Day in Logan

I love that my sister lives in Logan. I had never really been there until she moved there with her family. Taylee loves, loves, loves her cousins that live there, plus it has the best parks for kids and Aggie Ice Cream (YUM!). Now I find myself finding any excuse to visit Logan.

Yesterday was my niece's 1st birthday so we found ourselves taking a day jaunt to Utah. We visited one of my favorite parks called "Ryan's Place." It is a park that was constructed in memory of a little boy. And you can tell that SO much love and thought went into its construction. In fact, I guess kids actually helped to design it. My nephews call it the "Rocket Ship Park" and they all love it.

Bryns and her cousin Asher riding in an airplane

Brynlee walking through the "Tot Park." This was a special area for toddlers where everything was their size. As you can tell, the whole design is awesome and I wish I would have gotten pictures of the "big kid" area because it is even better.

Taylee with her cousin Gid on a tire swing. Taylee has never been on a tire swing before and loved it! In fact she has been telling Sean all about the "Rocket Park" and the swing that spun in circles.

After the park we went back to my sister's place for a great BBQ cooked by my wonderful brother-in-law who kept a smile on his face despite being bombarded by a whole lot of girls :-) and then we witnessed an adorable 1 year old ATTACK her birthday cake. It was so cute to watch, though the best part was when she rubbed her plate all over her head. Happy Birthday Hannah!

And thanks to Noelle, Chris, and family! We had so much fun and are looking forward to our next trip to Logan!

Baby Bump or Balloon???

How is it that in one day at church a 34-wk pregnant woman can have the two following comments made:
"Oh, you look so cute! Your little baby bump is finally showing. Aren't you due later this summer?"
(This lady was completely shocked when I told her that I am due in about a month)
But then within an hour, I walk past another woman who says, "Geez! You look like you're about to pop!"
Gotta love it! (In their defense, the first lady saw me from a front view and the second saw me from the side, but still :-)

Warm Weather, Golf, and New Bed

For the last few days my little girls and I have been in heaven! With warm weather, a park across the street, and a zoo that is open, we are all pretty happy. Both Monday and Tuesday we had picnics outside, spent hours at the park, and even hit the I.F. zoo both days. The zoo actually had a newborn camel that the girls got to see up close. Taylee loved it! Brynlee really didn't care too much about the camel, but she got so excited to see the lions and tigers. She even growled at them when I told her to say "hi." She is so funny.

Taylee had another soccer game last Saturday. I know its just a mother thing, but I am SOOO proud of her when I watch her play. She made five goals and would jump up and down smiling everytime that she made one. It was hilarious. Somehow she focuses so much on the game, yet she is grinning the entire time. If she falls, she jumps right back up and keeps going (which is amazing since she is quite the drama-queen and needs a band-aid for EVERYTHING). Brynlee wants to play soccer so much though. I feel really bad for her that she is stuck in her stroller. She gets so upset at games and at practice that she doesn't get to be a part of the team. Oh well, in a few years she can be out there too.

On Monday, Sean had a couple hours off of work in the morning, so we decided to have FHE while he could be there...lo and behold we ended up at a golf course. Shocker, I know :-) We all started at the driving range, but after about 10 minutes, Bryns was sick of that, so I took her to the putting green. She has so much fun, but the munchkin would get mad at me when I dropped a golf ball for her to hit. She would look at me and say "no," pick up the ball and place it about an inch from the hole and then hit it in. She loved it and was so excited everytime she got the ball into the hole!

Wish me luck. Today I switched Bryns into a regular bed. As you can tell from the picture, she was pretty excited to be in a "big girl" bed and wanted to sit in it for almost 30 minutes (grabbing different toys to bring on with her every few minutes). I hope that tonight goes ok, but I am betting she will fall out or not want to go to bed or something. Oh well, right? I want to get her switched well before the baby comes so she doesn't feel like the new baby stole her bed :-)

Happy Birthday!

I love my husband so much! It is his 30th birthday today and I feel SO lucky to be married to him. He is such an amazing person and I find myself learning more and more about him every year. He is the best daddy. He loves both of our girls and would do anything for them. In fact, right now he playing golf with Taylee despite it being HIS day. He wanted to take one of his munchkins with him. I can't wait to add our little boy into the family because I know how much Sean is going to love having another sweet child to love and play with...not to mention teaching a son all of the essentials of life like "Sun's #1," Rock-Chock-Jay-Hawk," and the secret handshake :-)
Sean is an amazing husband. He makes me so happy and I know that I am always his top priority. Just a few weeks ago around lunchtime I asked him when he was going to be able to take a day off. I had been sick again during the morning and I was tired. Within an hour, he showed up at the house, having rearranged his schedule, and took the girls to go play at the park so I could take a nap. He is always a sweetheart and doing things like this to help me out. He is the best husband!
One of the things that I have always loved about Sean is how much he loves life! I tend to be more pessimistic, so I love that he can remind me of how much fun life is. If he works 60 hours in a week and golfs 2 hours, he would rather focus and talk about the 2 hours of golf rather than complain about the hours of work. He is a little kid at heart, and get so excited about everything. I love this so much and hope that our children are like him!
Happy Birthday Sean! I love you so much! Thanks for taking a chance on me 8 years ago when you asked me to marry you. I am so lucky to have you!

Birthday Party

For anyone who does not know, Sean is turning 30 this week! For the past three months I have been planning a Casino Night Birthday party for him. We had real roulette wheels, poker layouts, blackjack felts and clay poker chips. I ordered all of Sean's favorite appetizers from various restaurants around town, and invited a bunch of family and friends. I even made everyone wear party hats (gangster hats for the guys and feather tiaras for the gals, all with huge #30s on them...I didn't want Sean to forget how OLD he is getting). And it was a blast!

Thanks to all who were able to come. It made the party well worth it to have everyone together to celebrate Sean's birthday. We had so much fun and are already planning another Kress Casino Night!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!!!

Soccer Game

Taylee's 2nd soccer game was horrible. Both Taylee and Brynlee were getting over colds, it was freezing, Taylee spent more time crying on the sidelines then she did in the game because she couldn't quit coughing, and then Bryns threw-up on me. It really was not a fun game.
Luckily, the last game was much better. I told Taylee that I just wanted her to have fun and be happy...so she did. The majority of the game was spent holding hands with her teammates running up and down the field after the ball. It looked like they were playing red-rover.
It was pretty funny to watch. And even though we all wanted our kids to focus on the game a bit more, I think all the parents were just happy to see the kids having fun rather than crying.
And despite spending a lot of the game just playing around, when I was able to convince Taylee to really play, she did really well and ended up scoring five goals during the last half. She is so funny and I love watching her play.

Spring is Finally Here

I can always tell when it is truly becoming spring because the golf clubs come out! Luckily, both Taylee and Brynlee are getting old enough to be involved with their daddy's favorite sport!

Taylee practicing her swing at the park

Brynlee practicing...with the club backwards :-)

Benchwarmer

About 2 weeks ago Sean took Taylee down to a Jazz game where they got to be "benchwarmers" and watch the team warm up before the game. They got to meet a lot of the players and get signatures and stuff. Sean had so much fun with Taylee. He sent me text messages throughout the night about how cute our daughter is.

The benchwarmers!

Darren Williams (Sean was very impressed with him. Despite being the all-star of the Jazz, he spent time with every person on the bench, he was willing to sign anything, and actually spent about 5 minutes just talking to Taylee)

Taylee made a friend during the game. Sean never found out his name, but apparently he and Taylee played on his mom's phone for almost the whole game, sharing drinks and Reeses Pieces.

I Have The Best Sisters

Do you ever have moments where you just realize how lucky you are? I just did. A crummy stomach bug has been running rampant through my household for the past 24 hours, hitting Taylee, Bryns, and me. I had to cancel a play-date today with my younger sister and her son since this bug is something I definitely don't want to share.

Well, just a little while ago there was a knock on my door. My first thought was "You've got to be kidding me" since I don't have my hair done and am still wearing my make-up from yesterday. I hurried to rub the mascara smear from around my eyes and tried to convince the girls to stay back in the bedroom since they don't have their hair done either. They're too fast though and got to the door ahead of me.

As I open the door, I'm hoping that it is a package from UPS or something so that no one will witness what a mess we look like, but it wasn't. The sister that I had canceled the play date with was standing on my porch grinning at my shocked expression and holding two grocery bags filled with saltine crackers, sprite, soup, and toys for Taylee and Brynlee.

I feel very blessed that I have such a wonderful sister who would take the time out of her day to drive to Idaho Falls with "sick food" for me and my kids. I love knowing that any of my sisters would have done the same thing. You guys are awesome and always set a great example for me! Love ya!