Scott's Graduation!

Scott walked at graduation Friday night! Even though he has not been able to get an internship yet (dang economy), BYUI will let you walk before you do it if you're done with everything else and probably won't be back at the end of your internship. So after three and a half years of so many adventures, trials, happiness and immense stress, Scott and I finally got to celebrate his accomplishment and can move on beyond college life. Which I'm so excited about seeing as how our family expanded from one little baby to three kids during this process! I feel like everything we've been through the last few years has been worth it!
 

Really, what a great accomplishment this is for him. As I said in the fathers day post, his schedule and responsibility has been anything but easy, and I really have no idea how he has been able to stay sane. So here's to my awesome husband! Congratulations!

Scott with his very proud parents

Where is it? haha

My New Hair Cut!

It's been a while since I got my hair cut, mostly since I decided to grow it longer again. I finally decided I at least needed a trim so I called my friend Tristen. She has been the awesome stylist behind all my great hair cuts the last few years. Well she of course cut a couple inches off and gave me some layers(mostly in the back because we don't want to emphasize my already strong jaw!). I also went in knowing I wanted to ditch the swoop bangs (SO sick of them!) but wasn't sure if I should take my bangs to the next level or grow them out or what. I just could never picture myself with these bangs! Well Tristen is awesome, she knows exactly what she is doing and what looks good on different face shapes. I trust her 100%. So it didn't take more than about 30 seconds of talking to her to decide to take my bangs to the next level! And I couldn't be more happy! I love it. Love love love it.

Right after...

This is more what it will look like when I do it myself. She just wanted to get my hair super straight to make sure she could check her lines perfectly.

If any of you Rexburgians need a great hair stylist I can give you her number!

Jumping and Laughing

Yesterday I basically had all the kids by myself all day/night except for an hour in the evening when I went to meet Scott for a German dinner at his professors house. Anyway, I'm surprised I was actually ok. I used to get all anxious for Scott to get home. So I guess that's why instead of being tired and exhausted, I played with Parker even though he was up later then normal.

Good Friends

Last Friday our good friends the Howards came to visit us for most of the day. They were our first neighbors when we moved into our apt and we LOVED being neighbors. They are just so much fun! We hadn't seen them since we visited for the 4th of July last year so it was so great to see them again!

In this picture she's holding her oldest, but she also has an adorable little guy that's just 6 days older than Parker. I wish I'd thought to get one of the babies together!

Scott and Lance are buddies and their favorite things to do together are play video games and go grocery shopping together, always coming home with bags of popcicles and fudgecicles.

I love having friends that no matter how many miles are put between you, or how long it's been since you were able to get together, you always come back together again and have a great time, as if no time has passed at all.

Beating the Heat

Our apartment get's really hot in the afternoon's evenings, and so we've been spending a lot of that time outside in the grass strip in the middle of the parking lot where it is already cool and shady. It's actually been a wonderful way to spend time as a family. Not as good as having a yard, but better than going to the park. The kids love to shoot the nerf gun (or chase down the bullets after Scott does), and blow bubbles.

I had a few more really cute pictures but we have a new internet provider now and it is retarded. Isn't letting me upload any more.

Does my blog look like the side columns are cut off to anyone else? Suddenly it's all messed up looking. Anyone know what might be wrong?

An Old Friend

I have to blog about this because it was just so random and fun! Today while at the spray park I ran into an old college friend! I saw her and stopped dead. I said her name and she looked at me and was like, Oh my gosh! We were friends my first year of college, in the same ward, and we almost decided to be roommates for the next year, but then we went home for the summer and I guess we lost contact(before Facebook and cell phone days you know!). And she ended up getting married that following Fall, almost exactly one year before I got married(though I didn't know until today). Turns out we've been living in the same small town for 2 years and never ran into each other! Anyway, it was so fun to see her again! We both have three kids, so crazy! And we made sure to get each other's new last names so we could be friends on Facebook. It's such a small world sometimes!

I'm getting caught up so don't miss Parker's post below!

Parker is Six Months

Well I can't believe he's already six months! Craziness! Let's see, he is just about sitting up on his own. He can do it for a few seconds at a time. He's figured out the whole jumping thing and is starting to do it while standing in my lap. He is rolling a lot more now and scoots around in circles on the floor. He is getting cuter and cuter and is quite the popular little guy. I hardly ever have to hold him during Relief Society(1 of the 3 hrs of our church) becuase all these other girls ask to. He smiles at anyone he comes in contact with and is very ticklish. He likes to hold either side of my face and put his face all over mine with his mouth open. I love it! It's like he's giving me kisses! He loves his older siblings and they love him. He loves to laugh with his Daddy. And he loves to sleep with me at night(yeah, still!) We sure love this little guy!!

Parker just sat here with his Uncle J forever and finally fell asleep. It was soooo cute.

Independence Day

We had a great 4th of July Weekend! Saturday we went to the city parade, then we went to the party in the park(but mostly just played at the spray park and playground), then went to Rick and Heidi's for hot dogs and smores, and then that night we watched the city's firework display from in front of our apartment complex. It was so much fun! I was a little disappointed because David didn't like the parade as much as I thought he would. He thought everything was too loud and it scared him. The first 10 minutes were loud vehicles going by with there loud sirens or horns going off and David downright started bawling. Sydney generally liked it, but more than that I think she liked being able to escape from me. She'd start walking away down the street, she'd turn around and see me following her, and then she'd take off running as fast as she could. I had to chase her down multiple times!

Sunday we went to church and then later that evening we got a babysitter for David and Sydney and went to "A Celebration of Liberty" in Idaho Falls. Our brother in law Rick was in a reenactment of the second Virginia Convention where Patrick Henry made his famous speech "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" so they invited us to come. I really had no idea what to expect from the program over all, but I loved it! The whole thing was a celebration of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, how unique our country is, and how God is at the center of all of it. There was a flag ceremony, the reenactment, several musical numbers by individuals or groups(the little children made me cry!), a tribute to the war veterans in the audience, and a couple special speakers. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better way to spend our Independence Day. It made me so happy! I'm proud to be an American!

This was what David started doing every time a loud vehicle drove by. He'd run and dive head first into the stroller. Poor guy!

Sydney enjoying her cousin Naomi's company.

Sydney's new favorite thing to do- hang from the bars!

Watching the fireworks

R.I.P. Laptop

So almost a week ago our computer finally kicked the bucket. I was really bummed because I was just about to post a bunch of fun pictures from our day with my sister(check it out below!). Luckily though, we have an external hard drive where we keep ALL of our pictures and videos, and Scott had saved everything else on there when he was thinking of flushing and restoring the computer, so we didn't lose anything. I've just been suffering from a lack of internet for the last several days is all! haha. Right now we have babysitters at home and we are using computers on campus to blog and shop around for a new computer. Anyway, don't know how soon we'll get one so it might be a while before I can blog again. Be sure to check out the post below!

A Day with My Sister at the Water Park

So last Saturday (26th) we drove down to Pocatello to meet my sister and her husband at the water park there. We'd been wanting to get together and this way we were meeting about half way instead of one of us making a huge trip out of it.

 The kids warmed right up to them which I was SO relieved about, and we all had a great time. Sydney is a little more daring and enjoyed the water a lot, though still preferred to stay away from where it was spraying. She even loved going down the lazy river with us for quite a while. David seemed excited at first until he got sprayed by accident after only a couple minutes and the rest of the day he preferred to stay on the grass. There were train tracks right behind us and he had fun watching all the trains(there were a lot) and playing with the bubble gun. Finally less than an hour before we were going to leave he tried the water again and had fun. Go figure.

We thought there'd be shade, but there was NONE, so we spent 8 hours straight in the sun with NO shade. I thought we were going to die at first but it really was ok. Just kept lathering up in sunscreen(hear me cringing), playing in the water, and putting Parker in the shade provided by our cooler. We escaped with minimal sunburns. Woo!

So here are a bunch of pictures. I didn't condense a ton because I know family would like all of them. Thanks Annalise and Steve for joining us. We had a great time and miss you already!

Sydney really took to Annalise and cried when it was time to part. So cute!

I just really like this one for some reason.

The rest of the pictures were taken by my sister and her awesome camera, and I think she got some really good ones!

Another kid gave this to David. He doesn't ever really drink pop, let alone from a can so his faces he was making were pretty funny!