Aaron's Graduation

So this is a little late but I figured better late than never. It's such great news that I couldn't not post it! Aaron graduated August 12, 2011 from BYU with a Bachelor's in Family Science. It was a great day!! He wasn't actually planning to walk but I really wanted him to and I'm glad he did because it was fun to see and a great way to celebrate the end of his schooling- so far. Eventually he will go on to get his Master's degree but we are taking a bit of a break from school for him. (YAY!) I apologize for the poor quality of the photos and video. My camera was having issues focusing so some of the pics are kinda blurry.

With Aaron's parents
With my parentsFREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!

I just have to put a little personal note in here to tell my hubby how proud I am of him. The last 2 years he has been in school consistently without much of a break. I can't imagine the effort and diligence it must take to be in school full time and work full time not to mention a church calling and family life all to juggle. You've done a great job and I am so happy for you to be done with this degree!! Thanks for all your hard work. Casen and I are so grateful for the sacrifices you have made for our family. We love you!

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't have anything big planned for Labor Day weekend and then Casen got sick on Saturday so we figured we would just hang out around the house. But surprisingly by Monday he seemed to be feeling much better and Aaron's dad has a season pass to the Hogle Zoo so we decided to go with him and our nephews. Casen was pretty fascinated by the animals. He "ooohed" a lot which is his "wow that's so cool" sound he makes when he really likes something. Our camera died halfway through so I'll post what pics we did get.

Momma and baby elephant. They were really fun to watch!The closest thing we could get to Casen smiling. All three boys. I love the different expressions and the fact that Casen isn't even looking. But at least we got them all together.Bald EagleAaron the serious speedster
Us with the giraffesThanks for a great day at the zoo Grandpa Taylor!!

So on saturday I was lucky enough to be able to go see Aaron (and Casen) participate in a 5k run set up in memory of a girl Aaron used to work with who was killed in a car crash about a year ago. Casen rode in the stroller so I guess you could say he completed his first 5k at 15 months! What an athletic child we have on our hands! Here is his excitement before the race

Here are some pics of the guys warming up for the runAnd then at the last second I decided to join them and as an added bonus I lived through it! I've never liked running or even jogging for that matter and all my experiences with it have been horrible but this has inspired me to think that maybe, perhaps, sometime in the future I could run a 5k. We mostly speed walked this one, but we did run a few times and I was able to get to a point in my running where I thought, wow, if running felt like this all the time I could see how people would want to do it. So it was a good experience. And then at the end they handed out free frozen yogurt from tcby. Yeah, weird that they handed out yogurt after a run....but I definitely wasn't complaining. So here's our first ever finished family 5k picture!!

fun stuff from the summer

Casen and I went to the Gateway fountain and he LOVED the water. He was so sad when we had to go. Although you can’t tell from this picture, he really did have fun. And he got a balloon, which he loved. He is obsessed with balloons!Sharing chili with mom
And dad...
and you!

He was on couch arrest this day:


First Haircut...finally! Before:
After:

Please note the uber long hair in the front. We could never spike it cuz it was so long. I love his hair now but the hair cut definitely makes him look older. As you can see in the pic below: