More fun at the beach!

La Jolla

The first week of June we went down to La Jolla in San Diego for a Dean family reunion. It was awesome! We had SO much fun just playing and playing and, as my sister Aimee said on her blog, eating way more than was necessary! It was definitely hard to come back but at least I have some cute pictures from it!Here's our family after the "formal" family pictures - the ones where we weren't allowed to have cameras with us! This is us hiding around the corner behind a bush so the photographer wouldn't see us!
Matthew rolling down a sand hill at the beach.
Nicole. . . being herself. She mostly liked to sit on the lawn chairs and eat whatever snacks she could reach or talk people into giving her. On brief occasions she would play in the sand or be forced to walk down to the water by one of us!
Matthew doing his favorite thing - playing in the sand. He rarely went in the water too! He preferred to play with the sand all day!
Woodson (whistle whistle - what a hottie!) doing the above mentioned "forcing Nicole to walk down into the water." Notice how happy she is about it!

Nicole's my Name, Pool's my Game!

Upstairs we have a pool table and Woodson, Matthew, and I have all enjoyed playing pool now and then as a family. Matthew loves to have me go up and play with him almost every day! Of course, he has his OWN rules which we play by (I do a lot better when we play by those rules!)Nicole used to just run around while we played but no more! We had no idea that she would take such an interest in pool but now if we play a game she has to be right there on her chair at the side of the table! She doesn't need a cue - she's as happy as can be as long as we make sure balls come to her. . . preferably, a LOT of balls! Here's one game we played as a family.

No Scary Stories!

Ok, I look absolutely terrible in this video but I thought it was so funny how Nicole reacted to my "scary" story! This was a super long book about wolves that we got from the library and Nicole picked it out for me to read to her. There was no way, however, that I was going to read the whole book word for word! So I improvised. And Nicole didn't appreciate it. . . until the end, that is! Apparently she is like her mother - nothing too unpleasant, please! A happy ending is all we ask!

The Zoo

A few weeks ago we went to the zoo with our friends the Abeggs and the Seitzingers! It was our first zoo experience ever and quite the day! I think next time we will go earlier in the day when it is not so hot and we will also pick a day that is not "zoo field trip day" for all the elementary schools in Salt Lake and Utah counties. Here are Josh and Grace Abegg, Matthew, and Ian Seitzinger in front of some alligators - Matthew's favorite animal we saw. I think Matthew has a wedgie in this picture.
I think the Zoofari train ride was definitely one of the highlights of the day (along with snack time, which I didn't get a picture of!) Matthew loved that it was a "real" train!
It was a VERY hot day and Nicole helped herself to a LOT of water. In fact, drinking was all she wanted to do while the other kids played on some toys!
Matthew on the BEST animal ever!
What a fun day! This was a cute pose right as we were heading out. Nicole was asleep in the stroller and I caught this cute shot right before the exhausting marathon walk up the hill to the cars! I think these tigers were just as good as the real one who was sleeping the whole day!

Nicole

Looking back through my blogs I realized that I have not posted much about Nicole lately! So I thought I would dedicate a blog to my little baby doll. She is the sweetest little girl (except when she's giving you a crusty!) and such a blessing to our family. She is always making me smile! I couldn't help but share some pictures of her - some of the more attractive ones - since goodness knows she has her share of the ones she will want to burn one day! We love you Nicole!

Waiting for Cookies to Bake

Today the kids and I made cookies. It was so much fun! I can't remember the last time we had such a good time baking together! I think it was because I was trying to enjoy the "doing" rather than the "getting it done." Thanks last week's RS lesson! The kids really enjoyed it too but apparently we don't do much other fun stuff at our house because this is how they spent the majority of the next 11 minutes!