ABC's & 123's... Obsessions

Bentley loves, loves, loves the alphabet and numbers. My mom gave him about 8 sheets of stickers when we were down last that had the alphabet and numbers on it. I have been letting him play with the smaller sheets first so they would last longer. This is what fun he has been having the last two days with the larger sheet. Keeps him busy for at least an hour.

A Sign You Haven't BBQ'd For a While!

Several weeks now I have heard and watched birds landing on an old BBQ grill on our deck. I didn't think much of it and didn't really care since it doesn't really work anyways; however, the other night Lyman found out why they were always over there...





























A little bird family was making a nest for their baby. If you look close you can see the one blue egg. Since the nest and egg are there we decided not to throw the grill away in our neighborhood clean-up project this past weekend. The crazy thing is how they have been getting in and out since the lid as always been closed. They go in and out through small vents on the bottom of the grill. Great little home for them away from the elements.

New Toy Car

As you can see our new 'toy' is a 2003 Yukon Denali. Lyman and I have been planning for this vehicle for about a year now. About a week ago we started looking much more seriously and on this last Saturday we found the one that was right for us. Then... Monday afternoon we bought it!


Yes, still today Lyman is grinning ear-to-ear about this new purchase just as he is in these two pictures.




















Bentley loves the fact he can watch the movie "Cars" in the car now. He would just giggle off and on the first 20 minutes he was in the Yukon.

We look forward to many fun moments and trips in this new vehicle. I especially look forward to our trips to St. George more now since we will all have more room. Both of our Hondas always got so full once we put Bentley, Harley, Lyman and I and then all of our stuff in the car. Lovin' the idea of more SPACE!!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend has a busy weekend for me. The Sunday School presidency was in charge of the Mother's Day gift from the ward so translation of that is the wives of the Sunday School presidency was in charge. I didn't mind helping, but it was still a bit of work to make 300 cookie flowers, bag them, and then tie the ribbon and a poem on all of them. My kitchen was a mess for a few days but it was worth it to honor all the mothers and soon-to-be mothers in our ward.




Thanks to my wonderful husband, I had a nice relaxing day (at least after church). He kept Bentley busy while I took a nap for about an hour and-a-half. At this point in my life I would much rather take a nap in the middle of the day than sleep in, so it was a nice treat! Then Bentley even slept about 30 minutes longer than normal the next morning so I was refreshed and recharged! Thank you, honey!

I'm so thankful for the mothers and grandmothers in my life! I'm so blessed to have their unconditional love and support always! They give me the strength to press on when the days are challenging and the support when I'm not sure how to handle a situation. Motherhood is an amazing adventure! Thank you Bentley for letting me be your mother, I love you more than words can express!

Easter Fun

This is way past due but I forgot that I did have a few pictures on my camera of Easter. Bentley had fun at both at family Easter parties. He actually did pretty good at looking for the candy and eggs. The funny part at the Williams' party was that if he found a candy but didn't like how it looked he would put it back and try to find something he did like. It's fun to see them get older and interact different with holiday parties.

































My mom always is so sweet and buys all the grandkids their Easter outfits but we never seem to get all the grandkids together so we can get a picture of it. This year we tried, but the weather didn't hold out for us. It was perfect weather for 6 hours prior, but I guess we waited too long to try. The kids were so cold and it was windy so the outside shots didn't work well at all and then we had too many cameras going so they aren't all looking at one camera at the same time. We will figure it all out soon. :)

2 Year Old Photos... Finally

Harley the Mooch

So, this post is nothing new, as most of you may know. Harley is a mooch and has always been a mooch since we got her. I'm not complaining in any form since it was Lyman, myself and Grandma Williams that made her this way. However, it has become a bit of a challenge now that Bentley is feeding himself more and sitting in his high chair. Every meal Harley will be sitting, standing or laying next to his chair in hopes that Bentley will drop something or will actually hand it to her. Of course, as you can see from the photos it doesn't stop at the high chair for meal times... it's really anytime that Bentley has any food around him. It was time that I caught it on camera.

Hooray, for Finished House Projects!

Just want to post some random photos of things we have done to the house so a few family members can see. They have been done for some time now but I couldn't ruin my reputation for late posts. :) Lyman worked so hard on painting every door in the house and putting my venetian bronze hardware (hinges and all)! It looks amazing having it all done and Lyman is so glad it's done.



Finally curtains have been hung in all the rooms (that I cared to hang curtains in) except the kitchen but we have long blinds over the glass sliding door and from spring through summer the apple tree out the kitchen window by the sink hides the neighbors backyard.





The mirror and family pictures put the finishing touches on the living room. It always looked so bare and that's the room people see first when entering the house.





My favorite finished project (next to the doors) is the fact that the basement has new padding, carpet and base boards! It was some nasty carpet down there when we moved in. It was so bad that I never let Bentley down there unless I carried him. Also, the base boards were in real poor shape that just sanding and painting them would have only made them look 5% better. My wonderful brother-in-law, Dave was kind enough to hook us up with a good place to buy carpet, hauled it to Salt Lake for us, and then did all the install for everything. We all did a bit of painting to finish it all off. It's now AWESOME down there and a great extra room for guests to stay.



Lyman did a wonderful taking care of the water damage we had on this wall from the prior water heater leaking. He had to treat it and then rebuild the wall. He is getting pretty good at it.



Still many more projects that we would like to do to either improve or decorate more but we will be doing it slowly so we don't break the bank. It's been fun to make it our own. Hard to believe that it's been just over a year since we moved in! Lovin' every minute!

Almost Time for Summer Fun

Let's just say we have had extremely crazy weather this spring but in between the snow, rain and wind storms we have had a small handful of beautiful days. We take full advantage of those days with time in "My Car" as Bentley says (every time we go into the garage) or go on walks with our friends Jen and "baby Jace".

This car has been one of the best toys that we have ever bought for Bentley due to the love Bentley has for it and the price. Went to the D.I. for something completely different and Bentley spotted the car across the room where another little girl was playing with it. He was hooked from that moment. Once I was done looking for a twin bed frame (with no luck) we went over to the car since the little girl had just finished playing with it. Of course, Bentley wanted out of the cart so he could play. I let him down and as I was helping him into the car I noticed the price tag... $5.00! Crazy! For that price I had to get it. So I had Bentley drive it up to the cash register. As we were leaving the area I could hear the little girl following us and telling her mom that we took "her car"... it was kind of funny.

I needed to take a picture of me trying to get this car to fit into our Civic. It took me shifting the car seat to behind the driver seat, pulling the passenger seat all the way forward and then a nice gentle push to get it in. It fit... that's all that mattered to Bentley.

A Boy with Many....

HATS!

Bentley has been in a really silly stage where he likes to put just about anything on his head and called it a hat. My favorite was when he came up with the "wipee hat", but the bandanna is a very close second.




These next several are from our friends Shawn & Hailey. We all had gotten together to have dinner and games, but before the games started then Shawn was doing something for Lyman in their computer room (where all their hats were being kept), so Bentley would keep going back their for Shawn to put on a new hat for him to come and model to us.