Brown Family Visit

Having fun at the Renaissance Festival!

Riding together...

on an elephant

Free pony rides, the line was short, so the kids kept going back for more!

Dancing to the fun music.

More ponies! Don't you love the workers attire. You run into some interesting people at these things.

Kenna, Creed's little girl, came as well! Isn't she so cute. The girls are showing off their face painting.

Grandpa and Everett at the jousting event, one of the best parts of the festival.

The Knights in full armor.

Everett had no teeth, but wouldn't let go of this turkey leg. He must've gotten it from Berkeley.

Berkeley must've gotten it from Dave.

Dave the prime carnivore in the family.

Dustin came for 3 weeks. We had a blast. One day we went to the NRA museum. Check out this tiny gun!

Dustin and Everett, proud to have the right to bear arms.

Our BIG Boy

I can't believe how much he's grown in only one year.


He's walking!

The boys! You'll have to excuse Everetts orange eyebrows, he really enjoyed his ravioli dinner.


Such a happy little guy!


Little Everett is getting so big. He turned ONE September 12. He started walking and got his first tooth or should I say teeth this month. We were wondering if he was ever going to get teeth and then we discovered that his top 4 teeth were all coming in at the same time. He's such a cutie! This little man has never ending energy. He's very content and happy as he takes all the Tupperware out of my cupboard, pulls all the dish clothes out of the drawer and toddles all over the house. He loves plants and toilets and pretty much anything dangerous. One hour of Sacrament meeting at church has my arms burning from picking him up putting him down and trying to keep him near our seat. Sometimes he'll stop to flirt with the people sitting behind us. He loves to turn the pages in a book and will sit and look at books for a good while. He enjoys watching Berkeley play Mario Cart Wii, but doesn't watch much TV. He makes the cutest car sounds and has the cutest curly strawberry blond hair. He's a skinny little guy, which we blame on his constant motion. He makes us all smile and laugh and he Loves to play with Alyvia and Berkeley. We love our little Big Boy Everett!
I'll post pics soon

Too Much Fun

Alyvia is now in 1st grade! She has taken her first grade role very seriously :) and is doing very well in her studies. She comes home with a green (which is good) stoplight colored in every day and has even won a few prizes for her good behavior. She complained of all the boys chasing her at recess, but has made friends with the boys and now says she like "Star Wars" and boy things. She still very much enjoys baby dolls, dressing up and playing house. She also Loves animals. Here is a picture of her with her cat Glorye (she named and spelled it). Glorye is such a lovable, playful cat. We got her from a Wendy's parking lot in Alabama and she road with us all the way home. The poor little starving street kitten now has a nice comfy home with food and probably too much petting.

Georgia Family Reunion

The fourth of July was great and low key. Can you tell it's hot and humid in GA? I like to think of it as a "healthy glow". :)

Cousins got to rekindle friendships. This is Alyvia and Laurel. They are only 1 month apart in age and just LOVE to play together. Both enjoy drawing, dress up and princesses. They had a fun time together on the trip!

Everett was so easy on the trip. I could always find one of the cousins to hold and love him when I needed a break. Here is Kate and Everett, she was so good with him.

Alyvia and Laurel pointing at the fireworks.

Cousin Renee, Mark (Dave's bro.) and his wife Lisa enjoying the festivities.

Kate and Everett, Allie and Amanda. They're growing up so fast! They were little flower girls at my wedding, I remember them standing in my line and skipping around. Now they're in high school!

Alyvia showing me the sparklers. This was the first time she's ever gotten to hold one. She was giving me her "serious" smile.

Berkeley checking it out!

Bottom is Cameron and Top is Grae. The colors in this photo are so cool. Side walk+ Chalk + bright colored clothes = 80's

Rick and Clay put on the fireworks show. I'm glad Clay is a doctor because they were a little crazy, can we say Piros. :) Here are the kids enjoying the fountains.

The adults having some fun after the kids were in bed. I love how the camera cut off Marks face?? This was a serious tennis match. Clay was so tall (6'7" I think.) that the Wii had a hard time registering his moves, it worked better with him on his knees.

Hiking up Kennesaw Mountain.

Alyvia and Berkeley trying to get as tall as Uncle Clay.

Secret hiding spot where the kids could go behind an ivy curtain and sit. The kids all loved it.

Mini trip to Destin Beach, FL. Dave and Everett, Aunt Kathryn and Alyvia enjoying the waves. Everett later got soaked by a wave and Dave had to come in. :) We all had fun boogie boarding and floating.

Berkeley on the white sands. It was a beautiful place to visit.

That's where we ran out of batteries for the trip. We had a great time and can't wait for the next GA vacation!!

Happy Birthday Dave!!

Ok, his birthday was July 6th, but we finally found the camera cord, so here goes:

We celebrated Dave's birthday with his family in Georgia. The party started off with a dance performance done by Aubrey, Barbara and Emily. Soon everyone was dancing! Berkeley even surprised us by doing his version of the worm. Too funny!


Dave scored some great presents. Due to Alyvia's love of art, she made her dad a t-shirt with her art ironed on. It turned out pretty cool. She's a terrific artist.


Berkeley chose to give his dad a Wii game called Mario Cart. It has been a fun present. We all enjoy playing it, especially Berkeley and Dave. And yes, Berkeley has beat Dave a few times...


Thanks to Kathryn's wonderful baking skills, we had three beautiful cakes to feed the crowd. I think they would've been devoured if we hadn't had such awesome southern BBQ before that. It was a very nice dinner.

What's a party with out a pinata. Here are all the cousins lined up to take a swing.

We love you David! You're such a wonderful husband and father. I think you're even cooler than when we met if that's possible. I'm excited for another year with you!!

BEETOX

As many of you probably know, I will be turning the big 3-0 in December. This has caused me to reflect on my life and to realize that I am super lazy in the exercise department. I also decided that I want to accomplish some sort of goal to memorialize this "special" birthday. So, I decided to run a half marathon. I couldn't quite commit to the full marathon since I've only ever ran 1 mile at a time. 26 miles seemed like way too much. A half marathon sounded like something I might be able to accomplish. As I started to look into running, I found out that a lot of women in my ward run every other day and are currently training for the Baltimore half marathon. Perfect! So I joined the group and have now ran 3 times. To my surprise have run about 4 miles each run (I'm a little slower than the group, but happy with my own progress). I'm also surprised to find that I'm actually liking it.

Well, today I got an unexpected surprise. As I was running a big bug hit my face under my eye. I couldn't see it, so I swiped it off and it stung me. "No way," I thought, "Did I just get stung by a bee?" So I wiped under my eye and sure enough, there was the stinger. Perfect, 1 mile from the car and no where to wash it off. So I kept running, stinging under my eye and all. Yes, I know, I'm so cool right. When I got home I took care of it and it hasn't hurt that bad. This is the second time I've ever gotten stung by a bee. So you see, I'm doing lots of things I haven't done for a while.

When I got home I had the funny realization, that as the stung area swells my micro wrinkles are disappearing.

So I just wanted to all let you know that running does make you feel and look younger, if you're lucky enough to get some "Beetox".



Sorry about the no makeup, but here's a pic. You can hardly tell where I got stung, somewhere under the right eye.

No More Teachers, No More Books!

Summer is Here!!! And, I am such a slacker!!!

Alyvia officially graduated from kindergarten! We love having her home for the summer! Berkeley has his playmate back and she is such a great little helper around the house. We had some fun "stay up late" nights catching fire flies. That is one of my most favorite parts about living here. I just find fireflies so magical. They light up the trees like twinkling Christmas lights. They're also very slow and perfect for kids to catch and put into jars. Berkeley and Alyvia caught 30 or so. It keeps them busy for hours.

I'm calling this our summer of water. My goal is to have the kids become very familiar with water and swimming. We got a season pass to a cute water park near our house. It's great, has tons of slides my kids size, the water is 3 1/2 feet deep or less everywhere. One of my favorite parts is that they get free carousel rides outside the park. When it's time to leave I just say, "Lets go to the carousel!" and the kids run. No sad faces when we leave. You also get free boat rides around the little lake next to it as well and there are plenty of Geese to feed. We're really having a great time. (Hence the reason I have no posts :)

Our house is sold and we should close (cross your fingers) by July 15th. The buyers are going to rent back to us for a month of two after that (which is fabulous) so we have a little more time to figure out where we're going next. We are very relieved and happy that seems to be working out.

I'm super excited about the 4th of July. It's one of my favorite times of the year. I have yet to go downtown to see the fireworks. It's on my list of things to do when I don't have small children. I'm sad I won't be in Idaho. I still tell everyone that the IF fireworks are the best I've seen. And, you can't top the free chocolate milk at the Annis parade. :) But, this year we're driving to Dave's sisters house in GA. Almost all of his siblings and families are also coming (We'll miss you Putt family!). We'll have tons of fun in Atlanta and then head to Destin Beach FL. That will be my second time going to the beach since I moved here 7 years ago. Beach traffic is a bear! I'm excited to see what the kids think about it. And, I hope Everett doesn't eat the sand :) I have seriously seen kids gobble up sand. It must the the salt. It's so disgusting! Hopefully we'll have pictures when we get back.

Sorry, still haven't found the camera cord. We WILL find it by tomorrow so pictures are coming.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and I hope you have a spectacular 4th of July!

Oh, FYI my mom sent me this link to the cutest hair blog. I'm going to try some of these cute hair do's on Alyvia. Check it out!
http://cutegirlshairstyles.blogspot.com/