A cute friend of mine posted on her blog a fun
FHE they did where they talked about all their memories of the past year and made a poster of some of the big things that happened. (Thanks for the idea Em!) I thought that sounded fun, so we copied them and had a similar Family Home Evening this past Monday. (If I've never mentioned this before,
Rylee calls it "Heavenly
Fam Neeving" It is pretty funny...) Anyway - Since my kids are still pretty little and don't have a great concept of time or when things happened, so I decided to make a little slide show of some of our favorite memories that we could watch and talk about. I take pictures of almost everything, so it captured most memories we had. I thought I could just pull 2 or 3 pictures a month.... But if you know me and pictures, I can never seem to limit myself! So, I made a slide show of about 110 pictures that went through the first half of the year.... I am not so great with the concept of less is more! Anyway - Now, we have another great
FHE lined up for next week. The second half of the year! After we went through them all and made a big long list, we each picked a favorite. Here is what we came up with.
Our favorite family memory was our trip to St George in January to visit Grandma and Grandpa. We went to the Johnson Farm and saw real
dino tracks, went to a kangaroo zoo bounce place the kids loved, played at a park, went swimming, got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and we also got to see our friend's the White's from
Las Vegas. They also introduced Logan to Chuck-A-Rama for the first time. (Maybe not such a great thing...) It was a perfect little get away and we had a lot of fun just being together and having some warmer weather and getting over our post Christmas blues!
Daddy couldn't decide if his favorite was going to see David
Beckham at the Real-Galaxy game in March (where we nearly FROZE!!!)....
Or going to U2 in May with the
Lifferth's. That was an AWESOME concert and was one of Mom's favorite memories, too.
Mom's favorite memory was her surprise getaway for her 30
th birthday to Salt Lake with daddy. She had no idea and Daddy did a great job planning a perfect little overnight trip and took care of a babysitter and everything. We ate at lots of yummy places, relaxed and Daddy went shopping all day with her! She also got her new camera which is her favorite new toy!
Logan's favorite memory of the first six months was his Jedi Training Birthday party for his sixth birthday. He had a sweet
lightsaber cake, too. It was pretty awesome...
Rylee's favorite memory was going to Disney Princesses on Ice with mommy in March.
Avery couldn't really pick one.... We just picked one for her. She started nursery in March. Well... she started going there for a little bit. It took quite awhile before she really stayed there. I think it was about September before she really started liking nursery.
And now....for our favorite picture of the first six months.... Miss Avery eating her own poop in January. Pretty awesome, right??? It is good for a laugh now. Not so much then. I'm just glad that I grabbed my camera.
Here are a few of our other favorites.....
New Year's Oil Cakes at Uncle Ric's house
Rylee started Sunbeams!
Rylee started Tumbling in January
Aggie season tickets - Lots of basketball games! We also went to a few gymnastics meet and Logan loved going to the hockey games with Daddy
Our fancy candlelight Valentine's dinner
Trip to Hardware Ranch in February
Going to
Juanito Bandito in February with
Boman'sLogan's school Ho-Down with Mom in February
Logan's special friends day at school with Grandma and Grandpa
Logan's Special Me day at school in March
Avery's first set of stitches (and the first set for any of the kids at our house - Quite traumatic for Mom!)
Logan's first time to a Jazz game and a Grizzly hockey game
Trip to Boise to visit our dental school friends, the Scott's in March
1st time ice skating as a family
Rylee's 4
th bday and Princess
PJ party
Rylee got potty trained and had a Potty Party
Going to Baby Animal Days in the snow
Our pet frogs
Tiana and Batman
Rylee's Princess tea party and she was in the newspaper in April!
Mom's trip to Women's Conference with friends
Rylee's Joy School Graduation
We planted our 1st garden
Logan's 1st Piano Recital in May
Fieldtrip to the fire station in May with Rylee's Joy School (Logan and Avery got to go, too)
Logan's Kindergarten program where he square danced and did poi balls
Logan's Teddy Bear picnic at school
Uncle Jeff's high school graduation
Avery's 1st real hair cut in June
Logan finished Kindergarten
Logan went to British soccer camp
Rylee went to Princess day camp
All of our kids contracted Salmonella from our pet frogs!!! Not such a great memory...
We babysat our cousin Ethan for a few days and we found out Aunt Heather was pregnant!
Logan had his 6
th birthday
Mom and Dad saw the Beach Boys in concert with both Grandmas and Grandpas
Logan and
Rylee went to swimming lessons
Logan played his first season of
Tball with Mom as his coach
Oops....that list got a little long! I guess we had a pretty fun 2011! Stay tuned for part 2 next week. We had a lot of fun doing this and thinking about all our memories and I think it will be a new tradition at our house.
We also talked about a few things we wanted to do in 2012.
Rylee said she would really like to go to Disney on Ice again this year and Logan said he wanted to go to Disneyland. When I told him that we probably wouldn't be going this year, he said, "But we go EVERY year!" I had to tell him that we might be skipping this year. I didn't think we went every year, but when we started thinking about it, it has been pretty close. I think 2012 will be one year we skip. Logan's second choice was Sea World. The kid thinks big! We'll have to see about that one....
Aug 1 - I can tell that Avery must be REALLY close to turning 2 because she has been getting into lots of trouble lately. She has been writing on the walls a lot! We are trying to teach her that she has to do the time when she does the crime and clean up her mess, but I think the problem is she actually really likes cleaning the walls, maybe even more than writing on them.
Aug 8 - More trouble for Avery.... I always know when it gets quiet that this little one is up to something. This day it happened to be CANDY! She loves it and seems to be able to find it everywhere! I think she dug this out of my purse while I was doing the laundry and then dumped it all over the couch. When I found her, she was happily eating and then starting shoving it in as fast as she could! Such a mess!!!
Aug 11 - Another mess! This time, it wasn't Avery, it was Rylee! She somehow found some of the Halloween makeup. This was the glitter we used when she was Tinkerbell. She decided to apply it ALL over her face. Looks lovely! She has some serious shine! 
Aug 12 - Avery LOVES shoes! She is always putting random shoes on around the house. On this day, she picked a pair of Mom's tallest boots. She looked so funny trying to walk around in them. 
Aug 15 - Our daddy turned 32!!! And the kids made him a cake all on their own!
Aug 17 - I love when the kids use their imagination and I think it is so funny when they just come downstairs in random dress up clothes! On this day, we ended up with Buzz Lightyear, a lion and Spiderman. Too cute! I don't know how they all went together for whatever they were playing, but they were having a great time. 
Our fearless Buzz - Rylee is just a little bit expressive! 
Logan the Spiderman
Avery the lion - I love her tiny little face poking out of the costume! 
Aug 17 - 20 - We took a little mini vacation to Salt Lake where we went to the Children's Museum, Temple Square, the Zoo, This is the Place park and Thanksgiving Point. It was a great way to end our fun summer! 
Aug 21 - Avery is always asking to sit on the potty. I think she wants to be big like her siblings! She finally REALLY went! YEAH!!! I'm sure it isn't anything to be too excited about...yet! But maybe soon. 
Her favorite part is definitely wiping! We are going through a LOT of TP!
Aug 21 - Ry got these Bendaroo things from lunch at Thanksgiving point with the kids menu and had a great time with them. She loves arts and craft things and is always creating something. Shortly after this, they were stuck in the carpet though, so they didn't last much longer...
Aug 23 - Avery is a little artist in the family too, but she has been doing it on the walls a lot! She struck again!!! This red marker was NOT good and didn't come off too easily
Trying to help clean up her mess
Aug 24 - Avery trying the potty again
Aug 25 - I can't keep this girl out of the cupboards! She is constantly climbing and can always seem to find candy no matter what I do!
Aug 25 - Logan's FIRST day of FIRST grade!!! What a big day! 
All the kids on Logan's FIRST day. We have never had early school before so the morning schedule is going to take some getting used to! 
For dinner that night, we had these little apple back to school snacks. I know....they look more like pumpkins. The red food coloring didn't take too well! 
Aug 27 - We went to Aggie Family Football day. We were kind of late, so we missed out on the scrimmage and most of the activities, but we did get autographs. I don't think we would have lasted long if we had been on time though. It was SUCH a HOT day and the even hotter down on the turf. A lot of the football players were really cute with the kids. They were so nice to talk to them and ask them their names. Rylee was very shy, but a lot of them told her how cute she was! 
Logan liked to ask them all what position they played. 
We met Robert Turbin and Coach Anderson and we were so impressed with them - especially Turbin. He ran after us and made sure the kids got autographs. Such a nice guy! And his arms are HUGE!!! 
Coach Anderson
Avery enjoying a ride on Daddy's shoulders
Showing off their autographed posters. Go Aggies!!! 
Aug 28 - Our cute cousin Ethan turned 2 and had a fun Toy Story birthday party. Aunt Heather made really cute cupcakes! Avery loved her alien one. 
Logan picked Rex and Rylee picked Hamm because he was pink
Aunt Heather's cute cupcakes. My favorite was Mr Potato Head. 
The birthday boy! 
Aug 30 - I looked over and saw these two cute little heads cuddled together on the couch. 
Just hanging out and watching tv together - Sometimes they are the best little buddies!
Aug 31 - ANOTHER Avery mess! This girl is into EVERYTHING right now. She got into Mom's mascara! She even got it pretty close to the right spot - She loves makeup! She always sits with Mom while she is doing hers and pretends she is putting on her own. She must be learning to know where to put that mascara! 
