Home Sweet Home

I'm finally back to the blogging world (although probably only my mom noticed my absence). We spent most of the month of August on the road. I spent about a week and a half in Yakima visiting with my family. All of my siblings were able to go home around that time so we were able to overlap our visits by a couple of days.

After our Yakima trip we had a couple of days home to unpack, wash, and repack our clothes before we took off on our Idaho/Utah trip. Scott's sister Kacey got married in the Logan Temple on Aug 15th and then the following weekend there was a Holt Family Reunion. The little boys and I were able to stay at my in-laws house in Preston, ID for the week while Scott flew home to work. During that time we also had our 5th anniversary. We celebrated by Scott going golfing with his dad and brothers....hmmm how did that happen?

It was a great several weeks, but I have to say that I am very happy to be home. It's so nice to sleep in our beds, not have to rummage through suitcases, and to be able to let my boys run free through the house.

All of these pictures are in chronologically reversed, but I'm too tired (lazy) to take the time to switch them all.

While Scott was on our anniversary golf trip I had Logan down for a nap and was enjoying talking to my sister-in-laws upstairs while Jaden was down playing with his cousins. I went down to check on him once and found him like this:

They were playing beauty shop and Jaden was loving every minute of it. Awhile later Sarah and Emma came up to show us that they were playing dress up and close behind was Jaden all decked out in what he calls his pirate costume. He wore that wig and hat for several hours that day. I told Scott that Jaden may decide to do theater rather than sports so he might want to start warming up to that idea.

Jaden and Emma dancing together at the wedding luncheon

Waiting for Kacey and Tyler outside the temple. Isn't his little pose adorable?

Scott's brother Mark and our future sister-in-law Halsey. It's nice to have people around that don't have kids of there own yet because they are always willing to hold ours. Thanks!

Kacey and Tyler are great together. We are excited to have him in our family.

Dallin, Carson, Jaden and Logan before the reception.

It may look like Logan just woke up, but that's pretty much the style he is going for lately. Notice how long his tie is!

My handsome husband showing off his muscles while setting up for the reception.

Jaden thought it was hilarious that they decorated Tyler and Kacey's car and tried to help out as much as he could. Let's just hope he doesn't try this one at home!

While we had all the Hatfield grandkids in one place we tried to get a photo. I think they turned out fairly well considering how many little kids there were.

So that picture before wasn't Jaden's first time playing dress up with his girl cousins. Here he is with Meagan and Mackayla playing with the princess clothes. He let me know several times that he was the king not a princess.


Growing up we spent most of our summers at a place called Sun Lakes Resort. It was so much to be able to go back with my kids for a few days.

Take me out to the ball game

We are going to be gone next week so tonight was Jaden's last game. It has been pretty entertaining to watch him at an organized sport. The best part is when he is in the outfield. All of the kids chase after the ball and usually end up in a dog pile fighting over who gets to through the ball to first. I wasn't able to capture a pile up on film but I did get a great video of Jaden trying to decide where to throw the ball to.

#1 Fan

Good Game Guys!

This morning Jaden came running to me telling me to get my camera and take a picture. He is so excited that his little brother is able to get into mischief with him now.

We love summer!

Logan is 9 months now. It's amazing how long 9 months takes when you are waiting for a baby, but how fast it goes once they are born. He is getting really quick and likes to spend most of his time climbing up on things (especially mom). Logan still has the craziest hair in the family. Poor kid has a double crown on the top of his head and no matter how hard we try his hair always pops right back up. He's also still a tank. I took him in the other day and he weighed in at 24 1/2 lbs. - No wonder my arm hurts all the time! I really have developed tendinitis and after about 2 months I finally decided to try one of those silly arm bands. It seems to help alleviate the pain especially while lifting the boys, but I feel like an idiot wearing it around all the time.

Scott and Jaden went to the ward's father/son camp out last weekend and like last year they had a great time.

When the boys got home from the camp out we went on a 15 mile family bike ride and then headed to the pool in Moscow. Needless to say we all slept good that night.

Jaden has really been into superheros lately and has been telling me constantly that he wants a costume. So I decided that I would sew him one. Sounds simple enough, except for the fact that I don't sew. I have a machine, but it has been used very few times. I googled superhero cape and came across a pretty simple tutorial and I determined I could do without too many problems. I think I did a pretty good job (just don't look too close). It's superman on one side and batman on the other. I decided to look further into this lady's blog to see if she had other easy patterns for kids, and as I was exploring her site I realized that it was a girl that lived in the dorms with me my freshman year. Kinda random coincidence. For any fellow Fugal Hall girls out there, it was Georgia's (the girl that lived with the 3 Beccas) site in case you are curious.
Here's the sad part of the story...Jaden won't play in it! He told me that he likes it but he just doesn't want to wear it. I put it on Logan a couple of times just to have the jealousy trick Jaden into putting it on for awhile.

Jaden just stared tee ball this week and it is so much fun to watch! He's a typical 3 year old that is too busy chasing the other kids around are laying on the ground to really listen to what his coach is telling him. They have just had practice so far, but we're excited to see how the actual games are going to go. It's a zoo with all those kids!

Frog and Toad

Yesterday our library put on an event at the park with a special appearance by Frog and Toad. I remember reading those books as a kid, but up until now I have never checked any out for Jaden to read. I showed Jaden the flyer and told him who they were and if he wanted to go see them. Jaden is not a fan of animals bigger than him walking around like people. His first encounter was with Cosmo when he was about 7 months old and his liking of them hasn't changed much since then.

Jaden so excited about this though and talked about it all day and trying to get his daddy to skip work to come with us because it was going to be so fun. We set up our blanket and sat down to wait for the arrival of the special guests. Jaden could hardly contain himself, he kept jumping up and down shouting "Frog and Toad-y! I can't wait Frog and Toad-y are coming!" I thought it was hilarious because he really doesn't know who they are at all and he had no idea what they were going to do once they go there.

If you are curious as to what they did do when they got there, this was about it:

After the librarian told the kids some interesting facts about frogs and toads it was time to break up into four stations: have your picture taken with them, get a frog sticker, get a froggy treat, and get some bubbles. Jaden was set on getting his picture taken first thing. Even with other children running around with bubbles and candy he was determined to wait it out in line. Once it was our turn though he started walking toward them but then stopped to explain that he had to hold someones hand to be able to go near them. Since I had to actually take the picture Jaden had to rely on his little bro for the moral support. So we are making progress, maybe by football season he'll work up enough courage to high five the WSU mascot.

Fun in the Sun

This is how every family picture we take turns out. It's a keeper if at least one person is looking.

We spent the holiday weekend in Yakima again. We were able to take Logan swimming for the first time and on his first boat ride. Logan loves the water!

Jaden really wanted to help make the flag cake this year. Heather was very kind to let him assist her in the frosting and decorating. Grandma also had some cookies on hand for Jaden to bake.

Fireworks are outlawed in Central Washington, but Amy smuggled some sparklers in from her trip to Boise. Jaden was really excited about them at first and held onto his sparkler until it fizzled out. After that he was done. The flames scared him so while his cousins continued to light and wave their sparklers around Jaden played at the other end of the yard. I love my little safety boy.

I think Jaden had just as much fun off the boat as he did on.

Logan's first ride. Poor kid could hardly breathe with that life jacket on, but he seems to enjoy himself. I've had a really hard time finding a hat for Logan than he can't pull off, so I finally found this silly blue one. My 8 1/2 month old's head barely fits into it and it's a 2T-4T size! Gotta love our Hatfield Heads!

"Umm, excuse me grandpa"

The best part about kids is that they have just as much fun at home in their own backyards playing in a kiddie pool as they do anywhere else.

Bring on the heat

It was 102 degrees today we live on the top floor and do not have air conditioning....we're melting! It doesn't usually get that hot here so we have been putting off buying an ac unit, but days like today I don't care how much they cost. We showed up to church a half an hour early today and then stayed for an equal amount of time afterwards just so we could enjoy the cool air. I realize that just a few weeks ago I was complaining about the cold so I guess that would make me a whiner - oh well it doesn't seem to bother me.

We've had another fun weekend. Some friends of ours from Seattle spent the weekend with us and Jaden loved to have more people around to entertain. Of course in his mind they are all here to see and play with him so he was his usual self telling them what to do and where to sit. He was pretty sad to see Doug and Vanessa leave this morning, but I think they were ready to move on to a cooler (I'm talking temperature, because we are obviously awesome) part of their trip.

Saturday we went to an community event at the park. They had free food from Qdoba, a bounce house and some live entertainment. It actually felt really nice in the shade so we spent most of the afternoon laying on the grass being lazy.

Doug and Vanessa went to WSU so they took us on tour of the campus. We've lived here 3 months and hadn't walked around there yet.

Logan really wanted the tacos...but had to settle for chewing on a spoon.

Jaded found some people passing out popcorn and went back 3 times. The size of the box is deceiving though, they were only 1/3 full.

This is Jaden's friend Joshua that lives downstairs from us and we share a backyard with. They are moving tomorrow and Jaden is going to be really sad to see his little buddy leave. I've been watching Joshua and his brother a lot lately while their mom is getting everything packed up so it's going to be be pretty quiet around the house this week. I really enjoyed them but I'll be honest I'm actually looking forward to having the yard to ourselves for awhile and not feeling like I have to hush my kids when they are running around at 7am.

Logan's new trick is to pull himself up to standing. Twice last week we were woken up to his screaming to find that he had pulled himself up and was stuck. I guess we still have a little more work to do there.

This is Logan doing a Donald Duck impersonation

My happy boys wanting their pictures taken this morning