Well, we've had a fun couple of weeks, and as always I've neglected to keep up on posting, I'll try to keep this post as short as I can. I had my birthday on the 24th, and a perk to living in Utah it means that Junior gets the day off of work and there's all sorts of activities going on throughout the weekend. To top it off, my friend Brittany was there for the weekend as well. On the 24th we went to a Pioneer Day Celebration in the park with all sorts of fun activities for the kids. The highlight of that day was the obstacle course. Junior had Tavita and I had Brayden. Brayden tore it up jumping over the fence and through the tires then came time to crawl through the covered wagons, a seemingly easy feat for an almost 3 year-old, however a wrench was thrown into the picture, or should I say a snake. In between the two "wagons" was a big old stuffed snake that couldn't look more fake. Anyway, Brayden was bookin along then suddenly froze in his tracks. He looked at the snake with these huge eyes and dove into the wagon. He sat in there forever with a look of absolute fear and refused to come out for the longest time. I was laughing to hard to do much about the situation. I finally got him out and he quickly made it to the turn around point of the course but on his way back it came time to pass the snake and he once again sought refuge in the wagon and would come out until well after little Tavita and burned through the course. It was an absoulte classic moment, unfortuantely all of us were laughing too hard to capture his face. We also had Brayden's birthday party this past Thursday even though his actual birthday isn't until this Thursday. We invited a few of his friends to join us at the pool (it has slides and all sorts of fun things that spray water)all of which we forgot to take pictures of. Anyway, after the swimmig was done "Captain Brayden" led the other pirates on a treasure hunt through the adjoining park where they found swords, eye patches, hats, tatoos and other pirate loot. After the hunt we had pizza, cake and ice cream, opened presents and had some fierce pirates involved in some killer sword fights. On Friday Junior being the brave man he is took BOTH boys to Father n Sons. They had the time of their lives playing horseshoes and other games, throwing rocks in the creek, exploring and getting DIRTY! I don't know if I've previously mentioned but my brother Ryan is living with us now and has been experiencing the joys of having two energetic little boys in the house. His stuff was constantly being torn into so I told him just to start locking his door, it opens easily with a butter knife. Well the idea worked great for about a week or so but apparently Brayden was quietly observing. Last week Ryan was in changing and Brayden was pounding on the door saying "Uncle Ryan, let me in". Since Ryan was ignoring him Brayden decided to take matters into his own hands, I heard this clinking noise and I come around the corner and there's Brayden, knife in hand, picking the lock. So alas, Ryan once again has no privacy. Luckily he's very patient and the boys love having Uncle around. He has nicknamed Tavita "Stich" claiming he was created soley to destroy. I can't help but to agree with the MANY antics he's constantly pulling. The other day we were all sitting down having dinner and Tavita had escaped upstairs to play. I asked Ryan to go check on him real quick. As he was walking up the stairs he found Tavita standing at the top of the stairs a thing of mayonaise held high above his head (our neighbors had borrowed it and it was sitting on the ledge by the stairs). Ryan tried to stop him but it was too late. Tavita chucked the container down the stairs and it EXPLODED. I wish I got an initial picture but my mind didn't recover from the shock till a few minutes later. The initial scene was this: Tavita at the top of the stairs covered in mayonaise with a look of "uhoh what did I do, I'm definetly in trouble for this one" Ryan part way up the stairs, also covered in mayonaise, completely speachless, and mayonaise splattered everywhere around them. I'm talking all over the stairs, walls, cieling, up over the ledge, all over the carpet the next floor up and to the couch. Luckily we had some kind friends over that helped us with the initial clean up and I spent over 3 hours the next day scrubbing carpet and walls. I kid you not, this boy is into trouble a good 50% of the day, if not more. Often after one of his little antics he takes of running with this mischevious little giggle. Man, I'm in trouble with this one, but he is once cute little monster. Anyway, enough of the novel, I'll let the pics tell the rest.
