Crab Crawling

Zoe has been crawling for a while now and ever since she started she has always done it a little than most kids. She crawls on her left knee and walks on her right foot. She can do it normally but she goes a lot faster her way. We think she looks like a crab or a spider and think its really funny, so we wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

Lake Powell Trip-cracks and canyons

Lake Powell is my favorite place in the world. Ive been going there with family since I was born. It's been a while since I've been there so I was excited to go. It was for my moms birthday. She goes every year for her birthday and we got to go this time. We usually stay on the beach and camp but we stayed on a house boat this time (my first time on a house boat) and it was a lot of fun. My mom and her husband, my grandparents, my sister and her family and my family were the ones who went. We took so many pictures so I'll show them in sections. I love the canyons and the steep cliffs it's amazing. The walls in the canyons make you feel small.





This crack in the cliff is called Connies Crack if you hike/climb up a ways you can go all the way through to the other end. We hiked up a little ways but I think the way has been block off by fallen rocks. Jase came with us and we went as far as we could go. Then we jumped off. Even Jase jumped (from the very bottom).

We found this little area in a canyon. At the end there was a hole up a ways in the cliff. We jumped up there from the boat and found a secluded pond that was growing fish. It was very beautiful up there

Crow Mountain Hike

Every year the Mendenhall family gets together for a hike up crow mt. The Mendenhalls are my Grandpa Sparks mothers family. As a kid I never got to go, I was always in California with my dad. This year I was here in Utah and my Grandma and Grandpa told me about it and I really wanted to go. We told Jase about it and told him he was going to get to hike up a mountain, he was very excited. That morning he didn't want to get out of bed. Daddy was trying to wake him up and he kept saying no until daddy reminded him we were going hiking. He jumped out of bed and said, "we go hike up mountain with grandma and grandpa". He was up and ready right after that. We were the only ones in my grandparents family that were planning to go so we drove up with them. Crow Mountain in up past Logan and Smithfield almost to Idaho. We met my grandpas extended family (his aunt is still alive she's 97) and lots of his cousins. There were cows Jase and another little boy were chasing around and trying to pet. We sat on some hay bales and a tractor pulled us up part of the way to the base of the mountain. From there we hiked around 1 mile up the mountain to the beautiful site of Cache Valley. Jase did so good he hiked all by himself (when I say that I mean we didn't have to carry him at all). Daddy carried Zoe up and I carried her down. We had a lot of fun. After the hike my grandparents took us around Cache Valley. We went into Idaho to Dayton (I think) and were going to look at a graveyard that some of my grandpas family is buried at. But it started raining and we had to hike to it. Theirs no road to goes to this graveyard its so small. They also took us to Pepperidge Farm and we got a ton of Goldfish for cheap. We than went to an ice cream store but I can't remember what its called. After that we went into Clarkston and looked around. Clarkston is where my grandparents grew up and its still sooo small. I love it there. Well I made some scrapbook pages for the trip and wanted to share them. Hope you like them.

Arizona trip

Zoe does this little nose sniff, thats what the face is all about.

Well we got to go to Arizona to visit Keldons brother and his family. We had SO MUCH FUN!!! It was a long drive, about 11 hours each way. It went a lot better that I expected. We left really early in the morning (4am) so the kids slept most of the drive. We got there and got to see family. We haven't been able to see there family very often. Before we moved to Florida they moved to Arizona and since then we've only seen them about 2-3 time in the past 3 years (sucks). Well Dough (Keldons brother) was receiving his endowment in the Mesa Temple. So we wanted to be there with him. Keldons sister and her family went and so did his parents. We all stayed in there home and had a so much fun together. All the kids had so much fun with their cousins. I was just so excited to go to the temple again. It has been so long because I still nurse Zoe and it's hard to leave her with anyone for very long. Well of course Zoe did great with the babysitters. I know it was the spirit calming my nerves so I felt comfortable leaving her and helping her when I was gone (she's kinda a mommies girl). I loved being in their for his endowment. The spirit was so strong and it was so great. On the way home we read scriptures and asked each other questions. We have always tried to have daily scripture study but its so hard, well since that trip we have done it almost every day. It has strengthened our family so much. I am so happy we were there for Doug and his family and am glad they wanted us to be there. Hopefully now that we live in Utah we'll get to see them a lot more. We get to go this weekend to the SLC temple to see their family sealed, I am so excited. My goal is to go to the temple at least once a month. I know it should be more than that but with kids its hard. We'll see how it goes.

Sad sleeping

So I've been trying to get Zoe to go to sleep on her own. I've gotten her into a bad habit of either feeding her to sleep or rocking her to sleep. Then she would wake up in the night one or two times to eat and go back to sleep. So when I took her into her 9mo check up I told the Dr. about it. He is my all time favorite Dr. and is great about giving advise. He doesn't give Doctorly advise he gives advice from his experience as a dad. Well he told me that she is perfectly fine not to eat at night, it's just that she's waking up and thats the only way she knows how to put herself back to sleep. So Ive started to let her cry herself to seep at nap time and at night. We've gotten into a routine where she takes a bath, eats then goes to sleep. We have been doing this for about two weeks now and it's gotten a lot better but she still cries herself to sleep and when we go in to check on her after she's stopped crying, the picture above is the result. She will stand up crying then when she starts getting tiered she curls up into a ball on her tummy crying until she falls asleep. Sometimes she's all the way on her tummy and sometimes her feet our out in front of her. I always feel so bad when I see her in this position. But she has been seeping through the night now, and putting herself to sleep doesn't take near as long. The joys of being a parent. It's so hard to listen to your baby cry, but I know its the best for her.

Las Vegas Trip

Well we took a trip to Las Vegas with the kids. I wish I could say it was for fun but it wasn't. Keldon went to a conference that had a lot of different airlines there. He put in his resume to different airlines and talked to them, as well as finding out about their airline. He had a lot more fun than he thought he was going to, I was really glad.
We started driving just when we woke up and the kids did really good. It took about 7-8 hours to get there, and they did so much better than I thought they were going to do. We stayed at Excalibur (the castle hotel) and Jase thought that was amazing. We didn't really do too much. We went to buffets to eat, me and the kids went swimming when Keldon was at the conference, and then we walked around.
Keldon got done with the conference early so we walked down the strip. Wow its a lot longer than I remember. We didn't even get half way when we were all finished and wanted to leave. We did stop at the M&M store. It was pretty cool Jase liked it. Other that that we really didn't do too much. I wish I would have taken more pictures but I didn't I hope you like them.

Jase in front of the M&M race car

This was on the way home. When we went swimming at the hotel pool I got Jase a tube to swim with. The whole time I stayed where it was shallow with Zoe and Jase would get into his tube and go in the deep end and float. He loved that thing.

This is Jase at the M&M factory again, and Dad and Zoe there too (below).

Jase and Zoe both loved the buffets. They loved the food.

As much fun as the trip was we were glad to get home. Although once we got home Zoe started throwing up, then Jase than me. It was not much fun. I don't know if it was something we ate but thats what I'm guessing it was. I just felt blessed that I didn't start until both my kids were done and feeling better.