Rivers' baptism and 4th of July

Oops, some of these pictures are out of order and my computer won't let me move them. So, here is a peek of what's to come... Rivers got baptized on June 26th and here are her Nana and Lito posing with her. Here's a pic from a while ago... it's Tanner and Alissa on their creative, romantic snow date they back country skiied to... he proposed and the wedding is July 23rd. Woo hoo!

I love, love nice summer nights when the sun goes down enough for the whole yard to be shaded and we just hang out on the front porch/yard eating popsicles and watching/mingling with neighbors until about 10pm or until the mosquitoes get too bad. We have a fun neighborhood.

Baby blue eyes sporting a pretty little red dress that was mine as a baby. For 8 months the only word I could think of to describe Reagan was "sweet" and then all of a sudden this week she has started doing this frustrated grunt/growl (like my Marge Simpson) and grabbing our faces until we want to cry. I think she's getting frustrated because she just wants to get up and go, go, go but she's not strong enough yet. She rolls and scoots around, but she acts like it's not fast enough for her - she wants to run!

We found some face paints and Dwight is very into tigers (he's Tiger Roar and Rivers is Tiger Mania), so I turned him into one for the day. He couldn't stop looking at himself in the mirror.

Heeeey! Hoooo! Cute little matching 4th of July outfits. I guess you can't really tell, but his shorts are the same material as her dress. They finally have enough core strength to sit up in these great little seats for a while.

We had a neighborhood 4th of July flag raising, free breakfast and kid parade followed by a big water fight with the fire engine hoses.

The kids decorated their bikes and did the parade. As soon as the fire engine took off, which was the signal that the parade was starting, CD bolted on his bike, weaving in between everyone like it was a race. Carlos had to run to catch him and make sure he didn't try to pass the fire engine. If this picture was bigger you would see by the look on his face how ready to go he was. He is a wild man on his pink balance bike - going off curbs, trying to do "tricks" etc. My favorite quote of his this month was after another bad bike crash... I hurried over to help him and he was getting up laughing and saying "you can't break me!"

Dreyton's favorite spot to scoot to is under our chairs. He always has that lizard tongue out lately.

I finally convinced Carlos to let me cut his hair (after he saw the baptism photos and agreed that he kind of looked like a terrorist). I tried to stop after I cut it into this sweet do.

Rivers' baptism day. She looked so beautiful.Christina (Carlos' sister) made her a pretty chrysanthemum lay and I made her dress.

Another big day for our family. Carlos baptized Rivers and the water was freezing. No one warned them that it wasn't the usual balmy bath water, so the looks on their faces was pretty funny.

Here's the whole crew that came and supported Rivers.

And here's Rivers with all her boy cousins at the after party. Yes, Rivers is actually massaging Sione's feet.

Tanner and Alissa babysitting the kids. Never give Dwight a hose unless you're ready to be drenched....you think I'd learn.

Rivers turned 8 on June 23rd and wanted to have her party at Sugarhouse park so we could do what she calls "the riverwalk". It's a hike along the river that goes through the park. I know Rivers likes to do that stuff, but I didn't know if all the kids would like it, but everyone had a great time and it was the most relaxing party I've ever had to plan. We just walked along a pretty trail, stopped to throw rocks in the water, collected rocks to paint, played some games, and ate watermelon (Rivers favorite) and cake. I can't believe I have an 8 year old. What a great kid!

Birdhouse birthday cake.

Their new ride..

We had dinner at my cousin's house and Rivers has so much fun making up movies and routines with her girls.

It's been really fun to live kind of close to them because growing up I always told everyone DeEtte was my best friend even though we lived like 1000 miles away and I only got to spend two weeks a year with her. Now we're all grown up and it's been fun to reconnect because our likes/dislikes, and opinions are so similar it's almost creepy :) ......and our kids have a great time together.

Good Stuff!

One of the first nice days this year, we got the big ol' cot out, were eating popsicles in the shade of the birch tree....and then everything was covered in snow the next morning and it continued to dump snow most of the day.
Carlos took us up Parley's canyon to show us a big beaver dam you can see from the road.

So darn cute. Impossible not to smile when you look at them because they always have big grins to reward you for just looking at them.Here we are planting the garden (broccoli, peas, beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and white pumpkins). The snow came 2 days after this so I was out there in the pouring snow trying to cover them with anything I could find - the plastic kids swimming pool worked the best and we only lost a couple cucumber plants. Rivers made these cute signs to go in front of all the rows with pictures of what is planted and the number of days until each thing is ripe.

Since Rivers birthday is in the summer, we made these chocolate dipped strawberries to take to her class for an early celebration. Ooh la la!

With the girls from Good Things Utah after my big TV debut - ha! Carlos and Rivers came and supported me in the audience. We decided it was a good field trip for Rivers.

I like this pic because it shows how my babies always like to cover their faces to sleep. I like this move by Reagan by just covering her eyes and leaving her mouth open to breathe!
We finally finished remodeling our basement (we took about 9 months off after doing the whole top floor). Here are some before and after shots. This is the entrance into the lounge or dungeon before.


And here it is after.
Lovely wood paneling everywhere and ceiling tiles as well as wall to wall carpeting in the bathroom and floor to ceiling wallpaper. Half of the basement looked like this - There were clotheslines across this room instead of a dryer.
And here are some after pictures of the living area and bathroom. We also have 2 bedrooms, a laundry room and storage room down here we finished.

The crowning jewel on our remodel is this amazing concrete countertop my brother Tanner made. It's seriously the coolest counter I've ever seen and it was his first attempt. He ground it way down so you can see the gravel and stained it cool. Unfortunately it was his first and probably his last since it took so long. Leaving this counter will be the hardest part about selling this house someday because it is truly one of a kind.

Here is a close-up, but you really have to see it in person. It weighed 600 lbs. so we had like 8 guys heaving it down our stairs. Tanner totally made it sound like it didn't turn out and I might not want it in my house and then he shows up with this! Sounds like Tanner - always playing down his amazing talents.

Poor boy. He was complaining that his legs didn't work and whining - I was being less than sympathetic and next thing I know he's asleep in the middle of the kitchen floor - comfy cork.

Such a great kid. Notice the two blueberries on the sides of his plate. He always sets some of his food out for Carlos and Rivers even when they are at work or school. Favorite quote from him this week "Can you go get your best buddies? It's scary out there." I was on the porch with my Mom, brother, his fiance, and Rivers in a thunder and lightning storm and he was very worried about them.

The poppies popped!

Looking fresh in their matching robes after a bath.

We now have a 3 year old in the family - my favorite age. We celebrated with a Superhero training party. The kids had to break boards (styrofoam), shoot web at a target (silly string), make a huge yarn web, and show their courage by going into the bat cave. Their reward for completing the training was superhero capes I made and chocolate milk.

Here's the shark cake I made (copied from parenting.com).

The one gift he got from us was this medium sized trampoline. Rivers was out there until after dark jumping rope on it. Check out those big buns on the left! They dwarf even the trampoline!

I absolutely love how the twins always hold hands and look at each other whenever they are close. Walking home from church the other day Dreyton was crying and Reagan actually put her thumb in his mouth and let him suck on it. It may have been by accident, but it looked like she was trying to calm him down and she's done it more than once.

The day finally arrived!!! June 6th Carlos blessed Reagan and Dreyton Arnulfo Hans. This was a day I had been visualizing for almost a year. I tried to picture how wonderful the blessing day would be during all of that bedrest and uncertainty. I focused on that day when many, many times it looked like it would never happen. Such a great day! We waited the suggested 6 months after they left the hospital to take them to church, so they were 7 1/2 months old. They didn't make a peep and Dreyton actually slept through the whole thing. Rivers was the first one up to bear her testimony.

Reagan wore my grandma's 104 year old blessing dress we had restored (grandma was also a twin with a twin brother). I also crocheted her a bonnet and both of them white shoes.

What a great day!!!!