Joshua's choo! choo! Party

Joshua has been in love with Thomas the Train for quite some time now, so we decided to do a train party for his 2nd birthday.

He's getting so old!!

Our "family picture." Joshua wasn't too keen on staying still so this was the best we got. Mary's open mouth is just a bonus...

Josh LOVES to read, a trait that makes him a definite Stoutner, according Mary. He even preferred to read his new train book to eating cake and ice cream!

For one of the activities we had the kids color pictures of different trains from Thomas and Friends.

Here is the cake that Mary made with help from her friend Erin, very nice.

We kept it a pretty small party, Joshua's first kiss, Lizzy, Matt and Amy's son Matthew, Erin's kids, and Helaman and Lipa's kids.

Matthew's not so sure about the coloring...

The next activity planned was a fun bowling game with pictures of different Thomas trains stuck to plastic bottles. Joshua, however, was too excited about the pictures to let anyone play...

...Lizzy was ready to bowl...

Joshua decided to march right through the ring around the rosie...

And presents....Joshua was not as excited as some of his friends were to open the presents, but he LOVED all of them!

...a picture of Mathoni and Rita...just because we can....

Joshua was so excited with the fire truck toy from Mary's mom that Ben had to put it together while he was on it!

It was a hit with all of the kids.

Joshua knows how to blow out candles (he blew out a few of Mommy's candles on her birthday), but he couldn't quite get these to blow out...

We can't believe our little Joshy is 2 years old already!!!

Cousins

This is a tribute to Joshua's cousin Alexander, who left him for Utah.

What is your guess?

We find out what we are having on the 1st.
What do you think it is.....

Phone number

I am getting rid of my cell. We are going to keep Ben's cell but we now have a home phone.
You can call Ben's cell for the new number.
look forward to hearing from you
(we actually don't have a phone yet but will by Sat) :)

Almost 18 months

Joshua loves to play with the sliding back door, he's happy that it's starting to get warm enough to play outside more.

"Oh...you wanted me to get one for you too?..."

Reading (sort of) with mommy.

Ready for church!

On being a imbecile

I am a imbecile.....
I do things that I think are wrong
I should not be allowed in polite society
I do this often....
Anyone know a cure?
Anyone know how to mature and become the leader I should be?
I often think that if I could just think before I barge out into the world that everything will be okay....
That however is hard to make happen.
For now please if you see me do something stupid and silly just remember...she is not meaning to be that way...
She just is a little rough around the edges.

Thank you,
(This is just free thought, no need to comment)

I have a talented family!

Check out this apron that My cousin made. They also do bows and kid clothes. They are amazing!
http://never-e-nuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/minnie-mouse-apron.html

Christmas

Uncle Johnny, Aunt Jenette, and cousin Robby visited for Christmas! This is just a couple of pictures from Christmas, more may follow later....

Joshua opening a present on Christmas Eve...

A tie! and a fun sacrament game...

And you may notice Joshua's new haircut, but it's been a couple of weeks now, almost time for another one!

He walks!...and runs....and destroys

Joshua has been walking for a couple of weeks now, this is at our friends house, he loves their dogs! One of the dogs loves to play with Joshua ( a little too much) but the one in this video runs away from him, it's cute. Finally video proof of him walking!

The cuteness

So here is the cutie...Alexander came over to play one day and we went into Josh room to change Josh's diaper. Alexander wandered in and wanted to get into Josh's crib. So I put him in. Josh saw Alexander in the crib and thought that it looked fun....So here they are.


Don't you love the dribble trail?

Josh looks so old in this one. He is not a baby anymore!

Josh says.....DA! DA! and Dank ooooo. (practically the only words he says regularly)

smell good stuff

For Thora, Mom, and Andrea....and who ever else still reads this thing lacking in content. The first couple of pics are for Thora so she can see the tree and how handy I was with a vase.

So a long time ago I saw a commercial that showed some kids running into a kitchen and there were these oranges on the table in a bowl. The oranges had cloves stuck into them in various designs.....So beautiful (I think that it was a Safeway add or something, I know random)

Well it stuck with me all these years. This year I decided that I wanted to make them. I though how hard could it be you stick cloves into oranges. I looked up "orange clove ball" and waddya know, there were step by step, picture laden how-to's. So I clicked on a bunch and some had you wrap a ribbon around before you put in the cloves, some after. Some said that you should pierce the holes before you put in the cloves, some went so far to say that you should use a ice pick...yeah. Who has a ice pick? Some others suggested that you roll your orange ball thingy in a bunch of spices (one of which was something called orris root?) after you do it, then store it in a brown paper bag with the spices. You leave it there for 3 weeks. Then you can finally enjoy the fruits of your labors, no pun intended.

Well I decided to make it simple.

Step 1. Grab orange

Step 2. Grab whole cloves

Step 3. Poke any ole design with a paper clip, some I put ribbon on some without.

Step 4. Put in bowl and enjoy.

It was really easy and my house smells amazing. You should come over! (I am not kidding by the way...

Here is some pics

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Halloween

Ben and Mary on an average relaxing evening...


Joshua heading out on the town....

And a couple more just for good measure...

Just relaxin....