donut Falls. It definitely was the place to be....lots of people sledding, tubing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and we even saw some people that had a portable fire pit that they brought up to drink their hot chocolate by! We definitely enjoyed our time and Garrett loved it! Garrett and Colin looked so cool in their shades! He especially liked us running down the drive way that was snow packed and smooth! We got some great pictures and a fun video! Enjoy!

The "terrible TEENS!"

I think most of us have heard of the "terrible twos"...when toddlers can be difficult! We're not quite there with Garrett and I wouldn't call the stage he is at right now terrible, but definitely different! Well, Garrett is now almost fourTEEN months old! Now that he is a "TEEN-monther" (ha ha ha....get it?!) he is showing us how independent he wants to be. For example, feeding him is a whole different ball game than it was a few weeks ago. He is demanding to hold the spoon and often screams if he doesn't get it! I knew this day was coming, I just didn't expect it sooooo soon! I sometimes give him the spoon (depending on MY mood!), but can usually get him to eat from me if I distract him with something else that he can hold in his hand. Take a look at this video and see just how cute he is when he takes the spoon!

Garrett is also having a hard time with his naps lately. As many kids experience around this age...two naps is too much, but one nap is not enough! As a result of this, we often find Garrett sitting up playing with his toys in his bed. Well, last week I could hear that he wasn't going to sleep and was having a great time playing. I assumed he was enjoying his toys and went in and found him with the the kleenex box from the nightstand by his bed with all the tissues pulled out and ripped apart! AHHHHH I asked him who made that mess and he gave me the cutest, most innocent look and put his hands up as if to say, "it wasn't me!" I unfortunately was in a hurry to get somewhere and so I didn't take a picture, but it was definitely a classic moment.

Last, but certainly not least, our little teenMONTHER is.....drumroll please..... finally crawling! Most kids his age are walking by now, but our little man has taken his sweet ol' time! He has been "crawling" backwards for a few months now, but decided to go forward last week for the first time! It was soooo awesome!! We have been practicing for a very long time and our hard work has finally paid off! He still doesn't love it and often still goes backwards, but he is making progress! He doesn't usually crawl toward what we want him to because he gets distracted with other things that I guess are more "interesting" than the toys we have! I even tried getting him to crawl toward me today with food (okay, I admit...it was a cookie!!!) and he didn't even want that! He goes where he wants to go and is having fun exploring his world now on his knees! Here is to many fun adventures ahead until we start to walk! We love our big boy!

WE LOVE BOOKS!!

Garrett really enjoys books. Give him the choice between toys and books, and he will go for the books! It is too cute to watch him do his sign for book...over and over and over again! He has quite the collection from my days as a school teacher and those that we have purchased and been given. His most recent favorites are the lift the flap books! He is very good at finding and lifting each flap on each page. Some books we have done so many times that I can tell him to find certain things on the page and he will lift the correct flap showing that object! He also still loves touch and feel books. We really enjoy reading to him the books by Sandra Boynton. She is a children' s author with hilarious books! If you haven't already, you must check them out! Some of our favorite titles are: The Belly Button Book, Pajama Time, Snuggle Puppy, and Snoozers.

Even with all of those, we have had a great time going to the library this past month. We have enjoyed going to the Baby Story Time. We have been to three libraries to check out the differences and have enjoyed all of them for different reasons. After our adventures, I thought it would be fun to have the job as the lady in charge of story time. I even looked up on the county website to find more information about it. I found that to do story time, you have to have a Master's Degree in Library Science! ARE they CRAZY!!? I could do better and have more fun than some of those ladies! I know that sounds mean, but some of the women are just not that "into it!" I took a storytelling class in college...does that count!? I guess Garrett and the rest of my kids one day will get to benefit from all my "skills" as I read stories to them! It is still a fun thing to do every week to get out, read stories, sing songs,"socialize" with other people, and learn to love books!

This is the "before shot" when Garrett was sitting so nicely!

This is the "after shot" when he got his hand on the books and they came flying off the shelves!


This is what Garrett's room looks like most days after he has looked through all the books in his baskets and they are all over the floor!