Memorial Day 2013

Well, as Memorial day is the unofficial start of summer, I gave in and gave my boys their summertime haircuts. Here's the best before picture I could get of B. He was very upset and didn't want to get his haircut.

And here is the after picture- I call him my little Jar-Head. Also- I don't know what's up with my boys eyes....you'll understand when you see the rest of the pictures.

J's before picture....

.....and After. 

We picked some flowers from our backyard and took them to the Murray Cemetery where my mother's parents are buried. We hope to make it a family tradition to visit the graves of our grandparents (and great-grandparents) on Memorial day. We will have to plan next year, we have plenty of places to choose from, the Ponds in Provo, the Wheelers in Ogden and  Grandpa Turner in Logan- We want our boys to remember the sacrifices made by our ancestors and we hope that this Memorial Day tradition will help them understand and remember the wonderful people from whom they descend. 

So this year, we visited Grandma and Grandpa Dowdle, a wonderful couple who were married in 1944. Grandpa Wayne was an Idaho boy who became sailor in the Navy during World War II. While he was stationed in Florida he met Mildred Gulledge, the most lovely waitress in all of Daytona Beach. My Mommy was their first child and I am grateful to have been blessed to be part of their family. Grandma passed away the fall of my Senior year of High School and Grandpa passed just a few months after our little B was born. I miss them, but I know they are our Angels and that they are around when we need them. And even more importantly, I know that we will all be together again someday.

I was able to explain to J that not only were Grandma and Grandpa Dowdle buried here in Murray, but my cousin Matt, who passed away while I was on my mission, is buried there as well. This kind of confused J a little, he knows he has cousins and that they are pretty much the same age as him. I don't think it's ever crossed his mind that sometimes people don't live to be 95 year old or older, like his Great Grandma Turner is (I've told her that she's not allowed to die, and so far she has been very obedient to me, but that is a story for a different time). It was nice to be able to visit the cemetery with the boys.

Ken had the fabulous idea to take the boys to a park on Memorial Day as well and since we were in Murray we wen to the very large Murray Park! The boys enjoyed running on the paved trails while we tried to find a playground.

B was brave and let me help him hang from the Monkey bars, after about 20 seconds he started asking for help to get down. We tired to get J to play on the monkey bars but they were really short and he could stand on the ground while he moved his hands and he didn't understand why we wanted him to lift his legs up off the ground.

I don't know if its a large creek or a small river, but the water was high and my boys enjoyed freaking me out by getting a little too close to the water at times. In actuality, they never got very close at all, but that didn't stop me from having visions of one of them falling in the rushing water and me jumping in and trying to save them. SO, I'm glad that part of our park adventure ended quickly.

I really love this picture. B often gives up on walking, and we were walking a lot that day so it was perfectly understandable when he got in front of his daddy and said "Hold Me!" So Ken tossed him up on his shoulders and B really enjoyed the view from up there.

Ken challenged the boys to run up a hill- it's actually quite steep, not sure if the picture does it justice. J ran right up that thing like it was nothing.

B chose to deal with the steepness of the hill by conquering it on all fours.

Eventually they all made it to the top!

And after everyone made their way down from the hill we found another playground!

A fun time was had by all! 

YSA Carnival

Ken and I work with the Young Single Adult organization at our Church and recently there was a Carnival with lots and lots of Bouncy Houses and slides.

Here's fearless J climbing up........

....and sliding down. He had to have done this 20 or 30 times.

Ken helped B go down the slide a few times too.

This next inflatable was a huge obstacle course and J LOVED IT- he would run from the end back to the start and jump back in. We eventually were able to convince him that he should check to see if there is a line of people waiting for their turn, when he figured that out he designated himself the official starter and he would stand near to entrance with his hand up then he would say "GO, GO, GO" and drop his hand to let each group of 2 or 3 people know they could start the course.

The end of the course was a 2 story climb with a slide on the other side.

B loved the obstacle course too and he attempted it several times on his own. I, being a scared mom and knowing that the 18 to 30 year old people people who were also enjoying the course, were NOT on the look out for a tiny little 2 year old, made Ken go in and find B a few times.

We also enjoyed the treats, Snow cones and cotton candy all around!

J didn't want to wait his turn for this game either- it was a bungee run. 

There were two bungee cords attached to a padded vest, as well as some padded helmets to wear.....

.....then when you were all strapped in you ran as fast and hard as you could hoping to reach the other side before the bungee cord pulled you back. I really love this picture.

We had lots and lots of fun. Ken and J even got to dunk a people at the dunk tank a few times.

Day out with Daddy

"The story of how Daddy took care of us while Mommy was at Women's Conference", as told by 5 year old J 

This is a picture of the new library I haven't been at. (This was the first time that the boys had been to the Lehi Library- previously we've used the Salt Lake County Library system. Ken took the boys to a puppet show at the Lehi Library)

And this is a fun place that has popcorn. (Kate- What's going on at the fun place that has popcorn) J-There's nothing fun there, just popcorn, right? And it's Big O Tires and it's SO FUN!!!!

This is me and brother in front of a car. Whose car is this Mom? (K- I don't know. What building are you in front of?) This is my little brother. Let's go to the next one....

This is me and brother inside that place. (K-What's that place called?) J whispers- Mommy what's that place called again? (K- It's called Cabela's)

This is me and brother inside Cabela's, and LOOK we're still inside Cabela's! We're looking at fish, and more fish. Fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy ,fishy, fishy, fishy, every big fish is in the water, today and tomorrow.

(K-What's this?) I don't know.....oh the Tinkins, I mean the tokens, for me and brother.

This is me and brother eating all the popcorn and daddy getting you new pieces (K- What pieces?) The pieces for your car. (Ken took the boys to the Subaru dealership and ordered some tiny parts to fix the inside of the tailgate of my car- Ken is AWESOME)

And this is the train set that was at that place

And this is the DI where we got to play at. (K-Do you like to play at the DI?) Yeah- and we're giving new stuff to the DI. (We've been trying to de-clutter and yesterday the boys tried very hard to go through their toys and decide which they wanted to keep and which they could give to the DI so that other kids could have cool toys too, apparently this made an impression on J )

This is a picture of Beeye, my brother

And this is me, Jared Wheeler.......WRITE MY WHOLE NAME!!!!!

(And with that, he ran away. I asked him if he wanted to say anything else about the pictures or about his day with Daddy......and he said No. So I guess that's it, the story is over. Ken did a great job, these sweet boys of ours sure love their Daddy.)

April Showers bring May......SNOW?

Well, here we are, May 1st. It's beautiful out there isn't it. Yesterday I ran 9 miles in pretty much perfect spring running weather, and today................it snowed.

 J was SO EXCITED he put on his snow gear and went out to play, B followed him unfortunately he was not wearing his snow gear and he quickly discovered that footie pajamas do not provide much protection when you try to walk in snow. I saved him as quickly as I could. J played as long as the snow lasted, which was about an hour. It's now sunny and dry outside. Maybe tomorrow we can have some May Flowers.

The Tulip Festival

On Monday we went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see the Tulips. The boys were more excited about seeing cousin C than about the flowers. 

 They enjoyed running around, and going places where they probably shouldn't have gone. We had to chase them out of a flowerbed or two, which means that a great time was had by all!

 At one point I heard J scream and then jump away from something on the sidewalk. I then saw that the "Something" was a snake, just a small garden snake, but it was probably the first time that J has seen one and he was not pleased to have had the close encounter. Do you see it?

 In the coming years there will be a sculpture garden with different sculptures of Jesus Christ. The boys enjoyed looking at the full sized statues. Little C said "I've never seen Jesus, but I know that he loves me" He's 3. Yesterday, the day after visiting the gardens B said to me as we were reading scriptures before bed "Jesus Loves Me!" Those boys are awesome. And yes, Jesus does love them.

 We stopped by the secret garden.......which is always the highlight of any trip to the gardens......

 ........mostly because of.......

 ......the water! 

 My Mom told me she always takes a picture of the angel in the secret garden, and I thought I would like to take one too.

 J designated himself the door keeper of the secret garden.

 I caught him telling people which doors they had to use to get in and out, and closing the doors, I distracted him by taking some pictures of him with his most favorite door.

 And if Brother gets a picture than B wants one too.

I love those boys.

 Last week we visited with Aunt Donna and Uncle Weldon in Highland and we played on their giant swing!

 B had lots of fun with his Daddy and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Ken had lots of fun too.

 J was big enough to swing by himself and he took several turns but I didn't really get any good photos :( I will attest that he had lots of fun, and after a quick lesson about how you don't hop off the swing until it's stopped- he was also safe :)

 Ken even took a turn or two on his own.