Well it's been awhile. Were just going through the motions of a very busy December. On the 1st I went with my mom out to Wisconsin to visit my sister who had her first baby, baby boy, Talmage Grant! He is so dang cute. It was fun to go out and see where they live and just hang out with them. I came home on the 5th to sick kids and I've been dealing with that since, now it's my turn, I think I have strep of something, it sucks! On the bright side I've helped with some christmas shopping, and made ginger bread house at the kids party on billy's side of the family, exchanged presents and watched a christmas movie. I am atleast hoping we're all better by christmas

Good Times

A few weeks back we went to St. George for UEA weekend and had a fun time at the sand dunes with some friends. It was way fun to drive around, banxton loves to ride four-wheelers, any kind. So this was the greatest for him. Grace had a good time kicking back playing in the tons and tons of sand.

Born to Ride

The Fam!

I took the kids to Black Island Farms to pick out some Pumpkins and have a little fun. This place is so much fun and the kids loved it. They have tracker ride, hay rides, slides, mazes, farm animals, just tons of stuff to do, I highly recommend it.


Gracie was a little nervous at first, but she loved this tracker ride.

a kiddie "corn" box

Banxton loves to go down these slides, they have 3 or 4. I had him take grace, but she didn't like it so much.

It's Football Time!

We are excited to start a new BYU season! We all get into it, and on game day you will see at least half of us in uniform if not all of us.
game 1: Oklahoma vs BYU
13 to 14 BYU
HUGE WIN against 3rd in the nation. We're so excited but there's still a long season a head of us, but I think were off to a great start!

GO COUGARS!!!

The beginning of the long haul

Banxton started preschool this week! So far he loves it and is still excited about going! He has a great teacher that seems like she does lots of fun things with the kids.

First Day

I couldn't help but post this one of Gracie. She is so funny, she is always carrying around Banxtons things. She looks so dang cute. This one describes her perfect.

My LITTLE MONSTER!

What's new?

Let see it's been awhile since I've been on here. We've had a busy summer, We've been swimming a lot, We've been up to our favorite place in the world ( that we've been to) Couerd A' lene, were we went swimming, boating, and shopping and hanging out with family. We've been up to our friends cabin, getting ready for a wedding( billy sister), going to the wedding, getting Banxton ready for preschool. After going to his orientation he has been so excited and can't wait. Gracie has learned to walk and is into EVERYTHING! and she doesn't babble she SCREAMS! all the time. But it's fun to watch her grow up. Billy's been busy with his church calling between all his camping trips, stake conference and activity nights. He's also been hunting and working hard. I've been there through all of it being the most supportive mother and wife as I can be. We're looking forward to the fall and all the fun holiday's that come with it. Banxton's already talking about what he wants to be for halloween.

photo shoot

A few of Gracie's one year pictures.

Thanks Jana!

Happy Birthday Gracie!

I can't believe my baby is ONE!

We celebrated at my dad's pool, swam, had dinner, cake and ice cream, and opened presents.
It was a blast, thanks for those that helped celebrate, Gracie had a fun night. I know because she slept great!

Opening presents

The cake eating

Our Trip to California

So I am really bad at updating my blog and I am well aware of it but it still doesn't get me to sit down and post about our life. I am not a good writer so I'd rather post pictures and then put descriptions below them but I don't have any picture of what we've done, sad to say the least.

On May 8th billy and I went with another couple to Anaheim California for a trip long over due. Really it was to celebrate our 5 year anniversary which was in November but Gracie was to little to leave so we pushed our celebration back a few months and it turned out to be the best trip ever. Here's just a quick review. First off there was no kids which was NICE!!

Day 1 woke up early and on the road on our way at 6:oo a.m. got in california around 5:00 p.m.

Day 2 Went to Balboa Island and rented some bikes, rode around the beach for an hour, very fun. Had a delicious corn dog for lunch then layed out on the beach for awhile. Headed back to the condo had dinner then went to an Angels Baseball, I thought I would be bored but I wasn't it was pretty fun.

Day 3 Sunday, we were good little boys and girls and found a church to go to. When we got there it was a Polynesian ward and they spoke whatever language it was. They were very sweet people. It being mothers day they even gave Jana and I some lei's. One of Jana's was made of chocolate balls and by the end of sacrament meeting Jana started to smell real good. We looked at her shirt and she had chocolate dripping off of her collar and her shirt. It was hilarious. We had a big lunch at Applebee's, then later that night the boys went and saw Star trek and me and jana went and say 17 again.

Day 4 today was the day I couldn't wait for, a few weeks ago I wrote into Jay Leno and requested some tickets to attend a show and about 3 weeks later I got the tickets for Monday May 11th. I was thrilled because billy and I watch him almost every night and so now we get to go see him in person before he leaves the tonight show. Monday we drove up to Burbank and Ike had gotten Jana and I a gift certificate through his work to Bliss spa. So Jana and I went and had a a pedicure and a wax done. It was fun. Then it was off to stand in line for the Tonight Show. It was really fun. After that we went and visited some of my old family friends, they had us over for a yummy dinner and then we visited for awhile. We decided to drive to the Hollywood blvd. because Jana had never seen the stars on the sidewalk. Did that for about 20 min. and when we get back to our car we had a parking ticket ridiculous. Whatever such is life.

Day 5 DISNEYLAND it was fun, but it was funny how all of us had to dope up on ibuprofen so we wouldn't get motion sickness.

Day 6 DISNEYLAND Again and California Adventure. Thanks Ike for the Tickets!

Day 7 We did a little shopping before we hit the road home. We left Anaheim around 12:30 p.m. and drove to St. George where we stayed with Jana's very nice Aunt and Uncle for the night.

Day 8 woke up early and hurried home to our lovely kids and families.

It was a very fun trip we did a lot of things had a lot of laughs and made a lot of memories.
Thanks Ike and Jana for a wonderful and very unforgettable trip!!

Better Late Then Never

Happy 3rd Birthday Banxton!!!

On April 2nd Banxton turned 3. He has been asking to have a superman party for I don't know how long, so we decided to let him have a party. He invited a few neighborhood friends his age and a couple of his cousins. We played a few games, which most of them didn't get and they all had a go at a pinata, they all knew what to do for that. It was pretty crazy with ten kids between the ages of 2-4 years of age. Thanks for the help Mom, Angie and Ricki.

I think most of them had fun just going to a party.

The Gang!

enjoying cupcakes

Opening Presents

Trying to play a game. Cake Walk

Opening more presents

Sweet Spring!

The other day we went to the Park and it was WARM. It was so nice to be outside again, I wish it was this perfect weather all the time.

Banxton!

Gracie's first time on a swing. She loved it.

Oh Where Oh Where Have I Been?

Wow it's been awhile since I've been on here, it's been one thing after another the last few months. First of the year Gracie had the chicken pox then she starts feeling better and isn't contagious anymore, then Banxton gets a cold and it just continues to get worse so after about five days we decide to take him in and we find out that he has RSV. We didn't know it was contagious and he was all over Gracie, so of course guess who gets it next. Yep! Gracie. With her being younger it is a little scarier. They told me to take her to the hospital and put her on oxygen, so instead we just had oxygen delivered to the house where we would monitor her oxygen levels instead of paying the big bucks at the hospital. So Sad!

So after that I decided to go with my mom and sisters to San Diego for a girls trip. It was really nice because my sister from Wisconsin flew in to be with us too. It was fun and relaxing! We did a lot of laughing, eating, watching movies, sitting in the hot tub and walking.

This is me and Gracie in our hotel room!

Gracie was a trooper. We only had four stops all the way to San Diego. We left at 6:30 a.m. and got there around 8:30p.m. (remember we subtract an hour) This is our stop in Las Vegas at In-n-Out Burger. She was so happy every time she got out of her seat. I can't imagine why :)

Us at San Diego Zoo. Gracie slept through most of it, but she enjoyed the flamingo's.
After all is said and done I am glad we're all healthy again. We're ready to play and most definitely ready for the Summer!!

Slide Show of the Kids

Homemaker Wannabe

For Christmas this year my mom gave me a KitchenAid mixer and I love it. I had to try it out on some homemade bread, Right! Well I just used a packet that I had which was gluten free for me ( I am allergic) so it was pretty easy. Everything went really well and it turned out looking beautiful and smelling good, but when I went to cut into it the middle was still a little doughy. Oh well I am excited to keep trying and making lots more loafs. Banxton was really excited about it to and he thought it was really yummy! (we ate the ends)

Chickenpox

Our little Gracie got chickenpox last week and it's been so sad. All you can do is give warm baths and rub calamine lotion on them, Tylenol takes the edge off but doesn't do much. She's been pretty good about the whole thing. She's been a real trooper!

This is nearing the end, but I didn't put any of the nasty pictures on here because they look gross and that would be embarrassing to her. They were really bad around her mouth, on her head and her bottom. Poor girl!

This was within the first couple of days and they continued to get worse.