Smiles

I am pretty sure this is a smile.


We made the Oprah Snapfish photo book and wanted a good picture of our whole family for the cover so we took a bunch. This was the Y vs U game day, and my shirt color was lost on me. Jen pointed it out and I immediately changed it. This was ok but was a little blurry so we did another later after Kate's nap.


Meanwhile, we caught one of Tyler's smiles.


We emailed the smile to our family, a few people said that it doesn't look like him. Well here he is not smiling. See it is him.


Here I am in my semi-blue shirt and this is the cover to our shirt.



Cute picture. I think Jen tried to get them both to have crossed arms.


The next day Ty smiled for the camera again.


Ty likes when I whistle, which is good because I do it all the time, half the time I only realize I am whistling when someone is complaining from it.

Tummy time. Ty seems to coo a lot when he is on his tummy. I think it is his way of objecting to being on his tummy.

Birthday Boy

My birthday was a while ago and here are some of the events of that day.

Here is a picture of Kate though. She picked out every piece of this outfit. I thought it was so funny. She is definitely becoming her own person.


The day started with Jen making a french toast and bacon breakfast for me. I love french toast and I love bacon so I was a happy camper. We found the bacon a short time ago and Jen was like, "Let's cook that for your birthday." I am spoiled. We went to the mall and looked at watches and gloves. My nice gloves that I bought a year or two ago disappeared so I needed new ones before it gets cold here. Also, my watch that I bought when I got home from my mission, that I received compliments up until a couple weeks before it died, died. I was so sad. I looked at a couple watches but they were $160 and $140. I guess I have expensive taste. I think I will get the same watch I had before. When we got home, Jen and Kate made me a cake for my birthday. Kate really enjoyed the cake making process.

Here we are before I blow out the candles.


I decided to add some crushed chocolate  chips and bakers chocolate to the top of my cake. I crushed it all with a kitchen hammer and sprinkled it all on top. I love to experiment with food and find new ways of cooking things. Well, see what happens. Note: Jen says that the sound of me hammering in the video is no where near the real sound.

I think she liked the cake.


We had to fend her away from Tyler to keep him clean.


Clean kids.


Katelynn decided that she needed to help me open my cards and presents. I hope I get "Good Dad" points for when she is a teenager.


This is from Jen. When we were at the mall earlier, I was thinking that I really needed the get this book and read it. Good thing I am not impulsive, especially when it comes to buying things.


It was a great birthday and Jen and Kate made me feel like a special birthday boy. I am spoiled.

Oh Children!

Here are my children.

"Yes, I have an older sister." Poor Ty!!




Ty was smiling and then stopped when we got the camera out. You can barely catch the last bits of smile at the beginning of the video.

Ryan's Place

We were told about this cool park but had a hard time finding it. We had to ask a guy on the street who also told us how cool the park was. They weren't kidding. It was very cool. 

Here is the story of the park.


They had a little kids section but Kate spent a minute there and the rest of the time in the 5-12 year old section. She loved climbing ladders and going down slides.



Here is a couple shots of the park.

This rocket had a couple ladders Kate really liked.


This mural was drawn by a kid and made into a mosaic. 

Suggestions to Avoid Fraud

I am taking a Fraud Investigation/Forensics class and while we focus on accounting issues like financial statement fraud and employee fraud, we also highlight all fraud including consumer fraud and identity theft. Our teacher, Dr. Chad Albrecht, put together a homework assignment to harden ourselves against identity theft and scams. I thought I would share it with all of you that read our blog so you can take advantage of this knowledge and recommend that you follow these steps.

Steps to Minimize your Risk to Consumer Fraud 

1. Opt Out of Pre-Approved Credit Cards by calling 1-888-567-8688. Since credit card companies only update their records every 3 - 6 months, it may take a few months for each credit card company to update you within their records.

2. Opt Out of Telemarketing (Reduces risk of telemarketing fraud): Call 1-888-382-1222 or go to donotcall.gov. You must reregister every four years.

3. Go to your bank, credit union, or financial institution and proactively request that they do not share your financial information with third parties.

4. Check your credit report at least once a year. To do this go to annualcreditreport.com. Do not go to freecreditreport.com (remember the commercials with the guitar guy) as they will charge you a monthly rate unless you proactively cancel your subscription.

Annualcreditreport.com is the official website that is sponsored by the three credit reporting agencies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax). This will help make sure that someone is not using your credit for their own purposes.

5. If you are going on vacation have the post office hold your mail until you return. You can do this by calling 1-800-275-8777.

6. Before investing in a company or donating to a charity make sure you visit the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org. Remember, just because the company does not appear on the website does not mean the company is not fraudulent. Scammers will often change the name of the company in order to avoid detection. If the company does not have a history or is included in the Better Business Bureau database as having problems, it should send a definite red flag.

Finally, remember if something seems to good to be true — it probably is!

That's what he gave us. I think #3 is interesting. Previous to 1997 it was legal to give the information of your customers to whoever asked you for it. Well, in 1997 they made that illegal but allowed banks to sell your info to third parties. But anyone can opt-out of the selling of their own information. Side note: Wells Fargo seems to have a policy of not selling individual customers information to third parties. They may only give the info to other Wells Fargo entities, and you can opt-out of that if you would like.

Halloween Pumpkins

We wanted to go to a pumpkin patch but every patch we called was out of pumpkins a week before Halloween. The only one we found that had pumpkins (because they didn't sell any) was up in North Logan call the Pumpkin Walk. There were several lots that were decorated by different people.  Here are some of the more interesting ones.

Noah's Ark 




ER


They had these cutouts and Kate was a little unsure about them. I did it first to help her out. I don't make a good Ariel I think.


But here is a cute Ariel.


And we found a Mickey Mouse one. Of course Kate had to do that one.


I thought this one was funny.


A few nights later we carved a pumpkin together.

Kate had fun.

Family Fall Fun

We thought we would have some fun with Katelynn with the leaves and try to get some cute pictures with the leaves falling and Kate smiling. Kate had a lot of fun with the leaves. She chased us with twigs and leaves.


We did get cute pictures though, not many with falling leaves though.

We were going for the natural look.




Singing to the leaf.


Tyler slept well the whole time.


We had Kate pose a little. 


And here we are.


Ok. So at a personal cost I post this video. I was trying to get the Turkey to do the crazy gobble thing it does for Kate but Jen thought it was too hilarious not to record or post so here you all go. Enjoy!

Kate then wanted to take some pictures holding Tyler.