Cute Kids

I realized recently that we've stopped using our nice camera to take pictures.  My phone is so handy that if anything cute is happening I just take a picture with that and send it to instagram. Well, the pcitures aren't very good quality and so I decided to leave my nice camera out so hat we can get more pictures. These are just some cute pictures of the kids around the house.

I love my cute kids. 

Utah

Kyle had his Fall Break October 8-12 so we decided to head up to UTAH! Kyle's sister has lived up there for a few years and we had yet to visit them. They had a baby 1 week after Bentley was born and were planning on blessing him that weekend. Since Kyle was on school break we decided it would be the perfect time to go. His Mom and Kathleen were already up there for a dinner that Kathleen put on for work and Brian, Jane, and their family were up there dropping off Austin at the MTC so it was kind of a little family reunion. We drove up saturday the 6th and we were pleasantly surprised at how well the kids did. Bentley did AMAZING. He seriously didn't cry once on the way up. We stopped about every 3 1/2 hours to give the kids a little break and to feed Bentley and I really think that helped a lot. We stopped at a really cute park in Kanab, Utah and ate lunch and let the girls play on the playground for about an hour to break up the trip even more. It is a really pretty drive from here to Utah. You get the forest, AZ desert, the reservation, and the Utah desert. It took us about 12 hours and we got to the Johnsons at about 9:00 pm. 

The first day (Sunday) we just hung out at the Johnsons and enjoyed conference and family. The girls had tons of fun playing with their cousins. Kellie has a little girl a few months older than London so it was fun to watch the 3 little girls run around and play together. Macy played with the old boys quite a bit too- Kyle went outside once to see what they were doing and Macy was bossin' them all around- and they were actually listening to her. She has 3 older boy cousins and there were a few neighbor kids playing with them. Macy said she wanted to do a race so the boys all stopped and asked where to start, she told them where. She  said go and they all ran past her so she turned around and headed back and said "I won!" . They all agreed she won, but then they decided they should set a definite finish line. They she decided it was time to play something else and they just kind of rolled with it and did whatever she said. We're in trouble with that one. 

The next day Kyle and I took our kids to temple square and enjoyed the LDS sites. It's amazing how pretty the Salt Lake Temple is. It is such a castle looking place. Sadly we forgot our camera at home so didn't get any pictures. We took a tour of the conference center and then headed back to Kellie and Karls. 

Tuesday we headed over to the This Is The Place Monument and Pioneer Village. This Is The Place Monument is a ginormous statue of Brigham Young saying that this is the place that they needed to stop and settle. There are lots of other monuments and carvings around it, it's actually really cool. We remember our camera but forgot to take a family picture with the monument in view. In the picture below you can kind of see the side of it :). 

 In Pioneer Village the kids had A LOT of fun. There were so many different things to do. We started off in a cabin that had little crafts for the kids to do. Macy is making her necklace and her cousin Ava is coloring on her bag. 

 London and Me trying get London's necklace they way she wanted it. 

 They were getting the buildings all ready for their spookfest so we had to look past on the scarey cobwebs. London didn't mind but they really freaked Macy out. 

 We headed over to the school house where the kids colored on chalk boards and they taught us about the alphabet that Brigham Young tried to start, it was actually pretty interesting. 

 Ava, London, and Macy

 They had this adorable kid sized village that the girls just ran around from house to house. They were too cute. This is basically what they did, Macy would run to a house, Ava would follow her, and London would follow Ava. 

 There was a cute stationary train at the little village that the girls could run around on.

 Next we went over to the petting zoo. The girls had tons of fun on the horses, they look like pros. 

 This little guy was tricky! He escaped out of the petting zoo once and tried to get out when we were leaving. The girls really liked him because he was little. 

 Macy really liked the sheep, but London would scream if one looked at her or walked too close.

 The girls all love their Grandma. 

 Macy found these sunglasses in the little stationary train and sported them for the rest of the day.

 We also did some gold mining. This was the gold miner. Back then a man would own the river/stream and if you wanted to mine gold you would essentially rent a piece of the lake from him. They would do a daily rate with each person and if you got 10 pieces of gold you have to give him 3. We didn't end up doing much, I think the girls each got like 3 pieces so the gold miner actually ending up giving each girl about 10 extra gold pieces. 

 They opened up this little kid train just in time for the kids to ride it. They had lots of fun. The little family in the car behing the girls were too cute. There were 3 boys and 2 girls and you could tell the Mom took lots of pictures because when they would pass their Mom they would all smile and keep looking at her until they past, it was really cute.

 Mr. Bentley was, of course, awesome. Hung out in his seat most of the time. He got hungry once but after that was taken care of he was his happy self. 

 Our last stop was the bank where the girls all traded in their gold for some candy. 

After we got home from the village we did some Deseret Industries shopping. I got Macy 2 sweaters, a jacket, and a super cute dress. Their DI was seriously amazing, so much nice stuff there. The next day we headed home. Bentley was a little more fussy on the way home, but you can't blame the kid. We had a lot of fun visiting Kellie and Karl and hope it do it again!

Happy Halloween

We had quite the festivities this year for Halloween. First we had the "Fall Into Fun" Family Festival on Saturday, Tuesday was Trunk or Treat, and Wednesday was preschool Halloween party and actual Trick of Treating. 

A little history on the festival: On our way to the valley to Derek's farewell in the middle of September Kyle and I were talking about how there wasn't much cheap fun stuff to do in Holbrook (not much fun in general, but what there IS to do usually costs lots of money) and we decided we should put something fun on. We got together with a couple other people in town and planeed an event. We got money donated from the chamber of commerce and just kind of went to town. We had 15 different carnival games that were 25 cents each, pumpkin painting, pumpkin carving, and a costume contest. There were tons of people there and it was an awesome first year for the event. 

Macy wanted to be a pretty princess, not just a princess, but a pretty one. I had made her costume earlier in the week, we had gone to Walmart and she picked out the fabric all by herself and my awesome Mom sent me a pattern to follow. I followed the pattern and the dress was like 8 inches too short for Macy. My mom came up Thursday and jammed out a new dress in like a night, and mine had taken me 3 days. In my defense I did make the belt too that we didn't have to redo, which I think turned out amazing. AND hers was like 6 inches too long, but she added these adorable princess pin up things at the bottom and it turned out perfectly princessy.

London was the short end of the stick this year, she got a store bought kitty costume that Macy wore last year- but she loved it. She would crawl around and meow. She sure if a cute little kitty though isn't she?

Bentley Boy was a Mummy. I didn't have to buy a single thing to make this. Thanks to Pinterest, I just used a white onesie and sewed on some white fabric. I glued the googly eyes on, put a long sleeve white shirt underneath, added tights and socks and I think it all looks very wrapper and mummy like. 

Holidays are getting so much fun now that the girls are getting older and understand what's going on a little more. For a while Macy would notice it was dark outside and ask if we could go trick or treating :) I love these cute kids of mine.

Happy 2nd Birthday London!

London is TWO years old!

It's AMAZING how 

FAST it goes!

Birthdays around our house are kind of lame. I haven't been a very good Mom when it comes to making the day super special, so I decided with Londons birthday it was all going to change. She woke up to her favorite breakfast, donuts from Donuts Plus, we watched her TV shows when she asked for them, and I even put up streamers and blew up balloons! It might not sound like much, but it's a lot when I usually don't do anything. 

For her cake I took her to the grocery store and told her to pick one. She picked a vanilla cake mix, purple frosting, cute pastel sprinkles, and pink cupcake foil things. She helped me bake them and even helped me put the candles on the cupcakes.  

We invited the Larsons and the Millers over and had a little party for her. She did awesome blowing out the candles and did it in the first blow. 

The Miller's were so sweet and brought her a cute purple tutu with white leggings. You can kind of see the tutu in the picture below. 

 From Kyle and I she got a book that sings a lullaby. The girl loves books- so we feed that :)

 A My Little Pony...

 and s crib, high chair, a bouncy seat, a carseat, and a carrier for her Baby dolls. London LOVES her baby dolls. Love love loves them. 

London is such a sweet and sassy little girl. Her and Macy are so different that I am definitely trying to find what kind of discipline methods work her for. Everything is on her own terms. Time outs, taking toys away- those things don't really work. She has to be excited about what she's going to do and it really does have to be her idea. She is such a good cleaner though, if I need anything picked up she is always the first one to help me. In the grocery store yesterday we were walking down the cereal isle and she noticed a box on the floor she says "UH-OH" and went and put it back where t was supposed to go. She LOVES giving hugs and kisses and her hugs are always so good. She is our athletic one. She is the champ of the jungle gyms at the park, will jump off anything, and really believes that she can't really get hurt, and if she does get hurt she hops right back up. She is a champ at the iPad or "padpad" as she calls it. She can show anyone up on that thing, she gets around it extremely well for a 30 yr old let alone a 2 year old. She doesn't like bed time too much and has to have her pink baby and her blanket (any blanket really) to sleep. She does whatever Macy does, goes where she goes, and wants whatever she has. She is definitely a little sister in those regards. I love the spirit she brings in to our family, we love our little "loulou". 

Bentleys Blessing Day

The day after my Dad's birthday party we decided to bless Bentley (September 2nd, 2012). He had an adorable outfit made by his Grandma Carbonneau (My Mom). She is an amazing job and I loved it. It was very simple with pleat details that were perfect. I love blessing outfits, having a perfect baby in such a pure and white outfit just fits together perfectly. His Daddy gave him a very sweet blessing, it was a special day. After the blessing/church we headed over to Grandma Gardners house (Kyle's Mom). 

Our little family. London's smile cracks me up.

 Bentley, here's a close up of his outfit.

 My precious kids. We tried getting them to smile, but it was much easier to just have them look at Bentley :)

 My family that came to the blessing. Kyle had a niece and nephew come home from missions, and a nephew leaving on a mission the following week so his family decided to come up the next weekend instead. (more on that later) :)

 Bentley and Kyle

 While family was there we had a little birthday party for London. Her birthday was later in the week so the Grandmas gave her their birthday presents a little early, it was fun to have all the family there to sing to her.

 Daddy helping London open some presents. She got a Baby Doll from Grandma Gardner and a stroller for Grandma and Grandpa Carbonneau.

 Grandpa Bochat helping London put together the stroller.

 All the Carbonneau Grandkids.

 The husband and I :)

Me and My girls!

I sure do love my family. 

All of them.

 My own family, the one I came from, and the one I married into. 

Happy 50th Grandpa Carbonneau!

This year my Dad turned the BIG 50! To celebrate, we had a PARTY! We were planning on blessing Bentley September 2nd, so we decided while everyone was here we should throw a party too. We decided to have a "Mexican Bar" where everyone brought a little mexican something. We had shredded chicken and pork (the pork was AMAZING) with all the little fixings. For a little decoration Kati rounded up pictures of Dad that we hung around the dining room. It was fun to see pictures of Dad growing up and him as a baby. 

In attendance we had: 

Aunt Janet and Uncle Greg (This is my Dad though, don't think we got a picture of Uncle Greg) :(

 Joni Gillispie (Dad's next door neighbor when he was a little boy) with Grandma Benich

Marlin Gillispie (Joni's husband) and Dad

Grandpa Bochat and Jack

Grandma Bochat and Bentley

Aunt Janet, Uncle Greg, Grandma Benich, and Dad

All the Carbonneau kids...

(Derek, Me, Dad, Mom, Chris, Steven)

The Carbonneau kid-in-laws (Jack, Meghan, Emali, Kati, Kyle, and Bentley)

I couldn't resist putting in this picture of London, she is SO cute!

 The girl cousins playing. They all have so much fun together. 

Brelee is standing, then London and Macy

  

For Dads birthday he got....

A "sweat towel" to go under his trainer in the exercise room. 

All the grandkids put their handprints on it.  

 A sweet shirt that has all the words that reminded us of Dad. 

The front says "Half-Century" since he's half a century old.

Notice how bike and ice cream or two of the biggest? :)

 An amazing T-Shirt quilt that my Mom made in a WEEK.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, she's a-maze-ing.

After presents we had a very tasty ice cream cake and a German Chocolate cake, Dad's favorite. I have a pretty awesome Dad, not only has he riden his bike ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY (like 6 times) but he's a pretty awesome listener, a great leader, and all around best Dad a girl could ask for. After the party was over he mentioned that he'd NEVER had a birthday party before (WHAT?! I know!) so that made it even more special. Thanks for being you Dad, we sure love you!