Fun with Photos

Need I say more?  Thank you Ipad for giving my children many hours of enjoyment.

Hoard Much?

Don and I went to the store the other day and this car was in the parking lot.  I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible so I didn't get caught taking a picture but we thought it was crazy!  There was barely room for the driver!

Kyle Brandt is 22 Months

This is one busy little boy! He will be 2 in 2 months! AAAGGGHHHH

He is talking so much more. He is putting more and more words together and he knows exactly what he wants. He is at that stage where he will repeat things we say so we have to be a little more careful around him.  He says let go when we are trying to get something away from him.  He knows all the animal noises and animal names.  He says his name Kyle really well.  He says car or go when he wants to go somewhere.  If I ask him a series of questions like did you go to nursery or did you play with the kids?, his standard answer is no.  I think he is being obstinate because he still doesn't like nursery all that well.  He is doing better there but he cries and cries still when I drop him off.  When the boys pick him up though he is usually happy and playing.

He tells us when he is hungry and will go and climb up in his chair or climb up on the barstool. We have only one crash experience too so that was good except that I saw him falling off the barstool and I couldn't get there quick enough to catch him.  he loves grapes, watermelon, cheese, crackers, bread, noni noni (macaroni) peepa (pizza), and bananas.  He actually really loves all kinds of fruit and has started to like apples more.  He is still not thrilled with veggies though.  He will eat corn, potatoes, cooked carrots mostly on their own but other veggies I have to hide in soup or casseroles.  Coke coke is what he would like to drink but he usually gets milk.  His coke coke consists of sprite or root beer in a cup with a straw and we don't think he knows the difference.

He still climbs on everything and runs runs runs!  He falls down all the time and hits his head-a fact that bothers me because he always has bruises and of course it hurts him.  I am almost ready to get him a crash test helmet!  He 2 bad falls in one week.  One was backwards off a chair and he hit the back of his head while we were in Utah at the snowie stand and then he fell right into the back corner of the recliner and I think he almost passed out because he was crying so hard he didn't take a breath.  That scared me to death!

Toy Story is his most favorite movie and he loves his Woody toy!  We had to go and by him one from the Disney Store in Orem while we were there.  He saw Cameron's toy and would not let it go!  We borrowed it for the night and then went and got him his own the next day.  He has slept and napped with that every night since.  He still likes Curious George and Bubble Guppies but Woody and Buzz are his favorites at the moment.

He is a lover!  He doesn't mind getting hugs and kisses and most times you can get him to hug or kiss you if you ask.  He only gets feisty when the boys are rough housing and once in a while when he is throwing a fit he gets kicky.  He does throw really good fits with the epic screaming until his face is bright red or the fantastic throwing himself on the floor and kicking and screaming.  Don usually laughs and I do sometimes but we are trying to teach him to use words or to atleast stop screaming before he do what he wants.  And then sometimes its just no and he isn't going to get to play with the scissors!

He weighs about 27lbs according to my scale.  He is taller than the tread mill handles because he bonks his head on then when he tries to go underneath.  I still haven't taken him for his 18 month shots so I don't know what he is percentile wise.  He wears a size 6.5 shoe for church and and 7/8 in a sandal.  His clothes are mostly 24 months and some are 2T.  He has gotten his hair cut about every 2 months now and we are getting to the point where we will have to break out the clippers but we are holding off as long we can because of the noise factor.  He does not like fireworks or atleast the loud noise they make.

He learns to do new things almost every day.  He is working on getting his shoes and clothes off and he likes to brush his teeth and wash his hands.  When he is especially cranky and I ask him if he needs a nap he will say yeah and grab my hand to take me to the bed.  Unfortunately he is still a binky baby but I keep saying that will end when he is 2.

He has found out what the word "mine".  He likes to use it too!  He actually said it at church when I took something away.  He said, "no mom! Mine!"

He loves to dance.  If he comes into any room with any music on he will stop and dance.  He does just bounce his body but he stomps up and down and waves his hands.  Sometimes trying to clap at the same time.

He likes to swim and be outside even if it is super hot.  His cheeks get bright red and he gets nice and sweaty like Connor.  I was surprised at how long he lasted at Seven Peaks  without getting crabby.  He literally wore himself out and fell asleep on his dad. 

He loves Caleb's friend Logan and calls him "no-no".  He especially likes to see him at church and that can be problematic when Logan is passing the sacrament and Kyle sees him and starts hollering "no-no, no-no!  I had to take him out last week because Don was helping bless the sacrament and Caleb and Logan were passing and he saw them all and just started hollering their names.  We hoped Caleb and Logan wouldn't have to pass today in an effort to keep him some what quiet.  

Anytime he sees anyone in white shirts and ties he starts hollering "mooey mooey" which is his word for missionary.

He still likes to pull the pillows up over him. He prefers to  be covered with pillows than a blanket.  He still kicks the blanket off at night.  Just like last summer I put him long sleeve and long pants jammies so he doesn't get cold. 

He loves to clean up toys at home and at nursery and he will help with some things around the house. He likes to put laundry in and out of the washer and dryer, and make the bed by pulling up the blankets and putting pillows on the bed. He also likes to sweep and use the swiffer duster.  

It doesn't seem like it has been almost 2 years since he joined our family but we are sure glad he is here!

He likes to play with the Ipad and caleb helps him make funny faces.  

He took about 14 of this same picture. 

I gave him the rest of my chocolate shake on the way home form Vegas.  Big mistake!  I had to hose off his carseat.

He loves loves loves to be outside.  He likes swinging but he loves to slide more!

He could play in the sand all day.

He always calls Papa on the phone, or the calculator or the clicker.

Cheese!

Much more tech savvy than his mom.  

Lounging in his pool from grandma Dottie...in the family room.

Found a marker-thankfully it was mostly washable.

He likes to "help" lift or pull people up.

Playing in dad's travel bag.  It's a car!

New cousin-Sophia!

He is an epic fit thrower.  

Chillin on the bed and calling papa.  

He went to his first movie at the theater and lasted 45 minutes.

He likes to read books.  

Not exactly how the headphones work but close enough.

His new best friend-Woody!  His new favorite movies too.

Napping on mom and Seven Peaks.

Ready for the pool.

He loves watermelon, hot dogs, cheese and chips.

Coke coke is his drink of choice when he can snag it.

Midnight Visitors-Seen and Unseen

The night we arrived in Provo was fraught with excitement.  After stopping to see everyone at Grandma Penny's we went to Mawmaw's where we were staying since it was such a full house at Grandma Panny's.  We unloaded, got everyone ready for bed and were just settling down for the night.  I had Kyle in the back bedroom trying to get him to sleep when we all heard a loud beeping sound.  We thought it was the smoke detector going off but Don pushed all the buttons and the noise was still going off.  We looked around and found another monitor on the counter upside down in the cover another smoke detector.  It was flashing, beeping and read 111.  It was a carbon monoxide detector.  We don't have any gas appliances in Logandale so we were a bit perplexed as to what was going on.  We opened the windows and the doors, Don pulled the batteries out of the monitor and out then back in, we took it outside and the numbers went down and then brought it back in and the numbers went up.  We decided to google it to see if that told us anything.  Google said that water heaters that ran off gas could cause problems so we figured that could be the only thing that would cause a problem.  We called Grandma Panny who told us to call the fire department.  She asked Mawmaw while we were on the phone about the monitor and Mawmaw didn't know she had one.  I got every one out of the house, called the fire department, went back in to get my purse, Kyle's bag and Cayden's diabetes stuff, in case we couldn't go back in the house for a while and then we waited in the driveway.  Kyle sat in the car and watched the Ipad completely unaware of the excitement going on around us.  The fire department and ambulance got there around 20 minutes later and they checked out the house.  The fireman said that it was probably a false alarm before he went in the house but then he came out and said that it wasn't.  His detector started going off at the door and the reading got higher the farther he went into the house.  He shut off the gas and then called the gas company.  The paramedics asked us if we felt ok and waited with us outside while the fireman was inside.  After the fireman came back out he told us not to spend to much time in the house and just to wait for the gas company to come.  He told us that after about 4 hours exposure to those high levels we would not have woken up.  Then they left.  While we waited for the gas company we decided that a prayer of gratitude was definitely in order and that we needed to thank Heavenly Father for the protection that he blessed us with.  We were quite convinced that Pawpaw put that monitor in the house and made it go off while we were there.  Had Mawmaw been there by herself she probably would not have heard it.  The gas company got there about 30 minutes later and found that the leak was coming from the waterheater and that the a/c unit was not vented right and was pulling the carbon monoxide into the unit and circulating it through the house.  He tagged the unit and told us not to use it, told us to call a plumber in the morning to get it replaced and then he left.  We were all a little bit shaken up and decided that it would make us all feel better to sleep upstairs that night.  We all finally got to bed around 2am.  We know that we were protected and blessed that night.  We know that there were angels there guarding our family and that we were witness to many miracles.  We did find out the next day that when my cousin Matt lived in Mawmaw's basement right after he got married that his wife bought the monitor and he put the batteries in it.  That was about 2 years ago though and we still don't know how it ended up on the kitchen counter.  We still think it was Pawpaw.  

Summer Fun in Provo

Day 1 was a day of mostly nothing as we waited at Mawmaw's for the plumber to come and put in a new water heater after the previous night's excitement.  The kids played outside in Mawmaw's backyard.  Kyle and Cameron loved the swing.  Mawmaw made us potato cheese soup and chicken salad sandwiches for lunch while we waited.  After the plumbing was all fixed, Cayden went up to Grandma Penny's to play with Cam and Lexi, Kyle took a nap and Don and Caleb went down to check out 7 Peaks.   We went to Grandma Penny's house for dinner where we had taco salads and Don made salsa from the gobs of tomatoes we brought up.

Day 2-The Zoo  We got up bright and early so we could get to the zoo when it opened at 9am.  It was really hot and we didn't want to be there in the heat of the day.  We stopped at Sonic for breakfast and headed out.  It was very hot as you can tell from the pictures of the red cheeked babies. We saw a polar bear, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, birds, lots of reptiles  and seals.  Cayden loved to see the life size animals made of legos.  We drank lots of slushies, rode the carousel,  and then we ate lunch at the restaurant at the zoo and were out of there by 1.  Everyone was pretty tired from the heat.  Kyle fell asleep before we were barely on the road.  After some rest, we went up to Grandma's for dinner.   I made chicken spaghetti-enough to feed an army and Calley made brown sugar muffins.We stayed until about 8:00 and then went back to Mawmaw's to go to bed.  Uncle Jim and Aunt Laurel got there about 8:30.

Caleb made a funny face every time he came around.  He had us laughing hysterically!

Day 3-We all piled into cars and drove up to Logan to visit the fatherland.  We stopped at one of Aunt Suzanna's favorite pizza places, Firehouse Pizza for lunch when we first got to Logan. We ate their yummy pizza and focaccia bread and then their extra delicious fazookie-a freshly baked cookie with a big scoop of ice cream and chocolate sauce.  We should have ordered the large.  Then we went out to the Pepperidge Farms Outlet to purchase mass quantities of Goldfish crackers and cookies, made a stop at the Gossner Cheese outlet where we purchased a multitudinous amount of economy cheese. Included in that cheese purchase was 5 lbs of cheese curds, a pound of which I may or may not have eaten on the way to our next stop, the Logan Temple.

 

Running around the temple grounds.

Touching the temple.

After stopping at the temple we went Grandma and Grandpa Gessel's house.  The family doesn't own the house anymore but Aunt Laurel went up to the door and asked the owners if we could see the back yard.  There were family handprints in the cement and the name Gessel in the brick fireplace that grandpa built.

This is the kind of tree we had in the front yard of our Lindon house.  You can peel the white stuff off of the tree trunk and it's like tissue paper.  We did that all the time when we were little.

Kyle sitting in front of his name sake's handprint Grandpa Brandt Gessel.

The chimney/fireplace/grill in the back yard.  

The green house used to be right behind this block wall.  The new owners were cutting down an old tree and it fell over and crushed the green house.

 After the Gessel house we stopped at the cemetery to see where Grandpa Kim is buried.  We decided that we all hadn't been there together since 2000 when Grandma Gessel died.  Caleb was 2 and Cayden and Kyle were not even born yet.  After the cemetery we went to the house where Uncle Randy's family used to live and asked if we could have a few bricks that were leftover from the Gessel Brick Company that our great great grandfather started in the late 1800's.  The man who now owns the house was little perplexed that we wanted bricks but since he had 2 whole pallet fulls he was happy to let us take 7-8 of them.  After a quick stop at Maverick and the roadside raspberry stand we were on our way back to Provo.

It was pretty hot and we were facing the sun so Kyle was not too thrilled.

Lexi put some little flowers she found on the headstone so Kyle followed suit.  

Gessel Kids

 Day 4-We were going to get up an go to church but we just didn't make it.  We rested most of the day and then got ready for a big family dinner at Aunt Pam's house.  Most of my cousins were there with their families.  This side of the family is just getting too big to have a dinner at one person's house.  We are going to have to start having a Connor Family Reunion but that would mean someone would have to plan it.  We ate brisket and BBQ pork sandwiches and then everyone brought pot luck.  We sat around and talked and let the kids play in the backyard.  It was nice to see all the cussies.

Day 5-We got to use our Pass of All Passes and go to Seven Peaks on Monday July 1. The whole family went except grandma and granddaddy. We rented a cabana and that was well worth the $30 for the awesome shade! Cayden was not to excited about being there and it took him a little while to get in the water.  Kyle had not such problem and dived and climbed and swam all over the place.  He loved going down the slides in the kiddie area and bonked his head a few times because he did not know how to keep himself upright.  I didn't think that he would last all day long but he did great and actually fell asleep around 4 on Don as we were waiting in line for snowies.  I took him and let him sleep on me so Don could go slide with the all the adults.

Day 6-I went to lunch with some friends from high school, Don,Jim, Larry and the boys chopped down some tree limbs and shrubs at Mawmaw's house and then later in the evening me, Calley, Anne and Laurel went to get pedi's at the mall.  Grandma Penny made a big bowl of pasta chicken salad and Mawmaw bought some rotisserie chickens from Costco for dinner.

Day 7-We were going to ride Frontrunner this day but we all decided against it since it was so hot and since there really were not any places close by for stopping points other than going all the way to Salt Lake.  Our family went to Village Inn for breakfast-who knew it was free pie Wednesday?  Then we did a little shopping at the Distribution Center, Target and Old Navy, went and took a nap while we waited for Connor to arrive with Grandma and Grandpa, went to dinner with everyone at JCW's and then met Katie Farmer Atwood at the BYU duck pond for family pictures.

Day 8-4th of July has it's own page dedicated just to it.

Day 9-We got up super early to get to Lehi by 9:30 for our own family pictures.  Kyle was not super cooperative but we got some good ones.  Grandma and grandpa came out to pick up Connor and then they headed out for Island Park, ID to visit the Hoskins and go to Yellowstone.  Me and the kids went back to Mawmaw's for a rest and then headed to Grandma Penny's for dinner.  Don went to Saratoga Springs to golf.  We ordered Cafe Rio for dinner and watched the storm roll in from across the lake.  Good thing Don was done golfing by that time because he was right where the storm started.

Day 10-We got up, got packed and loaded and cleaned up Mawmaw's house and headed back to Logandale.  It was a busy week but lots of fun.  We enjoyed staying at Mawmaw's house and seeing all our family.