Who are these people???

I have been wandering around online looking at people's blogs and I have a problem! About half of you only post pics of your beautiful kids. I love to see them but when I stumble on people's sites who don't have pics of themselves... how am I supposed to know who these beautiful children belong to??? Last names are quite often not enough. I'm only 25 but my memory sucks. I totally claim having a kid as my excuse for that. As you can see, I am practicing what I preach! I've even handed my camera over to someone else occasionally to get a pic of my little family. I know that you can all do the same and I also know that you are all just as adorable as your cute kids. So smile pretty and post pics of YOU!!! Can't wait to see them.

The Cinders Slide Show

I have a love-hate feeling about slide shows. I'm way to impatient and so I HATE to sit here and watch the pics change, but I also LOVE the ability to post all of my pics and not take up tons of space on my page. So the winner is... do the slide show. I guess those of you who feel like seeing all the pics can, and for those of you who don't care (I usually fall into this category) I've posted some of the highlights below. Enjoy!

Flagstaff Report

Well we ended up taking a bunch of pics while we were camping this last week. Still not enough to fill my 2 gig card but still a bunch. We had a great time. Jeremy's mom was perfectly prepared for all of our eating, sleeping and living needs and all the boys did a great job keeping the vehicles running and ready to go at (almost) any time.

Our nephew, Brendon (12 yrs old), managed to find a lone tree in the middle of a clearing while learning to drive their baja. It took all the guys about a day to fix, but it was up and running the rest of the week. Brendon was front and center helping with all the repairs. Todd & Candy were pretty cool about it. My dad would have FLIPPED!

Carri bought some snow sleds for the kids to slide down the hills with. The rocks were thick and hard to ride on top of but we finally found a hill that did the job. The big kids got a kick out of that too. Unfortunately I never got a pic of them doing it. Just a pic of the hill they used. It was crazy steep and scared me to death the first time we went down it in the baja.

We spent just about a whole morning taking family pics. We did some right next to our camp site and some on top of a hill with a great look out. Carri bought all of us American/4th of July shirts to wear for our pics. I think they turned out really great.

We also went into town one day and went to the Lowell Space Observatory (the observatory where Pluto was discovered). We took a tour and we all had a great time seeing everything. It was overcast, so we didn't get to see any "live" shots of space, but the exhibits were neat.

Another day we went to the Arizona Snow Bowl ski resort. We were going to go to the top of the ski lift but it was raining and all the thunder & lightning had forced them to shut down the ski lift until the storm let up. We let the kids run up and down the hill next to the lift and enjoyed some hot chocolate, then headed back to camp.

We got rained on really hard one day at camp and it sprinkled on us a little every other day. It was so nice to escape the heat and enjoy some overcast, cool days.

Thanks to all the family for making it a great family vacation.

We love you!

Off to Flagstaff

Well, the last week has been crazy busy. Jeremy and his brother, Logan, have been outside in the 100 degree (after dark) weather every night but Sunday working on the baja's. They finished just in time for us to head to Flagstaff. Finishing touches were done last night. We are going to hit the road here in about an hour. Logan's wife, Jennie Raye, and I have spent a lot of time together while our guys worked. Its been nice to have them both around. We will be in Flag for the rest of the week and hope to take LOTS of pics. We have a 2 gig card in our camera and Jeremy is concerned about using all the space!!! I promise not to post all of it :)
Blog to ya later!

A Busy Week!

This past week & a half have been so much fun for all of us, but especially for Aiden. We have been surrounded by friends & family and it has been a blast.

Friday the 29th Jeremy & some friends in the ward went off roading in the baja and some quads another guy has. Some of the wives and kids came to my house to play while the dads were out. Aiden has not stopped talking about his "new" friend, Gage, yet. Gage is about 2 and a half and German is a month younger than Aiden. The kids all went to bed here and we watched a movie until the guys got home around 11:30. We all exchanged stories of the evening and chatted for a little while. Everyone went home around midnight. It was a late night, but we had a good time. Yes, 12am is now "late" to me.

The next day we went to the lake with one of the same couples (Kimber & Brandon...gage's family). Aiden is doing better with the water. Of course, it was much warmer this time than it was in the end of May. He got in with Jeremy & I and stayed in for a while. When we got back in the boat to head into the docks, Aiden fell asleep. And so did all the other kids. It was a sight to see. They were all so cute and soooo exhausted. I don't have any pics cause I forgot my camera that day.

For the 4th of July we went to the cabin again. Jeremy got off work early on Tuesday and we made a 24 hour trip. We love to go on rides in the Kawasaki Mule that Grandpa Benson has. Aiden does too... and again, he fell asleep on our ride.

Jeremy's Aunt Rachel and her family were here this weekend from Oklahoma. Her son, Tanner, is about 18 months older than Aiden. They played for a little while at our house and had a great time together.

This is a pic of the two of them eating goldfish. And another one of them playing in the baja. Tanner loved the baja. We had to bribe him to get him to come back inside.

It is fun to have cousins around. We were able to spend Saturday & Sunday afternoons with ALL the cousins. Aiden has so much fun with lots of other kids around. Jeremy & I also enjoyed the time we spent getting to know his mom's family more.

We have really had a crazy week or so. I didn't really even think so until I started looking at all the pics and putting this post together! No wonder we slept in today!

Recent Family Pics

We finally got around to getting family pictures taken. The last semi-official family pic we had taken was when Aiden was 6 weeks old. Wow! Time flies! I decided 18 months was a good time to do family pics though, so I got on the ball and we did it! We went to JC Penny. They did a fabulous job. Aiden was grumpy when we got there but somehow the photographer got some of the best pics of him ever. I also think their prices are fairly resonable. Definately better value than Kiddie Kandids. We had a really good time and we're so happy to have family pics to hang in our home.