Zoo

We decided to get out of the house and went to the zoo with Mema. They had so many cute baby animals and it also happened to be the day that they debut the new baby elephant. She was so cute and hairy. I think that the elephants were the hit of the day (besides the big snake).

Here we are checking out a few of the other animals and taking a break to ride the carousel. Of course since the baby elephant was the main attraction of the day he had to ride on the baby elephant on the carousel.

We then took a break to grab some lunch and Mema bought him this spray bottle fan thing to keep cool. He pretty much thought that was the coolest thing ever.

And of course you can not leave the zoo with out taking some pictures at a few of their photo op places.

(Sorry for the random format . I have not blogged in a while and blogger changed things on me and I can not figure out how to get space between the pictures to write. anyone want to clue me in on how this works.)
update: I just gave up and went back to the old formatting.

daredevil

So this is what I woke up to this morning. We put the toys in timeout on the fridge when he is not behaving or when they get really loud and obnoxious and we just can't handle them anymore. Apparently he really wanted something. I can't believe that all of that actually held him, especially since one side of the box was broken and not glued together anymore. Pretty creative though, I guess.

Real Soccer Game

We got the opportunity to go watch Real Salt Lake play soccer with some of our friends and family. It was such a gorgeous day out and fun to be able to hang out with everyone.

Mathias thought it was fun and actually payed attention for about all of five minutes.

He then thought it was more fun to play with his jeep on his chair.

But then Dad got a bucket of popcorn and that grabbed his attention. I am pretty sure he ate the whole thing by himself. This kid LOVES popcorn!

airing the tires

When we go jeeping we let out some of the air in the tires, it helps you grip better and have a less bouncy ride. After we are done jeeping it is time to fill them back up. Mathias has been kinda fascinated with this. When I walked into the living room this is what I found. He had found Dev's phone charger and was airing up the tires on his jeep. I thought it was pretty creative.

Moab

This year we went to Moab in the middle of August with the Browers and the DeGooyers. Kevin did some work for a guy that owns a vacation home down there, and for trade the guy let us use it for the weekend. It was so nice to be able to stay in a house and not have to pay for it!

As par for the course, something had to go wrong on our trip. Kevin pulled our jeep down on a trailer and when we went to get it off it wouldn't start. It took a few hours and a lot of money to figure out the problem and get it started (dang electrical problems), but we solved the problem and didn't let it ruin our weekend. It seems like it is not a Moab trip unless someone has some jeep troubles. Luckily that is the only thing that went wrong on our trip.

(There are a million pictures as always, I can't seem to be able to narrow them down. If you want to see the pictures bigger just click on them!)

We went on quite a few trails in the short amount of time that we were there. We went on Cliffhanger, Poison Spider Mesa, Hell's Revenge, and Metal Masher. You Moab people will probably recognize the spots in a bunch of the photos.

Mathias LOVES jeeping. When we told him that we were turning around after "The Wedge"on Poison Spider Mesa, he lost it. He told us that he wanted to keep jeeping and never go home.

Here are just a few fun shots of my cute little family.

Here are a few random shots of all of our jeeps.

This was the first year that we took Mathias jeeping with us to Moab. Our pediatrician recommended not taking little ones till they are about two years old so that their necks are a bit stronger to handle all of the bouncing around. Last year we ended up not going. Mathias LOVED Moab and everything about it. Of course he loved jeeping but he also loved playing with his cars on the rocks and digging in the sand. I also think that it is so funny that this kid can fall asleep on the bouncy trails, not to mention that we don't have shocks so they are extra bouncy for us. Needless to say it was heaven for him and he still talks about it non-stop.

On every trail we would take a lunch break and let the kids run around for a while. As if doing some real jeeping was not enough, Dev and his brother Rick also have little radio-controlled buggies that they would play with on the rocks. I swear guys never do grow up.
It was so much fun to get away and to spend time with the family. Hopefully we can all get together and do it again. We probably won't be able to go next year because of the new little one who's due right when Easter Jeep Safari rolls into town.

Wheeler Farm

We went to Wheeler Farm up in Murray with Grandma Brower, Aunt Kelly, Aunt Melissa and a bunch of the Brower cousins. It was a pretty fun trip and as an added bonus it only cost us $2. It is free to get in but we payed for wagon rides, bird seed, and a token to milk a cow.

They also had a bunch of old tractors that the kids thought were pretty fun to play on.

They had a some animals to check out and a bunch of ducks to feed.

Here are the kids on the wagon ride .

Here is a group shot of all the grandkids that came.

(l-r Brinley holding Audrey, Holland, Camryn and Mathias)

Holland and Mathias playing in the tree house

Grandma and Mathias attempting to milk a cow. As you can see, Mathias wanted nothing to do with it.

hanging out with the cousins

I just love that we live so close to most of Mathias' cousins and that he gets to hang out with them all the time. I just thought that these were some cute pictures and just had to post them.

Pioneer weekend

We went jeeping up A.F. Canyon to Forest Lake with Kevin, Kelly, Holland, Payden, Brian, and Christina. It was such a beautiful day and Mathias was so excited to go jeeping. We are so excited that Kevin and Kelly have a jeep and can go with us now, Mathias loves it as well.

Once we got to Forest Lake it was not so much a lake anymore but a couple of big mud puddles. Kevin decided that he wanted to go through one. It was pretty fun and entertaining to watch and we were not even sure if he would make it through without getting stuck. He almost made it but did end up getting stuck so Dev had to pull him out. Kevin then decided he wanted to try it again but took a different, much easier route the rest of the times.

Brian was the next to get talked into doing it. He went the backwards way though and did not end up making it very far before having to get pulled out.

It took a lot longer to talk Devin AND Mathias into it. These boys do not like to get dirty, which is just weird to me. What boy does not like to play in the mud? They did end up doing it though and had a blast.
They, too, got stuck towards the end. Here they are waiting and getting towed out. Mathias did not know what to think about there being mud all over him and everything else. There is also a pick of Dev showing how dirty he got, which considering how much mud they went through is not really that much. The pic of Mathias crying is because we told him that we were done and were gonna head back down. This kid absolutely loves jeeping and never likes to hear that we are done .

This is what we saw on our drive down. Mathias quickly fell asleep. I have no idea how he can sleep with all the bouncing going on, mind you we have no shocks so it is extra bouncy. We also saw a momma dear and her baby. It was very cool to see so close. It was such a fun day and we are so happy that we have family and friends that enjoy this activity with us.

Pioneer Day

We spent our Pioneer Day with the fam. We started off at the Brower house and just hung out and played with their sugar gliders.

When it got dark we headed over to the DeGooyer's for fireworks. Kevin had a million of them and they were just as awesome as ever. We had better luck than last year and didn't get caught with the illegal ones by the fire department this time.

Not too happy

Mathias' new thing to do lately when he is not happy is to run to his room and cry and scream with his face pressed into his bed. I have no idea where he got this from and thought it was kinda random and kinda funny.

digging in the dirt

One of Mathias' all time favorite things to do is dig for "tatoe bugs" in Grandma Brower's front garden. He would probably do this all day if you would let him. His new thing to find is worms. He is such a cute little boy!

Basketball

Mathias was so excited to show me his creative little basketball hoop. He drug me to his room and said " look mom, I'm making baskets". He is such a cute kid. I love this age. It is definitely challenging but it is so fun to watch them learn and grow and see their creativity and imagination come out.

Rainbow

I went to grab something out of the car and saw this beautiful double rainbow. I went inside to tell Mathias and of course he wanted to see it. He thinks they are pretty cool and wanted his picture taken with it. (please excuse the dirty face and lack of shirt, he was eating dinner)

swimming machine

This is Mathias' first year with the little arm floaties on. The first time he wore them he was not too sure about them. He told me that he was kinda sinking. This surprised me because this kid is pretty much fearless. However, it didn't take him long to be ready to do it all on his own. He was hanging out on daddy's back going across the pool when he all of the sudden let go and was just floating there. Once I said anything though he hopped right back on Dev but only for a second. He can now swim/float across the pool and get to wherever he wants to go.

He also learned that he loved jumping into the pool if someone was there to catch him. He would start off by sitting down and scooting into the pool and then worked his way up into standing and jumping. You didn't really have to catch him either he just liked that you were near by. I love his new found independence in the pool.

Dev's note: he wanted me to catch him, but I'd get him to jump but not not bother catching him. Gotta teach him somehow!

Discovery park with an old friend

We went to Discovery Park the other day with one of my old friends from high school. We haven't seen each other in a while and it was a blast to be able to catch up while the kiddos ran around and got rid of some of their energy. We will definitely have to do this more often.

Take the time to smell the flowers

Anytime that we go on a walk or pass a flower anywhere, Mathias has to stop and smell them all. He just loves flowers and I just thought it was cute and had to share. Have a great day!

helping daddy fix the jeep

Devin's drive line exploded one day on his way home from work, on the freeway. Kelly had to go pick him up and bring him home, luckily he was only in AF. I couldn't pick him up because Mathias had just gone down for his nap. By the time he got home, Mathias was up and we had to take Dev back to his jeep to take the drive line off and follow him home.

As soon as we got the jeep home and told Mathias that is was broken, he would tell us that him and his tools will help daddy fix it. The only down side was that we had to wait a couple of days while the new drive line was being made. Mathias would ask every single day if it was time to fix the jeep. When the day finally came, Mathias waited patiently while Dev got everything ready to work on the jeep.

Mathias was so excited to work under the jeep with daddy. He dumped all of his tools out and tried to fix just about everything on the jeep. It was just too cute! I see this happening a lot in the coming years. I am so glad that they can spend this time together and that daddy can teach Mathias about fixing cars and jeeps.

Let the celebrations continue

The night after the Fourth we headed over to our friends Emberly and Jory's house for another BBQ and some more fireworks. It was so much fun and the kids love playing together. After we ate we waited for some more friends to show up and for it to get dark so we could light off some fireworks. We went out front to light off the fireworks and to get eaten alive. I can not believe how bad the mosquito's are out there. We had citronella candles and bug spray and I still managed to get eaten alive. I had over 30 bites on one arm alone. That is just insane! I even had 3/4 length sleeves on. I think one must have gotten trapped in my shirt and just went to town. Needless to say, the next couple of days were not very fun for me. We had a great time though, even with being eaten alive.

4th of July

This 4th of July was an interesting one. We were supposed to go to the DeGooyer's house but they ended up getting sick, poor things, so we all ended up going over to Scott and Mel's house for a little BBQ and fireworks. Just after dinner Mathias fell off of the picnic table and and gave himself a bloody nose and a huge fat lip. Poor guy . He did not let it ruin his night though, he is such a tough little guy. We thought we would be able to see PG's fireworks from their back yard but a tree ended up blocking our view so we packed everything up as fast we could and walked to the church to watch them.On the way over Mathias turfed it twice and scraped his knee, it really was not his night. We had fun watching the fireworks though and spending time with family and friends.

Oakley Rodeo

We had heard that Oakley puts on a pretty good rodeo so my mom got tickets for us and grandma. My sweet SIL Kelly watched crazy Mathias for us. When we got up there I was surprised at how small the arena was. Granted the little town has probably no more than 100 people in it, this rodeo sounded pretty big. We went on Wednesday so it would be less crowded, which it was, but I think it wasn't as entertaining as it would be on the Fourth. Either way it was nice to get out and not have to worry about chasing Mathias around, which does not happen that often. They also had fireworks which were pretty cool.

The bulls are my favorite part. These guys (the riders and the clowns) are nuts. Seriously! They did a thing with the one bull like they do in Spain with the red flag. What would posses you to want a bull to charge after you? I thought I got some pretty good pictures of it. I love the ones with the bull starring the guy down, the one of him pushing the clown in the barrel around and the one were he is getting ready to charge the clown in the barrel. Good times, crazy people.