National Museum Day and other stuff

 Saturday was National Musuem Day, so we went to the Utah Museum of Natural History and got in for FREE! We had a great time looking at all the neat fossils, minerals, and bugs.

Ben and Sam standing in front of Allosaurus, Utah's state fossil.

The museum has a fun show with this large puppet that tells about the recent discovery of a new kind of dino species found here in UT.

In other news, I've been trying to find some new ways to keep the boys entertained during the day in hopes there will be a little less arguing.  Here is one of my most recent attempts; the table tent.  They thought it was fun for about 20 mins, and then became disinterested.

I can tell already, it's going to be a long winter.  If you have any suggestions for keeping two little boys busy with indoor activity please let me know.  I'm already stocking up on ideas.

Remember when.....

Remember when my boys were so little?  They've grown so much lately.  It's hard to imagine they used to be little babies.

This is Ben when he was about 6 months old in Rexburg, ID.  Sam had just started school.  We were all adjusting to being so far away from family.  It was a tough time, but a really good time.

Ben used to sleep in this cute little "sleep bag".  He'd just woken up from his nap and was spending time sitting next to daddy, while daddy was on the computer probably doing homework.

For some reason Ben loved to lay underneath the rocking chair.  It was like his little fort.  He would back his body up under the chair and sit there watching people.  (This was about the time we found out that we were expecting Tom.)  Ben was about 7 months old.

This is Tom back in Rexburg, ID.  He's about 6 months old in this pic.  Tom was such a different baby from Ben.  Both were wonderful blessings, Tom was just a little easier to please.

Tom loves to wear hats.  Even now he likes to wear his ball cap all over the place.  Unfortunately this cute little Dodger hat didn't fit Tom for much longer.  Welcome to the Knechts, Tom.

Tom loved playing on the floor in the middle of the room.  I always had to put a lot of pillows around just in case Big Brother wanted to play too :)

I love being a mom.  I love having these two beautiful boys.  They are so much fun to be around.  I can't believe how much they've grown.

Just one of those days.

Today I've been kind of tired.  I didn't sleep very well last night, and since I didn't have anywhere to go or anything to do I stayed in my pj's until 11:00am.  Don't judge.  It's just been one of those days.  So finally around 1:00pm Ben piped up and said he was hungry (don't worry I fed them breakfast at 8:00am, it wasn't his first feeding for the day).  So I peeled myself off the couch and got Ben some cottage cheese (he's in love with the stuff, he would eat it for every meal if possible) and I got Tom a bowl of Cap'n Crunch.  Oh no, what have I done?  Last night I bought 3 boxes of said cereal because it was on sale for less than a dollar a box.  But now Tom is serioulsy in love with it.  After he finished his first bowl he walked up to me with a very serious face and his arms folded across his chest and said, "I need more cereal mommy."  Ok, that's fine because the bowl that I had given him was farely small.  What would another bowl hurt?  About 10 mins later, he comes up to me and has his little hands folded together and says, "I need more cereal, please, please, please.  More mommy."  He was totally begging.  I can't really blame the kid, Cap'n Crunch is the best breakfast cereal ever known to man.  So I obliged, with a warning that this was the last bowl for today.  Wow.  I guess I'll have to watch the Cap'n Crunch intake around here.

Once Upon a Time...

At our house our bedtime routine goes as follows: bath or face washing, brush teeth, get jammies on, read at least 1 book, get into bed, Sam tells a story, and then prayers.  One of my favorite parts of the ruitine is Sam's story telling.  Tonight was an especially funny story.  I'll try to recapture the essence for you.

Sam: Once upon a time there was a(n)__________. (he pauses for Ben to fill in the blank.)
Ben: an antelope.
Sam: Ok, an antelope.  And did the antelope have big horns or small horns?
Ben:  No, daddy.  He had medium sized horns.
Sam:  My bad, what was I thinking?  OK, so this medium horned antelope had a friend who had a garden.  The garden had a lot of weeds.  So the antelope used it's medium sized horns to dig up all the weeds. (While Sam was saying this he started demonstrating, using his fingers along side his head as horns and putting his head down to the floor.  It was epic.)  This made his friend very happy, and they were best friend forever.  The End.

Now you understand why I love Sam so much.  He's awesome.  Nuff said. 

2nd installment (just because Grandma can't get enough)

Here are a few more pics of our camping trip and stuff.  Ben and Tom's Grandma wanted more pics, and she's one lady I like to keep happy.  Here you go Ginger, I love you!

Ben hugging Tom, aka a choke hold.

Now you know where my children get their good looks :)

I have more pics of Tom because he's kind of a ham, and Ben has no patience to stand still for a pic.

Isn't he cute?

What did I tell you about being a ham...

Yes Tom, is there something you want to say?

Doesn't he look like such a big boy?  Where did my baby go?

What did I tell you about laying down in random places.

Isn't he cute?

This is also how he sleeps.  For some reason he really enjoys his arms against his head.

The End.

The Garden of Eatin'

This year has been the first time that we've ever had a garden.  I love to garden.  It's a very relaxing and theraputic activity for me.  Plus who doesn't love picking all the vegetables?  This is what I picked just last night.   

32 Tomatos, 14 peppers, 4 zucchinis

These are not the only veggies we have in our garden.  We planted corn, butternut squash, pumpkins, lettuce, onions, cawliflower, zucchini, tomato, bell peppers, anaheim peppers, and green beans.  It's been a lot of fun to care for all of these plants.

Bring on the fun!

Last Thursday night was Sam's last night shift for work.  For those of you who don't know, Sam was working 80 hour work weeks.  He'd leave for work around 3pm and get home about 4:30am, then go to sleep until 1:00pm and do it all again.  This was a normal ruitine for him 6 days a week for the past 6-8 weeks.  Needless to say, we were ready for him to get a break.  So once he got caught up on sleep, we got busy on some fun.  Starting with Saturday, we went to Swiss Days in Midway, UT.  It's a fun festival that celebrates Midway's Swiss heritage.  We met Chris & Gina in the morning and got a place for the parade.  The boys loved all the candy from the parade, but they weren't so excited about the loud motorcycles.  After the parade we got some lunch and went home.  It was a fun day.

    On Monday, Labor Day, we had a BBQ.  It was a lot of fun to have our Northern Knecht Clan and the Will & Amber Mickelson Family with us.  It was great weather and a lot of fun.  The kids loved playing on the swing set.

Tuesday morning we packed up the boys and drove to Moab, UT to go camping.  We were really looking forward to this camping trip because it's the first time that we've gone on a real family vacation (driving to CA for holidays doesn't count).  We got down to Moab and set up our camp site and immediately it started raining.  None the less we still had a great time.

Ben, Sam, & Tom trying to stay dry.

Ben checking out our tent.  You can see all the water drops on the tent.

The rainbow we saw at our campsite between showers.

After a good night's sleep we got up and went to Arches National Park.  Because it had rained the night before and that morning, the weather was overcast and cool.  It was perfect for our desert excursion.

Ben sometimes likes to lay down in random places.

Fiery Furnace

Delicate Arch

After we finished our tour of Arches we took a drive over to Dead Horse Point ("Utah's Grand Canyon").  The boys had a little nap on the drive over.

Dead Horse Point was amazing.  I've never seen anything like this.  You know how I feel about heights, I was terrified the whole time, yet I managed to get close enough to the edge to take a few pics.

That's the Colorado River down there.

The boys enjoyed climbing on the rocks near the picnic area.

After all of our site seeing we went back to our campsite had dinner and ice cream.

Then we got ready for bed.

We had such a great time, even with all the weather we experienced.  We'll definitely make camping a family tradition.