Happy Birthday Karter!

On Tuesday (15th) Karter turned 4 years old! Wow! Time really flies. I found out how easy he is to please when I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday and he told me, "I just want a cake.... and we could go for a walk!! That would be fun!" He ended up having a friend over for the day, and then we watched Daddy play softball, ate his favorite- pizza, and had a Blues Clues cake. Then, he was spoiled with presents (thank you grandparents- he loves everything!).
Karter's such a sweet boy and Kollan and I are so grateful for him. He constantly makes me laugh. Like when a couple ladies from primary told me that they had been missing the child who was going to give the talk that day so they asked for a volunteer to give a talk. Of course Karter volunteered and went up to the little podium, where he started out, "IS EVERYONE HAVING A GREAT TIME?"
He loves to entertain whether it's telling his jokes, or singing and dancing. I'm amazed by how many songs he knows in primary or singing along to the radio. His favorite right now is Called to Serve, which he sings both verses to. I'm sure I could brag about him all day long, but I'll just end by saying that he is a great brother to Ty, a good friend, a sweet and wonderful son, and so smart and very creative. He's excited to be 4 (in fact, as I was just typing this he told me, "I'm 4 now! I'm so close to being a grown-up!).

Independence Day!

We had a great Fourth of July at Gma and Gpa Arritt's house. The day started with a great parade which both Karter and Ty really enjoyed, but I included a picture of Karter holding his ears because he did think it was very loud. We had fireworks at Gma and Gpa Maxwell's house and a picnic with lots of other family in between. Overall we had such a great vacation at the cabin and in Burley- it was sad to go home.

The Cabin at Island Park

I love summer vacation! It always goes by way too fast and makes you feel sad when it's over, but it sure was great! We drove up near Yellowstone to Island Park where we had an Arritt family reunion. We spent some time in West Yellowstone and also fed some bread to some really big fish (while some mosquitos fed on us), but we especially loved just being with family. Karter discovered he has a fun little 2nd cousin named Addie who he loved to play with, and we had our annual bean bag tournament, which Kollan's team took 3rd, and I think mine was tied for last- but who's keeping track right?

Great-grandparents

I love it when we can see family, and we are so blessed that our kids have such wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents.
Grandpa and Grandma Maxwell stopped in Cheyenne to visit during their roadtrip to Nebraska and we got to go see Grandpa and Grandma Arritt in Island Park last week. What great great-grandparents!

Family Day!

A great perk of being in the military are the sometimes random family days where Kollan doesn't have to work. Last Friday (20th) they gave us a family day with some fun activities on base and a bbq. Karter loved the jumping house, petting zoo, pony ride, and dunking booth. Ty slept through it all.

Ad for Diet Pepsi

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! IT'S EMPTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
No, we don't give our 6 month old Diet Pepsi, but he sure loves to play with bottles. At this particular moment, he just wasn't happy and we thought it looked like such a cute Pepsi Ad picture.

Swimming in Park City

We stayed a few days in Park City while Kollan had an Optometry Conference. It was so much fun, and we were so excited that Kollan's whole family met us there for the weekend! We went outlet shopping and swimming (this was Ty's first time swimming)!

Still more Family pics

Family Pictures

While in Utah, we had some family pictures taken by Mike. I thought they turned out pretty well, especially considering Karter was sick and SSSSOOOOO grumpy that morning, plus it was raining. But as it turned out, when we went outside, Karter perked up a bit and the rain paused for a few minutes! Yea!

Gma Bell's house

We had a great trip to Utah which started out at Grandma Bell's for Memorial Day weekend. We loved spending time with Gma and Max (her dog), and also loved that we got to see Kirk and Falycia (or as Karter would say "Aunt a-ee-sha"). The only down side to this trip was that Karter got pretty sick- doesn't that always seem to happen on vacation?

A t-ball kinda day

Yesterday was so beautiful which makes me think that maybe the warm weather will stick around- we can atleast hope. Karter loves his t-ball set which he got on his last birthday from Papa and Nam-nam, and Kollan loves playing any and all sports with him. What a perfect day!

Cute Kids

The weather was so beautiful today! I hadn't taken (or posted) any pictures for awhile so I took the camera with us to the playground. I love spring and summer so much! Anyway, I hope you are having good weather too, wherever you are reading this!

Where is SPRING?

So, we had the awesomest little family trip planned, and we were all looking forward to it. On Thursday we were going to drive down to Denver and watch the Braves play the Rockies (Kollan is a big Braves fan and we even all had our Braves gear to wear). We were going to stay in a hotel that night and then go to the zoo the next day. Then, the storms came. The game was cancelled and we were heartbroken. We stayed in Cheyenne Thursday and then thought we'd make the best of it by going to Ft Collins on Friday (about 40 minutes away). We decided to wear the Braves stuff anyway (hence picture #1). We just hung out and went to dinner, then we thought we'd surprise Karter by going to Chuck-E-Cheese. (The poor little guy wanted to go to the game and the zoo so much). Picture #2 is of his face when we drove up to CEC. The whole night he kept saying, "I didn't leeve you prised me!" (I didn't believe you surprised me). Picture #3 doesn't have anything to do with this story, I just think Ty is super cute. Anyway, although the weekend was still fun, I'm so tired of the cold, the snow, and especially the awful Cheyenne wind!! Oops- that sounds a lot like complaining. I'll just say, I'll be very grateful when the warm weather is here to stay.

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter! Karter is at such a fun age. Of course he loved coloring eggs and finding candy, but he also seems to be understanding more about the Resurrection. In church while the speaker was talking about the Savior and the Resurrection, I thought Karter was just playing, but when I looked over at him I was so impressed. He had pulled out a laminated picture from his bag- the one of the Resurection, where Jesus is in his white robe amidst the angels with their trumpets- and he was turned around on the bench showing it to all the people sitting behind us. He showed me too, and whispered, "See, the Wessurection!" He was excited to feel like he had such an important job, helping the speaker talk about the Resurrection.

I thought Karter and Ty looked especially cute in their Easter clothes. What a wonderful day!