End of an Era

So today is officially the second complete day that Rylynn has gone without her binkies!! We have talked about this for awhile, but with all the changes over the summer and Daddy being gone, we haven't attempted until now to really get rid of the binkies for good. So yesterday Rylynn was so excited to mail her binkies to the binky fairy. She put them all in an envelope and stuck them in the mailbox.

She had no problem all day without them and then she slept last night with no problem either so that was a great sign. So when she woke up this morning the binky fairy had left her a pink sleeping beauty dress that she has wanted for a long time and a little snow white doll that she has also been asking for.

She was thrilled!!


The binky fairy left her a letter telling her how proud she was of her and that she needed to keep being brave and being a big girl. So then today she wore her dress all day long. She asked to sleep in it but I had to put my foot down to that. She did great today again and she is so proud of herself. We are proud of her too!! I know it might seem crazy since she is 3 1/2 but she has loved those things so much and when Rylynn gets attached to something, it is very hard to get her unattached. I have to say even though she kept them longer than I would have liked, they were a lifesaver and I will encourage all my kids to have binkies; they're all going to need braces anyway! We are so proud of you Rylynn!!!

Doing something wrong

I must be doing something wrong in my parenting efforts with Carter since he makes no attempt to even mimic me when I try to teach him to say please and thank you, but I say hot dog and donut once and instantly he says them crystal clear! It is a reflection of where his heart is I guess. Not that he isn't a sweet heart, I just think he cares more about food than anything on this earth at this point in his young life. He has also mastered the word NO this week and More! I just love hearing him learn new words each day, it is so much fun. Unfortunately, Carter, Rylynn, Mama and Dada all still come out as Dada with an occasional Mama in there, but only when he is really sad. Some other words in his repertoire are cracker, cookie, mmm and pop pop which means popsicle. Do you notice a trend? It's a work in progress.

The County Fair

This is like two weeks late, but I really wanted to post about our trip to the Cuyahoga County Fair. It was so much fun. We went with our neighbors and friends the Poyfairs. I couldn't believe how long Carter lasted since we went right when he usually takes a nap. We left around 10:30 and stayed until 3:00p! There were so many fun things to do. I couldn't believe how brave Rylynn was about the rides. She went on a dragon roller coaster all by herself. She loved it and she was up for trying any ride. She couldn't get enough of them. Carter liked most of the rides for the first few times around and then he would start crying and want to get off. The exceptions were the ferris wheel with his friend Jack and the merry go round. He went on that two times in a row and wanted to go again. The kids were thrilled because they got hot dogs and french fries for lunch; very healthy food choices at the fair! Rylynn really liked seeing the cows and the chickens. Carter loved the Chickens too but he kept trying to put his little fingers in the cages and he was lucky he didn't get one bitten off! He loved the rabbits too. We had great weather even though the forecast said it was going to rain. What do weather men know anyway? Free parking too! How can you beat that? We ended the day with the kids trying their first taste of cotton candy in their lives and they couldn't get enough! It was a great day, thanks for inviting us Poyfairs!

We loved the merry go round! We went on twice!

Rylynn, Olivia, and Carter in the space ship

Rylynn got a unicorn painted on her face; purple of course, oh and with sparkles.

Rylynn and Olivia driving in the jeeps

Rylynn's favorites, the cows!

This was the cutest tiny ferris wheel

Jack and Carter almost fell asleep it was such a calm ride

Rylynn and Olivia loved this pumpkin ride, I thought it was a little claustrophobic.

This is one of the rides Carter hated by the end. In fact neither Jack nor Carter lasted till the end of the ride, they had to stop it so I could get Carter out.

Rylynn and Olivia loved it till the end!

We went to the fair as an extended celebration for Olivia's birthday which was the day before. Rylynn loved going to her princess party and especially loved the castle cake!

Happy Birthday Olivia! We love you!

More fun in St. George

So for the last week I said that we went to all our favorite spots, but we also tried out a couple of new places that we loved. A friend of my mom's told us about a place called jumping jacks that was like the kangaroo zoo up in North Salt Lake. So we decided to give it a try and the kids loved it!


Check out Rylynn's yawn in this picture, this place definitely wore her out!

There were also little rides to go on and Carter was loving these. Whenever Nana would put the money in a ton of kids would jump on out of nowhere to snag a free ride. Gotta love mooching!


Even Nana went on a couple slides with us. We jumped around in this big castle too and unfortunately a little kid was jumping right next to Nana's giant diamond ring and he jumped into it and gashed his head. Seriously that thing is a weapon:) Poor kid.


These places are so fun, and I have to admit that they are quite the workout for me. Hiking up those slides towing two kids sure catches up to me. Now you all know how out of shape I really am!

Another place that we found was a brand new water park in Washington, UT. It was so much fun and it was mostly indoors so we didn't have to worry as much about getting burned up.

They had a huge kiddie pool that had two slides, a giant bucket that filled up with water and poured out on the pool, and all sorts of things to climb on. Carter and Rylynn just love shallow pools because they can run around and feel completely safe while swimming. Rylynn loved just falling back free fall into the water over and over again.

This is where the big bucket dumps on you and where you climb up to get to the slides.

One of the slides. Carter loved going all together. I look a little scary in this picture.

This is where the pool opens up to the outside in a lazy river. The kids loved this too.

Rylynn going down the slide all by herself. She was so brave in the water this summer.

This is the baby area. These are jumpy swings in the water. I think it was a cool idea, but Carter got freezing cold while he was in it so it wasn't his favorite. You would never guess that by his big smile though, he is such a happy kid in the water.

Thanks for all the fun adventures Nana and Papa!! We miss you and love you tons!

Catching up

I never got around to blogging about the end of our summer vacations because we were so busy moving around, so here are some catch up pictures. Before we left Salt Lake, we had a really fun family picnic with Garrett's family. Rylynn and Carter had so much fun catching up with their cousins Brayden and Logan.

Grandpa was really great at keeping Carter out of trouble!

Rylynn just loves her aunt Erika.

Garrett, Auntie, and Matt came up with lots of fun games for the kids including the train and dragging the kids around on the big blanket.

It was hours of entertainment! Then the next day Granny took the kids and me to lunch and toys R us and spoiled them rotten. Here is Rylynn proudly displaying some of her new presents.

I got a few presents of my own at the Mommy Toys R us AKA Maceys! Thanks Granny and Grandpa we had so much fun this summer!

After we left Granny's and Grandpa's we headed back down to St. George for one last visit before flying home. So we had to hit all our fave restaurants one more time, Cafe Rio, In and Out, and the kids favorite Chuckarama! Then we also had to go to all our favorite parks for the last time. This time we got to take Daddy to the fountain park. It was lots of fun until Carter's swimming diaper erupted with diarrhea. Needless to say that ended the fun and we decided to leave.

Carter held his own in the fountain even when the big water was shooting out of the middle, he got so brave by the end of the summer!

Rylynn and Carter walking through the river side of the park. This part is all chlorinated water and goes on forever, it is the coolest place!

Carter loved to lie down like he was taking a bath.

Rylynn marching through like she owns the place. Gotta love the hands on the hips!


Climbing the rock walls

Playing tag

We're home!

Sorry I haven't posted forever, but I have been holed up reading Breaking Dawn for the last few days since we got home. Yes we got home finally! We flew in Friday the 1st of August and as planned, I brought my kids home, put them to bed and then went to the midnight release of Breaking Dawn with some girlfriends! Don't look too closely, because I look really gross, I had been traveling since 9 am and this was at midnight!

Anyway, that night I only stayed up until 4am reading! So needless to say I have been really tired and going crazy unpacking from our three month vacation, but we are really excited to be home. Now we just need to get Daddy to come home! He had to stay and finish working so he will be home on the 16th. We can't wait! I will post all the updates soon. By the way, LOVED Breaking Dawn!!!!

Family Reunion at Zions

Last weekend we went to a family reunion for my mom's side of the family; the Allreds. We had a blast. My mom and Grandma picked out this awesome ranch to stay at called Zion Ponderosa Ranch. We got our own cabin with tons of rooms and we all stayed together. It was so much fun to see my cousins and their kids. Unfortunately Garrett and I and my parents were the only ones who made it from my family, but I guess that's how it goes when gas is $4.35 a gallon!

This is my cousin Jenny with her new baby Kaleb. What a cutie!

The first night we were there we had a family line dance. We had an awesome instructor and danced to a lot of songs. I was very impressed with my family's dancing abilities! I luckily got out of dancing because Rylynn wanted to go over to the petting zoo. Any of you who know me well knows that I am not the greatest dancer! Rylynn loved the petting zoo. They had chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, horses, and rabbits.

After the dancing we had a big bonfire and roasted marshmallows. Somehow in the confusion of unpacking all the food we lost the marshmallows though so it was a little hard at first. Luckily our awesome group leader(the dance instructor) had some and gave them to us to use, then my dad found the big bag after all.

The next day was the family olympics which I was in charge of running! It was a daunting task but someone had to do it:) My mom and I came up with the games and it was a lot of fun! We split up into six teams of four for the competition!

We had a watermelon eating contest.

Three-legged race


Tug of war which was by far the most competive! Can ya tell?

And my favorite, a game my mom and I just made up where you have to bob for an orange in a bucket of water and place the orange on a spoon without using your hands, then run down to the opposite line and back without dropping the orange. The catch is if you drop the orange while running you have to pick it up without using your hands. My cousin Paul is the only one who dropped it and he had a mouth full of dirt to show for it. He is a great sport! We all got soaked on this one and then the next two games involved water balloons so in the end it turned into a huge water fight which was nice since it was so hot!


This is what Carter did the entire olympics, eat leftover watermelon, drop it in the dirt, pick it up and eat it some more. He even talked his cousin into joining him. That kid lives for food!

After the olympics we headed off to the pool to cool down. It was a huge pool with two water slides. The kids had a blast, and it was fun for the parents too!

Cute Kaleb hangin out in the sun.

That night we had a patriotic dinner put on by Grandma Allred in honor of my Grandpa.

After dinner, we sang patriotic songs, watched wedding videos from cousins that got married this summer, watched a memorial movie for my cousin that past away this summer, and watched a movie of an internship my cousin had in St. Lucia. Then we had a tribute to my grandpa where all the aunts shared stories of their father and the cousins shared stories of grandpa.

Grandma shared a few stories of her own and gave us each a booklet of stories and pictures from their life as well as a dvd. It was a very special night.

The whole gang on the last day. We had a blast!