The Cow Parade

Anna's dance class is in American Fork.  American Fork has its special summer celebration thing, they call it Steel Days.  For Steel Days there is a parade and they invite all local businesses to participate.  Well it so happens that the Dance Conservatory people worked with the Chick-fil-a a people (all which happen to live in our ward) and they worked out that the little girls dance class could ride in the Chick-fil-a cows in the parade.  (The rest of the dance company would ride in a truck or in a trailer or walk.  I asked Anna if she wanted to ride in the cows in the parade.  The answer was an ABSOLUTELY YES MOM!!!  Anna was so excited to be in the Cow Parade.  

We have never done anything like this, but we knew we were headed in the right direction when we saw a whole bunch of "cows" heading down the road.

Anna was very excited to ride in a cow with her friend Avery.

The girls were good sports.  I guess they let all the Baby Contest winners ride in the cows too, so the little girls had to cram in two girls for each cow.  They were happy to have suckers before the parade started.

The police motorcycles were pretty cool to watch.

Finally the long line of cows joined the parade.

The girls had a great time!

Bridget and Gentry had a good time in their cow too. 

Bridget got bored and found out that she could stick her flag through the hole in the cow.  Look close and you can see her flag.

Nicholas had a great time watching the parade with Devin.

We were going slow enough, that we let Nicholas jump in and have a ride in the cows.  He totally fits in with all the Baby Contest winners.

We were glad that we were at the beginning of the parade.  The girls were really hot by the time we were done.  They had a blast.  I didn't mind riding in the cow either.  

June Mobile Moments 2012

June was a fantastic month at the Baldwin house.

Anna and  Nicholas have fallen in love with the sandbox again.  I have found it is a great way to enjoy our morning shade in the back yard and to have some time to work on my Primary lesson.

Things started growing in our garden.

Devin was great to teach Anna some of the finer points of gardening.

Anna and Nicholas were excited when they found their towels in a load of laundry.

One of Nicholas's favorite things to do is look through all the Junk Mail.  He is so careful looking through all the adds.

Anna finally got a doll.  She named her Miss Maddie (after her dance teacher).

Nicholas got his first lawn mower.  He loves pushing it around and using the gas can to fill it up.  Anna has told me multiple times that we should have bought her a lawn mower and not a doll.  :)

I finished up all my blocks for my Saturday Sampler quilt class.

We have officially entered Kool-Aid season.

Don't be too shocked, we finally painted our bedroom and got rid of the nasty pillar marks on the wall.

Our little rose bush is doing really well.  It has bloomed several times this year.

Anna had a busy fun day.  We sat down to read...ok I fell asleep while reading to Anna and I woke up and look who fell asleep too.

We discovered that Nicholas is a little possessive when it come to crayons.  "MINE!!!!" I sure hope he shares the crayons in nursery.

Nicholas is quite the handy man.  He is really knows how to use tools.

Anna had a play-day with Liz.  They had quite the doll party.

After five and half years of marriage... we finally bought a bed frame for our bed.  Look close, no nasty pillar marks on the wall.

I should probably fold my towels up where my kids can't get to them, but I usually just dump the load on the floor and fold them.  Anna thought my clean towels made a nice pillow and a great spot to do some reading.

Anna liked my Ragnar team shirt.

Anna also had fun trying on my reflective vest and head lamp for my night run of Ragnar.

When Nicholas is sleeping in the afternoon Anna and I do "school" stuff.  She loves playing "word card" games.  I am excited that she knows almost all the Kindergarten Sight Words (I think we have four left to learn.)

Devin got a new toy for Father's Day.  Toy / Shop Vacuum

Anna and Nicholas love playing in boxes.  Anna thought it was funny to help Nicholas get into the box and then give him lots of toys to play with in the box.

Nicholas and Anna when to our neighbor Avery's birthday party.  Nicholas enjoyed his first Ring Pop. Can you guess what color it was?

We learned that frogs like to play Candy Land too.

We had a good laugh one day when we discovered that Nicholas can fit into Anna's Red Riding Hood costume from when she was one.

I have been working hard trying to get my quilt together.  I really want to get this one finished before Halloween.

We joined the masses who own the classic plastic pool.  We will see how this one lasts.  For now,  Anna loves her GREEN pool.

Nicholas and Radek are funny boys.  They both have lawn mower toys, but they both prefer to play with the other boy's toy.  It works out well.   I also laugh at the helmets in the picture.  Safety First!

Anna is really starting to play well by herself.  It is weird that she is good for hours just playing with toys by herself...nice, but weird.

Nicholas has is little ways of letting us know it is time for a hair cut.  When he asks for flowers in his hair and when they clip easily into his hair, I know it is time!

While eating lunch one day, Anna makes this face and says, "Look Mommy, I am David A. Bednar!"

More Kool-Aid, more happy children.  Good thing I bought a ton of it three years ago for ten cents a pack.  I don't think we will run out this year.

Sometimes I have to remind Anna and Nicholas that they are riding bikes and not driving bumper cars.

Radek and Nicholas love to climb on the porch railings.

One morning Anna wanted to play "church."  Here she is giving the talk.

We have a very important line marked on the side of our pantry door.  It is a 40" mark.  Why?  When you are 40" tall you can ride most of the rides at Disneyland.  We measure Anna every once and a while.  We thought it would be interesting to see if she would be 40" with her snow boots on.  No luck, she is still too short poor girl.

But she looks extremely styling in her PJs and snow boots.

 And that was June 2012!

I Love You Through and Through

My good friend Jessica gave us a book called "I Love You Through and Through" when Anna was born.  Anna loved the book, but Nicholas LOVES this book.  He is quite the little parrot and he is pretty good at remembering the words to his favorite books.  Enjoy his reading of "I Love You Through and Through."

4th of July 2012

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  We start off every year by waking up ridiculously early so we can run the Freedom Festival 1 mile fun run as a family.  We decided several years ago that the Freedom Festival race is for our kids.  We run races all year, but this one is all about our kids.  Anna was so excited to run really fast.  She had even gone for some practice runs before the day of the race.  She was "training" for her big race.  It is too bad that for some reason they didn't make the youth extra small size shirts this year.  Their shirts were so huge on them.  They still looked cute all ready to run.

Anna was pumped, ready to run with Devin.  I was a little nervous to see how Nicholas would handle the chaos.  The first time Anna ran, she tripped and cried for the first quarter mile.  The race started and Anna and Devin took off.  She really wanted to win a trophy like she did last year.  Nicholas was happy as a clam.  Everyone was running, so he ran too.  I should have taken my camera with me because he was grinning ear to ear and running as fast as his little legs could go.  I did pick him up at one point because he was running the wrong way.  He loved running down the finish line stretch.  I was so proud of him.  He "ran" the mile in 22:31 and he didn't cry at all.
Anna did awesome!!! She ran it in 13:16 which was 3 minutes faster than her time last year.  And...

Anna took 2nd place in her age division.  Way to go!!!  I love how excited Nicholas was for his sister.
Anna loves her new trophy.

The kids loved all the stuff they got at the end of the race.

 They were smart and made kid size water bottles.

As we were running I told Nicholas that he could have a banana when we finished the race.  He kept saying, "tunnel, banana"  which means if he runs through the finish line, which looks like a tunnel, he would get a banana.  He still will say, "tunnel, banana" when he sees a banana.
I am so glad that his is a fun tradition that our whole family can participate in.  Anna and Nicholas had the time of their life!

And I think we got a pretty good family picture too!

Not to mention this picture which is priceless!

The rest of the day was tons of fun.  So much fun that I forgot to take pictures. We stopped by my mom's house for breakfast.  Then went home and took naps so we could survive the rest of the day.  Then we went up to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Wendy's house for the Henderson BBQ.  Anna and Nicholas loved swimming in the pool.  Anna was crazy with her new life jacket.  She was jumping off the diving board and "swimming" all over the pool.  Nicholas had a great time too and loved jumping off the edge into the pool.  Then we went to watch the fireworks.  Both kids did great!  And both kids crashed on the way home.  I am glad that we decided to change them into their PJs right before the fireworks.  As soon as the fireworks were done we put them in the car and they were both gone!  Anna even slept in until 9:30am the next morning which is completely unheard of at our house.
It was a great day!  Happy 4th of July!