To Blog, or not to blog...that is the question!

I can see that it has been almost 6 months since my last post...yep, 6. I have been contemplating whether I should pick it back up or just let it be, and truthfully I am still not sure. But I do know that there was a reason that I stopped blogging. It was my SPAM! If you look at some of the comments on my posts you will see &%($(#*% (I don't have chinese symbols on my computer so you get the idea...)

So, without further ado..I think I am going to continue to blog BUT ONLY if I go private. I don't know for sure how this is done so I think I need to get all of your email addresses to invite you (right?) So if you would like to read my blog then I would love to get your email!

Well, for those of you who haven't given up on me yet!

AFTER ONLY ONE LESSON.....

Last week nate and I decided that we were going to try to "channel" gabe's energy somehow.

So after a little research I found a trial class at a local Gymnastics place and we thought we would try it out.

Well, during the class I think gabe was COMPLETELY overwhelmed and he wanted to run around everywhere and do everything instead of listen to the teacher. But, I guess this little boy is a better multi-tasker then I thought!

After just that one 40 minute class he came home and did this!

(ps - I promise he owns a shirt, he just finished eating dinner!)

18 MONTH STATS

I have a little weed on my hands! We just got back from Gabe's 18 month appointment and it turns out that Gabe is getting so tall! (it helps that one grandpa is 6'5 and the other 6'2)

Gabe's Stat's:

Height: 94%

Weight: 50%

Head: 57%

HE IS SO TALL!

He for sure doesn't get it from me!

WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOUR HUSBAND IS AWAY...

TURN HIS OFFICE INTO A PLAY ROOM!!!!!

There are yellow stars on the right wall that you can't see in this picture very well.

It still has a lot to do like curtains, a pillow top for the window seat, frames for the toy story posters you can't see, and a fun light fixture. But you get the idea.

As you can see it is a big hit with gabe (and some of the neighborhood kids as well!)

Can anyone guess what the theme of the room is? I didn't show you pictures of the main decor just so it wouldn't give it away...

(*I have just posted 3 new posts so keep scrolling down to see the fun pictures*)

GABE'S FIRST HAIRCUT!

We FINALLY did it!

Gabe had his first haircut 2 weeks ago (life has been nuts, sorry for the late post). He was such a brave boy and didn't even cry once. He did keep swatting the girl away with his hand like "what do you think you're doing?" But he did it!

The next day I took gabe around the gardens and I thought I would take a few shots of his 'new due' as he walked around.

What a little ham! But his hair sure does look cute!

And, YES, he still has the curls! YIPEE!!!

PART 2 (of the joy's of a 1 year old...)

I think that I could just do a continual post named "The Joy of Having A 1 Year Old". Gabe is at such a fun age! He is getting into EVERYTHING. And I mean that literally. He is putting himself into EVERYTHING......

One of his favorite things to do on laundry day is take the hamper and walk around with it on his head! He literally walks EVERYWHERE with it on him!

Another thing he likes to do on laundry day...

I had to take out the toaster which sits on that shelf and he took advantage of the empty space...

This is tight on both sides so he decided he wanted to climb over the towels to get back there and "chill".

AND WHEN I SAY "GET'S INTO" EVERYTHING....

I swear I watch him like a hawk! I don't know how he does this so fast!

I know that there are many more pictures I am sure I can post, but man does this boy keep me on my toes! But I sure love him!

THE JOY OF HAVING A 1 YEAR OLD...

I was staining our deck and I went to start cleaning up, and in the 2 seconds it too me to put the tarp away I came back to this.....He spilt the paint everywhere! I had already put him in time out at this point so he is now looking at the paint with a very big crusty on his face!

that mark on the bottom step isn't from me painting it, it is from his BUM! OOHH I was not happy that day, not happy at all! Look at my cement!

I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and it seemed awful quit in the house....

Its a good thing I just bought a bunch of toilet paper!

This one is a cute one of gabe. Whenever we go on a walk or play on the swing set he likes to "open the garage" himself. He is so strong!

He also likes to play "hide and seek"

He is starting to climb onto EVERYTHING, so I finally built him an obstacle course in our bedroom so he can have fun

He LOVES to play with toys!

He LOVES to smile

and he ESPECIALLY loves water!

Every day I wake up and think "I wonder what Gabe is going to get into today!"

Such a fun boy!

A NIGHT WITH DAVID COOK (AND REAL SALT LAKE OF COURSE!)

What a night! After a 30 minute lightening delay ReAL played LA Galaxy who WAS undefeated until they played us! YIPEE! ReAL won 1-0 stopping their winning streak. WAHOO!

Here I am with my mom and sister in law waiting for the players and David Cook to come out of the tunnel

OH I LOVE HIS VOICE!

(I am a fan of the raspy voices....)

he looked up at my sister in law as he was heading back into the tunnel

After the game we were able to go onto the field to hear his concert. My mom was there for the first song, but then christy and I stayed like 15 year old girls and went crazy with the crowd.

Look how close we were!

WHAT A PERFECT ENDING TO THE ReAL VICTORY!

CHILDREN'S DISCOVERY GARDENS

Gabe had such a fun time in the water yesterday! He is truly a boy in every way and I just love watching him learn and discover. He isn't scared of ANYTHING! Thanks janel for the clip!

YET ANOTHER PROJECT...

Ok, so I did this project about 3 weeks ago, but as you have read in the past 2 posts, life has been CRAZY! So I am a little late in posting this.

I found this AMAZING deal last month on a swing set and I instantly thought that gabe would LOVE IT! Sure enough, I was right! The only down side to it was...I had to assemble it myself! Nate has been crazy busy at work lately so I didn't want to add yet another project on his list of things to do (I already had him build me garden boxes...pictures to come soon).

So this project was mine, ALL MINE!

(or so I thought...)

Here is what it looked like. I didn't have a truck and the box was too big to fit in my car so I had to take all of the pieces out individually and place them somewhere in my car. Poor gabe a trooper with the slide over his head as we drove home! He thought it was funny though.

Well, I knew I was in trouble when I couldn't even figure out what STEP 1 was referring too! AAAHHH! But after 4 hours I finished 99% of the swing set. Not too shabby, although someone with more experience could have probably spent only an hour or 2. But finally I had to call in reinforcements and I called my friend to see if her husband can come over and put these last 2 screws in for me. He was such a trooper! We were both having a hard time putting them in and then finally we just had to shave off a part to make it work. But man what a head ache!

But in the end, SO WORTH IT! Gabe absolutely loves it! It says for ages 3-6 but gabe is such a daredevil that he lost no time figuring out how to climb the steps to get to the slide.

So, 5 1/2 hours later, a couple of bruises, but the laughter in my son's delight

PRICELESS!

NEW YORK WEDDING

Have any of you seen the movie Father of the Bride? The white tent, millions of flowers, nice china and food all around? Get the picture? Well, that was my brother in law's wedding. EVERYTHING turned out more beautiful then you could have possibly imagined. Everything down to the last detail was immaculate. The only disappointing thing is that I forgot my camera! So, thanks to my iPhone we have all of the following pictures. I hope I don't bore you with all these pictures, but you have to see this amazing wedding!

This was the first bunch of roses. The "flower girls" were down there for 3 days straight before the wedding getting all of the beautiful flowers ready in my In Law's basement. They turned out PERFECT!

Here is the second batch of roses. They also had hydrangea's and some other beautiful flowers as accents to all of these roses. Can I say BEAUTIFUL?!?!?!

May 15 it was off to the Manhattan Temple. I LOVE this temple! It is right by Central Park and Julliard School of Arts which is amazing!

Here are Mr. and Mrs. CHECKETTS!! A-MAZ-ING dress!

I had to get a picture of this! Everyone was watching them as they walked across the street to get the group picture. It was like a scene out of a movie.

LET THE PARTY BEGIN! There were family pictures before the reception started so of course I had to get one with my sweetheart! The reception was held at Nate's parents home and it couldn't be more beautiful.

Here is the family minus Gabriel....he stayed home with my parents for the weekend so we could enjoy!

I had to get a picture of the back of her dress because it is beautiful!

Her colors were pink with a hint of mint green. Didn't this turn out AMAZING! You should have seen it at night. The lights were made to have a hint of pink in them. It was magical.

They also made a children's section were they had their own "food" like macaroni and cheese (which was amazing!), chicken fingers and cupcakes. Then if you look closely you will see jars of candy on the tables.

Look at all of this amazing food!!!! This was the same guy who catered our wedding and it was delicious!

In the kids section they hired a balloon guy who was unbelievable! This was the start of one of his masterpieces.....

And this was the end. Crazy cool!

During the program the boys had a little number where they changed the words to "living on a prayer" by Bon Jovi. This was Nate's solo...

Now time to throw the bouquet.... and guess who got it?

my 5 year old niece Abigail!

As you can see this was such a beautiful night! I wish the pictures were more clear, but I am just grateful I had my iPhone so i could take these!!!

WEDDING MONTH

Fellow bloggers. If you are by chance actually one of the few who read my blog, don't give up on me! This month, as you read in the title, is wedding month. There is no other explanation for it. we just went to Canada for a reception and then we leave again for New York for my brother-in-law's wedding in the Manhattan temple, and then we have another reception for them out here in Utah.

CRAZY MONTH

CRAZY LIFE

CRAZY ME!

I will update when I have a second to think about life again.

I promise!

Wonderful World Of Disney!

OH WHAT A WEEK!!!

It was absolutely amazing to be back in "my old stomping grounds!" I miss it! Gabe absolutely loved the rides and there were quite a few that he actually threw a HUGE tantrum because he wanted to keep riding....so much fun! I think we have a tradition in the making here!

Right when we arrived we headed straight for the magic kingdom. When you go with children, you have to do it right! I have to say that we ended up heading back to magic kingdom 2 additional times on the trip because the kiddos loved it so much! We were also able to go with my sister in law and her family, WHICH WAS AMAZING! Gabe loves to play with his cousins an they made the experience so great!

Here we are on dumbo...Gabe was a little concerned at first, but then he LOVED IT!

Here we had to hit up the parade! In this parade the characters come out onto the street and dance with all of the children, it was great!

This day we also hit up so many more rides, but I forgot to take pictures!!!

Hollywood studios

They have such a great playhouse disney show at hollywood studios and it was great to see all of the characters from some of gabe's favorite shows! Right now they are watching little Einstein's.

Gabe has loved the movie "up" since we took him to see it in the theaters, so when we saw Doug we just had to get a picture! But unfortunately he was so interested in doug that he wouldn't smile for the camera!

Then here is where the downfall happened....literally! Sunday and monday it was raining almost the entire day!!!! I had to take a picture of Gabe's cute little face as we were heading out of Epcot on sunday.

Ok, I had to throw this picture in to show you that this was the last picture taken from our camera. Yep, you read right. There was SO MUCH RAIN that our camera got water damage! So unfortunately for the rest of the trip we didn't have many pictures!

So, fortunately and unfortunately, on our last day in Florida I realized that our video camera took pictures....so I am glad we were able to get some of us swimming at the pool, but I wish I would have thought about that for the other days in the park!!!!

They had this fun place at the pool where it shot out water and gabe LOVED IT! He was giggling the entire time! He even loved it when the water would smack him in the face! Such a fun energetic little boy!

On our last night there we stopped by Downtown Disney where gabe was able to ride his last ride. He did like it though!

Gabe has started to like Toy Story and so for our gift to him on this trip we decided that woody was a perfect gift, and he loved it!

It was such a great week and I wish we got more pictures of our amazing time down there. That just means we will have to go again soon!