New Favorite Activity

Our new favorite activity this week is.. COLORING!

When we got out of bed this morning he brought me straight to the table to start coloring. I write letters on the paper while he scribbles and draws. He's not much of a fan of coloring books. He just prefers a blank sheet of paper.

I LOVE this little man and his awesome smile!

!Happy Boy!

He's 2yrs old!

Hyrum had His birthday on labor day this year. We had lots of friends and family over in out little apartment to celebrate. Originally I was going to a completely boyish theme with cars and truck (his favorite!). I found a pan I liked and wanted to use to make his cake that is a 3D standing car. Well a day or two after ordering the pan I found out that it wouldn't be here until the day AFTER the part.. bummer..

So I started trying to figure something else out and finally just decided on a monkey/curious george theme. I had a friend in Gig Harbor who did a monkey for her daughters 2nd birthday so I was able to borrow her cake pan. This year I made homemade buttercreem icing. I was a bit worried the entired time I was making the cake how everything would turn out. This is only my 2nd cake ever to make and decorate and my first time ever to make home made icing.. I think I did farely well. It wouldn't have been as nice if I didn't do the party baloons. But everyone liked it. (i hope)

I have many years to practice making cakes. and I know I'll get better each time.

This is the finished product.

I have not been able to find my camera anywhere so I wasn't able to get a ton of pictures of the birthday. We got some pictures of Hyrum blowing out the candles on Rickys canon camera that he dug out and i haven't put them on the computer yet. So I will have to add them later.

His party was nice and he got lots of fun new toys for the 2 of us to play with during the day! one toy he got from his Brother Marvin was a Dinosaur Train train set. After waking up the morning after his party Hyrum went straight to the dining room table (where the train was set up) around 7:30am and immediatly started playing. He played with the train until 8pm that night. not exadgerating.. He did take a break to eat and a break to nap. Other than that, he was playing with the train.

One the day that I went birthday shopping for some gifts for Hyrum I let him roam free (out of the stroller) and everything he saw that he liked, he had to pull it off the shelf and get a better look at it..

I think I did more cleaning up behind him than I did actual shopping. but he enjoyed himself and wasn't to bad about anything. He sure does love his cars, trucks, trains and balls.

Lake Wenatchee

We took a quick trip to Lake Wenatchee for some camping. We really enjoyed it. Our campsite was nice, and the lake was perfect.

The water in the lake was extremely refreshing and it has a really smooth sandy bottom, so no owies on our feet.

Our camping experience was pretty good, even though we didn't have pillows. The first night I used Hyrums diaper bag as my pillow and the last night I used a sleeping bag cover and stuffed it with rolled clothes and towels.

We did the usual smores at night before bed time. We roasted hot dogs over the fire for our first dinner, and one night we grilled marinade stake right on top of the fire.... yumm!

We spent preactically all day swimming at the lake. Showers cost $1 for 3min. So we didn't really shower.. I've never been camping at a pace that charged for showers.

The boys, Elijah, Jayden and Hyrum

Ricky and Hyrum.

He was sooo tired. this was failed nap attempt 1.

lunch!

putting aloe on the sunburns

Jayden posing for Elijah

the awesome Lake

just finished swimming

I made a 5min phone call to our boss as we were pulling out of our camp and these two were already knocked out asleep within those 5minutes.

Jaliba & the Kumareh Band

Jaliba- The king of Kora. Kora is an instrument that has a harp like/guitar like sound. Kora is an original instrument from West Africa in the country called The Gambia.

Outside of Rickys full time jobs, he and his Gambian friend Moe have their own little 'business' on the side. There is a huge African/Gambian community/association here in WA. Moe and Ricky get hired from people throughout the african/gambian community to do home remodeling, flooring, building decks, putting up fences, gates, hanging lights and chandeliers. If there is something to be built or fixed, they call up Moe and Ricky. Through this Ricky has had the oportunity to really get to know more about the Gambian and African culture and has made lots of friends.

Any who, the Gambian association flew over Jaliba and his band straight from Gambia to preform here in the Seattle area. Ricky and I got tickets and went to the event. It was quite the culture shock. But I enjoyed going to the event and seeing how things are done in other cultures.  They have a bucket on the front of the stage and if the audience likes the song they go up to the stage and stand there and throw money into the bucket, OR they get up on stage and throw money onto the preformers.

These two woman singers are BOTH of Jalibas wives.

A woman got on stage and showered Jaliba with Monday, wiped his sweat with dollar bills and stuck money to his face.

In Gambian concerts people are allowed to get up on stage whenever they want, dance with the preformers throw money at the preformers. Some people would even talk to Jaliba in the middle of his preformance and he would just smile and keep playing until he could respond to them.

I have lots of videos of the concert that I will post later

Summer 2010

Hyrum has been lucky to have his cousin Elijah stay with us for this last part of the summer. We have been going to the water park, doing lots of swimming, swinging and bike riding.

Six year old Cousin Jayden came and stayed with us for a week during this time and Hyrum and Jayden had a good time with each other.

this was after a long day of water park fun and swimming. the boys cooked some Turkey dogs for dinner.

The boys LOVE these round swings at Discovery Park/Les Gove in Auburn. I think we went and played there every day for a week.