We are a Happy Family!

Family pictures from the Larsen Family Reunion in August!

Don Larsen Family (those who could attend):

Harold Larsen Family:

It is so fun to be such a part of a large, happy, eternal family!

What happens when the dishwasher breaks....

I spend an hour and a half washing dishes!

We live such spoiled lives :)

I'm going there someday!

But Daddy says not until I'm thirty.....-five.

Cute Girls

Just some cute picture of our girls over the past couple of weeks!

Isn't the curly little ponytail irresistible!!!!!  

Repairs

We had a little excitement over Labor Day Weekend.  We had found a few days earlier puddles of liquid on our garage floor, under one of the cars.  Being that the liquid was yellow, we took the car in to be looked at.  The guy looked it over and over and over and finally told Andrew, "I can't find a thing wrong!  All your liquids are full and everything looks good."  He was a super nice guy and told us he'd be wasting our money if he took our car to work on.  (I think we found a mechanic to use from here on out!)

So we cleaned out the garage and went on with things.  The next day, the yellow liquid was back!  We discovered that it wasn't the car at all - it was the water heater!  One of the pipes running into the heater was spraying water which was running everywhere in the water heater closet and pooling inside the garage.  So after a Labor Day visit to Home Depot, Andrew quickly replaced the leaking pipe and we were up and running again!

10 Months!

Halle turned 10 months old on September 5th!  

It was incredibly difficult to get her to hold still for a picture.  But I'm proud to say that these pictures were taken on her actual 10 month birthday and right after a bath, no less!  So sweet and clean!

Look what trick this 10 month old has learned!  

In addition to standing on her own, she has also learned to shake her head 'no' (which she usually does if you nod your head 'yes' to her - obstinate already!).  She still has just two bottom teeth, but more are on their way!  She gets so excited when I come home from work (or when Andrew comes home from sports/class/or anywhere else).  She loves playing in Eve's room with her and all the toys and she LOVES snacks!  

She also loves her sister very much and the feeling is reciprocated.  When they wake up from naps, Eve runs into Halle's room and climbs in her crib with her and this is how we find them:

We love our growing girl!  Almost to 1 year!

Oklahoma

We didn't stay in Texas long, though!  

The very next weekend, we drove up to Oklahoma to visit Candace and Jeremy!

We took the kids to Home Depot on Saturday morning for the free craft, only to discover that we were too late and they were all gone.  That will happen when over 300 kids show up to build a plane from the new movie, "Planes"!

These kids were happy to roll with the punches though!  

That afternoon, the pool came out!  Eve was very willing to help fill it!  (She remembered her lessons from Uncle Lance in proper hose handling!)

While the men supervised the pool-time play, Candace and I snuck away for a little birthday shopping!  It's so fun to have a friend with a birthday only 6 days apart from yours!  We enjoyed that for the past 21 years!

It was great to spend some time catching up, just the two of us, but soon enough, it was time to head back and rescue the men.  Turns out, they didn't need it.  

But we did make ourselves useful by providing the refreshments - with some help from four little willing hands!

While the boys did their version of hanging out:

And the kids did theirs:

We had a blast with the Baldwins (as always!) and can't wait for our next get together!  By then, they'll have a new addition in their family and we can't wait to meet him!

Headed Home

We drove back to Texas on Saturday, August 17th.  One of the McDonald's we stopped at along the way had a friend out in front that Eve just had to say hi to!

The drive was long, but fairly uneventful from what I remember.  We made it in very late that and literally all just fell into bed.  Good thing church wasn't until 11am!  :)  

We had the best time on our two week trip!  A huge thanks to everyone who put us up and put up with us!  

Visiting Broomfield

We spent Wednesday evening just visiting with the Smith's and eating pizza!  The next morning, we left Utah and drove back to Colorado to spend a day in Broomfield with my parents.  It was hot!!!

But we braved the weather to take the girls to the park:

This was the only slide Eve could go down as all the others were too hot - this one had just the right angle to the sun that it didn't burn too badly.  

Halle and I waited in the shade while Eve and Grandma played.

That weekend there was an air show in Broomfield, so we saw quite the assortment of planes out practicing!  Look hard and you'll see them!

Some of this happened during our day in Broomfield:

And plenty of this!

It was a short little visit, but fun nonetheless and just like that, our trip had come to an end and it was time to head back to Texas!

Child Labor

Wednesday morning we hung around Provo getting things ready for Andrew's parents to return from St. George!  

And Uncle Lance put Eve to work cleaning his car:

She didn't seem to mind :)

Salt Lake City!

On Monday I had to work and that evening we went to the new Provo Rec Center for a swim with Laura and Maren.  It was fun once Maren and Halle got used to the water and stopped crying, but probably not worth the price of admission.  Maybe if Eve was older.  They had a cool playground in the water for kids, but everywhere you turned it sprayed you with water or dumped water on your head.  After the first incident of unexpected soakage, Eve was down and content to wade around in the shallow water FAR from that thing.  

Andrew's parents were in St. George Monday - Wednesday so we had to find ways to occupy ourselves in their absence.  So Tuesday we did a trip up to Salt Lake City and met up with Stuart/Genevieve and Kelly at the new City Creek Mall!  

Andrew hates shopping, but was good enough to play along as we wandered and window shopped!

The mall comes with a great view!

Eve has taken to snapping pictures with our camera - this one is courtesy of her!  

"Smile, Mom!"

At one store, we picked out matching white dresses for the girls and at another Stuart and Genevieve got the kids ring pops.  They were a HUGE hit!

Good luck finding a picture with Eve separated from her ring pop for a second until she had licked every last drop!  And it took her a long time...

Daryn did a good job looking cute!

And then the Disney Store happened.  As soon as she got inside and realized what it was, Eve went nuts!  She started gathering up as many stuffed animals as she could, as fast as she could!

And she wasn't the only one!

Haha, it was quite a feat to get all the girls away from the toys and back outside, but they came away with treats, so it worked out.  They each got a set of princess figurines!  

It was time for a snack from Kneaders next before crossing the street to Temple Square.

The flowers at Temple Square were breathtaking!  

An eternal family!

We stopped in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building while we were there - 

And Reagan found a new way to cool off!

A closer look at the temple:

It was neat to take the kids into the visitors center and show them the statue of Christ.  Also in the visitors center were life-size statues of Adam and Eve.  I explained who they were to Eve and she replied, "I want to go give myself a hug!"  Silly girl!

By then, it was time to head back to the mall to meet Lance for dinner at Johnny Rockets!  He works right near the mall, so it worked out really well!  The food was yummy but having so many little kids, we kind of destroyed the place....

This is why we don't eat out.

It was getting dark out as we made our way back through the mall towards the cars.  Eve and Chiara got to see the large trout in the stream that runs through the mall (it's hard to see in the picture, but I promise they're there!).

We let Eve have one last glimpse of the water fountains as we left - she would have happily played in those for a while if we'd let her!  But alas, it was late and we still had a long drive ahead of us....