Scales and Tails!

One of the fun activities we did for Jake's birthday was a night out on the town with Dan and I. Derek got to hang out with Grandma, Grandpa and Heather. We took him out to eat and then to a show by Scales and Tails. It is a traveling show based out of Salt Lake that does educational hands-on shows about reptiles. They where up in Utah County this week doing a show on pythons. Jacob loved it! He takes after me when it comes to his admiration for snakes. I couldn't get him to look at me long enough to get a good picture. He was too busy playing and petting the snakes. Dan even got into the spirit! When the instructor asked for some parent volunteers, Dan helped carry out a 16 foot python! Sadly I didn't get a picture of this monumental moment (bad angle) but that just means we will have to go again. Instead of trying to help hold up the snake, Jacob opted to just pet the snake.
They had many variates of pythons, from the standard looking Ball Pythons to the Blood Pythons. They also had a Reticulated Python, which was my favorite. Jacob loved holding the small Ball Pythons. It made me miss Squeezer, which made me think about Snakey and all our other snake pets! Even though he was one of the youngest ones there, he was so intrigued and just soaked up everything the snake tamer said. Two thumbs up for Scales and Tails! Thank you Mom and Dad for helping us with Derek so we could go do this with Jake!

The beginning of Fall and Jacob's Birthday Week

I love fall! The weather is great, the seasonal food is tasty, and there is so much fun stuff to do around town! Because it is Jacob's birthday week we have had fun filled days, starting with this past Monday. We went to Wheeler Farms, which was all decked out in halloween festivities. Because it was a Monday morning and overcast, we where basically the only people there. Which was great! Jacob had fun feeding the geese while Derek slept. Jacob loves tractors and when he saw all the antique tractors, all he wanted to do is ride one. We told him they where old and that we should go find some other animals.
The ducks where fearless! We actually had to scare them away on several occasions. We didn't want them to scare Jacob by taking the food out of his hands.
They had a cute little hey maze. It was only four feet tall, great for kids annoying for parents.
I took Jacob to the Farm at Thanksgiving point also, where they had a craft activity for the kids. He loves painting and pumpkins, so he was a happy guy. Jacob loves animals, it is amazing that he doesn't get sick of looking at cows.

Derek on the move!

Derek is super cute! He look so sweet and smiley, I almost forget what he is now capable of.....

Derek is now mobile..... scratch that... he is a scooting, climbing, slobbering terror. I turn around for five minutes and he has made it up the stairs and into my bedroom. He wants to be like Jacob SO bad that he will do whatever he can to do what he does.The other day Jacob wanted some crackers, nothing out of the ordinary, He said he could get them ( Jacob is becoming Mr. Independent ). It only took me a minute of having a quiet household to realize something was up. I had crackers all over the floor. Derek was in the middle of the mess covered in crumbs and slobber, and like always he was smiling.
Here he is trying to play with Jake's car, the only problem is that when he tries to climb in, the car starts to roll away.... causing him distress.

Cabin Trip 2010

I know it has been a long time coming, but here are the pictures from our wonderful trip to the cabin! We went up along with Heather and Jim. It was crazy fun and surprizingly relaxing. Jacob loved playing outside and being Heather's little shadow. Derek had mixed feelings about the whole thing, mostly because I didn't let him eat sticks and dirt.
Jacob and Derek are starting to become great friends, because of Derek's new found mobility, I have realized how much he loves being around Jake.
Heather was are fire builder, I think she built every fire we had up there. She is the master of the log cabin and the tepee style fires.

The food was amazingly tasty! I don't know why, but everything tastes better when you are camping. You will never have a better pancake than the ones at the cabin, and I have no idea why that is.
Jacob loved the blueberry pancakes, he even ate 1/2 a piece of bacon. I lied and told him it was a chip.
As you can see, Heather is thoroughly enjoying her bacon smoke facial!
We decided to go on a group walk to look for fossils. It was a lot of fun, we found a lot of trilobite fossils ( hope I remember my geology class lecture correctly ) . Jacob had fun looking for rocks and communicating with the cows.
We took a few four-wheeling rides. Jacob loved it! I don;t know how you could enjoy riding on a four wheeler when it is only going as fast as a turtle( because that is the speed I would go when he was on it with me) but he absolutely loved it.

Jacob loved just sitting on the broken four wheeler, pretending to drive, it was super cute to watch, and kept him away from the ongoing horseshoe tournament.
Here we are watching the thrilling game of horseshoes. as you can see we are all watching intensely! Derek spent most of his time in the backpack and in the cabin, oh I love the age of crawling. Thanks to our Grandpa who let us go up and enjoy the cabin!

Derek and Kate

Derek has been teething ( his third tooth) and sometimes nothing I do will make him happy. But I found a solution to his misery, he adores Kate! I will let Kate in, and just put Derek in the exo-saucer. He will sit there for over a half hour just squealing and watching Kate sit on her pillow. If Derek is not in the exo-saucer, he makes a b-line straight for Kate. As seen in these pictures. Kate is scared of Derek, I think she knows that any wrong move and Dan or I will let her have it. She just stays very still and moves extremely slowly ( to get away) when Derek starts getting close.

Marshmallows!

My parents have the best fire pit ever! I took the kids over a bit ago and we roasted marshmallows.


Jacob loved eating the marshmallows!

Day at the farm

Jacob loves animals! We go to the farm a lot, but last week we where able to go with my friend Jocelyn and her two kids. Mirra and Jake are the same age, it is so cute to see them interact. We got some corn to feed the animals , Jacob wasn't scared of the cow at all!

That is right, Jacob is riding a horse! He was so exited, and happy. He reminded me of my cousin Brandon, he would try so hard not to smile!

After riding the small horse we went over and looked at the large Clydesdale horse. Jacob kept saying that he wanted to ride the big daddy horse, I had to explain that kids can't rid the daddy Clydesdale. Now he thinks that Dan gets to ride the giant horse.