Andrew's Big 7 Year Birthday Bash

Only a few days after Allie's Birthday it was Andrew's turn to have a birthday (the 20th). Andrew has now finally reached the age where he anticipates the excitement. After being asleep for a couple of hours the night before his birthday, he woke up asking if it was morning yet. He continued to do this several times hoping each time he woke up it would be his birthday. Even with little sleep the kid was up at 7:00 to start the day.

We asked Andrew what he wanted for his birthday breakfast, and he wanted donuts and coco, and then added to the request cinnamon and sugar Monkey pull-apart bread. We might as well get the sugar rush started early.

A cute picture of Emma. It seemed every time I turned around she had more and more donuts on her plate. I think she figured as long as they were on her plate she was okay to consume as many as she wanted.

Then onto lunch. The Harris crew (Andrew's cousins) and the Smith crew were over for lunch. Remember that contest I wanted to have cramming as many people as possible in one room?

Typical Andrew reaction to the camera...

...but with the help of his Uncle Scott we were able to get a picture of the Birthday boy.

Cake time! This was a pumpkin bar cake with cream cheese frosting. (Notice the Autobot symbol)

How many people can you count blowing out candles? Hmmmm.

Now onto the presents! Emma gave Andrew a Mecha-Gigan figure (from the Godzilla universe), and this was his kind reaction.

Why do we even take pictures of kids unwrapping presents, they all look the same. I guess it's kind of festive.

Then on to round 2! During the evening we had the Deming side relatives over for Diner along with a couple of neighborhood kids (Mikey and Jenny). Awhile back Rachel made Manicotti and Andrew couldn't stop talking about how much he loved it, and how he wanted it for his birthday. So that was diner. And a classic chocolate cake for his birthday cake. (Notice the Decepticon symbol)

Like the genius I am, I made the symbol out of sprinkled on powder sugar. This would be all fine and dandy if the cake was being cut and served in pieces as prepared desserts, but when you have a kid blowing out candles you get a mild sugar storm to deal with.

It was a long day, a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. It was good seeing family friends and the such. We asked Andrew on a couple of different occasions what his favorite part was, and his responses were "the whole day" or "everything", so I think Andrew enjoyed it as well. Thanks again to all the friends and family that were able to visit and help out.

Allie's Big 1 Year Birthday Bash

It was Allie's Birthday just recently (the 17th, I am slightly behind). It was fun and all, but like a 1 year old really cares about their birthday. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

I thought it would be fun to have one of those contests to see how many people we can fit in one room at once... oh wait, this is any social event we have.

Look, more people we could have crammed into the kitchen!

Presents! Luckily Annie, Allie's cousin, is teaching her the process.

Yay! more presents!

And just one more, I think Allie is getting the hang of it.

Mmmm... cake! Allie had a sense that the pink things must taste good! (M&Ms)

Time to sing happy birthday. You know it seems you give a kid a video camera, and with it comes the Hollywood attitude. The "no climbing or standing on furniture" rule is heavily enforced, but once the camera was in Andrew's hands it didn't seem those rules applied anymore. Whatever it takes to get the shot.

Allie - "Why are all these people staring at me and fluctuating their voices in strange ways. Can we just go back to the good ol' high pitched goochi goos?"

"Mmmm ... My cake!"

"Whooa what is the brown stuff!"

"It's brown and sticky and won't come off my hands. This seems all too familiar"

"Me no likey!"

As it would turn out, Allie was not that big on eating the cake. I don't think she liked it sticking to her hands, and being messy. Oh well, she will have plenty of time to grow attached to cake. Once we started talking to her she got a bit happier, but did not really eat any more.


Cheesecake! (Get it?)


To end the birthday, there was a Peanuts-esque dance. All we needed was Molly dancing on her hind legs with her nose up in the air and arms flapping about.

"What are those people doing, having some sort of sponsored epileptic fit?"

Dawn of the Razor Scooter Era

Andrew's Birthday was drawing near when his Grandma and Grandpa wanted to get him one of those Razor scooters, and of course with a sibling so close in age, one had to be given to Emma as well. So we have now joined the ranks of the masses of neighborhood kids who roam around the streets on those little Razor scooters. It seems these Razor things are just a part of modern childhood. Our kids will grow up, and reminisce when they lost their first tooth, the first day of kindergarten, and when they got their first Razor scooter. It is ingrained as part of growing up these days, almost to the point where I think if we didn't get them for our kids, they would end up years later in therapy to discuss how they felt about never having one. Anyways, I ramble on too much, but I thought I would share. So in honor of this modern rite of passage into the quintessential childhood experience, here are a few pics.

We will start with the artsy fartsy photo of Andrew and his friend outside riding. I thought the angle of the sun helped give the photo a nice fall feel to it. I guess all the yellow leaves helped too.

And what good is a scooter if you can't do tricks. I believe this one is called a "mini" which is a bit simpler than the "mini squigly" which is accomplish by doing the "mini" and swerving back and forth.

Cool shot of Andrew working on his balance. (Of course I don't show the picture of him wiped out on the grass)

Basic pose of triumph. Were there some ritual or celebration to accompany the receiving of a Razor scooter, this would be the picture blown up sitting on a table in the center of the room.

Just a fun shot capturing the neighborhood.

And of course Emma, making her speed demon face.

This is like the triumph pose, but more along the lines of GQ. Should children get together to create a Razor weekly magazine, I am sure this would show up in one of the ads.

I was never able to get a triumph or a GQ pose out of Emma, instead I just got the "stop taking my picture Dad!" expression.

I think Emma got tired of the slow nature of the razor scooter and opted for the much faster bike. I can't remember if that was actually the sun shining on her hair, or if actual speed flames were bursting from her head. I think I had to jump out of the way on this one.

Quote of the Day

Emma: "Grandma, are you a superhero?"

Grandma: "Why yes, of course I am."

Emma: "Then you have to pick up a car."

Dude Clothes vs. Fancy Clothes

It was picture day recently at Andrews school, so we dressed him nice so he would look sharp. But later that evening he mentioned something about the differences between "fancy clothes" and "dude clothes". So we asked him for further definitions, and it was quite humorous to hear what he considered "dude clothes" Rachel and I fit into the category of having a mixture of "dude" and "fancy" clothes. So it has become something we laugh at, and is now part of our normal vocabulary. Andrew was trying to tell me about an experience he had while we were at American Eagle a few weeks ago, and referred to it as the store that sold "dude" clothes. So just to get everyone up to date, I made a couple of videos asking Andrew to explain some of the differences between "dude" clothes and "fancy" clothes.

Another Trip around the Alpine Loop

Well I am a week behind, but wanted to post a couple of things covering the last week. So last Friday, Andrew did not have school so we took a trip around the loop to see the fall leaves. It was surprising to see how many leaves were already missing in some spots when not too long ago most the area was green.

Quick snapshot of Andrew. I like this one because of the size comparison between Andrew and the trees.

This was a cool little meadow that had a whole bunch of small trees. Purrrdy!

I took this picture in comparison to a picture I took the last time we went around the loop. It is a bit more yellow now.

I liked this one because of the contrast of yellow to green. That is one of the downsides to taking fall leaves pictures in Utah compared to Ohio, you have a million evergreen trees to avoid to get the cozy fall-time feeling.

A picture of Emma.

I liked the contrast between yellow and white.

Andrew just had to get his camera out as well.

Had a hard time getting Andrew to stop for one second to take a portrait, but this one turned out okay.

More yellow, kind of wish there were some red and orange trees.

Here we have a rare shot of me. I don't show up in many pictures because I am usually the one with the camera, and as you can see here, I still am the one with the camera, Rachel just happened to have here camera with her. And no, that ovalesque green shape is not Humpty Dumpty, it is indeed me. Nothing like having someone taking your picture to motivate you to do a little exercise.

More Andrew and his camera.

And a decent portrait of Emma.

And of course the loyal means of transpo. The Odyssey is always good to us.

So the trip turned out to be a real fun day. We drove up Provo Canyon, and came out American Fork Canyon. We had a light breakfast, and the drive went past lunch time so we were starving by the time we came out of the canyon. Luckily Thanksgiving Point came to our rescue with their delish cheeseburgers and tasty fries. I can only imagine the scene we made to the other patrons of Thanksgiving Point would be as if they were watching a commercial for Hungry Hungry Hippos. But it was nice way to cap off a fun fall day.

The Pistolero of Provo

So as Emma grows older, she is becoming quite the character. You know how they say "Girls are made of Sugar and Spice, and everything nice", well Emma is made of Sugar and Spice, and Cheyenne pepper. Here are a couple of notable happenings.

We were at Outback Steakhouse eating for a family Birthday get together and Emma was sitting next to Georgiana. The kids had milk and Georgiana had water. Well Geo goes to take a drink of water only to find her water a smooth creamy color. So Georgiana asks Emma, "Did you backwash in this?" Emma looks at the drink, then looks at George and pridefully nods yes. I can only imagine what Emma was thinking, "is this a trick question? the water is now full of milk isn't it?" Overall we had a laugh about it. Even the waiter was kind of confused on what drink Geo had when he went to replace it. What a laugh.

And just the other day I caught Emma trash talking to a neighborhood dog. We were eating dinner at my parents house and I walk outside to see her waving a Frisbee at the dog across the street yelling things like " you want this!" "stop barking dog!" etc. etc. I am just surprised that she did not use the line "you want a piece of me!" which she has used in various situations in the past.

So Emma keeps the day lively whether it is her telling of her dreams of being a pink ninja to inserting words like "poop" into the song "Who Let the Dogs Out", she keeps the day quite colorful. I look forward to future stories I will get to post.

Just a little more Soccer

Okay, I took a couple of pictures and some videos of Andrew's last game. I thought a couple of the video's would be good to give everyone a sense of what it was like to be there at the game front row seat (family members have reserved sideline seating). It's non-stop action. This should do it for soccer pictures since the Fall season is now over, enjoy!

A typical end of the season picture with Andrew holding up his medal. Why don't they just do the Olympics that way, everyone could get a nifty medal, and you wouldn't have any grumpy athletes.

This first video shows just how intense and focused these games can really be. (Andrew is number 3)

This was one of the decent videos where I was actually able to capture Andrew playing Soccer. Most the videos I took unfortunately lost precedence to me shouting and yelling encouragement from the sideline. You don't really realize how much you yell until you hear yourself.

Just one last video showing typical Game play. So you can see how eventful the games were. Mostly it was just nice to get out of the house and sit outside and veg. Andrew really loved it. He really enjoyed "battling" with other teams. That should do it for now, but we will have spring soccer to look forward to.

Portraits from September

One last group of pictures from the month of September. Basically these are just some quick portrait shots that I like. Nothing I spent too much time on. If I spend more time, or have a more organized photo shoot, I will also post them on my own dedicated "Travis Deming Photography" blog.

Just a quick photo of Allie. Sometimes I really like the "halo" effect (light coming from behind), but there are some challenges with the shadows on the face.

Another quick photo of Allie. It was overcast and close to sunset so the lighting was kind of weird, but I like the way it turned out.

Emma had to play in the grass. Not a great picture, but I kind of liked it.

This picture is not that great, but there were hundreds of Dragonflies flying around and I was hopping to capture that feeling. I wasn't that successful, but you can see several dragonflies, and the spots in the distance I believe are dragonflies.

Typical Emma expression.

Okay, I couldn't resist a Black and White picture. This was actually a picture I took testing a photo setup that I was going to use to photograph a friends baby.

One last one of Emma. Andrew is the most uncooperative child at the moment, but I will work on getting some pictures of him.