Halloween Horse Show

Halloween Fun

We went down to our annual Green River Riding School fun day show in October. It was Ayden's first show, and also a couple of my students first show. It is always fun to go down to see Terry (the lady that taught me everything about horses), get the horses out for some fun and learning and play a little.
I was a sucker this year and Ayden got his first pony (its for me to because he is dang cute!) His ponies name is Sparky and Ayden loves him!!! When I was thinking about buying him and Ayden would come with me to the barn and brush and ride sparky. One night we came home and I was thinking I didn't need another pony. Ayden woke up in the middle of the night saying no no no.. he always is sleep talking so I ignored it as usual :) Then first thing in the morning Ayden crawls up on my bed and looks me right in the eye and says 'Mommy why did you let that man take Sparkie'. Lets just say hook, line and sinker. We bought a pony, and we love him!!

Here is Ayden in his first class. As you can see it is very low stress :)

Helping out after the class!!




Had to throw this one in. I was busy helping Ayden and a few of my students when Darcey told me to get on my horse because we signed up for the drill class. Well we didn't have a drill pattern or music, so in 5 minutes we came up with a little drill, and Jess found us a nice song. Dancing Queen. Oh my did we laugh!! But it turned out pretty well. Gotta love the parelli patterns!

Next we got to eat lunch. We had to eat fast because after lunch was the costume class and Ayden Sparkie and me had to get ready. Darcey was the mastermind behind our costume. It took and army to get him ready but it was soooo worth it. Here we are getting Sparkie ready.

What is that saying it takes a village to raise a child. Well I have a great village and they are so good to me and my little boy!!
Look at all those helping hands in the picture!!

Ayden came next to get ready... the paint stung his face a bit but other than that he was a good sport!! Lots of pulling to get into that Crock costume.


Ta Dah!! With everyone's help we turned into the Crocodile, Peter Pan, and Captain Hook!!!


Check out the first blue ribbon!! Ayden had said all day long that he wanted one, he had no idea what blue meant but when he got it he was so excited. Not so sure if Sparky was or not but he was a good sport to. Gotta love ponies!!

For Halloween Day we got to eat Chili at Rena's and Darceys which was yummy, then we went over to grandma's and grandpa's for trick or treating. More pictures to come... For that little adventure Ayden was the same thing that he was the year before (still fit the costume). 'Mike Wazoki' from Monsters inc.
Thanks Grandpa for trick or treating with us!

Summer time..Finally!

Summer time weather has finally arrived in Utah, and its been nice to not have to wear a sweatshirt everywhere. We went to a rodeo in the middle of June and it was seriously cold. Then we went to another rodeo over the 4th of July and it was warm. Yipee!!! This is Cy and Ayden checking out the action. Ayden loved the first Rodeo he kept saying he wanted to go back. Cy bought him a Sprite, cotton candy and he was thrilled. He lasted until 10pm when it was almost over. This rodeo wasn't quite as exciting for him so he wanted to leave an hour after we got there. However Ayden did enjoy the Mutton bustn'. Next year maybe? I don't know if I can get him to ride a sheep backwards but heck its worth a try...

Elaine and Todd were down from Alaska and Ayden got to play with his cousin Huxley briefly. We went up to Logan and he saw Huxley for the first time since he was a baby, baby and Ayden held him on the grass (sitting down), I tried to get a picture but Hux fell over on his head in the grass and needless to say we didn't get a good picture after that. So they came down to visit before they headed back to Alaska and we got a picture in the love sac. Not the greatest of pic but hey least they are together. :)


Ayden and Grandpa,
Ayden loves both of his sets of grandparents and he doesn't realize what a lucky boy he is to have them around to love on and they both live so close to us. He is one lucky boy, he loves to go over to 'Papa's' house and make popcorn, help him check is sugar levels and wake him up by running in screaming into the room (we thought he was going to have a heart attack).




Every 9 days at our new house Cy gets to irrigate our pasture, our orchard and water the lawn with the 30 gallons a minute of water that we get. This was our first day time irrigation and Ayden had a blast running and playing in the water. Its pretty fun to see how much water runs down our driveway and how much fills up the pasture. We get the water for 8 hours and Cy pumps it all up onto the grass. It saves us lots of money in our cullinary water bill but Cy has to put a lot of time into running pipes and hoses, and when we get our water turn at night, well he is up from 8pm to 4 am watering the lawn. Slight down side. But its all good!!

Ayden's 3 years old!

My dad told me its been 6 months since I updated my blog. He told me all of the holidays had gone by and I hadn't posted anything, so I am going to try harder from now on dad!! Here you go!

Ayden turned three years old yesterday! It is amazing how time flies, he is growing up so quick.
His favorite activities are going to play with his friends at Rena's house. Digging in her yard to try and find glass bottles (there are a ton of them buried in her yard), going to the zoo. The aquarium, or home depot with his dad and he also likes to come to the barn with me. However doing projects around the house with dad is much funner than being with mommy. Chopping trees down, raking the grass and going to the dump are his favorites right now. He also likes to paint and draw. His favorite movies are Panyo, Toy Story 3, and Astro boy. His favorite TV shows are Barney and Mikey Mouse Club House. He doesn't sit still long enough to watch to much tv unless its bed time and then he likes to watch it all. :)


Aydens family birthday party was a success. We had lots of the cousins and a few friends over to his 'new home' as he likes to call it (since we lived at G&G house for a year that is all he knew for awhile there). He had a great time opening presents and playing with everyone. He was very patient while everyone ate their dinner (he didn't eat because he was starting to get sick-but this had been a record time of 2 months without a snotty nose so I guess he was due again).

Happy Birthday Ayden!

I'll post your video that is so cute later! It won't post right now.

Smile

So I just got back last week from my month long 'horse boot camp'. I will get those pictures up soon but I seem to of lost my camera cord to connect my computer. Anyways I got home late Saturday night and wanted to surprise Cy and Ayden because I told them I would be home Sunday. Well the bugs were to bad to stay the night with the horses in Green River so Darcey (my driving companion who I can't thank enough for flying in and driving home with me) and I pushed through what turned into about a 12 hour trip because we had to help a guy from Utah traveling home from Parelli land as well who was stranded in a canyon... ok so long story even longer I got home late Saturday night. Cy woke up saw me grumbled something that was not the welcome I wanted and rolled back over and went to sleep till he realized it was really me then he was happier.

Ayden woke up in the morning at the regular 6:30am (this was almost a reason why I wanted to stayed in Green River, just so I could sleep in, at horse camp I was up by 5:45 every morning). So I heard Ayden saying 'daddy daddy' so I got up and went in. He was standing up in his crib, he took a double look and then he said 'mommy' held his hands up and wanted out of his crib, and off he went to go play. So needless to say I think I could leave for another month and the boys would do just fine without me. (Could be a good plan, maybe I'll go for the 3 month externship, that otta get us all happy to be together at the end) :) Cy really did a great job while I was gone! Thanks honey!!

All in all after a week of being home both Cy and Ayden are very happy I am back, Ayden won't let Daddy put him to bed or get him out of the crib if I am home, which doesn't break Cy's heart at all and I am getting caught up on my bedtime stories that I missed.
So I just wanted to do a little catching up on Ayden, he's growing quick, his blond hair is fading, he is talking more and more and he has such a cute smile I thought I would share some fun smile pictures.

Here is Ayden at my Uncles funeral, Cy went out and bought him a new outfit so he would look cute. Which of course he does.



















Ayden likes to sit in grandpas recliner chair and watch Bob the Builder and Monsters Inc. He prefers to run around in his diaper and with air conditioning he gets cold so he snuggles up in one of his favorite blankets (he has a few favorites)



















Here he is with his very cute Hawaiian shirt on that Darcey brought back from Hawaii, he loves this shirt and does a pretty good job of sporting it also !

Thats all for now, I'll post my horse camp next (although I don't have a ton of pictures).

Beat the heat go play in the snow!!

Snowbird Hike


We went for a Sunday drive up to snowbird today to escape the heat of the valley. We rode the tram up to the top of the mountain 11,500 feet and once we stepped out with the wind it was actually a bit chilly (probably 75 degrees) but compared to the 90 degrees at the bottom at the base of the tram and the 100 degrees in the valley that is cold. Ayden was a little reluctant to get on the tram but once we one it he loved it. He loved going over the towers that bumped up and down that hold the tram up, he thought that was great. Once we got up there we decided to hike down to the lift and ride that down instead of the tram. It was about a mile down and Ayden walked about 70% of it. Picking up lots of rocks ont he way.
Like I said it was still a little chilly up there and there are quite a few snow banks left so of course we had to play on that. Ayden had fun throwing snow on Dad and then we also ran into Sharee and her boyfriend up there so he thought it was great to throw snow on them as well. Cy threw snow on me and it is still dang cold!! Especially on bare skin!
Here is a little video of him walking down the mountain. I am going to admit I made Ayden hold my hand most of the way down the mountain (or cys hand), but when I was taking this it made me just a bit nervous watching him through the i phone. The video is a bit rough but at the end you can see how steep the side of the hill is that we were walking on.

PS- Ayden did get a hair cut and I told the lady to leave it long cause his dad wants him to have the 'surfer' look, and well this is what we got. He's still cute but not quite as 'shaggy' as the last post :) Good think hair grows!

Summer Snap Shots

Summer is always so fun but it seems so short. I can't believe its all already the middle of July. We have been doing some fun things this summer (besides the standard work and horses), no vacations yet but I told Cy we are going somewhere this year... will see about that.
We do have a season pass to the zoo and Ayden loves it there so we go quite a bit. This last Monday we went with Darcey and one of Ayden's friends Ryker. Then Cy took him again yesterday with Keri and Maddie (no pics there unless Keri took them). Ayden really enjoys the carosel and the train ride I mean who wouldn't when you get to ride a poison dart frog :)

His favorite monkey exihibit where he gets to hang like a monkey and work on cracking his head open at the same time (no accidents yet knock on wood).
Not a great picture but I don't get to many of us together with a bronze gorilla so I thought what the heck!

Swimming with Keri, Maddie, and Darcey at the Murray pool. Ayden was so excited when we got to the pool Not because we were swimming, because they were chopping down a tree outside the pool. For the last 3 weeks he always is telling us 'chop chop'...long pause... 'trees'. He still thinks it was the coolest.



We asked Maddie and Ayden to hug :) They both agreeed and it was way cute!
Here was the excitement for the 4th of July, a chicken Pinata down at my Uncle Larens and Aunt Pats house. Ayden thought it the coolest thing, he didn't even see it in the tree until grandpa showed it to him, then he couldn't take his eyes off it. There is a video below of him getting the first hits on it. He liked hitting it until he saw Cousin Sara hit it so hard the body flew off. Then all the kids were hitting just the head. He wasn't so into that, but loved the candy that came out!



My very two cute Connamerra ponies. Sadie and Izzy. Ayden is going to Share Izzy with his cute swimming buddy Maddie when Izzy becomes the perfect pony. Sadie is a very cute little jumper. I couldn't resist this photo because Ayden loves to feed these two treats.


The other video is me riding my horse Jake. This is for you Lis since you say you want to see me ride. We are coming along slowly. I want to find the video about 2 years ago with me attempting to canter Jake because he use to run away and buck when we did this. So I am very proud of where we have come since then.

Thats all the fun for now! Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Ayden's delayed birthday zoo day!!!

Ayden's second birthday was about one month ago. We celebrated it with pizza and presents with both sets of grandparents at our temporary house (Grandpa and Grandma Ellis's). Ayden had a lot of fun opening his presents and he got lots of new toys which is good because his old toys are now 'boring' (till I put them away for a month and get them out again).
On Ayden's actual birthday we were suppose to go up to the zoo but everyone was tired so we decided to do it a different day. Well yesterday was the day and it was perfect! Grandma Hendricks, Elaine, Todd (who just got back from the school year in Alaska) and Kristy came down and we spent some time at the zoo together.
It was tons of fun and Ayden had a blast with everyone. We spent about 5 hours there seeing everything. Having lunch and running around. Happy Birthday cute boy!!















Here we are as a family on the tiger statues. Ayden loves sitting on these guys. Since we had someone to snap a picture we thought we would all sit down.















Here is Grandma Hendricks, Kristy and Ayden hanging out by the gorillas. I cut Cy out of this picture :) So I could get Ayden and grandma :)















Elaine, Todd, Kristy and Ayden by the giraffes. They are such cool animals!
















Here Ayden just wanted the camera. He thinks its the coolest thing ever.















Here is Elaine and Ayden. So cute. I got the giraffe right in between the two of them in the picture. Ayden hadn't seen Elaine since Christmas so he had to warm back up to her but he loves her now. We are lucky to have such a great family. Although we missed everyone else. We will just have to go do it again soon with everyone!!