Happy 7th Birthday Gage!

Gage turned 7 today. I am still in shock that I have a child that old! It seems like Gage has been talking about this day for weeks and it has finally arrived. We are planning on a joint birthday party this weekend with Tanner, but try telling Gage or anyone for that matter to wait until then to celebrate and open presents.

We let Gage miss school today in order to be able to celebrate his birthday as a family at Lagoon A Beach. We love that place! Especially during the week when it isn't as crowded.

Gage awoke to the house being decorated. Of course I didn't get any pictures of my wonderful artistic ability but Gage enjoyed the balloons on the floor and the crepe paper hung from the ceilings. We let him open the gifts from Mike and I before we headed off to swim.

He got just what he wanted! The Bat Cave. I don't know why, but he is so into Batman right now. Gage and Landen are admiring all the features the Bat Cave has.

After opening presents and eating a quick breakfast, we rushed off to Lagoon A Beach. We like to be there right when it opens to ensure we get our shady spot.

I am always too busy wrangling Tanner in the kiddie area to be able to take pictures of the kids going down the slides, but the kids had a blast. Only Gage is tall enough to be able to venture out of the kiddie pool, but everyone has so much fun even if the water is freezing.

Since Mike's parents live so close to us, there is no telling Gage we need to wait for his party to open presents from Nana. We ventured over there after our long day of swimming to open a few more presents.

Gage got more Batman stuff to go with his Bat Cave. He was pretty excited.

Gage's Stats:

Weight: 43 lbs 10th percentile

Height: 48.3 inches 60th percentile

Some things Gage is into right now are:

1. Loves anything batman and acting out scenes with Landen

2. Enjoys watching tv and playing his DS (I really try to limit this)

3. Still loves to do crafts, color, paint and anything else artistic. He says he is going to be an artist when he grows up.

4. Likes to be outside playing in the backyard or jumping on the trampoline.

5. Gage is a fish. He loves the water and would swim all day if I let him.

I am so grateful we have Gage in our family. He keeps us laughing. I am so proud of him and can't wait to see what the future holds.

Boating At Pineview

My brother has an awesome boat. I couldn't tell you what the name of it is which I am sure would depress Mike who practically grew up on a boat. Anyway, Todd was nice enough to take the entire family on a boating adventure up to Pineview. We had so much fun. I am sure we will be hitting Todd up for more fun soon!

Tanner had never been to the beach. I don't think he knew where to begin!

Here is Gage's impersonation of "Firepower" off of Night At The Museum 2. I laugh every time I look at this picture.

Here's my man! Good thing he knows how to drive a boat or else Todd would have never been able to wake board.

These two can be so silly!

Tanner didn't really like to boat much or maybe it was the life jacket he had to wear.

Here's Landen acting all cold and sad in order to snuggle up to Cami. Landen will do anything to be close to a pretty girl even if it is his own Aunt.

I was surprised Landen was so daring. He jumped off the back of the boat. The water was perfect!

Landen, Ava and I were the first to try out the tube. Unfortunately, there were kinks to be worked out and we ended up going under the water. Needless to say none of us enjoyed the tube too much and our ride didn't last long.

I don't know why I don't have any pictures of Gage riding the tube, but he absolutely loved it. Todd was going so fast and he just hung on tight.

Todd catching some air.

Mike catching even bigger air. Take that Todd. Just kidding it

looks about even.

My absolute favorite picture. My beach baby.

Fun With The Bairs

We love it when the Bairs come to visit. We have so much fun playing. We mostly hung out at my house but we did take a bike trip to Jensen Park and then the next day we had to introduce them to our fun free water park in South Ogden.

Tanner is showing Adyson his view of the tractors from our front window.

Landen is pretty fast on his hot wheels trike. Time for a bike though.

It can be slow going with Tanner on his trike. He can't pedal. He just uses his feet to push himself along.

Adyson loved to be pushed in this car.

Once Tanner saw this tractor on the trail, he had to get off his bike and check it out.

Hope no one gets sick.

Tanner thinks he is sooo big! He makes me nervous on the playground.

Gage and Landen always lay on the hot cement to get warm after swimming. Tanner is picking up on this trick as well.

Yummy! Soggy cookie.

Tanner and Adyson were determined to step on the water.

My Hall grandparents joined us at the park.

My mom brought these shirts back from their trip to Mexico. They all have been wearing them for days. My mom loves to get a picture of all the grandkids whenever the Bairs are in town. She has conceded to the fact that she is lucky if all of them are in the picture. They will never all be looking at the camera.

We always have so much fun when the Bairs visit. We can't wait until they move back to Utah. Only one more year to go!

Gage Starts 1st Grade

I didn't have much time to enjoy Gage being home this summer. He ended school on July 3rd and started 1st grade today only a few weeks later on July 2o, 2009. I am not sure what I think about year round school.

Gage was so excited for 1st grade. His teacher, Mrs. Ogilvie, sent him a letter before school started to welcome him and also gave him a project to work on. She sent a cutout shaped like a boy that Gage had to decorate to look like himself. I on the other hand have not been too excited. My Gage would be gone all day! School starts at 8:40 am and ends at 3:30 pm. That's a long time! I also worried about him eating lunch. We discussed multiple times what the lunch menu said and which items he was going to pick out. What if he got hungry because he was in too much of a rush to go to recess? Another thing I worried about was I knew no one in Gage's class. I had asked around the neighborhood and no one got the same teacher as Gage. What if he didn't have any friends?

Gage was freshly back from his Dinosnorzzz adventure so he had to wear the shirt Zach's Grandma bought him on the first day of school. I was a crazy mom and took lots of pictures in front of everything.

Gage in front of our house.

Gage in front of the school holding his boy look a like.

Gage and Landen in front of a wall in the school.

Gage in front of his classroom door.

Gage easily found his seat and was ready to go. I looked around the room and thankfully saw a lot of familiar faces of kids that were in his kindergarten class. They just don't live in our neighborhood.




This moment made me just about start crying in the room. Landen was giving Gage a hug goodbye. They have been the best of friends and I am sad they won't see each other for most of the day now. Landen will be forced to play with Tanner I guess.

Landen had to get a picture of himself in front of the flowers.

It seemed like forever before I was able to go and pick up Gage from school. I kept looking at the clock all day long and Landen kept asking me when we could go and get him. Gage didn't give me many details but said he liked school. I am so proud of Gage and I know he will do great in 1st grade!

Poo Poo Kucka

Tanner is obessed with poop. Especially Beau's poop. He calls it "poo poo kucka" because that is what I call it. I was trying to get him to understand that poop was gross and not to touch it. Tanner apparently doesn't grasp this concept because he loves to find it and occasionally touch it. Every morning Tanner goes outside and finds Beau's dog poop. At first, Tanner would come inside and tell me where it was so I could clean it up. Lately, he has been trying to shovel it on his own which doesn't really work out that well. Tanner just ends up smashing it into the grass. Today, I took the shovel away from him and shoveled it myself. As you can see, he wasn't very happy.

Farmington 1/2 Marathon

Today Mike ran the Farmington 1/2 Marathon in 1:43 which was better than his Syracuse 1/2 time. Mike said this course was a lot more difficult with hills whereas Syracuse's course was all flat. I don't have any pics of Mike because there was no way I was getting the kids up on a Saturday morning to be in Farmington at the finish line by 8am. In fact, Mike was probably finished with his race before I even rolled out of bed. Ha, ha.


Mike is trying to train for the Top of Utah Marathon that is held in September. His foot has been bothering him quite a bit so he is a little nervous about achieving his goal. Plus, he has a wife that complains a lot about how time consuming training for a marathon is. However, I am trying to be supportive and really hope he is able to do this. Good luck babe!

Transformers, Roll Out!

Last year, Landen reenacted scenes from the Fast and Furious movies. This year, he has moved onto watching Transformers and acting out scenes from that movie. He only has a few Transformers so he has to improvise a little. I love how closely he plays out the movie with crash scenes and races.

Landen wanted to pose with his version of Bumblebee.