Birthday, Tooth, Vacation, and LOTS of pics

Wow! We have had a BUSY week this past week. To start off, Last Tuesday, October 6th, was my baby's 2nd birthday! Can you believe it?!?! My baby is ALREADY 2! He had a fun, and very busy birthday.

To start the day off, my boys favorite part...when they wake up they get 2 baskets of balloons thrown on them, and silly string. They LOVE it! Brock was still trying to wake up, so he wasn't sure what to think at first. Once awake he wanted to keep throwing balloons and playing with the silly string...

When he walked out of his room, BIG Scooby Doo was waiting to wish him a "Scrappy Birthday". He was so excited. You can't see his face super great in this pic, but he had a HUGE smile, and his whole face lit up. It was adorable!

Then...PRESENT TIME...We got him a bike. Erek was trying to see if he was too short for it. Because as everyone knows, my boys are definitely short for their age. He is a little short. But it has all sorts of fun games on the steering wheel, so he didn't really mind at all...

Once Braedyn was out of school we made a quick stop at the dentist for the pain in Braedyn's tooth. He ended up having to have a root canal and a crown put on a back tooth.

Then off to Grandma and Grandpa Moser's house for the presents from them. He LOVES this gift. He has played with is EVERY day since he got it.

And finally, dinner at the birthday Boy's favorite restaurant. This is another birthday tradition for our family. For some reason, the past 3 years the resaurant of choice has been IHOP. Not that I mind, since kids do eat free :). And, when he finished his dinner, he was brought a big bowl of Ice Cream, and a stuffed dog

YUMMY......

The next day, was another busy one. A morning checkup at the doctor for Brock turning 2 years old. He is still tiny for his age, no big surprise there...He does finally weigh 25 pounds! YAY :)

After the checkup, we left town for vacation in sunny Arizona with Erek's awesome family! On our way down one of the vans tires had to be replaced, so we stopped at this gas station in Beaver...yay for random picture opportunities...

We went to Phoenix to visit one of Erek's step-brother's who recently moved down there. It was a lot of fun. It was fun to be able to wear shorts for a little while longer. And the temperatures there were similar to our summer temperatures, so it was really nice. And, of course, it was fun to get a vacation.

Now, like I said, we went with Erek's family. I never really stopped to think about how big his family is, but while we were down there, it became very apparent to me. We were missing 3 people of the family, but there were still 23 people that were able to go. So, just think of 23 people walking down the street all together. There were 11 children age 5 and younger...lots of strollers...and 12 adults. Whenever we went to eat the average wait time for food was about 2 hours. So everything we planned, we had to plan a lot of extra time, due to the size of the group.

The best part was the zoo. We went to the Phoenix zoo, which is a beautiful zoo by the way, with a LOT more animals than our wonderful Hogle Zoo :). As we would walk around, everyone would mention how busy the zoo is today. But no, it was actually just our very large group. Here are a few fun pics.

In the monkey area, we were actually able to go in the monkey cage, so Erek was able to get this awesome picture, without even having to use the zoom.

This Ape was my favorite. He's the big papa ape. You can't tell very well in the pic, but he is lying under a tree eating, just chillin. above him is the mama ape, the baby ape, and another ape all taking care of each other, eating together. When this papa ape was done eating, he just went to sleep. What a life...

I don't really remember what type of bird this is, but he was the ugliest animal there. I have no clue what that nasty ugly bald spot is in the middle of his chest, but it's super disgusting looking. If anyone can tell me more about this ugly creature, please do.

Brock LOVED this tree house

Both boys loved petting the goats. In case you didn't know, goats really stink, but they are super calm to pet. I put brock down and he was randomly running around petting any goat he could het his hands on. He thought that was great!

A two-headed turtle...isnt' this the cutest turtle you've ever seen ;)

Grandpa Rey and Nana Dian with 11 of their 13 grandchildren...the oldest is the girl in the pink sitting next to Grandpa, and the baby is being held by Nana

After the zoo, it was time to head to the beautiful Phoenix temple. In case you can't tell, or didn't know, this temple is one of just a few in the world WITHOUT an Angel Moroni. But is sure is a beautiful temple

After the temple, we decided to let the kids get their energy out OFF the temple grounds, and went to Chuk E Cheese for dinner. The kids (and Erek) loved it! They spent a whole bunch of time in the games area.

The next day, we went to Erek's step-brother's house in Maricopa. It is a BEAUTIFUL house. we celebrated Brock's birthday while there. The kiddos played a little verified version of duck-duck-goose. Not sure how this one works. Apparently EVERYONE runs to get the person who is "it"

And, of course, you can't have a birthday without cake....

And, in case you were wondering what it was like to have a bunch of cousins your age, it's a blast. That's a great way to have pleanty of people to share your toys with (good thing my boys are good at sharing)

And, when you get lazy, you can have your cousins open your presents for you

That way you can lay out every piece of paper all nice and neat on the ground, to make sure it is well preserved...

I didn't post pics of all the gifts here, but he really loves them all. I just love that our families always seem to know just what to get my boys.

My boys loved having so much fun time with all their cousins. The moms enjoyed having Aunt Kristen to entertain the kiddos for a while as well. It was a nice break.

However, we couldn't have the kids completely tearing up the house, since Uncle Clint and Aunt Kristen are not used to having children in their house, we decided to give the house a break, and take the kids to the park, which they also enjoyed.

Early the next morning it was time to make the 13 hour drive back home

And that, folks, was our week. It was absolutely crazy, but a whole lotta fun!