Super Puppy!

Spencer woke up the other morning concerned that his puppy didn't have a cape so he couldn't be Super Puppy. We quickly took care of that and made a matching one. Spencer was thrilled and apparently Puppy was too because he was flying around the house the rest of the day.

Even super heroes need some cuddle time.

I love watching Spencer build things. It's fun seeing his imagination start to take over.

I also love walking in the room and finding Spencer or Gavin reading a book. Here's Gav flipping through his favorite. I tried to sneak up on him, but he heard me. Once he sees me he's done reading and wants to play.

Super Spencer!

I've been meaning to make Spencer a cape for a long time, but I was waiting until I found the perfect pattern, the perfect material and until I had lots of time to sit and sew. I figured that would never happen so I'd better just make it. I had some leftover felt from the house I made for Spencer here. I love using felt because you don't have to sew around the edges. I just cut out a cape size piece, sewed on a collar and then some velcro, then added a little 'S' logo. It only took me about 30 minutes total (plus another 30 minutes to figure out why my bobbin wasn't working). As I was finishing up Spencer said, "Mommy, I'm so, so excited for my Super Spencer cape!" He likes it just as much as he would if I'd spent hours on it.

Spencer really was in desperate need of a super hero cape. He loves to be a super hero, but didn't have the right gear.

Now he can run around and save all those innocent civilians in need of his help.

A super hero has to fly.

More Summer Fun!

Well, it's been an awesome summer so far. We've scanned some of our favorite as-of-yet-unposted pictures below. Enjoy!

A few of Brant and Spencer wrestling at Bishop's house.

When Brant was setting up Spencer's bed, he called Spencer in to help. Spencer took one look, then turned around and ran, saying he'd be right back...turns out he had to go get his hardhat :)

Unlike Spener, Gavin LOVES to eat. This time, he ate so long he just fell asleep in the chair...without letting go of his cookie.

We have tile throughout our house and only two spots having padding--the rug in the living room and the play mat in Spencer's room. Needless to say, Gavin's knees are often found in one of those two locations.

One of our favorite features of the house is how low the windows go, because Gavin loves to look through them and see what's going on outside. Here, Brant is attempting to somehow save our lawn from the drought this summer...a losing battle, unfortunately.

Brant's parents gave Gavin a swing for his birthday and he loves it!

This one is classic. Shelley and Paul and the kids came up for dinner from Houston the other day. After dinner, the kids wanted us to come outside with them, so Shelley ingeniously thought of a game that appeals to all. How it works is the kids try to run from tree to tree without getting hit by a ball thrown by the two fathers. We'd call it 'hit-a-kid', but something about that just doesn't sound like wholesome family entertainment (which it was--the kids LOVED it).

This was one of our wardrobe boxes that we shipped our clothes in. We were about to throw it away when someone had the bright idea to turn it into a 'spaceship!' Spencer played with it for a solid two weeks until it was just taking up too much space.

We're having an awesome summer here in Texas. Now, if it would only rain...

Houston Zoo

We spent a Saturday in Houston going to the zoo and hanging out with our friends, the Giffords, a few weeks ago. It was pretty hot, but we had a great time.

I love it when we get a picture of our whole family. We think we have pretty cute kids :)

It took Spencer a while to warm up to getting on the back of an elephant, but didn't want to get off once he realized how fun it was!

Spencer being silly. The grizzly bear, who for some reason wasn't used to 98 degree summer weather (?!?) was sleeping, so Spencer decided to imitate him.

The jelly fish were one of our favorite exhibits...especially since they couldn't get out and sting us like the ones in Hawaii.

Spencer and Brant in front of these MASSIVE cows. Seriously, they were at least 6 ft to the shoulder, with horns at least 8 feet across. Only in Texas :)

The kids loved this fun tunnel underneath the fish tank. We had to limit the fun to 5 times through.

Here is Gavin's second round of cupcakes (thank you Shelley!). He loved these ones just as much. We're glad to have good friends close by and hope they move to Houston for good next year!

Our Spencer

We're trying to wean Spencer off of naps (in the hope that he sleeps through the night with more consistency)...but now he just falls asleep on the couch. I guess he's like me and likes his sleep :)

Spencer was the spotlight child last week in primary so I asked him a few questions about himself.

Favorite food: Hulk Oatmeal (it's just the green package of instant oatmeal. Brant has pretended that it's 'Hulk' oatmeal in order to get Spencer to be more excited about oatmeal)

Favorite thing to do: Play with my duplos

Favorite place to go: To the temple and to someone's house

Favorite scripture story: Book of Mormon

Why do you like primary: Because it's a special place

Favorite outside thing to do: Frisbee

Favorite song: Praise to the Man

What do you want to be when you grow up: Fight bad guys

We sure love our Spencer!

Gavin turns 1!

Gavin had his first birthday back in June and we celebrated with some chocolate cupcakes.

Bring on the chocolate!

Spencer and I made sure to help Gavin eat all of his cupcakes.
He got a Little People's car garage which Spencer helped him open of course. There are a few things that need to be tested to see if a new toy is fun for a one year old...
How does it taste?
Is the box as much fun as the toy?

Gavin is such a sweet boy. He loves swings. He loves cuddles. My favorite is after he wakes up in the morning or after a nap and he just wants to cuddle. He puts his little head against my shoulder. After about 10 minutes he's good to go and wants to get down to play. He loves playing with his big brother. He loves eating. He loves making big messes. Just today he discovered the joy of unrolling the toilet paper roll. He loves to be outside. We sure love our Gavin!

Before and After

We absolutely love our new house. It's so fun to have so much space and it was fun picking out colors for each of the rooms. Since this house was a foreclosure and it had been vacant for a long time, there was a lot of work that needed to be done. The first job, which fell upon me, was killing dozens of spiders all over the house. I got out my trusty vacuum and went around every edge sucking up spiders and all kinds of other bugs that got trapped in their webs. It was lovely. I was glad that was over and then moved on to mopping. After seeing how dirty the floor was (I mopped the entire floor and a friend then used her steam mop over the entire floor-it was still dirty), I was really glad that we had all tile and we didn't have to try to clean a dirty carpet.

Brant did some major projects like replacing the water heater, putting in new door knobs and locks, and fixing the garage door opener. Pam and Rich (Brant's parents) then came to stay with us for a week and helped us paint and do lots of other projects. It would have taken us months of weekends to get done what they helped us with. Here are a few pictures:

Living Room before. At least there was a cute little boy in there.
Living Room after.
Kitchen before.
Kitchen after. This is my favorite room. I love that it's so open and I love that it's yellow. :) Notice the amazing backsplash behind the stove. Rich put that in and I think it makes a really big difference. Looks very professional.
Dining Area before.

Dining Area after. Brant put in the awesome ceiling fan which keeps the room a lot cooler and keeps us from bumping our heads every time we get up from the table.
Boy's bathroom before. I'm really not sure what look they were going for with the walls, but we figured anything would be an improvement.
Boy's bathroom after. Nice and bright! This picture makes it look more yellow than it really is...you'll have to come visit and see it in person :)

Playroom before. This room hadn't been painted before so I guess we could have left it white. We figured since we were painting everything else, what's one more room? Playroom after.

In our last house the toys were spread over 3 floors, but putting them all in one room made me realize how many we have (this doesn't show what's hiding in the closet!)

We still have to take 'afters' of a couple more rooms and the outside. Still working on a few things...

Thanks for your help Grandma Pam and Grandpa Rich!