Xavier's Game

Xavier is playing Coach-Pitch baseball this summer. Adam is his head coach. They had a rocky start but did tie their game on Thursday! If the kids would have thrown the ball home instead of to 2nd base they would have won, but at this point, we will take a tie.
Xavier played catcher and loved it! He was able to get a couple kids out which made him quite happy.
He also got on base for the first time. (I was VERY excited for this moment, he was getting so discouraged it was nice to see him get a hit.)
Here's one of our goofy spectators. He insisted on wearing a hat for some reason, I'm assuming it was because both brothers and his dad had one on...what a little follower.

Book of Mormon - Optimus Prime style

I found this website the other day and saw this CUTE tutorial on how to cover a paperback Book of Mormon. I decided to do one for Xavier since he has been a tad jealous of Damon's fancy scripture set.

We couldn't do the cute flower one that is featured in the tutorial so we did a "boy" version with Optimus Prime instead. Luckily, I had everything we needed for the project so it didn't cost us a thing. For the cover, I used Google Images and had Xavier pick out what picture of Optimus Prime he wanted. I had downloaded a font that was similar to the Transformers font for the title.

Xavier also asked me to make him a bookmark too, everyone else in the family has scriptures with the ribbon marker and he really wanted one as well. Before I glued the cover to the front, I glued a ribbon down the middle of the spine to be used as a marker. I think that is actually his favorite part.
Its a simple little project but really fun to do. If you want one, you can probably talk me into making one for you too...I'll even let you request your cartoon character.

There must be something dead...

About once a week or so we see vultures flying over our house. I'm guessing the empty lot next to us (the one I dream of buying and building a pool house on) must be a good place to find dead or close to dead animals.

Today we had two vultures, flying very close. This is the one that was up above (unedited and not zoomed in) and there was another one flying even closer to ground. I couldn't get a picture of that one...he was even faster then this one.

Xavier's Family Party

We had a little get together tonight for some friends and family to celebrate Xavier's birthday. Although some of our usual guests were missing, we had a great time and Xavier received some great presents. A lot of presents about bugs, so I have a feeling our summer will be very buggy.

Damon's 1st Baseball Game

Fun was had by all at Damon's 1st game of the season! I was a little nervous of how bored Xavier and Aiden would be but where there is dirt to be played in, little boys will be happy. Xavier and Aiden were covered from head to toe in dust. It is nice to know that they will be able to keep themselves entertained during each game but we will definitely be having baths after every game, no question about it.I'll admit I was a little nervous for Damon to play. He hadn't been hitting at all during practice and he didn't the day before when Adam was working with him. But this is the face of a boy who just scored for the first time in the season. He was so happy.

He ended up scoring twice, he missed at bat the last time he was up. Other then that he did great, even made a couple good plays, that if I knew anything about baseball I would tell you about.

Xavier's Kid Party

Xavier invited two friends from school to go to Time Out Corner. They played mini golf, ate hot dogs, potatoes chips, cookies, and drank lots of soda, they also played a lot of video games. The boys had a great time and Xavier got a very exciting gift...an aquarium thing that he can't wait to put a tadpole in! Yea!

Colorado Springs - Day 4

Monday morning we slept in a little bit and then drove down to Royal Gorge, something that Adam really wanted to see. The bridge was built in 1929 and is supposed to be similar to the Brooklyn Bridge. The main reason the bridge was built was to be a tourist attraction, which seems crazy to me. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. They had a carousel, incline railroad that took you down to the bottom of the gorge, a trolley, a petting zoo, shows and a band, and an aerial tram.
For dinner we met up with the Mitchells one last time to go to The Airplane Restaurant. It was a lot of fun and the boys loved it.
After dinner we went to Seven Falls. And YES my pregnant body walked up all those stairs. I don't know how long my legs were shaking after but it was for quite sometime. And I just think this is funny...Aiden loved this toy magazine and looked at it the whole time we were in the car, even during diaper changes.

And a special shout out to Chad, Tricia and all the kids for entertaining us and showing us around Colorado Springs. It was great to be with you and we can't wait to see you again, even if it is going to be a whole year!

Colorado Springs - Day 3

Sunday we went to church, just for Sacrament meeting, we are good Mormons but not good enough to stay for 3 hours in someone else's ward.
After church we decided to go to Garden of the Gods. Apparently so did everyone else in Colorado Springs. It was so packed we couldn't find a place to park, in fact most people were parking illegally. So we drove around and then just went back to the hotel to relax.
Later that evening we went over to the Mitchells for a cookout and lots of yummy food that Tricia slaved in the kitchen to make. We also played a very intense game of Bloody Knuckles that stressed me out way too much. But it was fun!

Colorado Springs - Day 2

Day 2 was another early day. We started out at Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Because of the high winds there were not going to allow us to go all the way up to the top of Pikes Peak (85+mph winds that morning). But as we got on our way, we got the "OK" for us to keep going so we did get to the very top. I have no idea what the temperature or what the wind mph was but it was COLD! We wanted to do family pictures at the top but that didn't happen. We ran out there and took one picture and then I hurried and snapped a couple more while Adam took the boys back inside for snacks.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of the sleeping Mitchells (all but Tricia fell asleep on the way down the mountain). Adam says I plan to much for vacations and wear everyone out in the process.

I took a lot of pictures as we went up to Pikes Peak. These were some of my favs.After the train ride and lunch at The Mason's Jar, we went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.
Then we went to a Dinosaur Museum that was in Woodland Park. It was the WORST museum we have ever been to. It took less then 20 minutes to go through the whole thing. The gift shop is bigger than the museum. We would have been better off spending the money in the gift shop and skipping the museum.

Colorado Springs - Day 1

We arrived at Colorado Springs late Thursday night, so bright and early on Friday we set out for some of our activities we had planned. We met up with the Mitchells and went to the zoo first. The boys fed the giraffes. Tricia showed them how to put a cracker on the top of their head so the giraffe would eat off of it. They also fed birds, which D & X thought was very cool, Aiden wasn't so sure.
After the zoo we went to the Air Force Academy and walked around. Unfortunately we couldn't go into the chapel since there was a wedding.
After a little bit of rest we met up again and went to see a minor league baseball game, Colorado Springs Sky Sox.

Blackmail - Take 2

Thursday we were packing up and getting ready for our vacation. Aiden got himself ready...he had a clean shirt, diaper, red heels, and his ziplock bag of cash.