Here was the morning attempt at family pics

This was our best attempt this morning at family pics at the old town area in Dallas by the train before Austin totally lost it!

Here is Austin and Axel with their train hats from Silver Dollar City.

Here is Axel! Can't believe he will be one in a couple of weeks.

Look at Axel's gorgeous blue eyes!

Axel and momma. Axel smiles so easily!

Axel with daddy!

Alisa's first photography gig. She knows how to either make them laugh or cry! Austin chose the crying route.

Here was the one picture Austin didn't throw a complete fit. Please note the boogars streaming from his nose:-)

New family pic

We are in Dallas and Alisa and Jenna helped us and took some pics of the fam today. I will post some later of Austin pouting every picture....okay-posting those soon because they were so funny! He was not feeling it this morning;)

Grandpa Eliason came to town!

Grandpa introduced my kids to Krispy Kreme! Do you think Austin likes Krispy Kreme?! New secret weapon to keep in quiet in sacrament meeting:-)

Here is grandpa with both of the boys. He has teased them so much and we are going to be sad when he leaves town tomorrow!

Tom walked for his second Master's degree on Saturday. Does Axel look just like his daddy or what?! The star spangled banner was performed by three African-American sisters. What an experience! Dad didn't care for it but Tom and I loved it. Lots of soul! Tom actually sat in on auditions and I have to mention the 36 year old guy that was so nervous he wet his pants....then he said he wanted to do sign language while he sang....only at the parts he knew how. There would be sign language for one line and then nothing for a couple of lines and then the sign language would come back...funnier to hear Tom tell it and act it out! The graduation felt like we attended church with a lot of "amens", "oh sweet Jesus", and "uh-huh, that's right" being said by fellow crowd members. We lost Austin for 2 minutes and that was stressful. He ran up a dark stairwell. Sometimes I wish he was scared of something! He thought it was a game!

Discover of Branson, Missouri

We took our first official family trip with just the four of us. A 3 hour drive to Branson, MO. We decided to go to Silver Dollar City which is an amusement park and ended up buying season passes. We stayed at Westgate Branson Woods resort. So much fun! A huge advantage of the south is that everything is FAMILY oriented....traditional family oriented, father, mother, and kids! At Silver Dollar City if you are dressed inappropriately, you cannot get in. This was the one ride Axel was allowed to go on!

Mommy and Axel. We are showing off our matching double chins and blue eyes:-) He loved watching everyone. We heard the Bluegrass family band competition which was crazy cool and Axel was kicking his legs and swinging his arms and squealing the whole time! Loved music! These bands made me think of Grandma Ann with her family Arnoldus band and what they may have sounded like. We LOVED this part more than we thought we would!

We got both of the boys train engineer hats and Austin has been wearing it ever since. There was a toy Thomas the trainset in a store and he threw a massive fit when we left! During the bluegrass festival, after one song, he turned to me and said, "Mom-mom, let's go have some fun!" After he said that 3 times, I left with him to catch more rides. He was not scared of any ride! He and I giggled so hard on the teacups. I took the spinning rides and Tom took the rides with higher heights.

Axel is waving to the camera! We had digital camera issues so these were taken on a disposable camera. Wow-that was a jump back in time. Some actually turned out!

There was a huge tower with about 6 levels and you can shoot these balls all the way to the top. Austin had so much fun loading the guns and shooting like crazy. We are hoping to head back there 2-3 more times this year. It was so wonderful to have 3 full days of just us as a family and no work or school!