Kash A.K.A The HULK

As most of you know my little Kashy man is quite large! He really isn't fat at all, he is just BIG. And extremely STRONG. He is also fearless, especially when it comes to the swimming pool. I am positive he will be swimming before Ella! He jumps into the pool and goes under and thinks its hilarious. He purposely jumps AWAY from you so you can't catch him. Matt was teaching him to hold onto the side and he quickly figured out how to "walk" along the edge with his hands. Matt told him to do "chin ups" so as they went Matt would say, "chin up" and Kash would say "up up" and pop out of the pool. They did this around the entire pool. I thought for sure Kash's little muscles were going to be sore!

My baby is 2!

Kash is officially 2 years old! Most people look at him and assume he is 4, so I'm glad I can at least say he is 2 now! He didn't really know what was going on with the whole birthday thing, but he still had a good time. I have actually been dreading this birthday....I just can't get over the fact that my baby boy is 2. Weird. But it was a really fun day and he is such a cute kid.

See what I mean? Does he not look like a kindergartner?? haha i love it. I actually took him to the doctor today and he is in the 99th percentile in everything!

He would get so mad once he got all of the wrapping paper off and the toy was still out of reach in the package! Adam is observing the process...but notice he is clutching the Thomas the Train dvd? He did not want to go home without it!

Kash is obsessed with cars, so that is what he got a lot of. The highlight of the party was this little race track. Kash, Ella, and Adam played with it all night.

Here is the cake that I made at the last minute.

Ella and I spent the majority of the time fighting over who got to hold baby Emily.

Happy Birthday Kash! We love you buddy.

Bedtime Snack

Ella insisted they eat their yogurt with straws.....so they did. It was great because there was no mess and they slurped up every last drop!

Emily's Blessing

My newest niece! Emily was born on July 28th and is the sweetest thing. I canNOT wait to watch her grow up to see how she compares to her crazy older brother who is always getting into trouble!

This picture is taken right outside of Mike and Gina's church which is across the street from the temple.

She was lucky to have her Aunt Tiffany make her beautiful dress.....her less talented Aunt Lindsay will more likely make her cookies!

Hansen Family Reunion

The Hansen Reunion was over Labor Day weekend and the McLaws family was in charge. We were a little worried because we were late with the planning and didn't know who was going to be able to come. But it ended up being really fun and we had a pretty good turn out! We started out with lunch at Vernon Worthen Park. We ate, the kids played, and we even had a water balloon fight that ended with Matt driving home soaking wet! Every kid there decided to gang up on him, it was pretty funny.

We headed our separate ways for nap time and dinner preperation and then we met up at Snow Canyon and had dutch oven at the Sand Dunes.

From the sand dunes we went over to Sand Hollow which we rented out so it was just the Hansen Family. It was so much fun. It was great because there was an area for the older kids (and husbands) to do tricks off of the diving boards, then a splash pad area for the little kids.

And the big slide was fun for everyone! Kash could not get enough of the slide and kept trying to go on it by himself. Ella on the other hand only went after Matt bribed her with the promise that if she went with him he would buy her a new toy!

As we were leaving the pool we remembered that we never ate the dessert. No one wanted to miss out on peach cobbler from the dutch oven so we had ourselves a tailgate party right there in the parking lot! It was a perfect ending and I love the last picture of the kids sitting on the curb!

Girls Night Results

The wives of the boys that attend "Warcraft Wednesdays" have decided to be productive while our husbands are busy being unproductive! Every Wednesday we are going to have a cooking night/recipe exchange. We all take turns making a main dish/side/dessert/etc. We all get in the kitchen and cook with each other and then get to have dinner together. For the first week we made it easy and we all made a dessert. I had made a new lasagna recipe for my own family so they all tried that out.....I decided that counts for my main dish! I'm off the hook for a few weeks :) But next week we will be more adventurous and try out a full on meal!

Here is Mindy's Key Lime Pie. It was so so good! The crust was made of pretzels which I was skeptical about but then I couldn't get enough of it.

It was hard to get a good picture of Jen's, but it was a 12 layer jello dish. Ella was so happy helping Jen mix all of the colors! I think this would be fun to make for a birthday or something.

Audrey had some drama with her banana bread but it turned out really yummy!

I had to make something chocolate so I tried out a new recipe called Chocolate Peanut Butter Mallow bars. Super rich!

Is this normal?

Ella's latest thing is "playing dead." I have NO idea where she got this from! She will be playing and all of a sudden she stops, falls down, closes her eyes and sticks her tongue out. She says, "Mom, help me I'm dead!" She continues to be "dead" until I rush over and perform CPR. Yeah, I do the chest compressions and everything. We go all out at my house to save lives! It is the strangest thing and now she has Kash doing it!

Here is Kash wanting to get in on the drama.

Then she wanted mommy to "die." Wow this sounds pretty twisted....;)

After that she wasn't liking all of the "dead" faces and wanted some happy faces!

Is this weird or what??

Slip 'n Slide!

I bought a slip 'n slide at the beginning of the summer and we finally tried it out. It wasn't a very impressive one, but the kids thought it was great. We did it at my grandparent's house and their older cousin Braden was really cute helping them out. Here are Kash and Ella posing for the camera:

Kash was obsessed with the hose and drank about a gallon of water.

When he got bored of drinking he sprayed his sister....

After a quick bath and pj's on, we had Aunt Robin's famous spaghetti! Summer nights are the best!

Warcraft Wednesdays

Every Wednesday night, the boys get together and play Warcraft/Starcraft/whatever/total geeky computer games. I'm not going to lie, I HATE it. I think its healthy for us as spouses to get out of the house, and have our "friend" time. But computer games? They literally do NOT even SPEAK to each other. I'm not kidding. You walk into the house and it is total silence. For some reason I think I would feel a lot better about it if they were doing something else. Anything else. Go play basketball, go on a bike ride, go to dinner. Ugggg I am trying to have a better attitude about this and the only thing I can think of is to have a weekly GIRLS NIGHT!! So if any of you St. George girls want to get together you just let me know! :) We should do something really fun like everyone bring their laptop and we can blog! ;)
This picture is very embarrassing, I know. Do you see the concentration on these faces? Oh my.

Sand Dunes

Corinne watched Ella and Kash for us for a few hours so she decided to take them to the sand dunes. I don't know why we have never taken them before but they absolutely loved it. She said they were so funny, especially Ella who had the map and was explaining where they needed to go! I'm glad I have other people to find fun things for my kids to do because I sure have a hard time!

Giving the directions:

I think Kash spotted his shadow.

I'm sure playing in the sand reminded them of the beach. Ella asks me at least once a day when we are going back.

Kash would just start walking off into the desert! I don't know what I'm going to do with him.

Little footprints.

Someone needs to do a post with a list of all of the fun things to do with kids in St. George. Maybe that would help me out! I can't even think to take them to the sand dunes and they are pretty much in my back yard!

Gourmet Glausers

Brad and Kendall invited us over for dinner and can I just say, it was AMAZING! I had no idea they were such good cooks, I was so impressed...... and depressed that I have never made anything that comes close to this! I could not believe how much effort they put into this meal, but I was so glad they did! ;) I didn't even take any pictures of actual people (except for one of the kids) because I was too obsessed with the yummy food!

Here is the main course:

The salad:

I paused long enough to take this picture of my food before I devoured it. Notice the soup? It was seriously the best soup I have ever had! I have since dreamed about it.

The kids at their table. Landon was asleep so he is missing but the four of them play so cute together.

And this is Ella playing in the backyard, I think she was surprised how fast she could go!

Later we had this cake for dessert. Isn't it pretty?

I know some of you might find it odd that I dedicated a post to food, but it is very important to me! Thanks for the best dinner ever Glausers!

Beach House 2009

I have been such a bad blogger lately. I have been feeling like I am over the whole blogging thing! I am going to do my best to keep it up though.
Every year the Craft Family goes to San Diego and stays for a week at the beach. It is always so much fun and this year was especially great! My kids LOVED it. Last year Kash was crawling and eating sand like crazy so this year was a lot better. We also had a first timer.....Whitney's husband Ryan. Matt was glad to have him there to play tennis and paddle ball with! Ella is constantly asking when we are going back to the beach and gets really excited when I tell her we are going to go again next year. I'm pretty sure she doesn't realize how long a year is! I guess we are going to have to start taking them to the beach seeing that we are in California visiting my parents a lot. I took about 500 pictures (embarrassing, I know) so here are a ton!