Slip.n.slide

Something we have been enjoying a LOT lately is our giant 250 foot downhill slip n' slide. We have been setting it up and inviting people to come slide with us and so far we've done it 4 times in one week. Crazy, I know and it's a lot of work. But we have been having SO much fun...until the monsoon hit of course. Doesn't bother me though, I love monsoon season.
Here is Ryder running down the hill next to the slide. I have been too scared to let him go down by himself but on Monday he snuck on and went down just fine. It was so cute!
I like to take a few turns myself!
Here I'm trying to encourage my nephew Peyton to go down the slide.
When he finally did, someone ran into him at the bottom and hurt him so he wouldn't go down again. Sad times.
Brooke and Leilani
Brady, Bobby, Ryan, and some other dude I don't know.
And here is part of the gang that showed up last Saturday night. It was a HUGE party and we had fun. Not sure when we will be doing it again considering how windy it has been but if anyone wants to join let me know!

My first 5k

Here are Sara and I before running our first 5k in the APR Summer Series.


Getting our stretch on.
Here we are at the starting line. This is serious business for the guy in front of us.
Where is Sara?

Oh, there she is!
Getting ready to cross the finish line. The old dude in the blue shorts had SERIOUS "swass" going on and he smelled terrible. He power-walked the whole thing and beat us!! Sad.
And here we are eating bagels to replenish our bodies. We were pretty dang proud of ourselves. We placed 595 and 596 with a time of 37:30, which is WAY better than we thought we would do. We are registered for a 10k on Thanksgiving Day, but we might need to do ONE more 5k before then. Wish us luck!

S.O.S please someone help me!

It's been a little over a month now that I quit my day job and things started to get real boring for Ryder around here so last week I typed up a schedule. Everyday we get out and do SOMETHING.

Monday is grocery shopping
Tuesday is playing at the mall
Wednesday is play-date day with anyone who wants to play with us
Thursday is story time at Barnes & Noble
Friday is Hobby Lobby trip to get simple crafts to make

Now this schedule is extensive let me tell you. I typed out what we will be doing from 8 - 8:30am and from 8:30 - 9am and so on until it's bedtime. Am I crazy? Maybe. I just know that if I don't have a schedule to follow I'll get off track and spend too much time in front of the T.V. or computer and Ryder hates when I do that. I don't blame him. For the time we are at home our activities include:

reading/learning time (where are eyes, nose, mouth, ears...counting to 3...ABC's)
music/dancing time where we just listen to music and DANCE or Ryder bangs pots with spoons
building with legos
swimming
watching sign language videos
independent play

I just always wonder if I'm teaching him enough! I like to research things on the internet and find out what he should know by now and I read that he should be able to speak all these words he can't say and that he should be able to put words together and form partial sentences. Well folks...I know he ain't stupid but he can't do that! I talk to him all day long and just hope that he learns from me but maybe it's not good enough. Ryder is only 17 months old so maybe I'm expecting too much from him? I guess what I'm looking for is ideas of ways I can teach him or things I should be teaching him that I'm not. I look up activities all the time on the internet that are appropriate for his age but a lot of them seem kind of dumb or too hard. ANY advice is helpful.

Fourth of July 2009

Here is our little family up at my parents' cabin in Heber for the 4th of July.
Ryder (diaper butt) climbing on the porch rails with his cousin Peyton.
Bullying Peyton...
In trouble for bullying Peyton...
Jon took Ryder and the cousins on lots of quad rides. Every time the quad starts up Ryder gets so excited he starts shaking and then if you don't let him on right away he starts crying because he thinks his daddy is going to take off without him.
My parents installed a zip line going down the hill of their property and they attached a car seat so all the little ones could safely participate. Ryder was making us laugh so hard. He kept a super straight face the whole time even when he was going fast down the zip line it was poker face all the way.
I think he is emotionally unattached.
We took all the kids to a little carnival that was nearby and all of the people thought these boys in the wagon were so cute. It's so true!

We took Ryder out to the porch to see fireworks before putting him to bed and he seemed to like it. The "boom" noise would echo so loudly. I swear the mountains amplify the sound. It was pretty cool.

Runnin Round in Daddy's Socks

A couple more things I've been working on

Today my sister-in-law Keira is being induced to have her 3rd baby boy. I am SO excited. I wanted to make her a onesie so this is what I did. Another favorite store of mine...Hobby Lobby! Got this onesie there and then hand-stitched a felt electric guitar on the front.
Here's a closer shot. I also stitched beads on the guitar as the "tuners" for some embellishment. I've never tried doing anything like this so I'm pretty proud of myself ;)
I got this whole gift idea from my sister because someone did the same thing for her when she had her son Peyton. The onesie goes inside this little paint can. Keira chose black, white, and green for her baby's nursery so I bought matching scrapbook paper and mod podged it to this paint can. She is naming her son Beck William Poulsen. I couldn't fit all of that on the front so I just chose "Beck."
When I asked Jon to pick me up a small paint can at Lowe's he came back with 3 different cans because he wasn't sure what size I would want. I needed to make use of this one so I used the extra scrapbook paper from Keira's gift, mod podged it to the can, added some ribbon and a bow, then went to the 99 cent store and got white flowers. I ended up not buying enough so my mom gave me a small wreath that I thought matched well. That's what is sticking out from underneath the flowers.
Last but not least, my mom wanted me to make a decoration for her cabin. One of the guest rooms is done in red, gold, and brown. She picked a saying and wanted me to decorate wood letters to match. I don't know that they will match perfectly but I got as close as I could with the scrapbook paper that was offered at Hobby Lobby. As I've said before, the crafts do not look as good in pictures.

And that's what I've been doing with my time folks! Hopefully I come up with more ideas because I kind of feel like I'm doing the same things over and over. Any suggestions?