Smart Astons

Fun in the Fall

2011-11-14T01:48:00.001-08:00

A Lovely day at south fork

Count Zachula and a little WitchHazel

A (very) few pictures from Deutschland

2011-11-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

Schloss Neuschwanstein

The wonderful Winter family, Ludwig, Regine and of course Kenny

Regine and Me in a lovely Castle Garden near Munich

Experiencing life in Medieval Rothenburg

It was so great to stop over and see our friends the Watsons while we were in Germany!

13th and 14th generation Luthers in front of Wartburg where Martin Luther Translated the Bible to German.

Some definite resemblance with the Stein cousins.

Heather in a variety of colors everywhere!

Denmark on the horizon behind us from the island of Sylt!

Our dream home, a thatched roof cottage on Sylt. As soon as we come up with 18 million Euro that is...

Attempting to sunbathe with the Stein relatives on the North Sea...

The Dutch Quarter of Potsdam

Prince Charming on the road to San Souci Palace

East Berlin

Hats...

2010-12-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

And other things on our heads!

Zach helped Hazel accessorize her outfit with a tie.

A better day

2010-12-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Right now I am trying to think of a happier day than today. This day pictured above we took Zach's bike (and a pizza!) and enjoyed a beautiful autumn day in Provo canyon. Zach was happy and sweet to his sister, Hazel wasn't sick and oh yeah- the sun was shining. I loved being a mom that day and had so much fun with my kids. I hope this picture and this day helps me to enjoy my kids more the rest of today.

2010-12-07T15:51:00.001-08:00

We had such a great time while in St. George for Rob Aston's wedding in Nov.

We took Andy's mom and George and Everett were there too. The weather was SO delightful.

Voting for Life Video

2010-10-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Voting for Life Video

Fun times!

2010-09-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

I have so many more pics but just not the time/ motivation to blog! Here are some pictures from spiring/summer 2010.

Zach and Jackson climbed this tree 1 million times at our campsite in Colorado.
Hazel clapped for everything that went by at the Freedom Festival Parade.
Zach and Hazel crashed in the bike trailer after the 4th of July fire works.
Help?

You can call me a flower if you want to. I don't mind.
This is all the kids in our neighborhood preschool. I guess Zach thought it was too noisy?

Our Sweetie pie.
Zach can be such a monster.
Zach has never liked loud noises, especially the vacuum. We got this new vacuum and Zach really wanted to use it. He wears his beanie so it isn't so loud. He has vacuumed almost everyday since May.
Here we are at the Y. Hazel is in the backpack on Andy's back by the way!
Zach has been wanting to hike the Y, so we did and he hiked all the way up by himself. ( I carried him all the way down...)
For Christmas Hazel got this rocking horse that Sings and makes noise when you squeeze the ears. She loves this thing...So does Zach...
Snuggle bugs after a bath.

Zach Attack

2009-07-20T22:06:00.001-07:00

This is one of my favorite photos of Zachary. He wore this shirt everyday for about a month. He took it out of the dirty clothes hamper every morning as soon as he got out of bed if I forgot to sneak it out and wash it after he went to bed. It has strangely disappeared... Anyway, one day Zach put on this pair of my socks, trying to be a pirate, and put a dandelion behind his ear before he climbed our tree. I'm glad he stayed there long enough for Andy to grab the camera!

Zach being his usual self at our family photo shoot. Zach keeps things lively at our house. What would we do without him?

We go to the hot air balloon competition every year on the 4th of July. 6:00 a.m. is worth it.

Waiting for the Freedom Festival Children's Parade to begin. Zach, Eliza and Caleb.

Zach got to go camping with his dad and his cousins. City of Rocks!

Zach and his friend Ethan enjoy a snack at the Soldier Hollow Mt Bike race they went to with their dads.

It had been a long day.... and a long night the night before.

Our fabulous neighbors organize an Easter Egg hunt every year, a little wet this year but of course Zach loved it. Hazel and I were home staying warm and dry.

Zach was eating the Napkin with his Ice cream cone so I told him it was definitely time to throw it away and his reply was, "It's a pretty good napkin."

Zach holding Hazel a few hours after she was born. He is still so sweet with her.

So Zach did indeed have a birthday this year. But since he turned 3 just 4 days before Hazel was born I never got pics of the party etc posted.

Evolution of a Baby

2009-07-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

I admit that I love to dress Hazel up. I am sad she is growing out of this dress. I bought it on my first shopping trip after I found out we were having a girl.
Hazel discovered her thumb on the 4th of July. She hasn't removed it from her mouth since... and she sure has been sleeping well!
Hazel was happy to be 3 months old (unbelievable!!) in this picture. And yes, she is flipping off the camera. We noticed she does that...

Zachary is learning to take pictures...He took this of Hazel at 2 1/2 months.

Hazel is showing us her usual happy face at her baby blessing. Two months old already!

Oh, poor Hazel. She had the worste baby acne at six weeks. Didn't take too many pictures for a couple of weeks while she cleared up.

Hazel is having some daddy-daughter bonding time with her dad at 4 weeks.

This picture is Hazel at 10 days, on Easter. She was "due" the day after Easter.This is Hazel a few minutes after she was born. She had chubby cheeks from the beginning!

Hazel Charlotte Aston

2009-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Hazel is here! She was born at home on April 1, 2009 at 3:10 p.m. She was 7 lbs 7 ounces and was 20 and a half inches long. We love her dark head of hair, we'll see if she keeps it. It was amazing and enjoyable to have her born at home. She is an angel. Zach is a very loving brother.

What's in a name? I have always loved the name Hazel, probably from growing up with stories about Aunt Hazel. My Grandpa recently said his Aunt Hazel was the superstar of the miracle their extended family was after his mom died when he was a kid. His Aunt Hazel moved in permanently and helped raise them. Zach was going to be Hazel (his original due date was even her birthday) until we found out he was a boy. I think he will thank us for saving the name for his sister.

Charlotte is a special name in Andy's family. The name is his sisters first name, his mothers middle name, his Omi's (German grandmother) first name. I don't know if it goes back further, I guess I better find out. I think it is a beautiful name and was the only contender with Hazel for a first name. The owner's of that name in Andy's family are amazing women and we are glad to have them as examples for our daughter.

2009-02-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

So the countdown is on with the arrival of our baby so we decided we better get out of town. Thanks to the Whitakers for letting us visit them in Vegas and taking us hiking at Red Rocks State park. We of course walked down the strip and on Valentine's Day we got babysitters and went to dinner and a movie. It was a great little trip.
Zach got to have a Valentine party at Grandma's with his cousins, he is still talking about his trip to Grammy and Papa's. He is a Mr. Fix-it guy with the tools he got for Christmas. He loves to "help" Andy fix things. He will put on his tool belt and bring in his tool box and say, "Hi, I came to your house today to fix things. Do you have anything for me to fix?" He has fixed the kitchen chairs, the dishwasher and the fridge. One day after he had finished his 'work' he said, "You have some nice toys in that bedroom, can I play with them?" He pretended he was a repair man visiting my house most of the day.

Remember December?

2009-02-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

So here are a few pics of our trip to Cali (we went to Monterrey Bay Aquarium) and a couple of pics of Zach helping me shovel snow...

Beautiful Babes

2008-12-15T13:53:00.001-08:00

Three sweet babies at our reunion for my spring class. I forgot to take a picture at our last class reunion! I need to have one more reunion in a couple of months for the class I am finishing up. I am done until a few months after our baby arrives. I love teaching classes so much but we need the time!

Summer/ Autumn 2008

2008-12-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

So here are photos of some of the fun things we got to do the last several months. Zach trying to play with his cousin - Baby Skylar, and some family at a picnic after Skylar's blessing. Many 4th of July and 24th activities including Zach very excited about seeing smoky the bear floating over our house. We followed him around the park by our house for a while. We went to the Zoo. Me and the girls at our girl cousin party in August, lots of pics of Zach, my prize heirloom tomato from my garden this year (keep your eyes open for that!) We had a beautiful late September trip to Colorado with the Jordan fam. And their is the occasional appearance of Andy or me. Oh Yeah and the pictures are not in chronological order...

My Sheepish Return...

2008-09-30T14:56:00.001-07:00

To anyone I haven't seen since September I would like to deeply apologize for not letting you know our news....

We are Having a Baby GIRL at the end of March 2009! We are excited and terrified to have another little Aston running around.
I felt sick 24 hours a day for well beyond the first trimester and I am still tired and lazy. So that is my excuse for not blogging.

More to come soon in the form of yet another slide show of the fun things we still managed to do the last few months.

Zach is a Happy Dude

2008-07-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

We have had a great summer so far, busy but fun. I got a season pass to Seven Peaks Water park and take Zach once or twice a week with our friends, Sherry , Baby Hay and Baby C.C. We have had some fun times with the kids in the neighborhood too. Zach started preschool too! Some of the moms in our neighborhood organized a little home school preschool rotation. Zach loves it.

Here are some pics of Zach having fun with some of our neighborhood friends. Syd, Sarah, Max and Caleb had a great time in the kiddie pool while the parents had a chance to chat.

Another mess by Zach: He loves to put on my makeup. I found Zach looking in a very dirty mirror with makeup all over his body. He was happy to pose and he Kept saying into the mirror "Cute!" "Zach Cute!"

Pioneer trek Pics, finally

2008-07-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some of our pics from Pioneer trek with the youth in our stake. The first picture is us with our eight children. Andy was a very good looking, if scruffy, Pa I must say. We didn't have the camera out very much because the weather was so very wet. So we have pictures of the driest day we had and our "family" playing pioneer games and a picture of the snow we woke up to the last morning. It kept snowing for quite a while after we took the picture. The rest of the day we had all kinds of fun weather. Sleet, hail, wind, sun and more rain. It turned out to be an amazing experience. Despite the very cold, very wet weather we had all of the youth said they wouldn't have changed it because they gained so much faith from the difficult conditions. We are so glad we had the opportunity, even though it was A LOT of work!

Memorial Day Pics

2008-07-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Over memorial weekend we had a great walk down the street from my parents house, feeding horses and enjoying the beautiful view. Saturday was a beautiful day to take the canoe out to cutler marsh. The Wellsville Mnts. looked so pretty that day. Zach had a great time with his buddy grandma throwing rocks in the water and hanging out with the aunts and uncles. We went to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Benson as usual on memorial day for a BBQ and to visit the cemetery but it was pouring rain so we never made it to the cemetery. The battery was dead on our camera so we didn't get any pics of the extended fam! Next time...

Wow, is it June?

2008-06-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

So I missed a month of posting! It has been crazy busy around here. I have been YW president in our ward for 2 years now and this time of years is always crazy with youth conference and girls camp. Youth conference was Pioneer Trek this year and Andy and I were given a stake assignment to be a Ma and Pa. That was last week so we were busy getting ready for that. I sewed a bonnet, 2 skirts and apron and some bloomers and helped 4 of my young women work on their skirts, bloomers and aprons. I was still helping them last minute. One young woman's mom called me at 11:00 the night before we left and told me her daughter changed her mind because she didn't have everything on the equipment list and could I go through the list with her... It was a wonderful experience but wow we are glad to be home. I will put pictures and a post up about the actual trek after I get the pics off the camera. For now here are some random photos from the last month! In no particular order: pics of Zach and some playgroup friends at the Provo Temple, The first jar of spaghetti sauce I bought in 9 months (since I bottled sauce from our garden last year) Me so proud of myself in my bonnet for Trek, Zach being silly in dad's biking gear, and some lovely pics of 3 of the 4 couples from my last Bradley class with their gorgeous girls.

Mc a Don-oh's, Pajamas, and Zach Loves to be Naked.

2008-05-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is Zach's friend Caleb. Zach loves Caleb. Sometime he looks out our front door and says, "Cabee. Cabee play! Cabee coming!" one day I took them to McDonald's (pronounced mi-ca-don-ohs.)

It was so cute to see them sitting in the wagon checking out their sweet Happy meal toys.

Did I mention I had to climb up all of the tunnels and put Zach down the slide? He would not get near a slide for about two weeks and he was not about to go down that big long slide at McDonald's by himself.

Zach can cry on demand. He is such a talented kid.

Pajama Party!

We just started a little date night exchange with Lincoln and Daniel's parents. Zach has so much fun playing with these two fun boys. He was excited to hear they were coming over and even more excited to know they could have a pajama party. They sat here for about 10 minutes just being silly in their pajamas...

Zach loves to be naked...

...really loves to be naked. I mean I'm sure most kids do but I am just grateful he can't remove all of his clothes himself yet or he would be naked 90% of the time. The other 10% he would be wearing jammies.

In this picture he is being a naked puppy, wearing daddy's "fi- lops"

Zach thinks he is naked in this picture

He wanted to run around naked when he got out of the bathtub but as soon as he walked out of the steamy bathroom he said he was cold and wanted to wrap up. Since he couldn't keep his towel around him and use his arms he pulled the tie from my robe out and had me tie him up.

Zach was standing in front of our front door- NAKED- watching passerby when I got out of the shower the other day.

That was after I walked through our kitchen.

I also couldn't find his wipes and a couple other items. I searched the house for them from top to bottom and found them that evening in my portable file box when I was teaching my class. Amazing what can happen when you hop in the shower for 5 min.

Friends!

Zach had a great time at his friend Macy's birthday party. Zach is always excited to see Macy, Macy's house, anyone in Macy's family and has fun playing with her. He and Caleb practiced singing the birthday song for her.

Lawns, Limbs and Laughter

2008-04-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated for a while but this has been a particularly crazy week. We have also missed Andy so much this week! He has been at a conference in Cedar city since Tuesday. Zach got to tag along with me all week. He came to the Youth activity, and two different stake meetings, and to the Chiropractor. Zachary loves to go to the Chiropractor. He likes to take things to Trisha, the receptionist and loves to chase Dr. Gurney down the hall. They are good sports. We put together a bag for Z to carry so he would stay busy during the Stake Auxiliary training and I don't know what I was thinking. I should have picked out some quieter toys. A firetruck, a train, some other little cars and a book. Seems harmless enough I know but Zach has lots of great sound effects and trains and firetrucks are loud!

Here are some pictures we took out in the yard the last nice weekend we had. Zach loves to help out as you can see. It was so nice to have a day to work in the yard. We got a lot done and I was able to turn the soil and the flower beds and get them ready for some annuals!

We have been meaning to take this dying tree out of our front yard but as you can see all it needed was a strong chica like myself to pull half of it out of the ground. I was actually really surprised when it did come out. It was definitely dead.

Here are a couple of random photos we took of Zach. He was wearing Andy's coat around and thought it was so funny to fall down in it.

I came home from a baby shower one day and Andy and Zach were sitting next to our neighbors fence. Zach was sitting next to this frog that our neighbor gave him and I had to take a picture. I wonder what that frog said to make Zach laugh so hard?

I had to include these last photos because Zach loves jammies. He refuses to take them off in the morning and always says he wants to wear "jammie clothes" whenever we are going somewhere. He especially loves this hand-me-down bulldozer top which he calls his tractor jammies. He loves to push strollers around and lovingly buckled up his albino monkey so they could go for a walk.

Spring

2008-04-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

After several beautiful days, it snowed today. Zach had a fever and slept for 3 hours and I pouted being cooped up in the house. I know that is just the way spring weather is and I will probably be complaining again when it is a hundred degrees outside but I am ready for the warm weather to stay.

It made me feel a little better to look at these photos taken a little over a year ago. Those tulips across the street are going to bloom again soon, right?

So that is how Zachary learned the color blue!

2008-04-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

We told you about Zach's arm and the adventure it was for the whole fam. Here are the pictures we took way back in February.

A week after Zach broke his arm we took him to his pediatrician to have a hard cast put on. His "boo" (blue) cast

One week later we went in for another blue cast. The first one slid half way off his arm. Zach called the 2nd cast his "new" cast. He wanted to wear the old cast on his other arm.

One week after that he wiggled out of his new blue cast. The next cast went all the way up his arm.

One week after that, I couldn't see his fingers because that cast was sliding down his arm. Luckily it was time for the cast to come off for good. Zach got another X-ray to make sure the arm had healed correctly, everything looked okay.

I think we were all pleased when the cast came off for good! Three casts in 3 weeks was enough for all of us.

I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home!

2008-04-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

One day Andy surprised us by coming home from work early with a kite.

Andy taught Zach how to hold the kite by himself.

They were even able to lay down on the grass and just watch the kite and the clouds.

We wish we had more relaxing afternoons like this to spend with Andy!!

It was a Perfect afternoon!

Two Years Old

2008-04-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Zach had such a great birthday. The day we celebrated he woke up from his nap to find the house full of some of his very favorite people. Grammy and Papa, Uncle Jarno, Aunt Jan-y and Uncle Bun!!

Zach wanted "happy cake" for his birthday. He started calling cupcakes happy cakes after his friend Sarah's b-day party. It took him a couple of tries to blow those candles out!

He loves his new Cars t-shirt, Thanks Omi!

This is really why it is called happy cake!

It was fun to look back at his pictures from last year with his smash cake and his "Fun to be 1!" hat. We didn't have quite the production this year but Zach was SO HAPPY without all the fuss.

I got him some really simple outside toys so he could "help" me in the garden without using my garden tools.

He completely forgot about his exciting other presents and headed for the garden boxes. It snowed three inches over night so he had to wait a few more days to really use them. He did get to use the hoe to help his daddy clear snow!

Zachary got a big box of surprises in the mail from his Omi!

He got a special visit from his pal Baby Hay (hazel.) Zach is impatiently waiting for Hazel to be able to run around and play with him!

Zach had such a great day! He is such a blessing to have around. We can't imagine life without him!!

It's About Time!!

2008-04-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

When Zach was born, Andy and I thought a blog would be the perfect way to keep everyone updated since we didn't have any family in the area at the time.
Now that Zach is 2, I finally tackled the job. It was rough. It took me almost an hour to choose a format and get everything set up the way I wanted it. No wonder I put it off for so long! ...that was a week ago...let the posting begin.
Enjoy!