Memorial Day Weekend Day Two!

Monday was Memorial day and Chase's Birthday so we decided to head to the zoo to CELEBRATE! Are we CRAZY? Probably but the kids had a blast even though it was rainy and cold. The boys enjoyed looking at the animals and telling everyone what sounds they make. We unpacked the strollers from the cars and found that they stayed empty most of the time. After the zoo we headed to a Church Pavilion in Kaysville for Mark and Erika's wedding BBQ. Pictures of the wedding will come soon! (Scroll down to see Memorial Day Weekend Day one!)

Carter and dad with the giraffes

Jen and Todd

Kayla all bundled up

Two monkeys!

Grandma and Grandpa with the two boys!

Carter and Chase with the zebras (a crowd favorite)!

Carter "measuring up" to a gorilla!

Carter looking mighty handsome in his new hat from Grandma Lloyd!

Rylee looking stylish in her new sunglasses and hat from Grandma Lloyd!

Memorial Day Weekend Day one

It was a CRAZY few days in our family and I thought I 'd share the craziness with you. It all started Sunday! Jen and Todd and their kids Chase and Kayla are visiting for Erika's wedding and decided to bless Kayla while they were here. The kids decided to play in grandpa and grandma's yard and we took the opportunity to take pictures of all the cousins!


My new adorable neice Kayla!

My super cute nephew Chase!

Carter and Rylee playing with soccer balls!














Rylee just hanging out being so cute!

Chef Carter!

Ryan and I were in the other room with Rylee when suddenly things got very quiet (as they always do when Carter is up to something) so we went to investigate! We found our little "chef" making, in his words, "macaroni and cheese!" It's pretty funny what kids observe us adults doing and then attempt it themselves!
This apparently is the "pan" cooking the noodles on the stove!

This is him with his oven mitt (or in his exact words, his "glub")

He had to take the "pan" down to actually stir it and then he would put it back on the stove.

PS Just so you know, we make it a general rule NOT to encourage our children to play with the stove, we just couldn't resist taking pictures of this classic Carter moment!!

I've Been Tagged!!!

What you're suppose to do.....delete my answers and type in your own. Don't forget to tag four people.
A)Four places I go over and over:
1. Costco
2. Park
3. Walmart
4. Macey's
B)Four people who email me the most:
1. Wendi
2. Lori
3. Emily
4. Courtney
C)Four of my favorite foods:
1. Chocolate Chip Cookies
2. Spaghetti
3. Top Sirloin from Tucanos
4. Chicken Alfredo Pizza from the Pizza Factory
D)Four Places in which I would rather be right now:
1. Disneyland
2. Bed
3. Shopping with unlimited funds
4. Cruise in the Bahamas with Ry and no children (although I love them dearly)
E)Four people I'm tagging:
1. Jenni
2. Janette
3. Sharon
4. Nichole
F)Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. A League of Their Own
2. All Harry Potter movies (mostly #5)
3. Pearl Harbor
4. Sleeping Beauty

GRADUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost the whole Lloyd family (missing: Jen, Todd, Chase, Kayla, and Mark)

The Graduate with mom and dad

Daddy and Carter

Daddy and Rylee

Me and my FANTASTIC graduate!

Our little family!

All of us who were there!

Carter being fascinated by daddy's "silly" hat!

View from the bleachers!

YEAH!!! Ryan graduated last Friday!!!!! I am so proud of him and all of his accomplishments. He has sacrificed so much for this and we are EXCITED to be moving on to the next phase of our lives!! He will be starting to look for a job soon where he will be using his degree which is in Digital Media (graphics design, web page design, etc.). He is so great!!!!!!!!!! Good job Ry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny Carter Story!!

So...I am attempting to potty train Carter (who is now 2 1/2 years old). I took him to Wal-Mart hoping to get him excited by letting him pick out his own underwear (he chose Mickey Mouse of course) and we bought one of those toilet inserts to make the potty his size. It took him one day to decide it was okay to actually sit on the potty. When he finally did I told him he had to go pee before he could get in the tub so he yells "PEEP K all done mom!" Now he does that everytime he sits on it, pretty much we have had ZERO potty training success. ANY SUGGESTIONS???? I have no idea what I am doing, but I am SO SICK of changing his diapers!!
On another note... our stupid camera is broken so no pictures for awhile! Bummer! Hopefully it will be fixed soon!

My SUPER Husband!!

*Cheesy Alert* This post is dedicated to my wonderful husband. He's such a good husband and father. He is always helping me out and I don't tell him thank you nearly as much as I should. He is getting ready to graduate and I am so proud of him for sticking with it (especially since he's had to deal with all of my whining about him being so busy)! He is so talented in all that he does. Most importantly, he loves me in spite of my MANY flaws. It's been a "grouchy" couple of weeks around our house and Ry has had to deal with a grumpy, sleep-deprived wife and he has done it with no complaints!! He never complains about the dishes in the sink, he just does them and if I don't feel like making dinner he either does it or doesn't complain about eating leftovers. He's such a great dad too! The kids love him! Rylee has even started saying "da-da" (no ma-ma yet)! I feel so blessed to have him in my life! Love ya Ry!!
PS Scroll down to see our new slide shows!

EASTER!!!!!

Happy Easter!!

My two babies!! They grow up way too fast!

My "3" children!!

Carter and Rylee with their baskets Easter morning!

Me and Rylee with our good friends Lori and Sean Thomas!

Carter finding eggs. He thought you were supposed to open them and eat the candy as soon as you find them. It took quite awhile to find all 12 of his eggs!

Both the kids at our ward Easter Egg hunt (Carter is stealing eggs out of Rylee's basket!)

We had a great Easter weekend! Saturday we went to our ward's Easter Egg Hunt. Then on Sunday the kids (including Ryan of course cause he's still a kid at heart!) woke up to find their Easter baskets. Carter's favorite thing is a little plastic bat and ball he got. Rylee of course didn't really care and Ryan got chips and IBC rootbeer. We had our friends Mike and Lori and Ryan's sister Erika and her soon-to-be husband Mark over for dinner. We had tons of yummy food! Hope all of you had as good of an Easter as we did!!

Spring Break in St. George!

Rylee as cute as ever!

Rylee in her cute swimming suit!

Ryan working hard even on vacation!

Rylee asleep on grandma's couch!

Pretty much the only picture Carter would
hold still for.

Thought you all might enjoy the latest pictures from our trip to St. George. We had TONS of fun. We swam, went to a movie, and even hiked in Zions. However, we are HORRIBLE at remembering to take pictures, so I am waiting for Courtney to email me the ones from Zions and then I will post those too!

TAG!!

I've been seeing these "tag" things on other people's blogs and thought it would be fun to do one, so here's how it goes. You list 5 little known facts about you (things you hate, things you like, something you've done, etc.) and then at the end you "tag" three other people who will then do the same thing on their blogs. You can include pictures if want!! So here it goes...

1. I am a closet perfectionist when it comes to having a clean house. This may shock those of you who have been to my house because it is far from being perfect. Just know that 99.9% of my day I spend in mental agony because my house doesn't look perfect. :) Along with this is my sense of being overwhelmed which is usally why my house isn't clean. I am not overwhelmed with motherhood, just the task of cleaning my entire house in one day and having it stay clean for more than a couple of hours overwhelms me so instead of attempting this, I just stew over it all day, then about once a week ( or after we visit either my mom or Ryan's mom- their houses are ALWAYS clean) I FREAK out and have a "breakdown" (which Ryan usually gets the brunt of) and I clean really good. Most of the time my efforts are "ruined" shortly after by my adorable 2 year old, but hey at least I tried!!!

2. If I could have 24 hours all to myself (and I mean all 24 hours) doing whatever I want to do, I wouldn't travel to some exotic place or even go shopping. I would clean my house (see #1), read a good book while I take a bubble bath, order Pizza Factory Chicken Alfredo pizza with a breadtwist, and rent a chick flick!! Maybe one day....

3. Most of you know how much I "appreciate" the art of eating. However, I am surprisingly picky. I firmly believe that fruit was NOT meant to be part of any dessert (the only exception I can think of is Cheesecake)! Fruit should NOT be mixed with ice cream (no kidding I go to Bear Lake and I refuse to order a Raspberry shake), cake, or anything else. Fruit is meant to be fruit. REAL desserts are things such as brownie sundaes, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, etc. NOT FRUIT!!!!!! On another note I HATE whipped cream!! Oh and chocolate chip cookie dough IS better than the actual cookies!

4. I have a very strange personal "bubble." I love to hug and kiss my kids and my husband, and an occasional hug with an extended family member is ok, but I am not big on hugging random people or even friends hello, etc. This may make me sound like a "snob" but I am just not a touchy feely sort of person. Don't be offended by this, I just like my "personal space" :)

5. If I could do ANY job in the whole wide world (besides being a mom of course) I would be a bank teller! Not a manager, supervisor, loan officer, or anything else just a simple bank teller. I had that job for about 1 1/2 years and I LOVED it. There is something so satisfying about how accurate you have to be. I loved balancing my cash at the end of the day and finding myself to be completely balanced down to the penny (there were times when that didn't happen)! I loved opening up my drawer and seeing all of the money facing the same direction and I LOVE to count change back to people. Ryan calls me a math nerd! I also love using a ten key calculator. It is so exciting to me!

So that's all you never needed or wanted to know about me. I tag Mom Lloyd, Emily, and Jenni!!

Extended Family News!

Just wanted to tell anyone who doesn't already know that T.J. and Hanna (my brother and sister-in-law) are going to have a baby in August and we are SOOOO excited for them and for our kids to have cousins on my side of the family. Also...Casey (my brother) is engaged and will be getting married on May 31st to Nichole Gardner in the St. George Temple. AND Erika (Ryan's sister) is engaged and will be getting married May 27th to Mark Hirschi in the Jordan River Temple. Oh and I almost forgot, Jenni and Todd (Ryan's sister and brother-in-law) could have their little baby girl soon. She is due April 5th, but Jen had her first about 5 weeks early so we are all anxious to hear what the doctor says this week! As much as we can't wait to see her, we want her to be healthy so we hope she can "hang in there" for a few more weeks! We love all of our siblings so much and are so excited for them!!

Before and After!!

So, we have been doing our Biggest Loser Challenge with my cousin Emily, her husband Bryson, & our friends Mike & Lori (there may be other people doing it that I don't know Emily has been the mastermind behind it all and I am so glad she asked us to join in)! Anyway...Ryan has lost 9 pounds and I have lost 10. That is a big accomplishment for us because we LOVE to eat junk food together and watch TV after the kids have gone to bed so needless to say we have packed on the pounds since we got married almost five years ago. It doesn't really seem that noticeable until you look at pictures of us at Christmas and then look at the other ones from a couple weeks ago! It's mostly our faces that you'll notice a difference but it was a real eye-opener for me! I didn't realize how HUGE I looked!! I would like to lose 7 or so more pounds so hopefully that will happen by the time our Biggest Loser Challenge is over (April 1st)!! We are getting our tails kicked but at least we look and feel better!!! I'll post official "after" photos on April 1st!!

Digital Scrapbooking & My Cute Kids!

So those of you who know me best know that I LOVE to scrapbook. Ryan's mom introduced me to digital scrapbooking and now I LOVE that even more. It's so great because I can do one page at a time and I don't have to get all of my stuff out and make a huge mess which is usually made even bigger by my adorable 2 year old!!! If you want to check out the software I use go to www.digitalscrapbookingmemories.com. I promise you'll love their stuff!!
On a different note...this page is my most recent and my very FAVORITE that I have made! This is the moment that Carter and Rylee first met and I have to say that NOTHING has been the same since this exact moment!! It has been an adjustment fitting a new little one into me and Carter's "schedule" but I am proud to say (almost 6 months later) that I finally feel like it has been successful and our family is complete (well for now don't worry grandmas, there will be more!)!! Carter and Rylee keep me going but I am so grateful to have two beautiful, healthy, ACTIVE kids!!

Winter Update

I haven't posted for a long time so I thought I would just give you all an update on all of us!! Carter (as you can see) acts more like a two year old more and more everyday. We are finding that 2 is a challenging but fun age. He learns new phrases daily and we are finding we REALLY have to watch what we say!! He is gradually starting to show some interest in Rylee. He even has his own nickname for her. He likes to call her "Rys." He loves to build towers with his blocks and has recently started saying prayers with our help. We are "looking forward to" our next step-POTTY-TRAINING!! If anyone has any suggestions, let me know cause I have NO IDEA what I am doing!!
Rylee has grown up so much just since Christmas. She has discovered her hands and her feet and most of the time she has one or the other in her mouth. I just keep waiting for that first tooth to appear! She still WILL NOT take a bottle or a binki so I have yet to leave her for more than a few hours. She rolls over both ways all the time and I an expecting that she will crawl early just like Carter did!! She is very much a people person. She loves to be around anyone that will give her attention and she will smile at just about anyone.
As for Ryan and I. We are pretty much the same. We have been doing a Biggest Loser Challenge with some of our friends/cousins/etc. It has been challenging but fun to work together. We watch The Biggest Loser every Tuesday night for inspiration (we are usually eating the whole time we watch!) Ryan is just 3 short months away from graduation!! I am so proud of him. He has worked so hard to get to this point and I hope he will find a job that rewards him for his hard work. That's about all (and probably way more than you wanted to know)! We are looking forward to summer when we can go to St. George and Bear Lake and maybe even some other vacations!! Hope all is well with all of you!!

Christmas in Sunny St. George!!

Hey All!!! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We had SO MUCH FUN! We spent the 22nd-26th at Gma. Kim's and Gpa. Danny's house. It was a little chilly but the sky was blue the whole time. The kids (especially Carter) had a blast playing with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt McKenzie, Aunt Courtney, and Uncle Casey. We were so sad that Uncle TJ, Aunt Hanna, and Uncle Josh couldn't be there. That would've been the only thing that would've made it even better. We went to movies, played games, and Ryan & I even got to go on a lunch date!! My mom and dad are so good to us! We ate and ate and ate mom's yummy food until we thought we were going to burst! And they gave us great gifts and were so much fun to hang out with. Santa gave Carter a train set that he has hardly stopped playing with and Rylee got some cute clothes. They both got so much from grandmas and grandpas it's impossible to list. Most importantly it was great to be with family and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas together. My parents have always been so good at remembering Christ!!

Ryan

I know I said in my last post that Carter was the love of my life, but what I really meant is that he is extra special to me and that we have a special bond that I've never had with anyone else. RYAN is the love of my life. We have spent many years (ok only 9 but that's long for people our age:) together laughing. He can make me laugh when I am SO mad at him. He is a great husband and dad and best friend and I am so grateful that we were married in the temple. Love ya Ry!!