Pioneer Day

We had a great Pioneer Day. We loved having Daddy home from work for the day. We started out by going to the Spanish Fork Parade. Cougar was very excited.

Here he is waiting for the parade to start, "reading" the program. Somebody came by and gave him the blue balloon. Candy was thrown through out the whole parade and Cougar raked it in. He loves parades.

Only in Spanish Fork....What more can I say? An entry in the parade appeared to be just a bunch of people riding their tractors. This was my favorite. Before I die I will have a pink tractor. :)

Okay this was just cool. This was a entry from a company called Terraflex, I think. Basically they get jeeps ready for rock crawling. So this is what they did in the parade. (The picture does not do it justice.) They were driving down the street (the yellow one in front was going backward) then they would stop and drive their jeeps up each other's tires and hold it there for a moment. They'd get all four tires back on the street and drive a little bit further down the route and do it all again. It was pretty cool to watch.

We also got to go hang out with Gayla and her kids, Matt and Carrie and theirs, and Pam and Kade at Gayle and Lorraine's house. It was good to see them. It had been a while. Cougar loves playing with his cousins and was sad to go. He was also sad to leave the Wii. He got to play a few games and loved it. He bowled (we all know how much he loves that) and he played Uncle Matt in a game of Wii baseball. It was pretty funny, if you've never seen somebody play a wii you're missing out. We loved the day and crashed when we got home.

Fiesta Days!

We went to the fiesta days carnival for family night. We told Cougar on the way there and stressed it continually. "You are going to get 10 tickets and when those are all gone, no more rides we're going home" It turns out that 10 was way more than enough. Cougar would have ridden more, but the lines were so long we were there until they closed anyway. We did develop a strategy I would take Cougar on the ride and wait for him to get off while Mark would save a place in the next line. It was a good thing we did this, too because we still had to wait nearly 45 minutes to get on the Ferris Wheel.


Cougar and Mark on the Merry-Go-Round for the second time. This was actually the last ride we did and Cougar had the ride completely to himself.

Once again a merry-go-round, but this time with motorcycles! He had this ride to himself, too. My little brother used to misprounce motorcycles by saying motorsnycles. Mark still calls them motorsnycles and asked Cougar "What do you want to ride? A motorsnycle?" Cougar promptly responded "No, Dad. A motorCYCLE!" He didn't say it, but you could see him thinking "duh Dad"

I took Cougie on the Dragon "roller coaster" and while standing in line he watched all the kids put their hands up in the air and scream so he knew exactly what to do when he got on. I was surprised I knew he would have fun, but I thought he would maintain a white knuckle grip on the bar. Nope, he's fearless. He threw his hands up in the air and was happy screaming right along with the rest of the kids. This is a picture of our re-enanctment. I guess I've found my roller coaster riding partner.

Here he is riding the up and down spinning thing. He was very concerned everytime that little girl let go of the handle in front of her. I saw him say "hold on" and grab her hand and put it back on the handle a couple of times. Bossy, safety kid.

Riding in a lady bug. Nice smile. This is him saying cheese. I've started asking for a nice smile instead, but most of the time he says "I can't smile, my stomach's sore".

This was taken while waiting in line for the first ride he went on. I asked him to show me his excited face and this is what I got. Stinker.

This is the first ride he went on. He loved it. He "drove" that jeep all around the tiny track. It's so funny how such a little ride can be such a thrill.

Cougar and Mark also rode the Ferris Wheel. I was going to go, but they kicked me off as soon as they saw I was pregnant, oh well. It's probably for the best, I enjoy roller coasters and such, but when the Ferris Wheel stops and you're just sitting there at the very, very top I get really nervous and I probably would have crushed Cougar's arm holding on so he wouldn't fall.

We had a great time and Cougar asked to go back "next week" We said "How 'bout next year?" and he promptly agreed. He has no clue the difference between a day, week or year, but I guess knowing he can go back at all is good enough for him.

We need HELP!!

I'm sitting here trying terribly hard not to scratch at my 1400 mosquito bites wondering what the best mosquito repellent is. Do you have a favorite? Some old crazy trick I don't know about? Something that works particularly well on a pregnant woman because she seems to be the only person that gets eaten out here. Let me know. I'm desperate.

Grandma's Gifts

Cougar got some presents from Grandma Kindlespire last night and I guess that's all you need in life. I walked into the living room to find this amazing outfit. Grandma gave him everything but the undies. I guess I'm glad he has some sense of modesty.

The Past Few Days

Cougar absolutely loves spaghetti. I absolutely love his face when he's done. (As long as he doesn't smear it on anything) It reminds of the early days of solid food and having carrots or something clear up to his eyebrows.

Cougar built his very own fort the other day. There was no help from anybody. When he called me into his room to look at it, he was lying under the white thing (which is a guardrail we use to keep him from falling out of bed at night) with his head on the green horse. He even moved his big box of blocks which is super heavy, I can barely lift it when I'm not prego.

A New Way To Prepare Chicken

Okay, this post is mostly for my dad because I know he'll get a kick out of it. The rest of you may find it slightly humorous.

I made chicken bacon ranch sandwiches for us for dinner tonight. The chicken breast I had thawed was too thick and I need a way to thin it. I realized I don't have a kitchen mallet. So I decided to figure something else out. Here was my thought process. "I could just use a hammer. No, Mark's hammers have been in scary, nasty places and shouldn't be allowed in the house let alone in the kitchen, near food. But, what else do I have...I could beat them with a pan....I know I've got my own hammer!! My fist!" Yes, dear father, I used a hammer strike to thin my chicken and it worked wonderfully! It was the most fun I think I've ever had in the kitchen. The sandwiches weren't too bad either.

Time Well Wasted

It was time well wasted and there's no way I'd trade a few more things I could have crossed off my list, for a day that I'll never forget. I didn't get a thing done, but I sure soaked up every minute of the memory we were making. And I count it all as time well wasted. This world spins to0 fast if you let it. There's always one more thing to do. Looking back I never have regretted taking off early, calling in sick, loving away a Sunday afternoon...

We took a hint from good ol' Brad Paisley this weeked. We had a big day planned. We were going to rent a post hole digger and try to get our fence up. Well, we decided to can that. Cougar's been begging to go fishing and I'm glad he did. We went to Burraston Ponds. For those of you that aren't part of the Davis Clan (I had never heard of it before) they are a small group of ponds down in Mona, about 30 minutes away from us. We bought our nightcrawlers and headed out. We got there and literally within minutes of putting his hook in the water Mark/Cougar caught one! It was great fun. Cougar had a hard time sitting and waiting with his pole in the water, but did pretty well. On the whole we caught 7 little rainbow trout, but only kept 4. (Dinner was grilled lemon pepper trout. Sorry Dad, I had to use tin foil) Cougar reeled in every last one of them. Mark commented that when he was younger he never understood how his dad could hook a fish and then hand it over to somebody else to bring it in, but now that he's a daddy, it really wasn't that hard.

Mark also caught a crawdad and handed it to Cougar in a cup. Cougar was not at all prepared for the contents. He called it a cricket (which he loves to catch so I'm not sure what the problem was) held it at arm's length with a face that looked like he was going to throw up and promptly dumped it back in the pond.

It was a great day and I'd love to do it again in a heartbeat!

Our New Calling

We have been given a calling! We're so excited we can't hardly contain ourselves! We're nursery leaders. I didn't even see it coming. I was totally expecting primary, but not nursery. It makes sense we are one of the youngest families in the ward. They might as well stick us in nursery. One of the other leaders in pregnant and also due in October. That ought to be interesting.

Scwubbly and Cotton

I have decided to raise chickens for eggs and meat. (The thought was, we're feeding enough dang birds it's time for them to feed us!) Anyway, we happened to find a guy in Payson selling the exact kind of chick I wanted. Plymouth Rock. (that's a dual purpose breed of chicken, good layers and broilers) We went and bought 10, he threw in 2 extra, so we've got 12 chickens growing nice and fat. Cougar fell in love with the smallest one and named her Scwubbly. (I'm guessing at the spelling) It's the first name he's ever come up with without any help. By the way, this is the face he makes now whenever he says cheese so be prepared to see it a lot more.

Mark helped a bird guy friend of his build something and the friend gave him some geese and ducks. Just what we need, more birds! One of the geese is just a fuzzy baby and we named it Cotton.

Look at my garden grow!

I realized it's been a while since you heard about my garden. It's doing very well! Here's Cougar with my corn! My peas are also doing
great Mark got supports for them in last night is going to be doing some fine tuning tonight. I have two very sad broccoli plants trying to make it. My watermelon though there are only two are also doing their best. Carrots never did decide to show their faces and the pumpkin plants are doing great! We are fencing in my garden in order to put a couple of chickens in to help with weeds and bugs.

Itty Bitty Ball

Cougar dribbling

Getting ready to make a goal.

See him covering the points of the ball? He destined for Bronco!

Cougar has been involved in Pleasant Grove Rec's Itty Bitty Ball. Basically, they take a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds and run drills for different sports each day. He loves it! So far they've done basketball, soccer, and football. The last session is going to be baseball. Cougar's pretty good at listening to instructions, but sometimes they don't move fast enough for him and he gets a little bored. He's always telling me he needs to practice. He's very dedicated.