The Samson Life

2011-04-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

Well, where do I even begin. I guess I will just try to "briefly" catch up! October was a good and a bad month for us. Great because we did a lot of fun Halloween activities but bad because Dallin ended up in the hospital with some respiratory issues-so now he has an inhaler that we periodically use! Overall though it was a great holiday, although because Halloween fell on a Sunday we only handed out candy instead of trick or treated for candy...but we did make "mummy dogs". The boys were so cute in their outfits: Dallin as Indiana Jones (he looks so handsome), Evan as a pirate (such a cute pirate) and Andrew as a mouse (adorable need I say more). For Halloween we participated in a Trunk or Treat at church, attended a carnival a the super dentists, watched Dallin march in his school Halloween parade, went on a Scooby Doo Mystery adventure, had Grandma Perry visit us and we made mummy dogs, it was a wonderful holiday!Oh and Scott and I saw Beauty and the Beast-it was a wonderful date night!

August and September

2010-11-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

So rather than just continue procrastinating by always looking at other peoples blogs and never updating my own, I decided to just bite the bullet and do it...so I am going to combine the months of August and September and do a big recap. We had a lot of fun over the summer, even though summer seemed to be almost non-existent with Dallin starting school in July. But we did manage still to have some fun. Most of the time we just play dress up at home and be silly, but we did manage to get out and do some fun stuff. I wanted to put the older boys in swim lessons early in the summer but that just didn't happen, so I ended up enrolling them in August. It was a two week program-Dallin in a class by himself and Evan with mommy or daddy. Well the weather for the first week was gorgeous and Dallin loved swim class. Evan on the other hand was too grumpy (he was/is adjusting to not really getting a nap because of Dallin's school schedule), so I think in the two week period, he got in the water a total of maybe 3 times-all ending in crying...argh!! Oh well, maybe I will try it next year, although earlier in the summer. The second week of the lessons the weather turned cold so Dallin wouldn't get in the water either so the last week he only made it to lessons maybe 3 times. Even though it wasn't as I had hoped, Dallin still made some huge improvements and we will try again next year!

In September we finally made a trip to Las Vegas. We hadn't been up there since passing through Christmas of last year. Grandpa, Jim and and Jeromy hadn't even met the baby, so Labor Day weekend we braved the traffic and headed north. The traffic actually wasn't too bad and we had a wonderful time swimming at Aunt Sue's and Uncle's Jim's house (and eating yummy food), visiting Great Grandpa and Great Grandma and Jeromy, and the just hanging out at Grandma Perry's house. It was a wonderful trip, we even made it down to the Bellagio to look at the beautiful gardens!

The most important event during this 2 month catch up was of course the celebration of Evan's 3rd birthday! He was so excited about having his "Buzz Lightyear Birthday" that for about a month before his birthday if anyone asked him anything he instantly would say "my buzz lightyear birthday". Great Grandma and Grandma Perry came down for his birthday weekend. We decided that since we were doing his little party with friends over the weekend, that we would celebrate his real birthday by going to Chuck E Cheese! He loved it. We ended up with a bazillion tokens and then tickets so the boys both came home with cotton candy and toys. It was a wonderful night (thanks Great Grandma-what a great gift!). The next day we headed to the nature center here in town where we saw snakes (which the boys and maybe Grandma touched), turtles, birds, sea turtles, sharks, reptiles etc. In fact, we even had a backstage tour from one of my students, where we got to see sea horses and a baby shark. It was super fun. That evening we had Evan's "Buzz Lightyear" party which I think was a huge success. Scott did a great job on the cake-as usual...he even snuck in the tricky relightable candles...that was pretty funny to watch. We had a few of Evan's little friends come over and it was a ton of fun! It was a great birthday. Evan is such a good boy, don't get me wrong he is a pill, but for the most part he is a joking, smiling, active little boy. We just love him to pieces. He has a smile that will just melt your heart...those dimples will get him out of most trouble. It has been a lot of fun to be with him more during the days since Dallin is at school. I think he likes having more of the attention, he has become quite a big helper with Andrew. For his birthday he gave Scott and I a gift-he basically potty trained himself!!! He just did it, no fights, he just did it! We just love our big guy, he keeps us laughing!

Most of the pic's here are just us at home, growing and having fun. The older boys love to dress up-it cracks me up! I love their imaginations and their creativity. In August we also went to the Sand Castle Building contest in Imperial Beach. We thought we would brave the crowds and check out this very popular event-craziness, in fact we never really found a parking spot so while the two youngest boys slept in the car with Scott illegally parked, Dallin and I checked out the competition. I wasn't too impressed I mean they were okay sculptures but these are supposed to be the nations best, well I found out when Scott took his shift down on the beach with Dallin, that I only saw the amateur sand castles. Oh well, it was still and experience that we did and probably won't do again-haha!

What would a post be with at pic's of Andrew. What can I say, during August and September a lot of cool things happened. He became much stronger on his belly, he was rolling all over the place and he started to sit up on his own. It is so funny to watch the world through his eyes, it is all magical and at every milestone (rolling, sitting, crawling-which he now really has the hang of), it is like the world is brand new. He is such a sweet baby although lately he is starting to scream at me...why not the other boys do, he probably feels like that is the only way to get my attention. And as you can tell by the pic's the older boys absolutely love him. Maybe my next post will just be about him-he is such a happy content little guy!

At the Sand Castle Competition:

Pro-castle

This was an amateur build but it was cool!

Pic's of life at home:

Andrew at about 6 months.

Dressed up and scary Dallin (he actually took off each layer to reveal himself as Dallin-it was pretty funny)

I wanted a nice picture of the boys all dressed up for church...what a mess, two of them were or had been crying! Oh well, they still look handsome.

Dallin and his favorite little guy!

Evan and his little buddy!

Swim Lessons 2010:

Las Vegas Trip September 2010:

What a content little guy!

We made it to the new city center, this is mom inside one of the malls.

We love the Bellagio gardens!

Mommy and her big boy!

Grandma and the Samson boys! Gotta love Dallin, he is always pulling a face.

The whole group at the Bellagio!

Great Grandpa meets Andrew!

The Samson boys and Great Grandpa.

Great Grandpa and Dallin playing around!

At home pic's:

My favorite little pirate!

Poor little guy, I went upstairs to get ready to go get Dallin from school and when I came back Evan had fallen asleep at the table, it was so funny. I think Dallin's school schedule is hard on Evan!

What a happy little guy and oh so strong!

Andrew learning to sit on his own at about 6months old.

Such a happy boy-he was so proud of his accomplishment.

Evan's 3rd Birthday Festivities: Weekend of his birthday, nature center and friend party.

Touching a snake!

On the bus with Grandma Perry-this was Evan's favorite part, riding the bus!

Daddy and Dallin on the bus.

Great Grandma and me on the bus.

After the cake eating. Do you think he liked his cake?

His favorite gift-a pirate set, from Dallin. I think he "hooked" someone that night and had to stand in the corner-birthday or no birthday he is still our Evan.

Actual Birthday:

2010-10-04T21:51:00.001-07:00

What can I say...I am a terrible blogger. I have all of these lofty goals but then I get too overwhelmed because I get behind because let's face it- I am a die hard slacker and nothing gets done. And then I procrastinate putting up new pictures, so then new events keep coming and everything builds up..and I can't just do it a little bit, you know I am not a "condensed" person, so I end up doing nothing-"sigh". But I will attempt to catch up or a least put up a few pic's and hopefully upload newer pic's to the computer and attempt to catch up.

So I will post the last of the Disney pic's and then move on to more current events. In my last post I said I would post some of our favorite Disneyland pictures: So in no order, here they are!

This was so cute, Big Cousin Ethan took Dallin on Thunder Mountain, it was so cute, but I was a nervous mom the whole time. In fact I couldn't keep my eyes off of them-it was too cute and I was too nervous...without looking at the horizon I got a bit nauseated, but it was well worth it!

TT and some of the Perry girls.

The Perry Samson bunch with their faces painted. Grandma Perry paid for this and the kids loved it! They all looked so awesome!

Grandma Perry and Wyatt, I love his little smile!

Uncle Michael and baby Andrew. Michael held Andrew a ton, it was so cute!

These are from when we got home...Dallin took this pic of me (in Evan's hat) and Andrew.
My three handsome boys. We got them hats-they were expensive but so worth it, I love them!
Andrew's first trip to Disneyland-2010 at 4 and a half months old.
So cute, my big guy and my little guy!
Don't you dig Dallin's Haunted Mansion hat? He loved the Haunted Mansion ride!
Baby Andrew with his "prize". Uncle Michael paid for all the kids to do a fishing game and Andrew won one of the biggest prizes-this goofy which is bigger than him! Thanks Uncle Michael!
Our sweet baby Andrew,need I say more?!
The Indiana Jones costume kit that was Dallin's souvenir-need I say more?!
Dallin got picked from the audience to participate in this little show in the back lot of Disney California (we sat up close on purpose...I was hoping having his face painted-although it was from the day before and faded, would give us an edge...well it must have!). They drew this pic of a "hero" and Dallin had to say a couple of lines and show his muscles, then he got to keep picture. It was awesome! Especially since up to this point Dallin was being "5" and didn't want to meet any of the characters.
Evan on the other hand wanted to meet every character. It was the cutest thing, he would run into their arms-talk about magic!
Mom, Evan and Buzz .
Having so much fun...Evan passed out in the stroller. I think we have a similar pic of Dallin years ago in a similar position-haha!
(Sorry about the orientation). Evan loved having his face painted. He still will talk about the snake on his face.
This was awesome. Dallin loved playing the part of the Pirate all day, it was classic!
Evan with is favorite guy! To Infinity and Beyond!
My 3 boys outside of Monsters Inc.
3 of my boys getting ready for Toy Story Mania-best ride ever!!! Genius!
Evan ran into Mickey's arms, it was so cute!
This was Dallin's high for the day-riding Indiana Jones! He loved this ride and it was so fun to see his enthusiasm, he loves Indiana Jones. It was awesome!
ARGH! Walk the plank! My little pirates!
Evan and Tigger need I say more.
Bryanna in the treasure/jewels and my boys being pirates. Boys will be boys!
Entering Disneyland 4th of July 2010!! Scott, Evan, Dallin, Great-Grandma Perry, April and Andrew! The beginning of a great trip! Thanks again Perry family, we love hanging out with you! Can't wait until Christmas when we will be united!

Disneyland Samson/Perry Style Over the 4th of July

2010-08-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards...so although this post happened before the start of school, I am now getting to it. You try to go through 297 photos and pick a handful to depict your five day trip to Disneyland!!! We had a wonderful trip, here are some collages of the highlights, I will go ahead and post this and then put up individual pic's in the next day or so (fingers crossed). It was a wonderful trip! We love being with family and who doesn't love the "Happiest Place on Earth". Thanks to Michael and Tera and the kids, and Mom/Grandma Perry, and Grandma/Great Grandma Perry for travelling down, we had a blast!!!

Day 1: 4th of July Disneyland

Day 2: California Adventure

Day 3: Back to Disneyland for facepainting by Grandma Perry

Day 4: Back to California Adventure

Day 5: The Jedi Academy at Disneyland

Kindergarten!!!!!

2010-07-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have a whole Disneyland trip to post, but I feel I must get to the more important event....Dallin started kindergarten July 21st! Can you believe it, my baby boy now a kindergartner. About a week before kindergarten registration they changed the kinder program at our school from half day to full day kinder. I spent many an early morning feeding thinking, reflecting and crying at the idea of Dallin being gone all day. I think I had been okay at the idea of half day, but this totally came out of no where, he is only 5 how can he be in school all day? My little guy, gone from me all day, but now that he has started I really think he will be okay.
So, let's back up July 21st was "our" first day of school. Our school does a really neat program where they have the parents come the first day of school and you have orientation with your child (we were all only there 2hours). Dallin met his teacher, found his name tag and cubby, and followed a classroom scavenger hunt where he drew a picture of himself, cut a piece of paper, wrote his name, found the bathroom and drinking fountain and took their height and weight measurements. Dallin's teacher is in charge of a little garden that they have at the school, so the kids all planted a pumpkin seed as well. It was a great day and to be honest it made me feel a lot more comfortable with leaving him the next day. I have to say that the next day-his first full day of kinder all by himself, wasn't too horrible for me. I think that because he was so excited and I knew his teacher and his classroom and that he has a friend from church in his class etc. that it all made the event less painful. I did get a bit teary-eyed, and then realized that I had forgotten to wear my sunglasses (a tip given to me from my sis in law to help hide my eyes), so when I saw him looking at me I quickly asked him to tell his friend a story and that took his eyes off me and brought my eyes back to normal. I will say that I was a bit lost without him home all day, but I know that he is having so much fun!!! He loves it and that makes me happy! Unfortunately the last two days he has missed school (I know already) because he has been sick (we all have been), but I am hoping he will be able to go back tomorrow! He is such a good boy and he looks so handsome in his uniform carrying is huge backpack. I am so proud of him, he is such a smart little guy and although I miss him I know that he is having a blast and learning more than he would here at home with me!

Look at how handsome he is!!! This was the first day, he was so excited! Can you tell?

What a doll!

Him in his uniform and his big backpack!

Mommy and Dallin right outside of the school! (Mommy being strong. Even though I was there with him for the orientation, my eyes filled with tears a couple of times during the orientation.)

Dad and Dallin outside of the school-first day of orientation!

"Draw a picture of yourself the first day of kindergarten"

Here is what he drew: Looks like Jack the Pumpkin king (we had recently watched "the Nightmare Before Christmas")

Printing his name.

Cutting along the lines.

Dallin with his teacher.

Dallin by his cubby!

Outside in the garden.

In the garden. Look at that cool Scooby Dooby Doo backpack.

Silly Dallin!

Dallin and his friend Kamryn.

Planting his pumpkin seed.

Scars, Graduation and Legoland...OH MY!

2010-06-30T21:58:00.001-07:00

June was a very busy month for us. But hey, face it, I like busy. Earlier this month we hit a milestone or so I am told-Dallin had stitches for the first time. Scott told me it was a rite of passage for boys to have stitches, I only wish that he would have been there when the rite of passage occurred, but that wasn't the case...I was there. We went to a park here that sprays out water and somehow he banged his chin (the underneath) splitting it open. Fortunately my friend was there whose son had done something similar a month or two earlier so she was my rock when I got a little panicky (thanks Sarah). So we headed to the Doctor's office and I must say Dallin was really a trooper through the whole ordeal. He was very brave even though it was super scary-oh my sweet little boy!

Dallin also graduated from Preschool in June. At first I thought it was kind of silly to have a cap and gown for the Preschool graduation, but I must tell you when he put it all on he looked sooooo handsome and I must confess I was a little teary-eyed when he stepped out of the car and put his cap and gown, life fast forwarded to age 18 and senior graduation....man I am going to be a mess.

He is such a handsome little guy and he was so serious as he walked in for the graduation. He even got a special award for being such a big helper and example in his class. I couldn't be prouder.

This month Dallin also learned to ride his bike without training wheels. We took him to park and Scott started him on the grass and ran after him but he had no problem. He is now a pro!

Evan also reached a milestone-he learned to ride his tri-cycle with no problems. He does such a good job and loves riding his bike. We think that as soon as we get him a big boy bike he will take off on that as well.

Andrew is just as cute as ever. He rolled over a couple of times on his own, but wouldn't cooperate when I wanted to film it, so it still remains undocumented. He is such a happy baby...I wish he would sleep more at night or wake up less often, but he really is an easy going baby as long as his belly is full and sleeps when he is tired.

Scott and I are doing well. Scott's job continues to go well, and next week we are on vacation! YIPPEE!! I am going to start teaching a biology lab at the local community college here in town so that is exciting! Life is great!

Here is our sweet baby, he sleeps like all the rest of the Samson boys!

The ugly cut!

A week later!

Evan wanted to wear the hat too!

Dallin with one of his teachers!

The boys! This picture cracks me up because Evan has snuck his face in with the older boys...haha!

On the way to his graduation, what a handsome boy!

This is where I got teary-eyed...don't you see it 13 years from now?!?

This when Dallin received his special award for being such a good helper in class. He was presented with a lei and a McDonald's gift card.

Dallin and his friend Josh waiting in line.

Mom and dad waiting for the little graduate to make his entrance.

Scott and his boys!

The Samson family!

The boys-Dallin and his friends Ethan and Josh.

This is more like it-being silly!

This is how Dallin eats popcorn-he steals it from Andrew as he takes a nap!

Dad and Dallin as coast patrol at Legoland.

Grandma Perry and Evan flying the helicopter.

Aunt Sue and Andrew at Legoland.

Dallin driving mom around.

Evan such a silly boy.
Dad and Evan flying.
Mom and Dallin self-portrait.
The crew getting ready to drive boats.

All three boats together.
Evan driving Daddy.
Dallin driving Grandma.
Scott riding a crazy ride that spins you around on a robot arm.
Mom and Andrew hanging out!

Father and Son campout!

2010-06-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

Back in the middle of May our ward held its father and sons camp out and Scott was a real champion....he took both older boys!!! So it was just Andrew and me at home-very nice, although if I remember correctly Andrew didn't sleep as well as I had hoped he would and Saturday morning there was a small earthquake...I don't know if that really was a fair trade off!!! While the older boys were gone Andrew had a little photos shoot with a friend here in my ward, I am eager to see the pic's!!! As for the older boys they had a great time eating treats, getting dirty , hiking, sleeping in sleeping bags and a tent and just having some daddy time! It was a nice (exhausting) weekend! Looks like having all boys means that in a not too distant future, once a year I will have a weekend all by myself...not necessarily a bad thing!!!

This is how the trip started. Evan almost didn't go, I think he was upset about the garage opener at this point.

What a cutie! Dallin was super excited to go camping with Daddy again (he went last year and had a blast). Here he is equipped with his flashlight and headlight, he even had finger lights that he busted out at the campsite! What a happy boy!

And then there was Evan. I think he was crying he wanted mommy, but I was encouraging daddy to take him. Notice he has his headlamp on as well.

Now that is a little better-not so many tears!

Home away from home!

We knew that Evan would be fine once he got there and sure enough here he is all smiles roasting marshmallows with dad.

Now that is a happy ( and messy, sticky) boy!

Nothing like sitting by the campfire making and eating smores!

All ready for bed. This was Evan's first time in a sleeping bag and in the tent. Scott said the boys were so tired they asked to go to bed and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Dallin, the camping pro!

Breakfast the next morning. You can never get both of the boys to look at the camera at the same time, oh well.

See, happy again! This is Evan getting ready for the hike! We thought it would be best to keep Evan "contained" while on the hike so Scott brought the backpack. He said it worked out perfectly and Evan loved being up so high!

Dallin ready to hike with his camel back on! Apparently it had a leak or something so his bottom ended up getting all wet.

Dallin and his friend eating watermelon. Some of the men on the trip either don't have boys or they are all grown up so they brought their daughters (actually I think this was the only girl this time).
Sorry this is tilted, but I lack the motivation to try to fix it-blogger drives me crazy as does my photo program so it will be left as is! Here is Evan in deep thought as he eats his watermelon.

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

We had such a wonderful weekend!!! I just wanted to let everyone know how much I love and appreciate Scott. He is such a wonderful father to our boys. I love watching him play with them and wrestle with them! He is a great dad, our boys are so lucky to have him! Happy Father's day!

Random pictures....playing catch up

2010-06-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

The last several months have been so busy and we have had a lot of family and friends visit us which means we do a lot of fun things. Since I am so far behind on blogging (what a surprise) I will just show pictures of the highlights.

People asked me about my birthday (or week) and I really did have a great week. The night before my birthday I went to the Cheesecake Factory with a bunch of the lovely ladies from my ward. We had a fun time and the food was delicious-I tried a new dish and a new cheesecake (mango key lime). It was a ton of fun-thanks ladies!

One half of the table-look at my goofy face, who knows what I was laughing about!
The other half of the table.

On my actual birthday Scott and the fam took me to Ikea to pick out an office chair-since I sit at the computer quite a bit and then we went to BJ's for dinner. We had great pizza, but horrible service. My pizookie was delicious, but tiny....I should have ordered a regular one to go with my birthday mini, but again, the service was bad so that didn't happen. It was still a nice night though!
Two of my handsome boys!
And me and the troublemaker! But he is another of my handsome boys!

My birthday mini pizookie-look at Evan eyeing my treat!

Grandma Marian came down to visit for Andrew's baby blessing and for Dallin's birthday. While she was here we went to a local lake and tried to feed the ducks. This is a great picture of her and my boys!

Feeding the ducks. The boys rode their bikes and would get off at different spots to try to entice the ducks...but the ducks weren't hungry, so the seagulls took advantage!

Grandma Marian with the little boys. What a great picture!

Being silly, that is more like it!

After we took Grandma Marian to the airport we went to a fun park on the bay. The kids loved it, although they weren't too fond of the jets taking off across the bay!

Two of my sweet boys!

Dallin on the swing!

After playing at the park we decided to take a stroll on the pier. Well this nice man (in the picture above) let Dallin reel in his catch. It was awesome, and just as I was going to take a picture of the boys with "their" catch my battery ran out on my camera...but I pretended to take the picture so the guy wouldn't feel bad. Haha. But I do have a small video of Dallin reeling in the fish, it was super cool. This man also gave the boys cut up fish to feed the birds, and we saw a sea lion and a great blue heron. It was awesome!

This is what Scott comes home to everyday-I just get soooo tired. Although Dallin doesn't typically take a nap.

Dallin loves his Lego's... and in the Lego magazine he gets there are competitions to build things, so the theme for this competition was something you would find on the farm. I think he did a great job! Now, I just need to print this off and actually send it in!

Evan of course likes to do what Dallin does so here is his creation and pose. He is so funny!

Here is a picture of me and my boys. I never tend to be in the picture, so I asked Scott to take a picture of me and the boys.

This was the hat that Dallin's teachers gave him at preschool!

This is a video of Andrew talking to me.

This is how the boys have fun!

Stay tuned for more pictures of the Father/Sons camp out, Dallin's stitches and his preschool graduation!

Preview of what is to come !

2010-06-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

So I still have so much to blog about: Father and Son's camp out, Daddy and Dallin day at Legoland, visit from Grandma Marian...but I thought I would just put up this picture! These are my two little ones, today hanging out with mom! I love that they are both smiling and look at those dimples!! Oh so cute, don't you just want to gobble them up! I will post more pic's soon!!!

The Month of May

2010-05-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

The month of May is always a bit crazy for us-it is one of the busiest birthday months for our family. In addition to birthdays this month, we also blessed Andrew, we were so fortunate to to have family and friends supporting us! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the blessing-poor Andrew, he really is the 3rd child.

So we will start with Dallin's Birthday-man he had quite a birthday "week" . We went to Legoland the Saturday before his birthday, unfortunately it was the busiest day ever-Carlsbad day. It was super disappointing because of the crowds, but we have a second day that we can go, so hopefully that will be a much less crowded day. Then had a family party on Sunday while the grandma's, Aunt Sue and the Pratts were around, and then we had a "little" friend party at the park!

Aunt Sue, Grandma Perry, Me, Grandma Marian, Scott, (front row) Andrew, Evan, Dallin and Great Grandma Perry. All the adventurers who headed to Legoland. We started out so excited and happy to be at Legoland, but then the lines were huge and the whole place was crowded-which lead to some crying-and not just the children. But honestly all in all it was fun to be with the family.
My 3 boys-oh so excited to be at Legoland.

Dallin by the Lego Police guy.

Evan wants to be just like Dallin in all things, so he wanted to stand in front of the Lego guy, but he totally covered him.

"Indiana Jones" ride. Nothing like hanging out with an Ogre and eating ice cream.

Oh sooooo yummy!

"Indiana Jones" ride.

Welcome to Legoland Las Vegas.

With the birthday and blessing we had a lot of visitors. The family pictures are the only pic's we got from the blessing weekend.

Great Grandma Perry with the baby Andrew.

Great Grandma Perry, Aunt Sue, and the boys (baby Andrew, Dallin, and Evan) (Niki Pratt in the background)

Grandma Perry and the Samson boys (Evan, baby Andrew, and Dallin)

The family birthday-Legos!!!!!

Games and a towel.

Indiana Jones cake-YIPPEE! It was a hit!

The ball actually rolls out toward Indiana Jones, just like the movie!

Cake from the top!

Then we had a "little" friend birthday party at the park, with Pizza, and cupcakes with little Indidna Jones rings.

Blowing out the candles.

Fun at home

2010-04-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

I thought I might as well update my blog, even though nothing major has gone on recently, it is always fun to see new pictures. The boys and I have been enjoying good weather and for me more energy. I feel like I have recovered really well from Andrew's birth, but the last couple of weeks I have felt great-just a ton more energy than I have felt in a long time. So we have been out and about! Dallin started another session of Preschool, which he loves. His teachers always tell me he is a good boy and that he will do great in Kindergarten! What mom wouldn't love to hear that. Evan and I do errands or just play and get frozen yogurt when he is at school. This last week we even hit the zoo-how fun is that! Life if good, what can I say. Scott is doing really well at his work, and they are treating him really well. Next week Dallin will be 5, can you believe it and his mom will be....well we won't go there, but it will be a busy week, full of family (coming down for Andrew's baby blessing-May 2nd come on down, and birthdays), food (we like to eat out for birthdays and the first week of May is birthday week for us) and fun (plans to go to Legoland-for Dallin's b-day). And now the pictures:

We walked up to the farmer's market by our house a couple weeks ago and we finally ran into the balloon man...okay let me explain, the balloon man is amazing, let's call him a "balloon artist", he can do anything and usually there is a huge line waiting for his talents. Well, it must have been our lucky day because we found him right as he was getting to the Farmer's Market. Dallin wanted him to make Indiana Jones (his newest superhero). He decided to do a cartoon version.
Dallin and his silly Indiana Jones. Dallin picked out the color balloons for his pants, shirt and hair. Evan had a balloon of Spidermans "Venom"...but of course at his age, he wanted Dallin's balloon so there is no picture of Venom (but he was awesome too!).
Chocolate Fondue night-yummy!
Who doesn't love to wear chocolate?
This is serious business!
Is that just normal happiness or sugary happiness?
Dallin ready for school-he is such a handsome boy, even when he is "trying" to smile.

Here he is doing his homework!
There is our happy Little Andrew-isn't he a doll, don't you want to gobble him up?
So Evan's hair has gotten rather long, and it has a bit of wave to it, so dad likes to style it! Cheeseball!
Hair up high!
Our trip to the zoo-there is a Koala in the tree behind him.
At the zoo with his friend Maddie. The elephants were right there!
Another hair day-how about combed over?
...with a duck tail/fan in the back. Scott cracks himself up doing Evan's hair.
Evan photo shoot, he loves to show off his hair! Looks a bit sneaky doesn't he?!
And again, what a happy boy!

Life is good!

6 weeks!!

2010-04-06T21:50:00.001-07:00

Can you believe it, Andrew is 6 weeks old today. I just can't believe how quickly the time goes. He is such a sweet little boy-he only gets angry when he is hungry, and usually that is only if I don't get to him while he is grunting (a noise that keeps Scott awake, but is a signal to me that he is up and ready to eat). The boys still just love him to death. Every time they see him it is like he is brand new and they have never seen him before. They are always right there the minute he is awake (or when he is sleeping), but it is super cute. I love that they love him so much!

As I was deciding which pictures to place on this post, I realized that the last 6 weeks has brought a lot of family visitors and therefore a lot of fun events....so picture overload warning!!!

When I had Andrew, as I mentioned in the previous post, my mom stayed with us the first 5 days. Then we were home alone for another 5 days and then my grandma came down for a week, and then after she was here my mom and my brother and his family came down. Then Scott's sister Janice and her family came over and spent time with us. We were (are) so blessed to have so much family love us and Andrew so much to travel here and take care of us! Thanks for all that you did (and do) for us! We love you all so much!

When my mom and grandma were here, we laid really low-I just wanted to keep Andrew home and I wanted to rest. When my brother and his family came, we did lots of fun stuff- we went to the beach, the Mormon Battalion and the zoo. We had a great time with them and they just loved on our little Andrew.

When Janice and Dave and their family were here, we went to Hoodad's, Seaport Village, the outlet mall at the border and then just hung out here at the house. They too just loved on our little Andrew-especially Nora, she held Andrew anytime she could! We just loved visiting with them, it was a ton of fun. As you can imagine with both sets of cousins Dallin and Evan just loved playing non-stop with all the cousins! Thanks Perry's and Willman's for helping our boys have fun while adjusting to life with a new baby brother.

So as you can see, we had quite the eventful 6 weeks! I feel so blessed to be the mommy of these beautiful boys!

My boys!

Grandma Perry with the Samson boys-really I have 3 boys???
My three boys!

This is how Dallin is any chance he gets-he loves to hold the baby. And Andrew loves to be held by him, he generally falls asleep on when Dallin holds him.

Grandma Perry and cousin Ethan at the beach!

Dallin wrote his name in the sand at Coronado (the first attempt was his name spelled perfectly backwards-so cute)

The Perry kids and two of the Samson boy's at the beach.

Wyatt and Evan up close and personal with a baby condor.

I love this picture, don't you think Andrew is so cute?! (2 weeks old)
Cousin love! Oh the fun! A 5 year old and a 4 year old and a zoo stroller=lots of giggles!

Uncle Michael and Wyatt.

Aunt Tera and an unhappy baby Andrew (2 weeks old).

Dallin the Leprechaun-he made his hat and "pot 'o' gold" at school, and then added the blanket when he got home.
Katie and the baby.

Bryanna and the baby.

Ellie and the baby.

Dallin and Nora at Hoodads.

Nora, Aunt Janice and baby Andrew at the outlet mall.

Who says I need a little girl? I found Evan putting makeup on.

He was so excited. Maybe Dad should be home a bit more?!?

First time at the Park-hey smiley baby!

Playing at the park.

My scooter boys! So cute!

Bath time!

My handsome boys on the way to church.

This is as serious as it kits!

Dallin assuming his normal position-baby holder.

Dallin at the park with some friends collecting eggs.

Happy Easter!

Happy 1st Easter Andrew! What a cute boy! (The thinker)

Easter spoils-which included a fish tank and fish...which have died already. Apparently you have to put drops in the water here, because it is chlorinated...something the Easter Bunny failed to inform us of. Oh well, the boys enjoyed watching the fish being flushed down the toilet. When Scott got home, Evan said "Fish in the toilet" and started to laugh. But no worries we will get more fish soon, and we have already bought the drops.

Dying eggs. Their strategy was just to put the eggs in as many different cups as possible, as fast as possible.
The boys both had their shirts off, I tried to convince Scott that he needed to have his shirt off to, but he wouldn't cooperate.

The classic Samson boy sleeping position-arms over the head.

Chocolate-that is my boy!
And here is Andrew now 6 weeks old. So serious!
Looks like a blue eyed Samson boy...
This is a picture that Dallin took-not half bad!

The Birth of Andrew John Samson

2010-03-05T22:35:00.000-08:00

It is actually funny because the day I went into labor (Feb. 23rd) I was going to post a note letting you all know that I was still pregnant and that I just was too lazy to post anything, but then I went into labor and had a baby instead. I was going to post about Scott's birthday (see pic's below), Valentine's day, and even post of pic of my pregnant belly-not super flattering but people always want to see what you look like pregnant (at least I do-this was taken about 5 days before Andrew was born). So rather than go into a long narrative about the above mentioned events I will just post pic's from them.

We had a nice birthday with Scott-nothing fancy just low key at home. Since he loves Monopoly I thought this shirt would be appropriate.
My three boys, the two little ones were most eager to help Dad open his gifts.

Here Evan is actually opening Scott's present-what a good boy and such a nice helper!

Here dad was teasing Dallin about what this gift could possibly be....something red and yummy?!? This was a gift from the boys-red vines and Lego Indiana Jones video game.

The boys picked out balloons for dad-Dallin picked out Wolverine and Evan picked out a pirate balloon.

This is me at nearly 39 weeks pregnant. I wasn't feeling that good this day, so I had Scott come home. It was a false alarm, mostly just anxiety, but we got things done (Scott built 2 dressers and we got all the baby clothes washed, the bassinet up and ready and overnight bags for us and for the boys ).

We had a nice Valentine's day. Scott got me 2 dozen roses-made my day and made me teary eyed. And I got him Turtles. The boys got nice cards from Grandma Perry.

As most people know, my deliveries with my boys weren't that great, and so I was super nervous about physically having this baby (as I am sure most women are). I think I was making myself sick thinking of delivering this baby. Fortunately Scott gave me a blessing and I felt a lot more peaceful about it. So how did it happen. Well, Tuesday the 23rd started out like any other day. I had taken Dallin and a friend to preschool so Evan and I headed to a park by the bay to play. I had talked to Scott on the phone and told him that very rarely I had a "pain" but that is probably wasn't labor. I even joked about having the baby that night, but never really thought that I would actually go into labor that quickly. See, I don't dilate or efface before it is time for me to have the baby, so I am not super familiar with contractions as someone who has contractions weeks before the baby. So I just continued with what I was doing not really believing that I could or was in labor. Well after playing and walking at the park and pier, and basically running errands all morning, I came home and layed on the couch for a couple of hours feeling "pains" pretty consistently, about 10 minutes apart. When Scott came home I told him that I had been feeling "pains" (not really pains-it wasn't hurting yet) for a couple of hours which set him running to get things all ready to go. I thought they might be false labor pains so I decided that instead of laying on the couch I would go and take a bath and see if they subsided. Well, they started to come quicker, and since we don't live too close to the hospital (and given my quick delivery with Evan), we decided it was time to head to the hospital. We dropped off the boys with a good friend (thanks again Rebecca for watching and taking care of our boys while we were in the hospital) and headed North. We got to the hospital around 6 pm at which time we were told that all the triage rooms were full....and that means???? So they placed us in a labor and delivery room, checked me and decided that they would keep me. I was so excited. They then got my IV ready, blood work sent off and ordered the epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived (one of my favorite people ) and viola I was ready to go. The epidural worked great, it was about 7:15pm or so and I was just relaxing. We started to watch the Olympics and then I started to get a "pain" in my right side. It was bad but I could tell it was due to the contractions I wasn't supposed to be feeling. Well, we tried to fix it, but in the mean time they broke my water which then made the contractions come quicker and more intensely, thus the "pain" got more intense. By about 11:30pm the pain was pretty intense and I was on the "10" side of the pain scale (the crying side), they were sending the anesthesiologists helper with some more medication as he was now in a c-section, when the nurse midwife came in a checked me and told me I was at an 8 and would be having the baby in about five minutes. CRAZINESS! It was so fast! They got things prepped, and at 11:46pm Andrew John Samson was born (although he didn't have a name until we were getting ready to leave the hospital). It was super fast but a great delivery, I think Scott said I pushed through 3 contractions and Andrew was here! It was a very emotional and spiritual experience. Scott even got to cut the umbilical cord. So here are the pic's:

After the epidural-the other pic's of me just looked yucky, not my best angle!

Just waiting to have a baby!

Our little guy right after birth!

Grandma Perry made it to the hospital before they moved me to my room (like at 2am-what a trooper)

Our new baby!

Daddy and Andrew, what a great picture!

The newest member of the Samson family, leaving the hospital!

All dressed and ready to go!

Not so happy about being in the car seat!

Meeting the boys! They were so excited to meet their new little brother.

Evan holding Andrew-he really didn't know what to think! He still is fascinated by his tiny toes and fingers...oh and his eyes!

The biggest brother. Dallin wants to hold him all the time, it really melts my heart!

We are so blessed to have Andrew in our lives. I can't imagine our lives without him. The boys just love him. Dallin always wants to hold him and Evan always wants to touch him. I love my boys so much and am so blessed to have them in my life. I am so grateful for Scott who is the best husband in the world. He was an amazing "coach" and I couldn't have done it without all of his love and encouragement! He is amazing!

2010-02-28T00:11:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pictures of Andrew, the first being shortly after birth (not the prettiest picture), and the next picture when we were getting ready to go home (not even 24 hours after his birth). I will post more pictures and more details later, I just thought I would put up a couple of pictures of our newest little guy!

Introducing our newest addition

2010-02-24T21:48:00.001-08:00

Andrew John Samson was born February 23rd at 11:45pm. The delivery went fast and both mom and Andrew are already home and resting! We will post pic's soon!

Holidays-Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas

2010-01-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

I have been asked many times if I blog anymore...that is a great question. I think like most slacker bloggers, once you get behind, the task seems too big that you prefer not to blog rather than attempt the blog that is ahead of you. Or maybe you think that if you look at your blog every once in a while it will have been magically updated...so not the case. So here I attempt to catch up on all the holiday! WARNING-PICTURE OVERLOAD and they are in a random order, although I attempted to at least place them by holiday!!! And, with my growing body, please don't focus too much on the many unflattering pictures of me found below. What can I say, the holidays were fantastic and we are so blessed.

The beginning of the Christmas Holiday: I will just start with something that we did before we left for the Holidays. We wanted to do some family stuff before we left town for a couple of weeks, so we headed to the zoo for their celebration. As you can tall by the evening, it was a cold night but it was lots of fun. It had rained a bit, so there were far fewer people than normally would have been there. We were present when they lit the Christmas tree, we road Rudolph's Skyfari across the park, and we even got to pet an armadillo and an ant eater. It was a fun evening. We then headed around town to look at lights!

Here we are at the zoo for Christmas! It was cold, but super fun!

Mom and dad, not a bad self portrait!

Sorry it is sideways-but here is orangutan Dallin

Orangutan Evan

Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving this year was spent with the Perry/Carnahan/Jacobs clan. What more can I write about Thanksgiving than, I love it! I love the food, I love the company I love trying to remember to be thankful for all of our blessings...it is just a wonderful holiday. We decided that since we would all be together that we definitely needed to get a group photo, so we headed to UNLV and took some fun photos and let the kids run around a bit out on the grass. The weather was fantastic! We then later, as is tradition headed to the movies were this year we saw "Planet 51". It was a nice break and it was so great to be with family!

Dallin and Cousin Deonna-a cute picture after they were being so silly!
Cousin Jeromy and Evan

Mother daughter picture-Grandma Perry in the middle who started it all, then from left to right, Cousin Deonna, Aunt Sue, mom and then me! What a lovely picture!

What a great picture of Aunt Sue, Grandma Perry and mom!

The Perry/Samson/Carnahan/Jacobs ladies.

The Perry/Samson/Carnahan/Jacobs men.

The twins!

Michael, Tera, Sue and Jeromy at the "adult table"....questionable! (haha)

Dalton, Ethan, Grandma Perry and Wyatt at the kid's table.

The Carnahans at the Thanksgiving feast!

Deonna and Cody Jacobs-their first Thanksgiving with the Perry's/Samson's

Evan and Katie at the kids table, being silly

Dallin, Ellie and Bry at the kid's table.

We headed to Arizona for a brief visit with the Willman family (Aunt Janice and Uncle Dave). The boys loved the trampling and everything about the Willman family (the kids, the big backyard, the dog etc.)...this is one of the few pictures that was taken as I ended up in the Emergency room/hospital for gall bladder problems.

Halloween: I know, I know, this holiday sometimes gets a bum rap, but I absolutely love Halloween, I think it is such a fun holiday and come on, who doesn't like getting all that yummy candy?!? We had a busy Halloween/Fall Season. We went to a pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins with some friends and then the kids dressed up about 4 times during the Halloween holiday. It was a blast and the best part is that we didn't have to buy any costumes thanks to cousin Ethan who loves to will his old costumes to us, and our family friends the VanBoreums!

Halloween: Costume number 3-the incredible hulk

Buzzlight year trick or treating on Halloween night

Halloween day-costume #2 for Evan who is now a vampire and #3 for Dallin who is the hulk

Grandma Perry came to visit!

Vampire and the Hulk head out for Halloween day fun!

Samson family at the ward trunk or treat.

My boys, Buzz, Captain Jack Sparrow and Scott the "Scot"

Captain Jack Sparrow

Buzz and Captain Jack at the ward trunk or treat.

Evan went to build a bear since Dallin got to go to preschool and have a Halloween party.

Dallin as Captain Jack Sparrow headed to preschool Halloween party.

Dallin and Scott's awesome pumpkin!

Evan and mommy taking out the guts of our pumpkin!

A collage of our pumpkin patch adventure! It was so fun to go to a pumpkin patch...it was a little weak compared to those in Utah, but I will take it any day over the ones they set up in the parking lots of the malls here! We had a great day taking a hay ride, getting lost and found in a corn maze (we let the boys lead the way out) and petting the animals at the petting zoo. What a great memory!

Tidbit of information...

2009-11-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

I am not good at this kind of thing, so I will just say it...in case you haven't noticed our newest little ticker on the blog, we are having a baby, another BOY at the end of February. I think most of you who read my blog are already well aware of this, but for those who don't know, well there you go! I will admit, when we had the big ultrasound and they said "BOY", I got a little teary-eyed (sad tears), I kind of wanted/hoped for a girl. But then when we saw the rest of the ultrasound, he just looks so cute and my little boys will all be (hopefully) good little friends, so then I got teary-eyed (happy tears) for the blessing of a healthy little boy.

Summer all Wrapped up!

2009-11-11T22:12:00.000-08:00

I keep getting asked if I have stopped blogging and the answer is no-for the most part. I am just lazy and then overwhelmed at all the things that I haven't blogged yet about, so this will be summer in a nutshell:

After Lake Powell we headed to Vegas for our annual 4th of July get together. It was a lot of fun (as usual). We swam at Aunt Sue and Uncle Jim's pool, ate yummy food, hung out with the family (some new I might add-the Jacob's family-love them!), and then ended the night with an awesome firework show!

Firework show

Mommy and Evan-he loves to hold my hair!

Dalton, Ethan and Evan

Most of the Jacob's family-Cody, Dalton and Deonna. Where is Brittany?

Samson family with great-grandpa Perry

The boys and I spent a good portion of the summer in Vegas so that I could finally finish up my Master's Degree. I defended my thesis July 24th, so Scott of course was up with us that weekend. We decided it would be fun to go to the Bellagio and check out the garden! (Master's degree update: after defending and passing my defense, I thought the hard part of finishing my degree was over...boy was I wrong. It has been nightmare trying to format my paper perfectly and have the right paperwork to the right people...but I received an email earlier this week that my thesis is finally good to go!! So I think that means I am done! It has been a long process but I am so greatful for the "gentle" nudges of my very supportive family over the years! It has paid off!)

Garden's at the Bellagio

The family at the gardens!

Grandma Perry and Dallin trying to catch the water!

Scott and Evan at the gardens

A salmander (I think) that the boys and daddy caught in my mom's backyard.

Besides all the running (or in the case of the boys mom dragging them) around, we did manage to be at home and play a bit. Here are my super heroes-Batman and Robin! The boys also went to the super dentist-which they love! Dallin was also enrolled in a fingerpainting class this summer, so we just let Evan join in with him. They had a good time fingerpainting and then playing in the park afterwards!

Super Heroes from behind! So sweet-Dallin teaching Evan the ways of the super hero!

Robin (aka Evan) and Batman (aka-Dallin)

Upclose of Robin/Evan

Upclose of Batman/Dallin with his gadgets!

Dallin in the dentist chair!

Evan waiting for his turn in the dentist chair. Notice he is sitting in a stump-so cute.

Dallin painting

Dallin painting again!

Evan showing off his skills!

Daddy and the boys at the park-check out Dallin surfin'

2009-10-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

Sunset at Lake Powell

So, I guess that since I have a little bit of time I should play catch up on our summer adventures. Every year we are invite by the Smith/Pratt family to attend their annual family Lake Powell trip. I must say, this trip always makes me a bit nervous-lots of water, little boys etc., but Scott loves this trip, it is the highlight of his year. So, Scott was very excited to go this year, and by the time we get there I am always happy to be there too. We just love the Smith/Pratt family and enjoy spending the warm summer days with them at the Lake!

As you can tell by the photos there is many an hour dedicated to the water-swimming, boating, waterskiing/wakeboarding, canoeing etc. We also hiked a bit which was fun. My boys absolutely loved riding the sea doo. In fact ever time Evan saw the sea doo he would point to it and make some sound (it has been too long for me to remember what he would "say"), but he loved the sea doo. In fact all four of us took it out and we let each boy have a turn driving and pushing the throttle and Evan just cracked up when he was in control.

You can't go wrong with such a beautiful location.

Samson family doing what they liked best-riding the Sea Doo

Hiking to the top of the hill behind where the houseboat was parked.

The geocache that Rose found on the hill

Self portrait of Scott and I

Smores-yummy!

Evan and mommy at the top of a different hill.

Scott getting ready to wakeboard

Evan holding the flag (sorry it is turned)

Dallin on the Boat!

The Pratt family (we missed you Scott Pratt)

The Samson family

Mommy and the boys on the back of the boat

Daddy taking the boys out on the canoe

Daddy doing some awesome jumps on the wakeboard

Again, check him out-what a hottie!

Evan and mommy-the spectators

Ellie and Dallin chillin' out on the boat

Scott touching the water

This is just a collage of our first day on the lake.

We had a great time!!!! It is so nice to be surrounded by such beautiful natural wonders and then be hanging out with great people!

Happy Birthday Evan!!!!

2009-09-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

Today my baby is 2 years old!!! I can not believe it, the time has gone by way too fast. He is such an adorable boy...don't get me wrong he has a temper, but then all that is melted away by his dimples. This boy has been such a joy to our family. I love to watch him grow and learn. Right now he is really interestd in copying Dallin, no matter what he says or does, it is kind of funny. I think Dallin is probably his hero, but Dallin doesn't think like that. Evan is my cuddle baby, he loves to hold my hair and loves to be held when he wants to be held. At this age some of his favorite things to do are: run, jump, dance, copy words, eat (he is a social eater like his mommy), drive the car or anything with a steering wheel, play in the sand, climb up ladders and playstructures at the park and go down slides. He is such a sweet boy and we love him a ton!!!! Happy Birthday Evan!!! We love you!

2009-09-09T09:14:00.001-07:00

So I still haven't posted anything new-obviously...and now it will have to wait at least another 2 weeks as we (the boys and I) are headed to Vegas tonight, then off to Idaho with Grandma Perry tomorrow. We are excited to see the cousins and have some yummy fresh corn and jam (no pressure Tera)! Then after a little stay in Idaho we will be headed off to Utah to visit Grandma Marian and that side of the family. Like I said we are excited to go, but not so excited about all the driving. Hopefully I will remain sane throughout the travels-haha!

So, why have I not blogged in a while or at least caught up with blogging and here are a couple of my excuses:
-I have been finishing my thesis from 6 years ago. Yes it is true and I am happy to report I think I am at the final stage-the formatting! I have to meet with someone in the graduate college who gives me the yay or nay for the formatting, so hopefully she will be satisfied this time around (I met with here about 3 weeks ago and it didn't go as well as I would have liked). We shall see!!! Wish me luck!

-Also, in church Scott has been called as the Elder's Quorum president and I was called as the Primary President. Let's just say that I nearly threw up in the Bishop's office, so things have been a bit busy, but I promise to get pictures of our summer activities posted before the end of the year...haha!!!!

See you when we get back! (I tried to upload a picture but blogger wouldn't have it, it must be a sign!)

Full moon, gravitational pull of the moon....

2009-08-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

is something crazy going on....if NO then why oh why is my littlest monkey (aka Evan) waking up at 6:30am everyday!!!???!!! It honestly drives me crazy, I hear him get up and then crawl out of his crib and open his door!! I am not a morning person and I have no idea why he is getting up so early. Dallin one morning tried to get up at 5:45am-can you imagine??!! All I have to say is that there better be some solar or lunar event that is causing this hiccup in our daily routine! I hope it goes back to normal soon!

(oh and I will post the rest of the summer soon-hopefully)

A slight nudge!

2009-07-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

I was slightly nudged tonight that I need to update my blog. I think sometimes when you get soooo behind it just seems too overwhelming, but I will do my best!!! Summer has gone by in a flash and a lot has happened. The next blog I do will be our annual (when we make it) Lake Powell trip-lots of pictures to go through, so I will work on it!! Here a couple of random pic's of the boys!

Smores at home!! We had all the fixin's so we made them at home! Couldn't you just eat the boys up!

Want some? Do you see his hair-it was a bit long...

so daddy and helper Dallin cut it.

Evan fell asleep on Scott's lap while he was getting his hair cut. It was too cute!

Look at my big boy!

1st Father Son Campout

2009-07-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

My baby is old enough to go on a father/son campout, isn't that soooo cute. As soon as we got back into town from LA Dallin helped Daddy get everything ready and packed for the father son campout! Dallin was so excited to go. Dad had bought Dallin a headlight and boy was he in heaven. While in LA I had bought him a bug catcher, so that night camping he and his friend Ethan spent time catching bugs. They had a great time!

Roasting marshmallows and headlight-check!

Catchin' bugs!

Hiking on the trail!

Dallin and his friends on the hike!

On a more recent note: I decided to finally put Dallin in pre-school, just for the next 8 weeks (as a trial run), and what can I say, he loves it! He has so much fun, although he can never remember what he did that day. He attends with his friend Ethan. So, while he is at "school" that means Evan and I have some time together. Well, today we took advantage of a free movie program going on in the local Regal theater. It was so fun to go to the movies with him, he had the biggest smile on his face as he sat watching the movie-like he was a big boy! It was too cute! It was a nice day!

Still catching up!

2009-07-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Las Mujeres De Costa Rica!

Well, I am back from our little vacations...which you will see in August if I keep with the pace I am going with my blogging-I can never catch up! But I do have excuses right-friends in town, quick trips to Vegas, vacation to Lake Powell and Las Vegas and then sick kids...it makes for a very busy time.

So, back in May the weekend after my Grandma's birthday I was lucky and got to hang out with some of my mission buddies-"Shipp" (Michelle Moore), "Stahr" (Amber Stahr) and "Hansen" (Lucinda Hyatt). It was so fun and what was even nicer was that my dear friend Elizabeth was kind enough to keep my boys over night-yeah, that is right she gave me the gift of no kids for about 30 hours, it was priceless. Elizabeth, remember, I totally owe you, you just let me know when and it is a done deal! It was so fun to go up to LA (not the travelling part, although the boys did really well), and first visit with Elizabeth and her girls and then hang out with the mission girls. It was like old times-giggling, eating goodies, mission memories etc. We ate dinner at a diner that had we known earlier we would have taken advantage of their special:free food to those wearing their pajamas. Amber hooked us up in an awesome hotel (classy finger up high), and we talked until the wee morning hours. We then got up early (not my idea) and spent the day at the Getty Museum (a free museum that is awesome-photography, gardens, antiques etc) and then the Santa Monica Pier. It was a wonderful 30 hours, just talking and laughing and catching up! I love these girls. It is shocking to me that I served a mission nearly 13 years ago (please don't do the math-that is when I left), but I am so grateful for the connection I still have to these lovely ladies. I love that even though we aren't the best a keeping in touch all the time (although Lucinda really does a good job at it), we can get together and it is like old times. I love that one of the most spiritual times of my life was spent in the presence of these fine women! Thanks ladies for being so wonderful-PURA VIDA!

Starting the morning off right in our classy bathrobes!

The tram up the hill to the Getty Museum

Steel trees made of bouganvillas flowers!

I like to call these "lady bug flowers". Aren't they gorgeous and slightly bug like in appearance?

The Costa Rican Crew: Shipp, Perry, Stahr and Hansen

Lunch in the gardens-hummus, cheese, crackers, apples, carrots and chocolate!

April and Michelle in front of the steel trees!

Me with the maze behind me! What a background!

Maze in the garden.

Where is Lucinda and Michelle?

April and Amber in the garden!

Amber and I missed the tram. You can see Lucinda in the window-how funny!

"I wish to be big"-in reference to the movie Big

The Santa Monica Pier

Picture Overload! BEWARE!

2009-06-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

On May 22nd my wonderful grandma celebrated her 72nd birthday and wanted to celebrate it at the Happiest Place on Earth,a.k.a, Disneyland! Although the whole fam couldn't make it, we had a great time! We did a lot of walking that first day-and grandma you did awesome!!!! We had a great time with Great Grandma/Grandma Perry, Aunt Sue and Grandma Perry/mom. I don't know what it is, but I love Disneyland, it really is a magical place for me. Maybe that is because I grew up going there, all I know is that I love it! Hopefully we will go again with the whole fam! I hope you had a wonderful day Grandma!!! We love spending time with you. You are such a warm and generous person!

The birthday girl and Aunt Sue. They actually spent the day before (Grandma's real birthday) having fun inside and out of the park.

The Whole Gang (those present-excluding me) waiting for Pirates of the Caribbean-Argh!

Self-explanatory!

Boys in the "honey pot".

Grandma Perry's/mom's favorite ride! Sheer terror for her, but she did it for her grandson! What a trooper.

Mom and Evan waiting while the others rode Thunder Mountain Railroad-hold on to you hats and glasses folks!

Scott in front of the dinosaur in line for Thunder Mountain Railroad. While we were in line the "grandmas'...including Aunt Sue" were feeding the boys ice cream!

Merry-go-round! My 3 boys! Mommy doesn't ride that ride!

Dallin trying to pull the sword from the stone! Put your knee into it!

No, this guy is not a part of the family...but it is Balthazar Getty and he was just casually sitting outside of It's a Small World. Doesn't anyone know who that is? He is currently in that show Brothers and Sisters on ABC, but as a youngin, he was in Young Guns 2, and I think White Squall. I use to have a crush on him. I made I contact with him as he was returning to his seat after throwing something away. He smiled at me and winked at me as if to say "yes, I am he, and thanks for not drawing any attention to me". Scott is such a good husband that he took a pic for me!

They normally just drive me crazy, but this day they were literally driving! Here is Daddy and Evan!

And here is Grandma Perry with Dallin!

At Lego Store in downtone Disney. Cool Darth Vader!

Under the sea merry-go-round! Evan is riding a dolfin!

Cool 3-D glasses Grandma Perry and Dallin! Getting ready to ride Toy Story Mania in Disneyland California-what an awesome ride!

Daddy and Evan with their 3D glasses!

Construction Dallin!

Waiting in line for Ferris Wheel!

Dad and Dallin in line for Tower of Terror!

Silly faces outside of Tower of Terror!

Yes, Scott (and I guess me), took Dallin on tower of Terror! Can you believe it!!! My baby on that horribly scary ride! He was okay on it, he didn't scream like a baby like I did (notice my classic big mouth pose as on any ride like this), but he said he doesn't want to ride it again until he is 12 or something like that!

Mom and Dallin after the tower of terror! So cute!

Part of the parade through Disneyland California! I love Heimlich!

May Continued!

2009-06-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

May was a very busy month for us. Besides birthdays (and there is still one more to document here), we also planted a small garden, went to a nature center and to the Museum of Man. What can I say, we like to keep busy-plus most of these activities are entertaining to the kids and cheap or free!

So we have weeded and weeded the small piece of land that we have in the backyard several times, always in the hope of planting something back there. Well, thanks to my lovely best friend Niki we did it! For my birthday Niki got me some herb plants to put back there, which was motivation to get us going on planting back there. So Scott picked up some tomato plants and viola-we have a small garden. The boys have since planted snap peas, cucumbers, green onions, and carrots and we just picked up a packet of watermelon. So we will see how our little garden fares between potential over watering (my boys love to water the plants) and the birds. I guess the next thing the boys get to build is a scarecrow! (The boys watering the garden) (The beginnings of our humble little garden!)

We also went to the nature center one weekend. It is a small aquarium/aviary/reptile house. For those of you who know me, it should come as no surprise that I absolutely loved this place! I love aquariums-especially the touch pools. Both boys touched bat rays, and Evan was a daredevil and held a starfish and a sea cucumber! We watched them feed the sea turtles, the bat rays and sharks, as well as the Bald and Golden Eagles. I loved it! It reminded me of my days in Monterrey as a BYU student, and my days working at the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake. I think the boys really enjoyed it! (Mom and the boys at the Nature Center)

(Listening to the "ocean")

(The boys "listening to the ocean")

(Dad and the boys in a "floating nest in the waves")

(Watching the iguana eat lunch)

(Evan holding a starfish)

(Evan checking out the eels)

(Dallin checking out the eels)

Here is a video of Evan (and Scott) touching the bat rays!

Every Tuesday the museums at Balboa Park open for free for residents of the area. Every Tuesday it is a different set of museums, so one Tuesday my friend Sarah and I decided to take advantage of the "freeness" and we headed to the Museum of Man and the Japanese Friendship garden. It was a great day! (I had a collage here but it kept disappearing after it was posted so now here are the separate pic's)

Playing in the water

Mom and boys in front of large rock statue (I forget the fancy name)

Evan checking out the "mummy"

Dallin in front of C3PO

Evan in front of C3PO

Evan sitting as the King

Kids on a "dig"

Dallin feeding the fish at the Friendship garden

Evan pointing at the fish at the Japanese frienship garden

Birthday Month!

2009-05-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, I have been meaning to update my blog forever, but it just takes me to long...haha, if I were short worded that wouldn't be a problem. Dallin turned 4 on May 3, and this year we decided to throw a friend party (you know, invite friends). It turned out to be such a wonderful day surrounded by family and friends. Dallin is really into Batman right now, so we had a batman themed birthday. We also wanted to have a pinata for his party, so after searching and finally finding a store just this side of the border, we found a batman pinata. I was worried about there not being enough goodies (yummy candy and fun toys) but there was plenty to go around. In fact I think that most of the kids had their bags filled to the top! It took Scott finally tearing the pinata apart (and this was after all the kids and some of the ladies hit the pinata), before the goodies hit the ground. And I must say, this was the most laid back group of pinata goodie gatherers, they all just took their time and were very particular on what they wanted! It was a great day!

Grandma Perry came down for Dallin's birthday (this is a very busy week for her-two grand kids with birthday's and two children-but she always manages to be there for everyone). While she was down, we decided to hit the zoo. It was a nice day! We love you Grandma Perry!

After a couple of days, it was my turn for a birthday. Do you ever notice you kind of forget you are having a birthday after you have a child with a birthday so near your own. And who I am really to talk, I have shared a birthday all my life-and I wouldn't have it any other way (love you Michael). So, for my birthday I told Scott I just wanted a really nice day, a peaceful day, and he delivered it. He got me a dozen red roses, took us all to play "rolling ball" aka bowling, then we went to Outback and then a walk on the beach. It was a perfect day! Thanks Scott for making my day so special!

So, needless to say, it was a very busy week! Here's to next year! (He fell asleep on the stairs, haha)

San Diego Zoo with The Jones Family

2009-05-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

In April we had the privilege of hanging out with the Jones clan (Elizabeth, Aaron, Noelle and Madeleine). It was so much fun! We went to the zoo and had a great time! No matter how many times I go to the zoo I am always fascinated by everything I see-we had a blast! Thanks Jones family for coming down and staying and playing with us, we will have to do it again soon! Here is a collage of pic's from our zoo trip!

Here a couple of photos of my monkeys/gorillas:

Like father...

...like sons!

And this photo is for my mom-this the Harpy Eagle up close! He eats monkeys in rain forests-awesome! (I know I know, I am such a biology nerd!)

Life with the boys!

2009-05-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

I have a ton of pictures to post, and a ton of stuff to catch up on, but I will start with these adorable pictures: These are some pic's of Dallin and Evan just at home!
Making cookies with daddy-such big helpers!

A few weeks ago I went to a friends house to finish up some sewing I had to do, while we sewed the boys made their own projects-Crowns! Notice the apron Dallin is wearing-that was my project. I made aprons for Dallin and 4 of the 5 nieces and nephews in Idaho! I think he looks adorable!

Notice Evan's crown-no stickers and no decorations. When you are 19 months old you just like to take things apart-like pull off stickers. I think Dallin's crown probably now looks identical to this one, thanks to Evan!

Nice boys coming down the stairs. I think Dallin was helping Dallin slide down the stairs!

Then it was time for funny faces!

Evan has this new smile, I think it is adorable, the one eye wrinkled up! He has now mostly corrected this, but it is so cute. He really smiles big if you give him something yummy to eat!

Now Dallin is the copy-cat, this is his "smile"

So what can I say, it is sometimes hard to be the big brother. I think that being little and having things taken away etc. has taken its toll on Evan, and now is pay back. Evans favorite forms of payback-scratching (notice Dallin's scratches), pulling hair (Dallin loves this because he has the most sensitive head ever) and biting attempts! Oh the joys of boys! So the following pic's are evidence submitted in a crime against Dallin. The poor boy was scratched by Evan. Dallin decided the wounds needed bandaged, so he ran up stairs and placed the band aids on himself. He walked around everywhere like that! The end result-he looked cool for a day, but the band aids took off skin when they were finally the next day taken off. Poor little guy!

Scott thinks Dallin looks so big/grownup in this pic. What a handsome boy!

What can I say, I love my boys. They drive me crazy a lot of the day, but I enjoy them. And they say the funniest things:

Evan's favorite words (he has a very limited vocabulary): Mine, nooooooo (best when he is screaming and has his hand clenched), abre (open), bird

Dallin sayings: The other day Dallin was sick (just 3 days before his birthday) and he told me "mom, I know why I am sick". I asked "why", he answered "because I am getting old"
-Today at the zoo I overhear him tell a duck that he has run up on and scared "yeah, you better run"
He has such a great imagination. He cracks us up!

Easter!

2009-04-29T22:45:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful Easter. My mom (grandma Perry) came down and so did the Pratt family. We spent the weekend just hanging out and eating. It was such a wonderful weekend! We dyed Easter eggs on Saturday night, then Sunday morning we had a wonderful Easter lesson by Niki about the Savior and then had an Easter egg hunt at our little park. The kids had such a wonderful day, and they looked so cute, although I am biased! Thanks Grandma Perry and Pratts for spending Easter with us-we really enjoyed it!

Dallin's First Haircut

2009-04-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Back in March Scott took Dallin to the barber shop for the first time, where he had his first big boy haircut! Up until this point Daddy would just buzz Dallin's hair, which I always thought looked good, but when my big boy came home from the barber shop, he looked so handsome. Obviously by now he need another haircut...we will see where he gets it done!

Back to March

2009-04-20T09:21:00.001-07:00

So here I continue to backtrack. I made this slide show a while ago, but it got erased, so I had to do it again. On March 7th, my beautiful cousin Deonna got married to Cody Jacobs up at Mt Charleston, which is right outside of Las Vegas. It was a perfect day. The weather was gorgeous-crisp and clear, and everything went beautifully! We were so happy to be there to celebrate such a beautiful occasion! Everyone looked great-guests included. My cousin Jeromy walked Deonna down the aisle. I have to be honest as soon as I saw Jeromy waiting a the bottom of the stairs in a tuxedo to walk with Deonna, I started to cry. It was such a beautiful day! Aunt Sue, you did a great job! And Uncle Jim and cousin Tristan did awesome taking pic's and videotaping the whole thing. I was so happy to participate as a bridesmaid...although my hair was a bit big at first...haha! It was a great day! It was fun to be with the whole family! Any excuse to get together!

Thank You!

2009-04-18T23:36:00.000-07:00

I know I know, it has been a long time since I last posted. I promise to post something soon, but I first wanted to say thank you to wonderful family and friends! We love you! Thanks for thinking of us!

Phoenix Suns Game

2009-03-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was kind enough to let Scott go to Arizona to see a Phoenix Suns game VIP style. He got to eat yummy food, high five the team members and sit about 3 rows from the action. He was in heaven as you will see in the video. I don't think I have ever seen his smile so big! Dave (Scott's brother in-law) was kind enough to invite Scott to the game. They had a blast. Scott also took Dallin with him to Arizona so that Dallin could play on the trampoline at Aunt Janice's house and play with the kids. He too had a blast. Evan and I stayed home. I had intended to do something special with Evan but he decided Saturday morning to throw-up...and then later that night throw-up again and again and again. Poor little guy. So we stayed home all weekend and basically this week! But I am happy that Scott had such a wonderful time, thanks again Dave! Here is a video of the Phoenix Sun players running in! He got to high five almost all of them! Awesome!
Shaq-the big man! (the pic's are a little blurry because you can't use your flash) Here is Scott during half time-yes that is a polish sausage (they had already eaten dinner here before the game) and a huge ice cream sundae. This is the life!

(This is a short video of the game-see how close they were!)

Happy St Patricks Day

2009-03-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

So after reading a friends blog, I decided that I too would make "green" eggs today, although we had them for dinner! Dallin wasn't too sure about them, he said they tasted funny-even though he hadn't even had one bite...he ended up eating them...Evan on the other hand had no problems eating them. I am glad we had "green" eggs for dinner because Scott didn't even realize it was ST. Patrick's day!

Dad enjoying his "green"egged breakfast burrito!

Like I said, Evan had no problems picking up the green eggs!

Dallin is really into making funny faces lately, so here they are!

So like I said, Dallin loves making funny faces...usually the face involves him crossing his eyes. It cracks me up, I just hope his face doesn't freeze like that!

Evan on the other hand is really big into mimicking lately, so here is Evan trying to do the pose that Dallin did in the picture above-cracks me up!

Still playing catch up!

2009-03-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

The first two pictures are of my "Yoda" boys. Grandma Marian sent the boys yoda masks and storm trooper masks-they were a hit. They cracked me up-they were running around the house with the "yoda" masks, it was hilarious!

After a couple of days rest from our visit with Trent and Alicia, we then met up with our other good friends Sherrie, Brian and their cute daughter Kaiya. They were nice enough to meet us half way-so we ended up in Oceanside. It was so fun to play with them at the beach. We then had lunch at the end of the Pier at a restaraunt called Ruby's. It was yummy-the shakes were divine!

Playin' in the sand!

Is that a real Pelican?? It looked like a statue just sitting on the pier like that! Seeing the pelican reminds me of a poem I learned from my BYU professor on the coast of Monterrey..."ode to the mighty pelican, who eats all his belly-can, I don't know how the hell-he-can"...thank you Dr. Braithwaite!

Dallin with the Pelican...he was a little nervous to have his back to the pelican.

Sherrie and I trying to get close to this pelican. We were cracking up, because we thought we were super close to the pelican, but Scott kept telling us we had to get closer if we all wanted to be in the picture.

Sherrie is not so sure about the pelican!

After a nice visit with Sherrie, Brian and Kaiya, we headed home to get ready for a family visit! Yes, that is right, my mom, grandma and Aunt Sue journeyed down to stay and play with us! It was a lot of fun, although we didn't do anything that Aunt Sue had wanted...next time Sue I promise!

This is Dallin at the swapmeet, grandma Perry bought him this cool batman cape/mask!

Evan and grandma Perry chillin' in some chairs in downtown Coronado!

Time to hit the beach! Here we are at Coronado!

Sisterly love! So cute!

So precious huh?!, We found this already in the sand and I made Dallin sit next to it-how cute!

Now take a closer look at the heart, wiped out! He decided to do that right after the first picture...do you think it is symbolic?

This is what Evan looks like after a beach trip in February at sunset!

The next day it was time for a little rockband!

The whole fam playing! Mom on guitar, Sue singing, Scott the drummer and Dallin on base!

Look at my future rocker!! Shirtless and all!

It was time to say goodbye and Dallin was sad!

We had an awesome couple of weeks playing with friends and family. We feel so blessed to have so many visitors!

Back tracking still-Disneyland and Valentines Day!

2009-03-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

So after celebrating Scott's birthday, I got a text message from our good friends in Utah (Alicia and Trent) asking us what we were doing that weekend (Valentine's weekend). Well they were/are troopers and they came all the way down here to visit us and Disneyland...I like to think it was us that had the most pull, but I am sure Mickey had more to do with it. So we spent two days with them at Disneyland using 2-fer passes (get into one park one day and the next park the next day for the price of a single day admission). It was a ton of fun, although Friday Feb 13th it decided to rain...at sometimes poor on us while we were at Disneyland. The little boys had a blast jumping from puddle to puddle, but it did get cold, but we stuck it through and stayed all day. We then spent Valentines day at Disney California Park. The weather was beautiful and it wasn't too crowded. It was a wonderful Valentines Day, I will expect the same treatment every year!! After a full day at the California Park we headed down to our home, where we all crashed. It was so nice to spend such a fun weekend with our great friends! Thanks of making the trip!

Here is a slide-show of our trip:

Catch up!

2009-02-25T22:42:00.000-08:00

Well, alot has happened in the last month-Scott's birthday, Valentine's Day, a trip to Disneyland, and meetings with friends and family. It has been a blast, and I have fallen into my normal procrastination state, so I now I need to catch up, so here it goes: Normal Daily happenings-I like to take pictures around the house of the boys doing silly things. They are silly and they make me laugh-most of the time. Here are some funny things that they have been up to lately: We have all kinds of toys in the house, and they boys would rather put blankets over their heads-who knew?!

Carrots grew randomly in our backyard. Dallin was so excited! Mommy having a carrot! Evan just being so cute. The brown-eyed trio! Pirate Dallin! We went to a birthday party where there was a magician who painted the kids faces. The girls got cute butterflys and sparkly things...all the boys got the pirate look. It was so funny. In fact Evan had one too, but then he ate a sticky lollipop and so it was washed away. Evan doing what he does best-sitting at the table, eating! Dallin's sandwich looked like a bat...he is obsessed with batman! Daddy's birthday was a hit! The boys helped make the cake, then we suprised dad when he walked in the house. Dallin "hid" and jumped out when dad got home! He then opened his presents-which I think Dallin was more excited about the present opening than dad. Dad was so excited when he opened up Rockband-rock on! It has been a blast to play! We then went to the Macaroni Grill and then had friends over for cake. It was a great day!

These are pic's of dads birthday and the valentine get together we had with our Park Group. As you can see, it was all about the pink frosting for the boys!

The boys making dad's birthday cake!

Visit from Grandma Perry!

2009-02-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

Grandma Perry was nice enough to come visit us the last weekend in January. We were supposed to travel up there but due to several things (one of which was Dallin giving his first scripture in Primary) we couldn't make it so she decided she needed to see the boys and drove down after work. We had such a wonderful visit with her and packed in about as much as you can in one day-we went to the Mormon Battalion festival in Old town, then went to the mexican restaurant "El Indio" (featured on Diners, drive-ins and dives of the food network-pretty good) and then over to Coronado for the sunset. It was a lovely day and a wonderful visit with grandma. We were all sad to see her drive away on Sunday but she did get to see or I should say hear Dallin's first "scripture" in Primary! We love you grandma Perry!

Park Day at Free Museums at Balboa Park

2009-02-07T22:39:00.000-08:00

So every Tuesday different museums at Balboa Park open their doors for free to the public. Every week there are different museums that are free. So Park group was held at the Car Museum one week...and since most of the group that goes are boys, let's just say that they had a great time (although the one little girl who was there had a good time too). We went to the Car Museum first, which wouldn't let us bring in our strollers, so it was quite a bit of work to keep the kids-well the little ones like Evan on the right side of the chain barriers, but the kids had a blast. They even had an area with a "ride able" motorcycle and the frame of a car. The kids loved that area. Evan is going through this stage where he loves to drive the car...so you can imagine how happy he was to sit in the "front seat" and steer the steering wheel. I was impressed with all of the cool classic cars that were there, in fact I wouldn't mind going back and actually reading about the cars. Dallin's favorite car was the red Lamborghini, he especially loved the cool "flying" doors. He also liked the red Ferrari. What can I say he has great taste. After a little while spent in Car museum we headed to the Aerospace Museum which was also very impressive. We saw a command module (think Apollo 13), space suit, planes, helicopters...you name it. The boys and the inner child in me had a blast. After a few hours of playing in the museums we had lunch outside! It was a long but nice day!

After the fun at the museum we played with the camera with Dad:

Self portraits

Evan eating a California roll!

Dallin eating a dinosaur chicken nugget.

Synchronized Swimming video

2009-02-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

I have had several people ask me about the synchronized video-so here it is. (This is from our ward Christmas party. A bunch of the girls from our ward got together and performed this "gem".) I am posting the video that Scott took with Dallin's commentary. You can't really hear the music, so imagine music from the Nutcracker! Enjoy! (This is where the popular swim cap that my boys love to wear came from)

(I am the one in red-sorry I meant to say that earlier)

Back to Normal

2009-01-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

After all the holiday adventure we finally returned home to our house right before the New Year. We brought the New Year in with some friends from the ward and we had an awesome time! Grandma Marian came to stay with us on New Year's day and was here with us for a little over 2 weeks. We had a nice visit and the boys absolutely loved having her here. I bet once she got back to Arizona she took a long nap-playing with Dallin can be exhausting and she plays with him non-stop when she is here. Thanks Grandma Marian for entertaining Dallin for 2 weeks! On New Year's day we had black eyed peas and cornbread-it's tradition right!? New Year's eve I found myself in the store and found one coveted can of black eyed peas-it was mishelfed, so that is how it was still in the store. I tried to give the can away to another person who was also looking for peas-but she refused. So to make my mother proud I took them home and cooked them. So we should have good luck this whole year!

So here are some pictures of life after the holidays-prepare for picture overload:
Evan wearing my "synchronized swimming hat"

Dallin's turn with the swim cap

Grandma Marian and Evan

Grandma Marian at Balboa Park

Grandma Marian and Dallin at the Model Train Museum-Lego exhibit

See the monkey on the horse? Lego exhibit

Daddy and Evan at the fountain at Balboa Park

Boat Races at Balboa Park

Power Ranger Dallin!Thanks cousin Ethan for the costume!

Dallin and Evan both had their first visits to the dentist. I took them to the Super Dentist. The office is so cute, with a Dragon and Superhero theme, they even give the kids points that they can then use to "buy" toys-my boys loved it! Unfortunately I didn't even think about bringing the camara for Dallin's visit, but I did bring it for Evan's adventure. On a sidenote-Dallin loves the dentist, in fact the other day he told me his tooth was hurting and that we needed to go to the Super Dentist. It was so cute! Hey, I love that he has a no fear of the dentist-that is great!

Evan the big boy in the Dentist chair!

View from our room!

Here is a video of Evan running around with my swim cap on. I thought it was so cute so I decided to post it! Enjoy!

Post Christmas Activities-San Diego style!

2009-01-17T00:34:00.001-08:00

After Christmas and celebrating Ethan's 9th birthday at McDonald's we all headed to San Diego (all except Deonna who headed back to her betrothed and Grandma who had to take Grandpa to the hospital to have him admitted for some injuries). The Pratt family also came down and stayed at the "hotel samson" for a couple of days, so needless to say we had a blast!

Day 1: We went to my dad's house on the way down to San Diego and had yummy carnitas!

Day 2: Everyone in the fam had Sea World tickets that were about to expire, so we headed to Sea World!! We had a blast! (Although Evan stopped walking-which was a bit of a scare for us, so we spent part of our time at urgent care...just some viral infection-of course. Fortunately he did get better after a couple of days...although many others in our party suffered ill stomachs on and off during this vacation)

Day 3: We all headed to Balboa Park. First we went to the Natural History museum where we learned about mammals and dinosaurs from Ms Fizzle. Ethan actually was a large dinosaur who didn't get enough food to eat...poor guy. We then went several different directions, some went to the Aerospace museum, some went to international village, while some went back to the hotel to rescue Tera and Katie (whose turn it was for the stomach bug). We all met back in Old Town for some yummy Mexican food (the Old Mexican cafe).

Day 4: Back to Sea World and that evening down to Seaport village. Everyone (except me) rode the wooden carousel at Seaport village.

Day 5: Heading home!
It really was a wonderful trip aside from hospital visits, a bit of cold weather (I know, "southern California cold", not the rest of the country's cold), and the cursed viral infections.
I love that we had such a extended time to spend with family!!

Christmas Continued

2009-01-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

So I know my last post had nothing to do with Christmas, but since it was something I should have done 6 years ago I decided to post it right away!

Okay, so now on with our Christmas vacation. After spending 4 lovely days with the Pratt family we headed up to Vegas. We actually needed to be in Vegas on December 23rd by 3pm because we were meeting Deonna at my mom's house so that we could deliver some gifts our family had donated for a Veteran. It was really neat to sponsor a veteran, someone who has done so much for our country and our freedom. It was a good reminder of "giving" during the Christmas season. The 23rd also happened to be Deonna's birthday, so that evening the whole tribe-something like 22 of us met at Bucca di Beppos for some yummy food. As always with my family we ordered way too much food, but hey I love left overs so no worries! Since Ethan's birthday is the 26th of December and my mom's is the 17th, we celebrated their birthdays too!

Ethan and Deonna behind the birthday candles!

Wyatt, Tera and mom in the background!

The other side of the table-Deonna, Ethan, Katie with Jeromy and Grandma in the background.

Christmas Eve we spent making GingerBread houses (thanks mom for getting those) and watching the Polar Express (our tradition-I just love the idea of "believing" in Christmas and in Santa...I still hear the bell!). The poor litle guys (Wyatt and Evan) couldn't really help with the gingerbread houses...too many small hard candies. Of course they didn't understand that, they wanted to be right in the action!

Building Gingerbread houses! Look at Wyatt eating a cookie-one of the distractions used to keep him from Gingerbread houses!

Great Grandma and Wyatt!

Scott, Dallin and Ellie building one house!

Michael and Ethan constructing the other house.

Evan just hanging out by the tree. Doesn't his face just tell you everything.."This stinks, I can't even touch all the goodies!"

Katie showing off her fine craftmanship. Notice the little head and hand reaching to eat the goodies off of her tree-EVAN!

Wyatt and Tera-the other little guy who couldn't touch anything!

Finished houses and happy kids! Look at Wyatt, he is totally eyeing the houses and candy! Haha!

After the movie, and the Ginger Bread houses, we read the "Christmas Story" and then the real Christmas story in Luke 2. It was nice to sit and listen to these stories and share these traditions with our kids. By this time it was getting pretty late and so we had the kids open up a gift-jammas! This is the first time we had done this, but I think that we will keep this tradition. Dallin loved his clone wars pj's although by this time we noticed he was burning up with a fever. Poor little guy. My kids tend to get sick when we travel. So, needless to say he was ready to go to bed. Evan was already down for the night by this time, so there is no picture that evening of his cool dark night batman pj's.

What can I say, Christmas was a wonderful day! We woke up early-not too early, fortunately our kids are still pretty little and wake up generally around the same time everyday, regardless of if it is Christmas or not. Although poor Ethan (who turned 9 the next day) had been up for hours I believe waiting for the time he was allowed to wake up his parents. The kids anxiously waited at the top of the stairs. Once they were allowed to come down, they looked like they were racing through the streets of spain being chased by bulls (does that paint the picture?!), they were so excited. Dallin and Evan loved what Santa brought them: a drive through window for McDonald's. Michael asked if Santa was pushing our kids towards jobs in the fast food industry...hey, that is where we both got our start-so don't knock it! After that, the present frenzy began. Dallin was so excited for everything and well Evan, he really had no idea what was going on...in fact he spent most of his time playing with the McDonald toy. We too were spoiled as well. After the present madness we headed to the kitchen and had our traditional big Christmas breakfast-yummy! Later that day we headed to Aunt Sue's and Uncle Jim's house for a wonderful Christmas dinner and then more presents. It was nice to be surrounded by family. Unfortunately, Grandpa had fallen the day before so he couldn't make it, and Cody (Deonna's fiance) had to work, so we were missing some of the family. We took some family pic's and some played games. Our boys still weren't feeling that great so we headed home bit earlier than the rest. It was a wonderful and exhausting day! I just love being with our family and enjoying the holidays!

I will post our "post-Christmas" activities soon! Posting about Christmas makes me sad, knowing that is over...oh, well something to look forward to later this year. I sure it will be here again in no time!

It is official!

2009-01-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

After being married these 6 years, today January 8, 2009 I officially changed my last name to Samson. For most of you this comes as no surprise, I seriously procrastinate everything...haha. But man, the wait to change my name was horrendous-2 hours...it was just as bad a going to the DMV in Las Vegas (for those of you who have had that lovely experience you know exactly what a pain it was today). I first had to wait outside the Social Security Office to get a number and then wait inside until my number was called. Of course my "group" of numbers wasn't called for 40 minutes (gotta love lunch breaks)-yeah, not one number, but finally my turn came and viola, it is official. Now I just have to get my Driver's License here in California. Anyway just thought I would let you know -April Marie Samson! Mom and grandma thought you should know for tax reasons...haha!

Happy New Year, Merry Christmas and Happy Anniversary!

2009-01-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

So, I wouldn't be starting the New Year right if I didn't procrastinate...it is what I do best. But, one thing I have not procrastinated is our Anniversary!! Today Scott and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Marian (Scott's mom) is here in town, and she was nice enough to stay with the boys last night so that we could go out to eat. It was really fun. We went to Bento and Noodles and sat at the Sushi bar...it was a bit awkward to sit there since we haven't ever done that before, but needless to say we tried some new rolls (with raw Salmon) and really enjoyed ourselves. After that we headed off for dessert and ended up at Macaroni Grill-yummy!! It was a really nice relaxing evening. Both the restaurants were nearly empty because everyone else was at home watching the Chargers game. It was a wonderful evening! I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband!! We were reminiscing of days gone by...of our wedding day, our apartments, our first town home, school, jobs, our kids...the last 6 years have been a wonderful adventure and I am so grateful for the wonderful companion that I have!! I love you Scott!! Happy Anniversary!! So, now I will start to catch up...before we left for our Christmas break we first went to our ward Christmas Party and Talent show. I participated in a "synchronized swimming" act with some of the awesome sisters from my ward. We were called "mom-N-Sync"... I will try to get the video on here sometime, but here are some of the poses after our performance. If you can't tell I am the one in the middle wearing the red board shorts! Santa also showed up at the Ward Christmas party, which was a good thing, because this is the only Santa Dallin and Evan talked to this year. Actually when asked what Dallin wanted for Christmas he said as serious as those of you know him to be, very matter of factly: " A unicycle and a skateboard", I started to laugh...Scott!!! What 3 year old even knows what a unicycle is...mine does! Evan didn't really want anything to do with Santa, he stayed with me. Right after the ward party we headed up to Wrightwood to hang out with the Pratt's (Scott, Niki, Ellie and Autumn). Dallin just loves playing with Ellie Rose. He was even more excited, because when he woke up in Wrightwood, there was snow everywhere! My Scott was also very pleased because this meant a trip to the ski hill...just what the doctor ordered! We spent our first day playing in the snow. Dallin is fairly well equipped for the snow having been in Utah the last couple of winters (minus the snow boots and mittens-hence the pinks ones he is wearing in the photos...what can you do when your best friend has little girls...he didn't mind though, he just loved the snow). Evan on the other hand had nothing...so he is wearing an over sized bib, which worked perfectly and Autumn's black and pink outlined jacket and "metallic purple" boots. Again, he didn't even notice, he just wanted to be out with the boys. Dallin ran all over in the snow (once dad made some "walkway/tunnels" for him), Evan would get stuck and then not move. He kind of looked like the little brother on "A Christmas Story"...it was so cute! It was a perfect day and the Pratts are always so wonderful to us, we just love them!

The next day was Sunday so we went to Church and then afterwards the girls had a "wrapping" party-that was awesome! On Monday Scott took me up the mountain to ski. It was super cold and there were about a billion people (mostly snow boarders...and don't get me wrong Scott typically snowboards, but he felt that I would probably do better on skiis, which I did, but there were "learning snowboarders" everywhere on the mountain...talk about scary). We had a lot of fun. Later that day Scott and Dallin built a snowman and then Scott taught Dallin how to ski. It was awesome. In fact, when I came out to the garage, Dallin had his boots on and he was so excited, as you can see in the video. We loaded everyone up in the cars and headed up the mountain and Scott and Niki helped Ellie and Dallin ski. They both did such a great job. I am excited to go again! Unfortunately I don't have many pic's or video from Dallin skiing...next time.

I tried to post a video of Dallin skiing down the road-haha, but it didn't work. He really did awesome on the bunnyhill! He definitely get it from his dad, because I look like Peter Pan or Superman with my hands on my hips plowing down the mountain! I will post more of our vacation soon!

New Evanisms

2008-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

The other day we were at the park and Evan said "puh puh" and then started to "bark", it was so cute I had to put up a video!!! It is so adorable-enjoy!

Evan like his cousin Wyatt just got his first haircut, I don't know that I was really ready for it, but his hair was a bit straggly and he had the back comb over going on, so daddy buzzed it last night and he looks like a big boy. In fact looking at him today, his cheeks look that much bigger, so Aunt Tera, get ready to nibble on his cheeks! Dallin also wanted to have his hair cut so he too had it buzzed, what a good sport!! My boys are just so handsome!

This is a pic of "snow" in San Diego...this mall brought some in earlier. We missed the festivities but Dallin and Scott walked on the ice! Sorry it is blurry!

We also made sugar cookies (one day) and then decorated them (the next day)-or in Evan's case he just wanted to eat them as you can see from the pics! Thanks Grandma Perry for the recipe! They are yummy!

Better late than never-right???

2008-12-08T00:21:00.000-08:00

So, I am really not the best blogger...I take lots of pictures, really I take my camera with me nearly every where I go...however, I never upload the pic's to my computer so I never blog. There you have it, that is my vicious cycle.
NOTE: I started this post Sunday night, and then didn't finish everthing until early Monday morning, so check both dates out for the newest updates!!!

So this will be the update blog. We had a great Thanksgiving with the fam-Janice and Dave were awesome and rented two Bouncy houses that were set up in the backyard, is there any question where Dallin was? Seriously, he would wake up, eat breakfast and then head out for the day. Thanksgiving was wonderful, I think there were about 42 people there-thanks Janice and Dave for hosting such a wonderful event! We also got to hang out with Grandma Marian, Uncle Jim and Aunt Michelle and their kids (JC, Nic and Ashlee), Aunt Debbie and bunches of her kids and grandkids. It really was such a beautiful day-in fact it rained that morning (apparently it rains on Thanksgiving every 12 years), so Janice was a bit nervous to say the least since 42 people would be quite a big group for an indoor event, not to mention that half that number where kids...fortunately the sun came out and we had a beautiful day! What a wonderful weather to be thankful for! Oh, and the food-yummy! Everyone did such a great job making the food...loved it! The next morning, Janice, Michelle and I hit the stores (Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Target) relatively early arriving at 6am. It was fun to shop and talk together that morning. When we got back the guys and Janice went golfing-which Scott loved! During this trip we were very lucky to meet up with some of our good friends-Cindy "Woodruff" who is a high school friend of mine, and Rusty and Sally friends from high school for Scott! What a wonderful week, we really had a great time!

Great Grandma's Visit!

2008-12-08T00:13:00.001-08:00

Great Grandma with the boys!

Great Grandma with the boys and Scott!

Great Grandma with the boys and April!

SILLY PICTURES!

In between beach trips and Thanksgiving, we were lucky to have Great Grandma come down for the weekend! We had a great time! We went to the San Diego Temple and did a session-which was so nice for me, it reminded me of being there with her for my wedding! The next day we went to the movies and saw Madagascar II, Dallin was in heaven-movie, POPCORN and big drink...who could ask for more! We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend with Grandma! Thanks Great Grandma for coming to visit us and spoil us! We love you!

Beach Days in November

2008-12-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so please don't hate me, but seriously the weather is so nice here that we have had beach days, and I mean goregeous, still get in the water beach days-in November!!! We had two beach days-one with some of the ladies of the ward and their little ones and then one with a couple of friends and their families! It was so nice...inviting anyone??? Come on down!

This is from our trip with the ladies! It was a bizarre thing-the sun, planet earth and the moon where all lined up so it greated huge high tides...so when we first got to the water, the tide was still very high and I was a bit nervous, especially since Evan wanted to run towards the water (no fear), but the longer we were there the tide went down and it ended up being so low, that the kids could run on the beach forever without having to really worry too much about the waves!

This is a video of the boys playing on the sand dune at Del Mar Beach!

Veteran's Day

2008-12-07T23:04:00.000-08:00

November 11th the boys and I went with a friend up to the Veteran's Parade in downtown San Diego. It was really neat to be there and acknowledge these wonderful men and women who honorably and willingly protect our country! It was a bit emotional for me to be in the presence of these wonderful people! Thanks for all you do and for all that you have done! God Bless the USA!

Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

I thought that I would quickly post a note while Evan is sleeping (now of course he is waking up) and Dallin is watching TV. I am so grateful for this time of year. I love the sounds, the lights, the smells, the craziness etc. of this time of year. I too often forget the real reason for the celebration, so let me briefly express my gratitude for the things I have in my life. I am so grateful for a wonderful husband, who gets up way to early to go to work and then comes home and jumps right into being the best dad in the world. He is so good to me, I love him a ton. I am also so grateful for "date night". Since we moved here, we have been able to go on dates-which has done wonders for us. I am grateful for the friends that we have that rotate babysitting for us so that we can have 2 weekends of him and I. We have been able to go the temple twice in the last 3 months-what a blessing. I am also so grateful for my little monkeys-they really are so wonderful! Dallin cracks me up with his faces and his crazy ideas. He is constantly saying funny stuff. I am grateful for his spunk and his stubbornness, I a sure in the future that confidence will come in handy. I am grateful for my little Evan whose dimples melt me. His squishy cheeks make me so happy. I love when I get him in the morning and he squeezes me close and plays with my hair, it makes being woken up way earlier than I would like worth it! He too is so funny and learning new things daily. I am thankful for a wonderful mom who sacrificed so much when I was growing up and who still sacrifices for our family. It means the world to me that she loves our little family so much and that she visits so often. I am grateful for my "older" brother who still likes to give me a hard time, but who always knows during my times of need to call me and ask me how I am. I am grateful for his beautiful wife who is such a wonderful example to me of generosity and kindness. I love their "little people" who brighten up my day when they call me TT. I am also very grateful for my grandma who is so sweet and kind to me. I am grateful for my grandpa who was their for Michael and I after school-who could forget the treats at the feed store. I am grateful for Sue and Jim and Deonna and Jeromy, who make the Perry Family complete. It is always so fun getting together for holidays, vacations, birthdays etc. It makes my year. And then on Scott's side, I have yet again been blessed by wonderful family. I am grateful for Scott's mom and her constant caring of our family. I am grateful that she too comes and visits and plays with Dallin the whole time! I am grateful for Scott's siblings and for the wonderful families they each have. They each enrich our lives and make us better people! I am grateful for the gospel and the plan of happiness that tells me that the relationships we have here will continue past the grave, what a blessing of comfort this brings! I am grateful for our home, the food on our table, the cars that we have and all the temporal things we have. I am grateful for our country and the freedom of speech and religion! I too am grateful for the wonderful friends we have from all the different periods of our life! Thanks to all! This is a wonderful time of year and I just wanted wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and share with you briefly the things I am grateful for! May you eat lots of turkey and sleep well tomorrow! Happy Turkey day! (I included are some pic's of my blessings!)

Playing catch up!

2008-11-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

It seems like am always playing catch up with updating my blog. I know, I should probably post more often, then I wouldn't be so behind...yeah, well, if you don't know yet I am a huge procrastinator so it just takes me a while to get to things!!! I posted some pic's of our recent normal day at the park. Things are so different now that Evan is able to walk everywhere and get into everything. He just gets this big grin on his face when he gets up the "toys" at the park, or if he dares to slide down the slide. It is super cute!!! He is at that stage now where he wants to always go the opposite direction that I want him to go-you should see us at church!! That time in a parents life when the wonder why they still attend church since they can't really fully participate in any of the meetings..you know what I am talking about. But it is such a fun age. He loves to just walk/run everywhere!!! I am happy to report that Evan says his first real word...are you ready for it....COOKIE! Seriously that is his favorite word right now and any time he is in the kitchen he says it over and over again, it is so funny. He also loves to stand on his head, kind of like a "downward facing dog" yoga pose or the beginnings of a summersault. It is so funny, I will have to find a picture and post it soon. Dallin on the other hand is so excited about Christmas. He loved Halloween and asks me nearly everyday if Halloween will come again and then when I explain to him that next year it will be halloween again he says "when I get bigger, it will be halloween". But Christmas is the newest fascination especially since he (we) got the Walmart toy catalog the other day in the mail, oh how he loves it!! This Christmas will be super fun. He also is starting to make up funny little stories-he likes to tell stories. About a month ago he would ask us constantly to tell him a story, well now he is starting to tell his own stories, which is super cute. He is still a handful some of the time, but I think it is getting better (or at least I hope it is). He gets stickers for being nice and after 10 stickers he gets a dollar to spend on anything he wants, so that has been helping a lot. I think he just needs a lot of attention and honestly I'm not always the best at giving it to him. But I am trying!!! Life is good and the boys are happy, so that helps!!!

This is a slide show from our visit from the Willman family (Scott's sister Janice's family). We had a lot of fun going to Sea World and having breakfast with Shamu and going to the zoo. Unfortunately Scott had to work quite a bit during their visit, but we still had a good time. We will see them in a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving! Yippee! Well, enjoy! I will post some other older things later and more recent events soon!

Cursed daylight savings!!!!

2008-11-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

I know I know, we fell back so we get to sleep an extra hour yadayadayada...tell that to a 13 month old who woke up at 5:45am this morning (I didn't go in his room until about 6am and after he ate he went back to sleep at 6:30am) and a 3 year who woke up crying at 6:35am and crawled into bed with me and did not go back to sleep, although he did lay there nice until 7:30am. So now we are all up again...I put them to sleep at their normal (the new time) time, but they still are getting up early!!! Anyway, I know, I know, poor me at least they sleep through the night, but I like my sleep!!!! Have a great day!

Chocolate, Smarties and lollipops-oh my!

2008-11-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

*Note: The pictures above are from the pre-halloween festivities-we went to a "pumpkin patch" (I use the term very loosely), and we decorated a pumpkin about 2 and half weeks before Halloween. Sadly the pumpkin did not make it to Halloween-it was a moldy and slumped over. Oh well, we will know better next time!

So happy late Halloween! I love Halloween- I love seeing kids in their costumes, I love dressing up, I love candy, I love seeing how happy the kids get when they get candy, I love all the decorations, I love pumpkins and pumpkins seeds, I love fall...I love Halloween! We had a wonderful Halloween week-yes that is right, Halloween week. The saturday before Halloween we went with Grandma Perry to trick or treat at Sea World. That was the first time that Dallin sported his Darth Maul costume and Evan his yoda costume. It was such a warm day, our boys were melting, but it was lots of fun. We trick or treated, then decorated halloween cookies (you will notice in the slide show that Evan and Daddy decorated one cookie while Dallin and Grandma Perry decorated the other. Dad is very "frugal" when it comes to putting on the frosting, so his left overs ended up on Dallin's already saturated cookie) and caught the Sea Lion Halloween show.

Then on the Tuesday before Halloween we met up with our good friends the Pratts and with one of my friends from college Kjersti at the Disneyland California Park for trick or treating in the park. Basically they close down the California Park at 5pm and then reopen the park for trick or treating from 6:30pm-10:30pm. It was a ton of fun, except that there just wasn't enough time to see everything! They were handing out handfulls of candy at each station-and everyone who comes gets a bag for trick or treating-even the adults, and it was yummy candy (i.e. chocolate). It was a ton of fun-we rode a couple of rides, saw some Disney characters and just absorbed the wonderful disney decorations! It was a ton of fun, but made for a very late night/early morning-1:30am.

And finally Halloween day. We met with some friends from the ward and did some early trick or treating at one of the local strip malls-talk about craziness! There were so many people, but again it was so fun! I just love looking at all of the costumes. Later that evening we met with two couples from our ward, ate pizza and then hit the streets! Dallin was such a pro this year, he loved it and totally knew what to do! Evan just was around for the ride, but I think he enjoyed himself. I was a little sad because I hadn't dressed up for any of the other events-and I love dressing up, so I threw a costume together for Halloween night. I went as Princess Lea since the boys were doing the Star Wars theme! We had a lot of fun! I hope that everyone had a happy and safe halloween!