Odds and Ends of the Month

No need to say how much Asher still loves the swing...look at that smile! And Rylan thinks it's great to gently push him. Of course the fun doesn't last as long as when he was a baby, but Asher can spend a good 5 minutes in there.

Asher got a haircut! It seems that my boys rarely get their haircut so I always want to take pictures when they do. He's so handsome :)

He tried to step out the front door at John and Aubrey's house and ended up falling out the front door. Oops! There was just a little bit of blood and a nice scratch (this is several days after the fact...it's healing nicely!)

It's never fun when bath time is over but at least Ry is still cute when he's sad.

I can always tell when Rylan gets himself dressed :) Kev put a movie on for the boys on the little dvd player. Look how well they spaced themselves for their viewing pleasure! And I'm sure this is the most comfortable spot in the house!

Whether he's outside or in, this little boy loves to play in the dirt!

Friday Fun Day!

Today we met up with Kacy, Tami, and their kidlets to watch Shrek 4. We first met at the Orem theatre for the 3:00 showing but it was sold out. So we headed down to Provo Towne Centre to see the 4:05 showing. Tami sat at the end of one row with 8 kids to her left. It was funny :) Kacy and I sat behind with our little ones who were just as entertaining as the movie! Finn and Asher both had a hayday with the popcorn. It didn't take them long to start digging in two handed to get as much popcorn as possible. When we first walked into the theatre Rylan was very excited "Popcorn!" After about 2 handfuls he was done. I wish I was like that!
I laughed out loud at several parts in the movie. Of course it was a lot of humor Ry didn't understand, but he sat there for the entire movie, only turning around a couple times to say hi. Asher did incredibly well. He sat on my lap most of the time but occasionally stepped down to take a few steps. He'd stand almost between two seats in the row in front of us with his head poking through and watch the movie for a minute or two. I was amazed at how well he did.
Tami had to leave with her kids after the movie to take Kyler to his baseball game. Kacy and I are both husbandless so we wanted to keep the party going. We went to dinner at Winger's where our kids hardly ate anything, but we enjoyed our meals :) And I enjoyed the conversation, too! We would have kept our little party going, but the kids were done and our table was a mess. Hopefully our tips made the cleanup not so bad!
Rylan threw a huge fit tonight because I turned off the light in Asher's room without racing him. A good sign that he was super tired. He screamed and cried and whined for about a half hour before he decided we could just have a race to the light switch in his room. While he cried I watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune :) Hopefully he'll sleep peacefully tonight and be happy again in the morning.

Soccer!

These days Kevin plays soccer 4 times each week. You'd think we'd get to see some of his action but it's only on Saturdays that he plays down here in Spanish Fork. He plays on a team with some guys from the neighborhood. I don't think they've won a single game which is hard on Kevin so I have to keep reminding him it's just for fun!

The boys and I were able to go to his game today and it was fun! Keeping my eyes on two little boys makes it a bit harder to watch the game...unless they are playing with daddy's phone!

Rylan really wanted to play with Kev's iPod but all we had was his phone and that kept him entertained for a bit. Then he wanted to listen to the cheesy ring tones on my phone--and Asher started dancing!

Can't wait for the next game!!

Yard Work

One of these days Kevin will take a day off work and we'll do something fun! Today he took the day off work to work in the yard. We're getting sod tomorrow (Yippee!) but we had a lot of prep work to do before we can lay it.
After a trip to Sprinkler World, Kevin got started pulling weeds. We had asked to borrow a tiller from a neighbor but they had already loaned it out. But they said we could borrow it after the other neighbors were finished. So we bugged and bugged the other neighbors until they finally let us use it!! They thought they'd be finished by noon today and it ended up being around 3:00. While waiting Kevin continued to pull weeds and only came inside for a few breaks--lunch and a quick nap! (After some time at the gym I came home, made lunch, and then headed out to pull some weeds. I didn't work nearly as hard as Kevin but I wanted to mention that I helped!)
When we got the rototiller Kev immediately got to work...well, kind of. One of the wheels wasn't working so he had to fix that first. But then he got to work! After a good portion was tilled up I got the rake and started smoothing out and getting rid of the large rocks and weeds. We worked for about 3 1/2 hours until Kev had to get ready to go home teaching (what? on a Friday night? I guess you get it done when you can!) and Asher was pulling me inside wanting dinner.

Go Kev, Go!! He rarely wears a hat, but I like it when he does :)

The boys had a great day playing outside and spending most of the time in the dirt. We were all exhausted and dirty so the boys ended their day in the bath and now in bed.

Rylan likes to hook the stroller up to his bike. He calls it his 'trailer'!

Look at that pose :) Isn't he such a handsome little boy?

My shoulders are aching. I'd ask Kev for a massage but I'm sure he's got some sore spots, too. What a day! And the fun continues tomorrow! The sod is being delivered at 11:00--the same time Kev has a soccer game. I suggested he recruit his team to come over afterward to help lay the sod. Great idea, right? Hopefully they win their game so they're all in a happy mood :)

It started pouring like crazy tonight and the boys weren't satisfied just watching the rain from the window. They were ready to PLAY! It was freezing cold and neither of them have shoes, but don't judge me...judge Kevin :) He let them run out there for a few minutes and they both just loved it. Neither one wanted to come in and they both fought it. But in they came and to the bath they went to get warmed up for bed time.

Jumpin Jacks

Deborah was staying with the Holman kids while Tami and Garren were in Hawaii (lucky ducks!!). So Deborah and I met up at Jumpin Jacks for some FUN! As usual, the boys spent a good amount of time playing on the arcade games-- without inserting any money. They love pretending like they are driving the car or even just sitting in the Big Bird airplane without it even moving. Silly boys :) They did get in their share of sliding and bouncing though! There is a really big slide that we like to make a train on. (I'm sure I have a picture of the big slide from the past, and maybe Deborah has a picture from this trip--I'll have to ask her.) I admit, it's pretty tall and sometimes as I'm climbing to the top I have thoughts of falling backwards...especially when I'm carrying Asher up. I don't know that I've ever taken Asher down this slide, but Deb had to run over to Walmart and the boys wanted to make a train, so I went with them. I was in front, holding Asher and the boys held on behind. I tried to watch Asher as we were going down but it wasn't until we got to the bottom that I saw the terror in his eyes. Poor little thing was so scared! I didn't even attempt to take him up again. Rylan was begging for me to make a train with them again so I made them wait until Deborah came back. As soon as she did he was pulling my arm to go. So up we climbed and when we got to the top, Ry decided he didn't want to go because "it's too freaky". Wait a minute, where did he learn the word 'freaky'? I just laughed and pulled him down with me. Mean mom. But wait...he wanted to go again! So up we went, and again, at them top he started trying to crawl back down the ladder because it was "too freaky". Seriously, where did he learn that? Of course I made him slide down with our train again. Meanwhile, Kaleb and Kade are racing up and down the slide repeatedly without fear!

Unlike my boys, Kaleb wanted to take picture after picture. He was being quite the silly boy :)

Photograph by Kaleb. Ry is a nut!

I was taking a picture of Asher and Abby came over just smiling, waiting for her picture to be taken! I was more than happy to get a couple pictures of this cute little thing :)

Afterwards we went over to enjoy some Quiznos for lunch. Crazy Deborah doesn't go to Quiznos very often. Me? I'm there weekly :) I love it!!

Some Thoughts From Rylan

While driving north on the freeway the other day Rylan asked what city we were in.
Me: "Springville"
Ry: "What city come after Springville?"
Me: "Provo"
Ry: "Then what?"
Me: "Orem"
Ry: "What's after Orem?"
Me: "Lindon"
Ry: "What city is next?"
Me: "Pleasant Grove"
Ry: "Then what city?"
Me: "American Fork"
Ry: "What comes after American Fork?"
Me: "Lehi"
Ry: "What?"
Me: "Lehi"
Ry: "Like Lehi in the scriptures?"
Me: "YES!!"

He's a smarty pants!!

The other day while picking up toys Asher was sitting on my lap and tooted. Rylan asked "what did Asher's bum just do?" Not knowing how to respond I simply asked "what?". Rylan's reply "I think he just ripped it!" Yep, he most definitely learned that from his daddy!

Yesterday I was in the kitchen making lunch, Kev was out back pulling weeds, Ry was just outside the back door with the hose and the water turned on, and Asher was just inside the back door with a dishcloth (wiping up water that Ry "accidentally" sprayed inside). Rylan said to me "Mom, I'm washing the door with water and my hands. You'll be so proud." I smiled and a second or two later he said "Mom, me and Asher are cleaning the house. You are so proud!" Yes, I certainly was proud :)

Annual Doyle Girls Weekend!!

Every year the Doyle girls get together for an over-nighter. This year we stayed at a hotel in Sandy, which is where we met up to get the party started.

Our first activity was to get pedicures.

Steph made reservations for us months ago at the Elase Academy and she got us a great deal. Half of us had a great experience, half of us had a less than great experience. My girl was fantastic and I would certainly go back and have her give me another pedi! We had some stories to talk about after we left... such as, knowing the wax was extremely hot, too hot in fact, they went ahead and asked us to dip our feet in. Heidi went first and wasn't shy to say it was too hot. They're solution? Just do it again and dip your foot really fast! Well, okay then! Poor Steph had a girl that spoke little english and dumped the wax on Steph's shoes, camera, bag, and any other possession Steph had there. Sad. But of course she had a positive attitude and spent the rest of the weekend scraping wax off her things.

After our pedis we stopped at John and Aubrey's house to get swimsuits for those who forgot and to pick up Ashley. Then off we went to Park City for dinner and shopping. Dinner was mexican at Loco Lizard. The chips and salsa were fantastic. Some of the best I've had. My dinner was nasty. I had a beef plate that smelled like vomit so I pushed it aside and was grateful for the yummy chips and salsa!
After dinner we headed over to the outlet mall to go shopping. We were short on time so we were quick in each store. I think everyone bought at least one thing. I went looking for accessories and shoes but left with a shirt and some workout clothes!
When we were finally kicked out of Down East (where Angie got a super cute bracelet that I loved and Heidi loathed) we loaded back into the van for a drive back to Sandy. We figured we'd better stop at Target to get some breakfast food since we would be leaving the hotel before they served breakfast. We all got out of the van only to find that Target had closed about 2 minutes before we arrived. So off to Smiths. Heidi was excited to stop at Arby's for a chocolate shake and that sounded good to me, too. We pulled up, Mary (our chauffer for the weekend) ordered for us, and we were told their shake machine wasn't working. Heidi yells "just peel out Mary!" Through all the laughter Mary kindly told the guy we weren't ordering anything and off we went for shakes at McDonald's.

Back at the hotel we started 'Sherlock Holmes' and within 15 minutes we had all gone to bed.

We had an early morning. We woke up around 6:00 I think, which is way earlier than I get up when I'm home with kids! But we had places to be so that's that.

We all got ready to go run the Race for the Cure 5k in Salt Lake. Steph is a strong breast cancer survivor so we all ran in celebration of her! Kevin has run the race with Ry the past 3 years and he wasn't about to miss it this year. He met up with us at the starting line and I was happy to see him and my two boys. About this time I started to feel nauseous, though. I was getting light headed and didn't think I'd be able to run 3 miles. With such a swarm of people it's not really a 'race' so I knew we'd be taking it slow...which was good since I felt so sick, but bad because I just wanted to finish and be by a toilet! But the race began and off we went--a little walk at first and then Kevin led the way pushing the boys in the stroller. We all followed behind him, weaving in and out of groups of people. He had no fear and cut people off all over the place. Surprisingly only a couple people were bumped or clipped. We all were laughing at his weaving and having a good time. Lucky for me there was a hotel about a half mile before the finish line. I ran in and quickly found the bathroom (as well as a line) while Kev waited and the other girls ran on. We met up with them after the race. Steph grouped with other survivors for their parade and we all chatted. Ashely ended up leaving with Andy because she was sick as well, and come to find out, Steph was sick, too! Ugh! Was it the Mexican food? It had to have been related.

The finish line--They made it!!

The Survivor's Parade--see Steph peeking through?!

I love this guy :)

Kev was sportin' a Xango sweat band but both the boys were on board with the "Breast Friends" groupies :)

Anyways, after a very long wait Kev decided it was time to go (spend the rest of the day at John's). The girls went back to the hotel to get showered (but Heidi went home). We stopped at a bake sale of Mary's friend and then went to lunch at Zupas...one of our favorites! After a delicious lunch and a great long conversation we were all feeling a bit tired and decided to call it a weekend. Kev was still at John's house so I came home to an empty house. When they got home, Rylan was sleeping and Asher was so excited to see me! We briefly cuddled on the couch and enjoyed being back home together :)

I'm excited for next year, girls!! (and Mary Kaye will be back with us!!)

Puppy Love

Asher and his cousin-dog Opie

This boy sure does love dogs. Some days I'm tempted to go out and get our own dog just because I know Asher would love it so so much!