26 Years Old...How does it feel?
James decided for his birthday he wanted to cook some good barbeque for friends and family. Was that an understatement?! This is just a sample of some of the food he made...DELICIOUS!! Steak marinated or with a rub, lime chicken, yummy burgers, grilled pineapple, chocolate fondue, he was busy all day! Megan and Mike also made a fabulous quiz for James mostly centered around British questions. His team won of course, but it was a close match up! Thanks Meg and Mike, I know it took a lot of time to put it together, you're awesome! Thanks to everyone who brought food and great gifts! James had a great day.
Preston is wearing real big boy pajamas! Doesn't he look so old? Carter also got a few new pairs of pajamas with monster trucks, dinosaurs,rockets, and spiders! Spiders are the ones he decided to wear for tonight. 
James loves to put Carter in the laundry basket and fly him around in his "rocket". Carter decided to show Barrett how it works. About three minutes after this picture, they were screaming over who got to sit in it. "MMMIIINNNEEEE!" This is Carter's new favorite word. Oh the joy of having a territorial two year old!
I saw this Dora scooter for 60% off and had to buy it for Carter. So it is girly, who cares? He had quite an enjoyable evening riding it pantless!
James has been working on these planter boxes for it seems like forever! He kept getting held up by broken drill bits, rocks, and measuring the wood wrong! Finally it is complete so it was time to fill them with the dirt from our fence posts. Carter wanted to help and took it very seriously. He would fill up his bucket (about 3 scoops full) and carry it over to the boxes and dump it. The funniest part was the grunting noises he made while doing all this. He always wants to be our little helper.
The planter boxes still need more dirt, but look pretty good huh? Go James!
These are just some random pics of Carter playing around. He got these glasses which he calls his "Thomas glasses". He calls them that because he saw some other glasses with Thomas the tank engine on the side but they were about 3 times as much money as these. I just lied and told him that these were Thomas glasses too. He fell for it. He thinks he is the coolest kid on the block when he is wearing them.
He also loves to wear any of our shoes. Watching him walk is always entertaining!
What a great day I had! I got breakfast in bed...
which consisted of waffles with whipped cream mixed with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries-so good!!, strawberries with mangos(notice the presentation on the plate that rivals anything on the food network), and hashbrowns with sausage, bacon, cheese, and eggs! Definitely not recommended for weight watchers participants, but so good!!
The day before James and Carter had melted chocolate and dipped strawberries, pretzels, and cut up almonds to add to the chocolate as well. These were given to me to enjoy throughout the day. I was so spoiled. This is Carter enjoying one of the strawberries before church. He didn't even spill any on his shirt, a miracle! Thanks to my wonderful husband for making my day such a special one. I love you. I am so grateful to be the mother to the two cutest boys in the world. They make me so happy every day. I am also grateful to have such a wonderful mother and mother-in-law. You are both the greatest! To all the mothers out there- I hope you had as good of a day as I did. You deserve it!
So, yesterday we were playing upstairs in Carter's room and he suddenly noticed what Preston was wearing. He said "Fish on Preston's shirt. Blue Trousers. 
Carter's smile after a fun tickle session
I love to see Carter's little imagination as he plays. He picked up the lid to his bear tin and found some dominoes that have animals faces on them. He put the dominoes inside the lid and said he needed to "put it in the oven." He then proceeds to walk down the hallway,turn and walk back and say, "Ready Mommy!" One picture on the domino is of a red donkey which he said had ketchup on it, and a yellow dog was mustard. "Mmmm good!" one of his favorite phrases was used over and over. Preston and I both had to sample the food for ourselves to make sure it was good. A day in the life of Carter... 
I have a renewed faith in humanity! I left my wallet at the Salt Lake Airport after my cruise and thought it was gone forever! Searching through the contents I found: drivers license, check. credit cards, check. debit card, check. Tenney's Sports Deli valued member card, check. STILL no cash, check. Thank you to the honest person that returned it, although I am sure you will never see this! Just the thought of standing in line at the DMV to get a new license made this reunion the best ever!
Here is our cruise ship the Costa Magica.
First stop: Key West. We only had about 3 hours here so we just looked around the tourist shops and got key lime slushies. Yummy! We also managed to snap a shot with one of the locals! haha
Second stop: Cozumel. Well actually we took a ferry over to Playa De Carmen near Cancun, Mexico. We went to a waterpark/zoo/ ruins place called Excaret. We floated down an underground cave river which was so cool and got to watch people swimming with dolphins. There was some snorkeling there and we saw some iguanas just running wild and also some sea turtles in the water. We were a little disappointed because by the time we took the ferry over there we didnt have a lot of time to spend. It just felt like we had to rush through everything!
Going back to Cozumel on the ferry we had a Mexican band playing. They played all the classics-La Bamba, La cucarache, Oy ye como va, etc. It was so fun!
The water in Playa de Carmen-SO GORGEOUS!!
Dinner that night was so fun! It was Italian Night so we danced with our waiter Samuel, and then about 5 of some of the other waiters got on the balcony of the dining room and had choreographed an entire dance sequence. We caught some of it on video so I may post it another time because it was so hilarious. Think Backstreet Boys and it will give you an idea of what they looked like!
We also all formed a huge conga line and danced all through the dining room.
Last stop: Grand Cayman.This is us on the speedboat out to Stingray City. We only had about 15 people on the boat with us so we got a lot of one on one time with our guides. It took about 30 minutes and then you come up on water that is only about 4 feet deep. You jump off the boat and suddenly there are stingrays everywhere. Our second and third stop was snorkeling in the reef with tons of beatiful coral.
Stingray City-Can you see the stingrays under the water?
Our guides were awesome and told us how to hold the stingrays...
...and kissing a stingray is 7 years good luck!
We also went snorkeling at 2 different locations-one had a morray eel which we got pictures of with an underwater camera. So awesome, this excursion was our favorite by far!!
Kindof hard to see but there was a huge iguana in that tree
Us at dinner for our formal night, the waiters brought out cake and were holding sparklers
The final day at sea James played in a tennis tournament and won of course!
James and his doubles partner Santa Cole. Yes that was seriously her name.
Toga night! I got a little too much sun from watching all the tennis and volleyball that day! All in all, we had a GREAT TIME! It was so much fun just being together and being outside in the water and among wildlife. Hopefully I can get the underwater pics and videos on here too!
Today I ran my first ever 5K Race!! It was in honor of April Roper, the girl who was killed in a house explosion from a gas leak in February. My sister Melanie lives kitty corner from her and has been doing a lot of work as a volunteer to get this race together. The money is going to April's daughter Olivia for college. They had about 1200 people sign up for it! 
Sarah, Carter, me, Shannon, and Matt (Preston in stroller)
Mom and Dad
They gave everyone flowers to stick on the fence of where their home used to be. So sad.
Yesterday afternoon while the baby was napping, Carter and I went outside to play in the backyard. The weather was perfect, with a bright blue sky. We chased each other, digged in the dirt, and my favorite part of the afternoon was laying on our backs and looking at the clouds. We found a big one that we couldn't decide if it looked like a dragon breathing fire or an elephant. Carter decided on the dragon and made his loudest growling noise! Every plane was exciting as it flew past, and the dandelions were so fun to pick! (Fertilizer is coming I promise) It just made me so happy to be there enjoying the little things, especially Carter.
I could not decide which picture was cuter, so I just put them both! Megan and Peter stopped by for a couple of hours yesterday which was a nice change of pace for me. As soon as Megan walked through the door I had to tell her how excited I was because I didn't have to clean up anything before she came because it was already clean! This is a rare occurance for me, with being the mom of two, well lets face it THREE, active and messy boys! The housework seems to never be done and every day is just a battle to do the basics. Does anyone else sympathize with me or am I just going crazy?! Aside from that, these pics are so fun because these two are holding hands, awwww. I love that they will have each other! 
