Happy Birthday!

Fall is a busy birthday time for our family. Kate started us off. The one thing she really wanted was a princess cake. So this was my attempt. Kate helped put on all the decorations on the skirt. She did a very good job.

She was pretty excited about her new big bike.

Daddies birthday was next. The kids got him some work gloves.

Yeah, I know he is not two years old but I didn't have enough candles and they wouldn't have fit on the pie if I did.

Blake also celebrated his first birthday recently. He really enjoyed his cupcake and stayed fairly clean.

He did a pretty good job opening his presents. Though he mostly just liked to climb on them.

Catching Up!

Wow, what a summer! I have to apologize for not posting in so long. But things are well here. Blake is crawling now as of a week ago. He has become very adventurous and it is fun to see a little more personality in him. Even though he gets into things a lot more.

Over the 4th of July we hosted a little Christensen party. It was fun to get together with extended family that we don't see very often.

The Grandma's supervising.

Also in July we went camping at Willow Flat Campground in Idaho with the Christensen family. Kate had a ball with her cousins and Blake did pretty well too.

Who knew jumping rope could be such fun.

Our hike to the springs.

We have been trying to do more little trips around the valley this summer. Here we are at Bridal Veil Falls. Kate was a little cold. Can you tell? I didn't think to bring jackets.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the pool too many times this year. Kate still loves swimming. She was able to take swim lessons again at Seven Peaks and did very well. She has figured out that she can "swim by herself" with her life jacket on and she loves to do that.

Blake also enjoys spending time in the water.

The first part of August we made our annual trip up to Bear Lake. We don't have any pictures because our trip was sadly cut short. Kevin had to have his gall bladder removed. We are very grateful for all the help we received that weekend. But that brings me to the next set of pictures. Kevin had the whole week after his surgery off. He couldn't sit around the house and recover like he was suppose to while using vacation days so he decided to be on "vacation" instead.

Our first trip was to Grotto Falls up Payson Canyon. It was just a short little hike but very pretty.

The next day he decided he had to get back to work so he built a sand box for Kate out under the monkey bars on the swing set. He did let me shovel all the sand into the box. It took me a couple of days to get it done. There is about 2.5 yards of sand in there. That is a lot of wheel barrow loads.

The following day we were back in vacation mode and we drove up to Mirror Lake in the Uintas. It was about 40 minutes past Kamas. It rained pretty hard all the way but stopped when we got there. The lake was beautiful! There was a really nice walking trail all the way around the lake. We made it about 1/3 of the way. We brought up a picnic and had a great time. We learned that four major rivers, the Bear, Provo, Weber, and Duschesne, all have their head waters within 1 mile of the lake. It was so green a beautiful up there and the weather turned out to be perfect.

I can see why they call it Mirror Lake.

This is Provo River Falls about 5 miles from Mirror Lake. Our pictures didn't turn out very well. It is much prettier than this. We have discovered that Blake is much happier when he is outside. But he was still very good on all of our little outings.

Kevin also decided to grow out his beard on his little "vacation". Not too shabby.



Our last adventure for the summer was a trip up to Cascade Springs. It was fun to see the fish in the pools and walk on the trails. A nice ending to a fun summer.

Kate told us the other night that she wanted to sleep in her closet. She has a laundry basket of blankets in there that she calls her chair and she thought it would be nice to sleep there. So she got her pillow and blanket and a few other things she wanted to sleep with. We thought she would realize that it was not very comfortable and want to get in her bed soon so we went along with it. We put her to bed and, just as we thought, she came out a few times needing things. We didn't hear from her for a while so we went in to check on her and she was fast asleep. She hasn't asked us to sleep in the closet again though.



Blake is growing up fast. He is sitting very well now and still loves his sister the most. She can always get him to laugh and smile when we can't.


We got Kate a CD of Disney Princess songs. She absolutely loves it. She listens to it several times a day and can sing the songs very well now. We are surprised at how well she has learned the words. Oh, and she loves to play beach. She lays a beach towel out on the floor and pretends we are at the beach. Thus the swimming suit cover-up. I am not sure why she had the boots on though.













Kate caught her first fish a couple of weeks ago. Daddy was very proud. They went to a kids only pond in Spanish Fork canyon. She caught five but let two go. Since we couldn't get Kate to try any and mommy is not a fish fan, that meant daddy had three fish for lunch. They had a great time though and Kate wants to go again soon.