Guess who's 4?

Say Hello Mr. "4 year old." Can you tell he's a little excited about his birthday.
His birthday was officially Saturday the 23rd. And since that day he keeps asking me,"Mom do you remember when I was 3...." Like it was so long ago.

I worked very hard on this cake. And he loved it!

I love birthdays. Especially when it comes to my kids. I love making them feel special. I love throwing them parties and planning them. It just builds the excitement. And I think I am pretty good at it too. Mattix wanted a firefighter birthday this year. He loves fire trucks and wants to be a firefighter when he grows up. I loved this theme. We did a similar party for Mason when he turned 3. But this one was special just for Mattix. He was so happy. He kept saying all day. "Thanks for my birthday mom." "I love my birthday mom." and when it was time for bed and we were talking about the day. He said thank you again and than said, "mom this was my best day ever!" Yeah that made me feel good. I got lots of hugs and kisses from him that day.

He loves tape! He will tape anything he can get his hands on.

In honor of my newest favorite 4 year old's birthday. I thought I would find some super cute pictures of this little stud. There's a lot. And believe me if I had the patience I would have uploaded a lot more. I may be biased but I think my kids are so cute.

Independence sometimes can be a little messy.

He's becoming very independent in his old age.

Mattix loves to hold baby Brenda.
He loves babies. He is so sweet and gentle with them.

18 months Cheeto face

Always handsome even when he's got a dirty face.

Catch daddy!
He's always loved playing football with his daddy.

He will always be a mama's boy.
I love my boy!

My little cheese ball!
Always getting into something.

6 months old.
He's always loved the water. He loved bathes when he was a baby.

Mommy and Mattix on his blessing day.
He loves his mommy!

He's such a handsome guy.

1 month old. So little
He was breech in mommy's tummy and for the longest time after he was born his feet would stick straight out. Just like he did in my tummy.

Maybe this is why he likes sports so much?
He's loved any kind of ball I swear from day one.

He weighed in at 6 lbs even.
He was so cute.
Mattix Aaron Harris
7/23/2007

5:32 p.m.

He had attitude from the beginning.

I've loved this kid long before I laid eyes on him. He came out with a full head of hair screaming. He was so mad. Grandma, Grandpa, Nana and Papa sat out at the windows of the OR and waited waited to see him. We were worried all through my pregnancy about him being to tiny and not healthy. I was on bed rest for 6 weeks. But he came out healthy as can be. Totally perfect.
We love our Mattix Man. He helps keep our life exciting.
Happy Birthday Mattix!
You are getting so big so fast.

How can you not smile?

I found this picture I totally forgot about. I think he was almost 10 months old and not walking, if I remember right. According to the outfit. Manning is such a cutie. He's always loved having gel in his hair.

Celebrating Family

It wasn't until I was older and started realizing how important to me my family is. I want to know where I came from. I think it's exciting to learn and hear stories about our ancestors.
I really want my kids to know their family and know what they are a part of.
Especially because we will one day all be together again as a family.

I said this in a post before. But I love family reunions.
And when I think of family reunions I think of something similar to this scene in this picture. Having fun with family.

This year at my Great Grandma's side's reunion we did something so neat a special. My Aunt made a skit about my great grandma's parents and all her siblings. She talked about stories of the different (most already passed on) family members and she had people come up and wear a name tag to pretend to be that person. It was so awesome. I learned a lot.

It kind of honored those different people by having us all stand up for them. Like I said it was awesome.

Great Grandpa helping Manning as he tried to fill a cup.
I love my Grandpa.

My uncle built a home made candy cannon. I was so awesome. I think they had more fun lighting it off than the kids did chasing the candy.

And of course at every family reunion we have so much yummy food.

Fun in the Sun

Manning feeding the ducks.

They loved playing on the rocks.

Feeding ducks is fun.

But even more fun when the ducks are hungry. These ducks didn't seem so interested.
But we still tried.

We had a blast in the water. 7 boys and water. Boy were they in heaven.

Mattix loved sitting in the streams.

Mattix and his friend even used teamwork to fill their water bottles.
We love our friends.

They may be boys but they still took some time to stop and smell the flowers.
The big boys helped the little boys.

Even baby Dani got her feet wet.
We love liberty park. 5 hours at the park and we didn't want to leave. I think we need a second trip this summer.

Family Reunion Time

The boys loved hanging out with the other kids. There was plenty of water to play in, balloons, to fill and throw and running around.

When I was a kid my grandpa used to make home made root beer. He saved the old glass soda bottles and he filled them with the root beer. It was such a treat for us. He has always had little bottles for the kids and this year my boys thought it was the coolest thing.

My grandpa and his sister.

I love how much my dad looks like my grandpa. Spitting image.

I'm not sure if you've ever noticed the town of Meadow as you are driving south. It's 5 min. south of Filmore. The sign comes quick and if you blink you've past it.

Growing up Grandpa Labrum has always lived in Meadow. We loved it there. So many memories. The cool thing about a small town is everything is close enough to walk to. We could walk to the park, gas station, and to our aunt Carol's house. There was a ditch that ran through the town. In the summer we'd walk around the ditch and get wet playing in the water.

So this year the Labrum family reunion was in Meadow. My boys have never really experienced Meadow. It was neat to go play in the same park I always played in. (given it's been updated and most of the toys are new) We visited with family, ate good food and just had fun. After we went and hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's amazing how time changes things. I haven't really been there for a few years. Maybe longer. It's fun to go and have all those memories flood back. Is it weird that I love family reunions. I like reconnecting and building bonds with family. I love knowing who my family is. Cousins, second and third cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents. And all the other family memebers I left out. My family is good at throwing family reunions every summer is full of them. I try to get to as many as I can.

24 hours of fun

My pictures didn't upload in the order I picked them. So there's not a real timeline. Like the perfectionist inside me would like there to be.
When we went down to Manti for Miss Brenda Ann's baby blessing we hung out, explored and had fun with our cousins. Than drove to Salina for the night and came back to Manti Sunday morning bright and early for the blessing.

Matt bought the boys a telescope and we've been wanting to try it out for a while. We took it down because being out in the middle of no where you are bound to see stars. Right?

Well.....

The telescope wasn't working right and we were so tired that we were able to see the stars better with our eyes.

I love the Manti temple. It's so enchanting.

The boys were very helpful carrying their luggage to the car for daddy. Manning was determined to drag our big suitcase to the van. It was so cute.

On the way back to Manti Sunday morning we ran into this guy. How awesome! Some one built him. We had to stop and take pictures. He's just parked up by the theater on the side of the road.

My litttle stud posing.

So cute. Wouldn't it be neat to have family pictures done in a town like Gunnison?

Mason taking his suitcase out to the van.

I just couldn't get over how adorable Brenda was in her blessing dress. So pretty.

"Hanging" out with cousins.

I love that already knew Nadia's family. I just love them all.

Jimmy and Nadia's neighbor's puppy. My boys fell in love with this dog.

Brenda's blessing cake Amanda made. It turned out so cute.
It was a good weekend we had fun. I love short get a ways that force us to spend time together as a family. I really enjoy that time.