Weekend fun and a birthday

Dan spent the first half of Saturday working on a new TV console. He's almost done. It looks great. Pictures to come upon completion. After he showered and the kids napped, we headed out with Kirk and Gretchen to the greatest show on earth.

It was pretty fun. They did some really cool stuff. We especially liked the acrobats/contortionists and the motorcycle guys in the big spherical cage. After a while, I thought it was too much like Chuck E. Cheese - major sensory overload. Dan and I would be content never going to another circus again, but we may eat our words one day.

The kids really liked it. Afton clapped a lot, Sam clapped some and also spent a good amount of time trying to annoy Carter.

And some more pictures because I'm a picture-loving fool.

After the circus, we went over to K&G's for dinner and cupcakes. Then we watched Wendy open her presents.

She got this sweet helmet. Carter had to try it on first.

It was fun to celebrate Wendy. I can't believe Afton's birthday is up next!

What Sam Wore Some Random Days

There are lots of women who have blogs with posts titled "What I Wore Wednesday" (or Tuesday or Monday or whatever). They take pictures of what they wear EVERY DAY and then post the pictures once a week. (Look here, or here for examples.) I can't imagine taking pictures of what I'm wearing every. single. day. For many reasons. The biggest being that if I took pictures of what I wore, every week you'd see the same clothes. Five pairs of shorts and various plain t-shirts.

But anyway, I thought it would be fun to take pictures of what SAM wears because he picks out his own clothes and he can have quite a unique style. Of course, as soon as I decided I wanted to take pictures of his outfits, he chose pretty run-of-the-mill clothes. But he's cute, so I'll post some of them anyway.

Dentist

Now that I have recovered from making the world's longest blog post, I will tell you about taking Sam to the dentist this morning. This being his first visit, we have talked it up quite a bit at home.

"Oh, you get to go to a special place called the dentist's office where a nice lady is going to look at your teeth!"
"You will get to tell the dentist what all the letters of the alphabet say while she brushes your teeth!"
"If you're good at the dentist, you can have fruit snacks when we get home."
"The dentist's office is such a special place!"

I dropped Afton off with a friend and Sam and I headed over. Upon arriving in the office he found a basket of toys and proceeded to play with them. Happy and ignorant. He even told me that he would tell the dentist "Aaahhhhh..." as she looked in his mouth. Then the hygenist came and called his name.

He looked down and reluctantly followed me back to her area. When I tried to place him in the special chair, he did the limp fish thing and tried to squirm out. So at first I sat on the chair too, facing him and trying to hold him still. But when the hygenist tried to look in his mouth, he turned his head and body and closed his mouth. So she switched sides and he just turned the other way. I knew that wasn't going to work, so I sat in the chair and held him firmly on my lap. I had to hold his head in place. He cried. She attempted to brush. She tried to get him to look at her and open his mouth. It worked a little bit. Then he gagged. Fortunately, he didn't throw up, but he's got a crazy gag reflex (thanks to me) and didn't like the brushing. He kept saying he wanted to go home. Torture. For both of us.

When the dentist came, she had me hold Sam on my lap facing me and then we laid him down so that his head was in her lap. He cried some more, but she was finally able to see his teeth. All clear. When he was done he acted like nothing had happened, gave me a high five and then told the dentist, "Thank you." (I told him to.) And he got a prize from the treasure box. (A little plastic bus with messed up wheels.) Hopefully he'll forget about the dentist before his next visit 6 months from now. Hopefully I will, too.

Washington

We just got back from a week-long visit to Kennewick, Washington to see Dan's family. All of the siblings and families were there and it was so great to see everyone! Last time we were all together was Christmas 2004. We had a great time catching up and seeing how the cousins have grown up since last time we saw them.

We jumped on the trampoline.

(Sam was done after that jump.)

Cousins played video games.

We lit fireworks and those little bottle things where you pull the string and confetti comes out. What are those called?

 Handsome Luke.

Cousins played together.

We woke Sam up for a few of the fireworks. It got a little chilly so he snuggled with Daddy.

One day we took family pictures. I LOVE this picture of Sam. I'd love it even more if he hadn't unbuttoned his shirt like he was on Miami Vice.

 Above is Afton with her cousin Lucy.

One morning all the men (plus Noah) went shooting.

And the next morning, all the ladies (minus Amy) got manicures and pedicures.

One day we walked around the Columbia River Temple grounds. So pretty.

Matt let us borrow his truck while we were there. Dan loved it.

Dan's dad runs the observatory at Columbia Basin College so he met us and gave us a little tour. We saw a star, Jupiter, and the sun (through a solar telescope). It was really neat. He let Sam open the top.

I got to meet up with my old roommate, Betsy, one day. It was so great to see her and her two cute kids!

(And may I just say how great it was to be in dry weather and to be able to straighten my hair and have it stay that way?????)

A shot of the tracks on the way to Matt and Amy's.

Having dinner and Mom and Dad D's.

One night all the adults got to go out to dinner. Then we came home and played a few games and had an "Ugly Picture" contest. Dan had taken ugly pictures of everyone and we had to vote on who had the ugliest face. I'm so glad that Dan took 90% of the pictures so that we'll have them on our computer for blackmail purposes for years to come. Noah won.

 Dan came in second.

I didn't place at all, but my sister-in-law did inform me that I look like Ryan Reynolds when he wore a fat suit for a movie. I looked it up and I'm guessing she thinks I look like this.

I have no idea what she's talking about.  :)

And just so I don't have to end this post with that picture, here's a cute picture of Sam and Luke eating donuts. Look close at Luke's face and what do you see?

Zorro would be proud.

And here's one last cute picture of Sam watching from the deck as his uncle and cousins light a big fire down below.

It was a great trip and we had so much fun. Hopefully it won't take us seven years to plan the next one.