Fancy Kid Pictures - Moon Summer of Fun!

Over the summer we finally took the boys to get some professional pictures.  I was skeptical of how the boys would do, but the pictures turned out spectacular.  Huge props to the people at the Fotofly Studio in Draper, Utah (fotofly.com) who magically got all four of my dudes to smile at the same time.  Reasonable prices and they worked miracles.  Well done Utah!

This is my favorite picture.  I know this sounds a bit crazy, but it's almost like the different personalities of all four shines through their smiles in this particular photo.  And yes, that does mean Aidric is a little mischievous dude. 

I think this was my mom's favorite.

This is Aidric in the white.

And Lachlan in the green.  Or as he's known around our house thanks to his twin, here's Gaga.

Here's my big 1st grade man.

This is Dawnell's favorite picture.

It can be tough to get pictures of Ciaran with his eyes open, so I was pleasantly surprised at this one.

Twin love is the best!

Moon Summer of Fun - Water Fun

The Moon family boys had a fun summer of water events. In addition to the fun pictures here, they were able to go swimming at the cousins' neighborhood and, during the week that I was there, we took the boys to the Murray indoor pool. All four boys, including the twinners, went down a waterslide at the pool (the babies had a little help). Due to the overall wetness of that experience, we kept the cameras and phones put away. But here's a couple of other fun experiences with the water...

The Moon boys went to the Gateway! So much fun to do, including the Children's Museum and the Planetarium, but the water feature may have been their most fun activity.

Here's Aidric running out to the water.


Beckett had fun dancing in the water too.


Aidric actually didn't like getting hit with the water, so when the sprays came up he'd run like the wind to get away. Run Aidric, run!


Near the end of their stay Beckett and Ciaran had a West Jordan ward primary party. It was a water party, and the highlight of the event was a tarp slide down the park's hill. Here's Beckett on his way down...


Closely followed by Ciaran...


Right after this water party I took the boys to another water party, this one built around a water bouncy castle. Here's Beckett slipping down.


The bouncy castle party was actually a birthday party for one of Beckett and Ciaran's friends from our ward in New York. The great summer diaspora means that we can go to a birthday party in Lehi for a friend who lives 3,000 miles away.

Oh, and I thought this Rainbow Cake was pretty cool.




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Moon Summer of Fun - Real Salt Lake

On July 20th Grandpa Ott and I took the two big guys to their first professional soccer game ever. Real Salt Lake was taking on Sporting KC. I think everyone but Grandpa was really excited. Beckett loves playing soccer, so I think he wanted to see big guys get paid to play a game. Daddy has become quite the soccer fan over the last few years, so I was super excited to cheer on my hometown team (although, I realized while at the game that I've been away from Utah longer than RSL has existed). And I think Ciaran was excited because he knew that free pizza was likely.

The atmosphere at the game was electric. It truly was a first-class experience. RSL has a battle hymn (search Believe RSL on Youtube) which is a pretty cool song, but downright inspiring when sung by 20,000 fans at the same time. I've been to a couple of Red Bulls games here in New York, and the atmosphere in Sandy, Utah blows away Harrison, NJ.

At halftime I made Beckett and Ciaran pose with the cool RSL stuff they had set up in the concourse.

Truly soccer is the Game of Thrones. My tiny dudes are the Khaleesi of Major League Soccer.


Ironically the two guys behind the throne didn't play. They were on duty with the U.S. Men's National Team at the Gold Cup.






RSL ended up losing on a goal in the 97th minute of the game. And yes, there are only 90 minutes in a game, and yes, the ref only said there would be five minutes of extra time.

Fireworks for Pioneer Day at the end of the game were also incredible. Much better than i was expecting. I would definitely recommend an RSL game to anyone who's a sports fan.

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I'm not going to make this a separate post, but here's the food highlights of my trip to Utah:

I finally took a pilgrimage to Red Iguana 2. A little cleaner, a little less crowded, but the same great food as the original. I got the steak tips over almond mole sauce. To die for.




A few days before Red Iguana, Dawnell and I met some friends down in Orem for dinner. This was dessert at The Chocolate. Also awesome. The pizza place we went to also ruled. No photos of Pizzeria 712, but it measures up to the best out here in NYC.




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Ciaran's Birthday

I'm going to try to catch up with the fun times that we had this summer by posting some of our adventures in New York and Utah. Mostly Utah, and mostly not including me.

Ciaran had his 4th birthday party in June. He ended up having a pirate-themed party. Fun was had by all.

Dawnell made a pirate ship cake with Jake and Captain Hook. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the cake part has pirate ship shaping, it's not just a triangle, it also has deck bumps on top. Very cool.






We had themed games for all of Ciaran's friends to play. Station 1 was keep away from Captain Hook. The kid in the middle got to wear a big hook (there was a choice of hooks) and then try to hit away the beach ball.



Station 2 was Walk the Plank. You'll see the plank a little further down.


Station 3 was Cannonball Captain Hook. Not pictured are the black water balloons that you could throw at the Captain Hook pictured here. This was probably the favorite game because, duh, water balloons.



I think there was also a fourth station, but I can't recall exactly what it was and I have no photograph of it. Oh well.

Here's a twinner walking the plank. I think this is Aidric, but well, two months after the fact I'm not sure. The twins were allowed to come to this party, but we didn't make them dress up.


Beckett and Ciaran, on the other hand, got into the spirit with pirate jewelry, headbands, and swords.





Love this picture.


Scooge and Beckster were living on the edge, sword fighting on the plank. If I recall correctly, both of them splashed down to the green grass below.






Dawnell did a great job of planning the party and all of the kids had a great time, especially Ciaran.



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Twinner Birthday!

The twins turned two in the first week of June. Unfortunately for them, Ciaran had his birthday in the second week of June, so they didn't get the big party this year.


They did get cupcakes, and they liked cupcakes.

The twins wait patiently for their celebratory cupcakes.



Oooohhhhh, what is this?



Lachlan likes it! (Assuming this is Lachlan, which I think it is).



Aidric likes it too, but he's a bit overwhelmed by the sugar rush.



Yea twinner birthday. They also got perfect toys for each of them. A batman for Aidric and a Thomas puzzle and carrying box for Lachlan.



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Twinsanity

The twins have been pretty cute the last couple of weeks. Here they are dressed up for church. I thought these outfits were a good match. That's Aidric in blue and Lachlan in green.









Who wants to grab the phone instead of eating lunch? Meeeeeeeee says Lachie.



Meeeeeeeee says Dric.



I love the mischievous looks on their faces in this picture. I'm sure Lachlan is about ten seconds away from throwing something on the floor.


Lachlan and I agree that Dric is hilarious.


We went out as a family. Lachlan enjoyed the Bob the Builder truck at Toys r Us.








Hey, that looks fun! Let me try it.





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Lego Beckett Birthday

Last Saturday Beckett had his sixth birthday party. Dawnell did a great job of making it the perfect lego party.

Here's the big cake that Dawnell made.  Pretty cool Lego Dude Head.

Here's the top of the Lego head after we started cutting it up.  The birthday boy got to eat the top part.

Dawnell also made themed food for the party.  Here are lego dude and lego piece jello jigglers.

More jigglers, some apple legos, and cheese crackers shaped to look like legos.

We also made Lego Juice, which is just like apple juice, except it has paper on it.

Dawnell also made a cool banner for Beckett that we hung up...

In case you couldn't tell, this is the picture that is at the top.  It's a Lego Beckett.  And yes, there's an app for turning your son's head into a lego mosiac.  

Here's the only pictures that I have of the actual birthday boy.  Dawnell actually took quite a few of Beckett and Ciaran before the party started, but she hasn't emailed them to me yet, so for now they are stuck on her camera.  We didn't get any pictures of the twins because toddlers and legos are a bad combination, so we made sure the party happened during their nap time.

One of the activities at the party was making your own Lego (fake lego) car and then racing them down a table.  It was super lots of fun even if the cars ended up exploding a lot.