Our First Annual Contratto/Lambourne Family Reunion

reading a friends blog, which talked about having an annual family trip to St. George, I was inspired to start our own annual family trip/reunion. So this year, I planned the first one, which I called the pre-annual family reunion because it was just going to be dinner. I figured we could use the time to discuss options for the ones to follow. I think Jackson Hole is going to win :)

We had dinner and a campfire at storm mountain picnic area in Big Cottonwood Canyon and then roasted marshmallows. Joe and I took all the kids rock climbing and they did awesome!

It was great to see everyone. I hope that we get an even better response at next years and get some of the out of towners there. We really missed Raquel's family, Illi would havew loved the rock climbing!

Thanks everyone for participating!

See you for a long weekend next August! Invites to come out soon!

PS I updated my whole summer today so look further for more pics and stories!

Rock Climbing Pics From The Family Reunion

Jasmine climbing

Aspen climbing

Jaden rockin it!

Little Sage isn't scared!

Our day at Snowbird

One of our good friends, Bill, works at Snowbird and invited us up for his work party!

I brought Jaden, Zane, Alexis, and Illiana up for a day of fun and a bbq dinner!

We started on the bungee trampolines where Jaden did a ton of flips and Illiana spent her time trying. She almost made it! This is a cute pic of zane giving Jaden a kiss.

Lexi and Zane hung out while Jaden and Illi jumped. Then Illi and I rock climbed on the climbing wall they have and Alexis, Jaden, and Zane mined rocks. After that Bill got off work and we all headed up to the Alpine slide. Jaden and bill went and then Alexis, I, and Illi went. I am chicken, I went slow!

This is a pic of Illi and I on the Alpine slide.
We then went down and had dinner.

Jaden, after two years of being too small, was finally able to go on the zipline, he did have the help of two large rocks in his pockets when he weighed in! You have to be at least 75 lbs, and he only weighs about 70, he yelled down to me after he weighed in, "Guess what mom, I weigh 80 lbs!" I just gave him a thumbs up and hoped the rocks wouldn't fall out of his pockets and hit someone on the head as he was going down!

I then went on the zipline and Jaden rode the mechanical bull.

Thanks Bill for a fun day!

More Pics From Snowbird

Jaden doing tricks on the trampoline.

Jaden and Bill coming down the alpine slide!

Illiana rock climbing!

Cute Zaners in the bouncer.

Zane and Alexis.

Zane is ONE!!

Zane had his first birthday on July 7. I can't believe he is already one!

We moved into our new house in Lehi on July4 and have been very busy ever since, so I put together a very last minute party at my mom's house. We had a bbq, went swimming, and the kids played on the playground. It was a small turn out but everyone had fun.

Zane got lots of toys! Thanks everyone! His favorite is the "Cozy Car" he can scoot around in from my mom and Emily.

About a week after his first birthday, Zane started to walk and has been cruisin around ever since. A week after he learned to walk he climbed up his first ladder. I was standing on top of the ladder doing touch up paint work in our new house, when I felt something move the ladder. I looked down and saw Zane standing right below me.

Maybe Joe will have someone to get him up those big walls in Yosemite after all, looks like climbing is in Zane's blood. Lol.

joes second injury for the month

My poor husband crashed his bike trying to do a jump at the skate park.

He tore three ligaments completely off the bone that hold his shoulder joint together.

I made him go to work.

j/k, well sort of......

To Move or Not to Move.............................

I randomly look at houses for sale on the internet. I like my house, but in the back of my mind I always want to move. Since it is the house that I grew up in, I have never quite felt like it is my own. Well I found a house that I absolutely love!! So I showed it to Joe and he liked it too. We took the next step and called one of our friends who is a real estate agent so that he could look farther into it. Well he called us back and said that it was a short sale and that it was a half million dollar home for 289000. However, if we want to buy this home we couldn't have any contigencies. We would have to be approved for the loan and have sold our house prior to making any offers on short sales, Basically this house will be gone before we could put an offer in on it. He did say however, that there are tons of short sales and forclosures, many that have never even been lived in. Mostly in Lehi, Saratoga Springs, Draper, and Herriman. So being the impulsive people that we are we got pre-approved for our loan and have started getting our house ready to sale. Hopefully, it will be up by the end of the month. We will then live with my mom or get an apartment for a short while while we bid on homes. Scary to get rid of our house without a house picked out, but hopefully a good investment in the end. The only thing that I am worried about is finding a house that doesn't have an HOA, we do not want to pay someone so they can tell us what we can and can't do to our home. Who ever even came up with something so stupid and why are people willing to let someone dictate what they can and cannot do with something they OWN!!!

Easter....spring has arrived

Easter started out this year with Jaden and his cousins dying Easter eggs at my house. They had so much fun and my mom said that it reminded her of us as kids dying eggs at Easter.

On Easter morning Jaden and Zane woke up to their baskets filled with a small amount of candy (Zane's is really for Joe) and a toy each. Zane got the Busy Ball Popper and Jaden got a Star Wars Lego set (of course)!! They also got another surprise, Joe and I bought them a big wooden swingset, not for Easter, just a coincidence. It is really cool. It has two clubhouses, swings, a slide, a rockclimbing wall, a picnic table and a sandbox. I can't wait to get it set up for them. They are going to have so much fun, I loved playing on my friends swingset when we were kids!

After they checked out their baskets we headed outside for an egg hunt. Jaden wasn't too happy that I have to take pictures for "everything" but other than that they had fun. I hid about fifty eggs which I thought would be too much for two kids, but I was wrong, it went very fast.

Zane loves his new toy!

That afternoon we headed to my sister Emily's house for Easter dinner. It was delicous, thanks Emily for putting it together! The kids had a ton of fun playing together. Joe's parents live around the corner from my sister so Joe, Zane, and I (Jaden was having too much fun with Kyson) ran over to see them for a minute. Well, Joe's mom was holding Zane and then she had to get up and do something so she set him on the grass. I was right there watching him and decided to take pics. Well Zane started gagging on something so I reached over to get it out of his mouth and when I took it out it looked like dog poo, well sure enough I looked down on the ground and there was a pile of dog poo, SICK!!!! I almost threw up. I swabbed my finger around his mouth and got everything out that I could then I ran him inside and did the best I could to rinse his mouth out and wash his face. I scrubbed my hands. That night Joe gave him a good scrub down in the tub. Never again will I assume someones yard is free of dog poo. I will not make that mistake again! No more playing on peoples lawns who have animals until Zane stops putting everything into his mouth!!! The next day at work I asked one of the pediatricians if I should be worried. She was unsure but after some discussion with her fellow workers she decided no, (assuming the dogs are dewormed on a regular basis) Joe, however, doubts that his parents deworm their dogs regularly. He said that when he was a kid all of the kids in his family had lice, worms, you name it, they had it. I truly hope that he was kidding and just trying to gross me out because I really am grossed out now. I was never blessed to have experienced those things as a child so the thought of it really makes me sick to my stomach. Well so far Zane has been fine, no diarreah or anything. He has another checkup next week so I will probably just ask his pediatrician to be sure that we shouldn't be testing him for anything.

Spring Time is Almost Here!

This spring has been so busy and full of fun. I got a charge nurse position at work and just started orienting to that. I think that I will enjoy it. (I get to go home an hour earlier)!! I finally started to read Twilight. After renting the movie I decided that I just had to find out what happened next so the next morning Joe stopped at Barnes and Noble on our morning coffee run and picked up the second book as a surprise for my birthday. I have been so busy though that I am just now starting the first one. My friend said it was very different from the movie so I had to start with it. Our basement still isn't finished, although we work on it about once every other week. We just need to second coat on the trim and doors and get carpet.......SO CLOSE:)

On the first real warm Saturday of March we took a trip to the zoo with my sister-in-law Mari and her kids and our friend Melissa and her kids. The kids had fun and lots of the animals were walking around and up close. It was very crowded though!!! I don't think Zane even realized we were there, he could have cared less!

Jaden has been learning to jump his new BMX bike that he got for Christmas so we have been making many trips to the skate park. Joe wants to get a bike now so he can go with him. Jaden also started to take guitar lessons and just got an electric guitar. He is pretty excited, and again, now Joe wants one so they can learn together.

Zane is now nine months old and likes to jabber all day long. He can crawl, pull himself to a stand, feed himself finger foods, copy you when you click your tongue or clap your hands and gives kisses. He loves to go for walks and watch the climbers at the climbing gym. He also loves music. Whenever Joe is playing the drums he always has to be right there trying to do it too and whenever we put on music he starts to dance.

Happy Valentine's Day to ME!!!

Well, this year turned out to be a great valentine's day. First, I surprised Jaden last night, with a set of star wars legos on his bed. He was so excited!
Then today we all woke up and went to breakfast at Village Inn. We then went to the mall to clear coat our phones, while waiting we went into Nordstrom's and I started looking at this purse that I had been eyeing for awhile. I decided I didn't want to spend money right now so we started leaving and Joe was like, "It's a pretty cute purse, I will buy it for you for Valentine's Day.

Well if you know Joe, you know this was a shock, he is way to practical to spend that much money on a purse. I think maybe he felt guilty about the windshield wiper blades he got me last year! Anyway, I got my super cute purse, I love it!

This is a cute pic of Zane and Joe, Joe just got off work and looks tired though!

These are my two boys with their mohawks. Jaden decided to fix his hair in a mohawk one day and of course had to have Zanes just like his!

BUSY

I have been super busy lately, lots has happened. I didn't have any new pics to post
so these are some from our Disneyland trip we took this last October with Emily's family.
Zane is now 7 months old and scooting all over, getting into everything he is not supposed to.
I am waiting to see if he will walk at 9 months like Jaden did.

He is lovin the baby food. We went to the grocery store yesterday to get some and when
I picked it up, he saw it, got all excited, and then began to scream and cry when I put it in the cart instead of feeding it to him. Too funny. He is sleeping through the night in his own crib on most nights. I always say that I will just let his cry it out if he does wake up, but I never do, it breaks my heart, plus I love to snuggle with him.

Jaden went to diabetes camp last weekend. He was super excited because he got to bring his cousin Kyson with him this year! They had fun doing crafts and going to the planetarium. They also went skiing at Brighton. Kyson took a lesson and loved it. Jaden has been skiing since he was three, now he will have a buddy to ski with. Aspen was sad she couldn't stay at camp so Jaden is planning on bringing Kyson, Aspen and Lexi to summer camp this year!
It will be time to sign up for the Juvenile Diabetes Walk soon so keep it in mind and help us do some fundraising. We need to make up for my slacking last year. ( I was pregnant)

I am doing a biggest loser challenge at Joe's work trying to lose the rest of my baby weight and win some money. I am in the lead but that is only because I had about ten pounds of water weight on me the day I weighed in. Two days later I was back down to my normal weight so it just seems like I lost the most but I haven't really lost anything. I am going to try to start working harder, I want another baby, and I want to start trying sometime towards the end of this year but I dont want to pile baby weight on top of this weight. I worked out today, kudos to me. It's hard in the winter cause I hate being cold and I hate workout videos. I am more of a hike, climb, and wakeboard kind of workout girl.

Lastly, our basement is going to take longer than expected. I have decided to put the money I was going to use this month on carpet and furniture and pay off my $4000.00 student loan. I read the Dave Ramsey book awhile back and we were doing good, but have been slacking on it since I started remodeling. I decided I just want to pay it off, I hate it hanging over my head. Once it is paid off, then I should be able to pay off my car by the end of the year and then we will just have our mortgage! YEAH!!! Joe won't mind our basement taking longer anyway, I keep pushing for it to be done at the end of this month, and he is sick of it. What's another month anyway? We can just shoot for the end of March. I am trying to learn patience, which is the hardest thing for me!!!

Zaner Baners

Zane slept through the night in his own bed twice this week! We are headed down the right road, YEAH!!! On the topic of Zane, he is so smart!!! He just turned 6 months old and he can now sit up for short periods of time, scoot and roll around the room, and pull toys out of his closet. He learned to flip the light switch on and off and looks at the light while he is doing it, he is sooooooooooooo CUTE!!! I love him so much!!!!!!! Joe is so funny with him too, he is sooooooooooo in love, it is so cute watching him gush all over him, Joe is not a baby person, I was a little worried about how he would interact with him because he wasn't sure that he wanted a baby but now we BOTH want another one, not anytime soon of course! I love to hear him laugh and see him smile at me in the morning when he is just waking and also whenever I get home from work. He is such a sweet, mellow kid. Even when he cries he is cute! He now weighs 14.4 lbs, he is only in the 5th percentile, I don't even think he looks that small though, just skinny like his dad and brother!! We are so lucky to have him in our lives!!

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all. My new year's eve was calm. No parties for us. Jaden went with Grandma Vicki over to Bill and John's house for a little get together. Joe, Zane and I went out for sushi at Mikado, yummy. After sushi, we stopped by to see Jaden, all the kids were so tired that my mom took them outside to bang pots and pans at 10pm and then everyone went home. Lexi, my niece came and slept over at our house. She and Jaden stayed up until midnight with Joe playing blokus and guitar hero, I was asleep by 11. They went out at midnight and banged pots and pans, getting told to shutup by the neighbors. Joe said that our neighborhood was quite the happening place with fireworks and people screaming everywhere, who would have thought....
On new years day Joe and I went climbing at the climbing gym with some friends. I am trying to get back into shape after having Zane and it sucks. Things that used to be so easy to climb are so hard, I am soooo WEAK, not to mention the chub I still have. I will lose it eventually though, I hope. I am now at work until 1am YEAH, NOT!!!