4th of July Celebration

Ever since we have moved up to Oakley the 4th of July has become one of our favorite holidays! We get to see professional fireworks from our backyard for 4 nights in a row because of the rodeo and the day of the 4th is filled with activities. The fun starts at 5:00AM when the sound of cannonballs are shot throughout the town. Surprisingly this tradition has never woken my girls up, but without fail it wakes Dallas and I up every time. Although I have to admit this year I was awake before the 5:00AM wake-up call because I was way too excited for the day to begin. Later on in the morning we go to the parade and then in the afternoon we go to the kid's rodeo. Then that night we go to the Oakley Rodeo. It is a day filled of fun and our family absolutely loves it!

The night before the 4th we had our friends Scott and Jenny and their kids come stay with us. It was a lot of fun! We had a BBQ, lit some fireworks, and then watched the Rodeo's firework show from our backyard.

Aaliyah started out not liking them so much!

After a little coaxing she decided they weren't so bad.

Adeline started jamming to the music they were playing at the Rodeo grounds. It was pretty cute!


The 4th of July Parade

Dallas was an announcer for the parade that day. He did really well especially for all the craziness that happened in the rodeo this year! There were a few people who got injured during the parade because a horse fell on them, but luckily no one seriously got injured.

Aaliyah and Grandpa Doug

Candy!

The Kid's Rodeo




They both raced for a coin.

Here's Aaliyah trying to catch a chicken.

Here she is pouting because she didn't catch a chicken.

Here's Aaliyah getting ready to ride a sheep. She had been telling us for days that she wanted to go to the rodeo and ride a sheep.

You probably can't see her that well in this picture, but Aaliyah's on the sheep and not too happy about it. When it came right down to it she did not want to ride the sheep anymore.

When Dallas got her off the sheep she threw quite the fit and it made most of the audience laugh! I'm glad I got it on video!


The Oakley Rodeo

This year was my most enjoyable experience with the rodeo because both of my girls cooperated really well! Don't you love my humongous sunglasses? Someday I'm going to get made fun of for those!

Life has been busy, but fun!

So I haven't made a blog entry for almost two months! Where does the time go!? Can I just say that summertime is a busy time, but we have had a lot of fun along the way! In May, Aaliyah had her first dance recital and we went to Yellowstone with our friends the Lee's. So far this month Dallas has found a new job, which has a been a little nerve racking, but hopefully a good move and I just ran the Wasatch Back Relay Race. Dallas left his job at Comp Health where he had worked for 8 years and he is now working for a software company and will be in charge of launching and selling the software that they have created. He has to commute to Springville until he is trained, but will be working from home from here on out. I just ran the Wasatch Back last weekend and can I tell you it was one of the most fun experiences I have had! In fact, I plan to do it again next year and now my sister has talked me into doing the Logan Marathon with her in September. Here are some pics of what we have been up to lately:

Aaliyah's Dance Recital

I wish this picture wasn't blurry! Aaliyah was so excited to introduce herself!

When she introduced herself she said, "My name is Aaliyah Aste and my daddy and mommy are Dallas and Brittany and Brody and Clowee." So she remembered the dogs, but not here sister.

She was really getting into it her, but of course the darn picture has to be blurry.

Yellowstone with the Lee's

Our friends invited us to come up with them to their cabin during Memorial Day weekend. We hadn't seen them for at least a year because they live in Arizona now so it was a great time to catch up. There cabin is right off of Henry's Lake so it has an amazing view!

This is part of their view of the lake.

Here's Adeline, Aaliyah, and Broderick hanging out in the back of the car while we drove through Yellowstone. They actually did really well considering that we forgot to bring snacks for them. I was way bummed to realize that this is the only picture we got of Broderick and we didn't get any pictures of Chris and Marchelle!

If you can't tell that little black spot in the middle of the picture is a black bear. We also saw a grizzly bear, but as you can guess we forgot to take a picture of it. The grizzly was laying on top of an elk it had just caught. The ranger didn't let us stay long to see it because it was too close to the road.

Aaliyah wasn't particularly fond of the smell of Yellowstone.


Wasatch Back Relay Race

So I don't have a whole lot of pictures of the race yet, but when I get them all I'll explain the race a little better. This picture only has half our team in it. If you like running I would recommend looking into doing this race, it was so much fun!

American Idol

So I have to say this season of American Idol has had the best performers yet! I have never been so mixed with who I want win! On previous seasons that I have watched there has always been one that stands out to me and for the most part I'm ready to see everyone else get eliminated, but not this season. I've had a hard time seeing people go ever since it came down to the final 5 contestants. I hope to see Chris and Adam in the top 2 tonight. I like Danny and in the very beginning he was one of my favorites, but slowly I've kind of lost interest in him. He's never sang a song that I loved so much that I wanted to purchase it on itunes. Whereas I have to admit I have purchased Adam's song, Tracks of My Tears and Chris's song, Falling Slowly. I go back and forth on who I want to win between Adam and Chris. Adam has an amazing voice, in fact I think he has the strongest voice of them all, but when he sings a song I either absolutely love it or I don't like it at all. With Chris I've always liked the way he's sang his songs, but his vocals aren't as strong. I could see myself buying Chris's album and either loving or liking every song on that album and with Adam there would be songs that I would absolutey love and then some that I don't like at all. No matter who wins I think all three of these guys will make something of themselves and I think Alisson definitely has a chance too!

Easter

This Easter was a lot of fun with the excitement of our two little girls. Aaliyah was very excited to decorate Easter eggs and have the Easter Bunny come, but when I asked her what was the real reason we celebrated Easter she replied by saying, "Jesus died so we can have bodies." It's nice to see that she realizes that the holiday isn't just all about the Easter Bunny!

For family night we colored and decorated Easter eggs. Adeline was amazed by all of the colored water and kept saying, "Ohhh....".

When I walked into Aaliyah's room on Easter morning I found this cute little arrangement on her floor. She had found her Easter clothes along with a few accessories and laid them out all nicely. The sun lying right next to her outfit says, "I am a child of God" on it.

Here's Uncle Nick and Aaliyah decorating a bunny cake. I think Uncle Nick had just as much fun decorating the cake as Aaliyah did! :)

Here's the finished product. They decided to turn it into a robot bunny.

Here's Grandma with Aaliyah, Adeline, and Eloise. Eloise is the newest addition to our family. She's my sister Brooke's little girl.

Luckily it didn't snow on Easter like it was suppose to so we were able to have an Easter egg hunt outside.

Adeline caught on really quick to finding the eggs and absolutely loved it!

Note To Self: Don't Give Chocolate Pudding To Unsupervised Children!

So after the girls finished lunch I let them have a treat and thought while they were eating it I would go clean up all of the toys they had pulled out throughout the morning. Then everything would be put away before their nap. Such a great idea turned out not to be such a great idea as you can see. I walked into the kitchen and just burst out laughing. They were both smearing chocolate pudding all over their faces and laughing hysterically.

This is what the treat looked like before they turned it into a facial.

Aaliyah and Adeline

So lately I have been writing down the cute and sometimes not so cute things my girls do and say in a little notepad and I've been meaning to make a blog about it. I've decided to do little highlights about them here and there, so I will start with telling a little bit about themselves.

Aaliyah is 3 years old and like most 3 year olds she is discovering her independence. She loves to play with her sister and her friends, dress-up (this includes putting on "make-ups"), dance to music (mostly Tarzan and princess music), decorate her room (she got this idea from Fancy Nancy), and be a big helper. She definitely is all girl!

Adeline is 18 months and is learning how to use her vocabulary. She loves to play with her sister (when her sister isn't bossing her around), dance to music, dress-up (dress-up shoes are her favorite), play with her baby dolls, explore all parts of the house (which is a nice way of saying that she gets into everything), and help mommy clean.