Some Utah Favorites

My parent's live really close to some awesome kid places so we try to visit them every time we're in town. High up on the list of favorites is the farm at Thanksgiving point.

What kid doesn't love feeding stinky animals and riding a pony? We've been going there for years, and it never gets old. Just look at the picture below:

Hasn't she gotten big? I think that might be the same pony in both pictures...crazy!

The saddest part about going to the farm this year was that poor little Brinley couldn't come. She was miserably sick and running a high fever. It broke my heart because she LOVES animals and has already requested a "Horsey party" for her 3rd birthday. Poor thing! She would've loved the pony ride and those crazy goats.

I think Cam enjoyed his first farm visit. He slept through most of it, but he did open his eyes to peak around a bit during the wagon ride.

My sister Sarah and her son Noa came with us and it was great spending time with the two of them.

Teya and Noa were all smiles after their farm adventures. Next year we'll make sure Brinley is there too.

KANGAROO ZOO

Another favorite Utah spot is the Kangaroo zoo which is basically just a building full of bounce houses. This year was great because both girls are big enough to just run loose on their own.

Brinley spent a fair amount of time in this little kiddie bouncer but she also had no fears going on the big slides and climbing by herself up some of the bigger obstacle courses.

Taber's brother Brett and his kids met us there and it was so fun seeing the kids go wild in there.

Teya was lucky to have two of her favorite girl cousins there, Sklya and Maile. The three of them were pretty inseparable all week. It was awesome watching them play together.

It was also fun to see the two newest Rigg's together for the first time.

Taber and little chub with Brett and his son Rockwell who is just 3 months older than Cam.

And the proud mommies who did all the work to get them here : ) fun how me and CJ are both in red and the babies are in blue. Totally didn't plan that. Great minds just think alike ; )

DINOSAUR MUSEUM

And last but not least is the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point. This year Taber took the girls with his brother Brett while I did some shopping with my mom and sister. Divide and conquer!

I like this picture because my little Nephew River is totally climbing over the baricade into the dino display. Total Rigg boy : )

And Brin Brin looks so unfazed by the massive shark head poised to swallow her whole. : )

Fun times at our favorite Utah spots. Can't wait to hit them up next year when Cam is big enough to play!

Future Cougars

We're back from Utah! It was a jam-packed crazy awesome trip and I took over 400 pictures so I'm sure there will be a few Utah posts to come. : ) For now though I had to put up a few pics of our future BYU cougars. Doesn't get much cuter than this!

Taber, his brother Brett, and the baby cougar cousins, Camden and Rockwell Rigg.

Future BYU cheerleaders? I would cheer for these cute faces! Teya and Brinley with their cousins Skyla and Maile.

Cougar cousins taking over the Wilk.

GO BYU!

Toy Story 3: Disney on Ice

So right now I'm thousands of feet up in the air blogging. On an airplane. From my phone. Doesn't technology just blow you away sometimes? I seriously can't wrap my mind around it. Sure is nice though on this long 5 hour flight to have a way to pass the time.


On to blogging.... A couple weeks ago we took the kiddos to see Toy Story 3: Disney on Ice down in Boston. It was one those things that I would've loved to see as a kid so I think I might've been more excited than the girls. Being in that big event kind of atmosphere just reminded me of when my parents took us to see the circus when I was little and I think I loved the environment with all the vendors and carnival food almost as much as I loved the actual show
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The kids were fired up and pretty engrossed during the entire performance. Cam was a perfect angel and just chilled out on Taber's lap without a fuss. Have I mentioned what an easy mellow baby he is? So so easy.


The show was awesome. My favorite part was the scene where Ken tried all his clothes on for Barbie. Just as hilarious on ice as in the movie.


Of course despite the amazing performance I think Brinley's favorite part was easily the cotton candy.



Glad we had the chance to go And make some fun memories as a family. It's always a good time hanging out with my little aliens.

Plenty of Time...NOT!

Today I made a hair appointment for 10am. I looked at my schedule: Teya had preschool at 8:30am and Brinley had a birthday party at 9. I figured that gave me plenty of time once I dropped them off, to feed Cam, get him to a sitter, get to my 10am appointment and be done in time to pick up Teya from school at 11:30am. hahahaha. Silly silly me.

Today I was reminded that when you have small children you need to add 10 minutes to the time it normally takes you to get anywhere for EACH CHILD!! I often forget that. And I am often late to things.

Here's what overly my optimistic attempt to pull off my 10 am hair appointment looked like:

7:30am:

-Wake up

-Dress Teya

-Fix her hair

-wake up Brinley

-Try to de-grouch her from her "why did you wake me up" grumpiness

-Change Brinley's diaper

-dress Brinley

-Fix Brinley's hair

8:00am:

-Make breakfast for the girls

-Put together Teya's snack for preschool

-Find Teya's backpack, load it with all her stuff

-Grab present for Brinley's party

-Find shoes and socks

-Put shoes and socks on the girls

-Find coats, put coats on the girls

8:20am:

-Throw some clothes on myself

-put on a little makeup and throw my greasy unshowered hair into a pony tail

8:30 am (we are now officially late for preschool)

-Wake up Cam

-Change his diaper

-Change his clothes

-stuff him in his car seat because there's no time to feed him

8:45am

-grab present, backpack, diaper bag, purse, and Cam in his car seat and head out the door

-Load children and all our "baggage" into the car and buckle everyone in

-Speed to preschool

8:55am:

-Run Teya into her school (25 minutes late)

9:00am: (We are now officially late to the birthday party)

-Speed to pick up Brinley's friend who is carpooling with us to the party

-Load friend and her present into car, buckle up

-drive to party

9:20 am:

-Unload Brinley, friend, and presents from the car

-Take kids into the party (20 minutes late)

9:20am

-get back into car, Cam is crying because he's hungry, My friend who is watching him lives 10 minutes away. If I get to her house by 9:30 and feed him for 15 minutes I should still make my 10am appt.

9:30am

-GET LOST driving to friend's house

9:34am

-Call Taber at work crying because I'm lost and I'm going to be late even though I've been trying since 7:30am to make it to my 10am hair appt. Waaaah!!

9:50am:

-FINALLY make it to my friend's house (should've taken me 10 minutes, took me 30, there are no words for how frustrated I feel)

-Run in, pull Cam out of his car seat and turbo feed him

10:00am: (officially late for my hair appointment)

-Pass Cam off to my friend,

-pray he got enough food to last till I get back

-tell friend I'll be back by 11:30 at the latest to get him (how naive of me)

-Zoom off to hair appointment

10:15am:

-Arrive at hair appt blubbering excuses about having three kids and being late, they are very nice and bring me right back.

-try to relax and de-frazzle myself while lady shampoo's and massages my head

-Really start relaxing and enjoying the hip atmosphere and cool vibes in the salon

-Wonder if I ever appreciated how "easy" it was to do this kind of stuff before I had kids. Probably not.

11:05am

-Hair cut is only half way done and I'm starting to stress again wondering if I'll make it back in time to pick up Cam before I pick up Teya from preschool.

11:20am:

-Hair is still being styled. Teya's preschool is 10 minutes away and her pick up is at 11:30. Realize there's no way I'll be able to get Cam before I get Teya. Hope my friend is okay. Hope Cam is okay. Hope the lady finishes my hair soon.

11:28am:

-Hair is done, pay the lady and rush out to my car

11:30am (officially late to pick up Teya)

-Jump in car and start driving to preschool

-Call friend while I'm driving to tell her I'm running late (of course) and ask if it's okay if I pick up Teya before Cam. Friend is super nice and says no problem.

11:40am

-Pull up to Teya's preschool, thankfully I'm not the last parent to pick up their kid (been there before, it was a sad day for Teya)

-load Teya into car and head to get Brinley

11:50am:

-Pick up Brinley from friend's house who drove the girls home from the party

12:00 pm:

-Finally arrive at friend's house to pick up Cam. Remember when I told her I'd be back at 11:30am at the latest? Yeah I was 30 minutes late. 10 minutes for each kid. Plenty of time? Not! I think I need to make a shirt for myself that says, "Sorry I'm late, I have children."

A Very Fairy Birthday Party

So I kind of like to throw birthday parties. And for the longest time I've been trying to convince Teya that she wanted a fairy party. I could just see it all in my head, little girls running around in tutu's with fairy wings. So cute right? But when she was 3 she wanted Pirates, and at 4 it was all about Ariel. She talked about Diego for her 5th birthday until about a month ago when she said, "I want a tinker bell party." YES! I jumped on it and last Friday my dream of hosting little fairies came to life. Here are some pics from the big day. I thought it turned out pretty darn cute.

The birthday girl all ready for her guests to arrive

I decided to get crafty and make Martha Stewart Tissue pom poms. A bit time consuming but I think they turned out so pretty.

Here's the little backdrop I made for pictures. My camera stinks but it looked very garden fairy-ish in real life : )

For food I made butterfly shaped sandwiches and fruit. We also had pigs in a blanket per Teya's request.

My insanely talented friend Darby made Teya's cake. I told her what I had in mind and she came up with something 100 times better than I could've imagined. She made every flower (including the big white one) out of fondant. The whole thing was just so gorgeous. She seriously needs to go into the cake business.

One more cake picture because it was just so awesome. (and it tasted awesome too!)

Here's how the food and decorations all came together.

Each girl got her own fairy tutu, wings and butterfly wand.

As the guests arrived Teya was so excited to show them their fairy gear and get them all dressed up. Once everyone was here we took a picture of the fabulous fairies.

Our first activity was making pixie dust jars with colored sand. The girls loved it.

Here's how the finished products came out.

After the pixie dust jars I read them a "Very Fairy Princess" by Julie Andrews. Then we came back to make pink chocolate dipped marshmallows sprinkled with fairy dust.

The marshmallows were a little messy but the girls didn't mind licking the chocolate off their fingers. : )

After Marshmallows they ate their Fairy food.

And then it was time for cake!

We sang and she blew out all her candles (with a little help from her friends ; )

Then we opened presents and finished with the crowning event: a Pinata!

From this experience I learned that the fail safe secret to party success is to bust out a pinata. It was seriously the highlight of their night.

Sadly all good things must come to an end and before long it was time to send all the little fairies (except these two cuties) home. Everyone had a great time and Teya rewarded mommy with a big hug and by telling me "Thanks for the best birthday ever." Well worth the effort for that : )

Special shout out to to Taber for getting off work early to help out with the party. Couldn't have pulled it off without him. He also took some nice footage and put together this video of the highlights. Hope you enjoy!

Cam the Man is 2 months old

Today my little man is 2 months old so we had a photo shoot to document his cuteness.

He's starting to recognize who his mommy is and every time he wakes up and sees me I'm rewarded with this big grin.

He has these big beautiful brown eyes that are deep dark chocolate like his Daddy.

But they squint up like almonds when he smiles, just like his mommy.

Teya is by far his biggest fan and constantly smothers him with affection. I usually have to tell her to give baby some space at least 20 times a day : )

He takes after his Dad as far as good looks go. : ) He's also starting to be more alert and awake during the day instead of just sleeping all the time.

He is such a cuddly little guy and has the sweetest most kissable little cheeks.

He recently grew out of his bassinet and started sleeping in his crib. It's nice having him in his own room but will be even better once he starts sleeping through the night and I don't have to wake up and go feed him. : )

And I'll finish this post with one of my favorite pictures. Last Sunday the girls picked out their own dresses all by themselves. When I brought Cam out I realized they were all color coordinated with red and gray. I matched my kids without even trying! We are so in sync it's not even funny ; ) kidding, but I also love that Teya had to include Elephy in the picture. What a cute little bunch of Rigglets : )

Happy 5th Birthday Teya!

Big girl Teya turned 5 last week. Her party will be this Friday but here's what we did to celebrate on her birthday.

During the day I dropped off Cam and Brinley with a friend and Teya and I went out for some Mommy/daughter pedicures. She was sooooo cute in that big chair giggling her head off while they rubbed her ticklish feet.

The ladies who were doing our nails got such a kick out of her long hair and chatty personality. They kept saying, "Oh, she not shy, no, not shy at all. She talk this much at home?" I just laughed and thought, "you have no idea!"

After our feet were all fancied up Teya said, "Mom! Can we come back here next year on my birthday and do this again?" I said , "You don't have to ask me twice!" I'm always down with an excuse to get a pedicure : )

After our pedi's we went to McDonald's for lunch and then grabbed a Barbie movie from the Redbox to watch later on. When Taber got home we finally let her open her present.

The night before her birthday we scored this Barbie Jeep for a great deal from our neighbors who are moving back to India.The expression on her face when she pulled the tarp off this baby was priceless! She didn't waste any time jumping in and taking Brinley for a joyride.

Pink coats on a pink Barbie Jeep. Cute cute cute.

For dinner I told Teya I'd make anything she wanted, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, hot dogs, you name it. She picked Salmon. The girl has refined taste for a 5 year old ; )

After dinner we had cake and ice-cream

And then she opened her presents from Grandma and Brinley.

We finished the night watching Despicable Me together as a family. It was a full and fun day for our precocious, chatty, vivacious little 5 year old.

Friday Video: healthy imagination

I had to put up a little Friday video today because this is just too stinking cute. Brinley is a little chatterbox and loves to come up with her own creative stories (which are pretty descriptive and clever for a 2 year old) They go on and on and on but here is about a minute and a half of one of her imaginative sagas. I tried to put subtitles in too for those who don't speak 2 year old : ) Enjoy!

Friday Foto: Little Peanut, BIG Peanut

I always think it's fun to flash back in time and compare our past to our present. The first pic was taken 5 years ago when Teya was 12 weeks old and weighed 12 lbs. The second one was taken a few days ago with Cam at 6 weeks old and weighing almost 13 lbs! Squishy little chub has passed up his sister's weight at half her age.

I also think it's funny to see Taber in these pics. 5 years and the guy hasn't aged a day. If anything he's aging in reverse! Lucky.