Even More Family Fun

Ok, so yesterday I said that I was going to post all of the pictures from the family time of our trip, but, since I'm a crazy picture taker, there were just too many pictures. So here's some more. (Remember, these are only my favorite pictures. Good thing for digital!)

On Tuesday, we got up and ready pretty early, especially with that 7 kids, and made our way to the Nature Center in Boise. Jen knew it would be the perfect place for me because:

1) There were a lot of pretty flowers there. My favorite. The Plant Lady lives!

2) There was a pressed penny machine there! Someday I'll explain the extent of my pressed penny fascination, but for now, let's just say that I collect them. A lot of them. Anyway, if you want to read about another pressed penny incident, go here.

Don't you love that picture of the girlies? I think they look so cute. Oh, and the new header on my blog is a picture from the nature center too.

Being the Auntie that I am, I wanted to share my love of every penny that is pressed and get the girls some. Rylee lost hers in the car right after, but hopefully she found it.

Alyssa and Rylee just crack me up. They see a pelt of a mountain lion and the first they they do is:

a) run away screaming

b) get a little grossed out because it's the skin of an animal. (Oh wait, that's me.)

or c) stick their fingers in the mouth.

You guessed right, c. The crazy little girls.

As we were standing there a girl came out with this...let's see...gopher snake? I can't remember and I can't see it too well. Anway, a snake. Tayler, Rylee and Alyssa ran right up to touch it. Rylee looks at me and says, "Touch it" with a funny glint in her eye. I touched it then she looked at her mom and Jenny and said, "Touch it." Ahh, that's what she was expecting as they said, "No thanks Rylee." She smiled. I'm not scared of no stinking snakes...a spider, now that's a different story that I've had to get over living in the trees.

Why does Brent look so annoyed in this picture? Well, I'll tell you. On the 4th, Jared, Katie, Julie, Mom, Emmy, me and Brent (that wasn't very good English, but oh well) set out to find the Chili's for Molten Chocolate Cake. Brent "knew where it was." Well, his lead boogers let him down this time and we couldn't find it. We ended up buying ice cream from WinCo and calling it a night. So, when we actually found the Chili's, we were very exciting. I wanted to let everyone who was there on the 4th know that now we really do know where it is. :)

And then we got to eat the fruit of our labors. It made it all worth it! Yummy! If only there was a Chili's by us. It would be amazing!
Ok, enough family fun, let's get onto our vacation. Tune in tomorrow. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

And Now for the Rest of the Family Story

We spent quite a few fun days with Brent's family. We even took a family picture with all 21 one of us. The gal who took the picture used to live in Port Orchard and went to the ward right next to our ward. Such a small world.

It was a busy morning for everyone, so I was helping Jess get her kids ready for the picture. She asked me to do Tay's hair because she has curly hair and .... hey .... I have curly hair. Jessica had every confidence in my hair doing ability. I was not as sure, because of the reasons I've said here. But I thought I'd give it a try. Her hair turned out really cute. And I even used a curling iron without burning Tayler or me. Yeah me! Maybe I am a girl.

We hadn't had a picture taken in over 5 years. There weren't as many people in that one. We look pretty cute. And, I'm not the only one with dark hair now. Thanks Marcela! :)

Since I hate the picture that the photographer took of us (I mean, couldn't she tell that Brent looked like the hunchback of notre dame?), I won't bother you with it. But I do like this one. We're so cute together!

I love this picture. Even though Julie's eyes are shut. Sorry Julie. Aren't they a cute bunch?

After pictures, it was time for the "main event," Meggy's baptism. We're so proud of her for choosing to be baptised. It was so nice to be there with her! Thanks for letting us be there for your big day!

Doesn't she look great?

I took a bunch of pictures and I tried to narrow them down to my favorites for the rest of the blog. So...here's we go...

This is Cayden, one of our nephews. You probably can't see that there is a huge line of drool coming out of his mouth. He's also holding a rubber snake. Apparently he liked chewing on electric cords, which could be dangerous for his health, so his very smart parents found this snake that looked like an electric cord. Ingenious!

Here's Emmy. She'll be 11 on Monday. Wowie! Where has the time gone. It's so much fun to be able to sit and talk to her like a "normal" person now! She's so good with her little cousins. I just adore her!

This is Jayson. He turned 1 yesterday. Happy Birthday little man! He has the greatest ears. I think he looks a lot like Brent's Grandpa. He's always smiling and when Jess says "hi" to him, he mimics the sound in the cutest way.

Here is an action shot of Reyes who turned 2 on Monday. Happy Birthday little one. (I do have pictures from that day...I'll get there.) Reyes LOVES to jump on the trampoline! She would jump all day if you let her. We love being able to hang around with her a little more than the rest of the kids. It's great!

Here's Rylee. Rylee can be, well, let's just say, stubborn. She did not want to smile for a picture, so this is the best I could do. It is quite funny though. I love how Rylee has her own little mind. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it.

Here's little Tayler who started first grade on Monday. She has the sweetest heart. Coming from someone who will cry at the drop of the hat, I just love another squishy soul. She'll just come up to you and snuggle up. I love that!

And Alyssa. She is the funniest little thing. The first thing she said to me was, "Do you have a convertible?" And she loves to call Brent a "gungan." (This all began when Star Wars came out and has been passed down to Lyss.) Don't you love this picture? I do!And Eli. He's 3 months old now and this was the first time we met him. He's a snuggly little guy that just worms his way into your heart. He loved sleeping on me, peeing on me and spitting up on me. I only liked the first one. :)

Let's see if I got everyone? Yep, that's all 9 of the nieces and nephews. Whew! I have a few more pictures, but I'm tired and I'm sure you are too. Stay tuned!

Also

Check out Brent's blog. He's actually back! :)

Correction

So sorry Jared and Julie. You are now 27. Woops! I should really write things down.

Love ya!

And...We're Back

Ok, we've been back for almost a week now, but we've been having problems with our internet - they should be coming today so it's working better - and I've been busy getting back into "real life," so it's taken some time to get back to the blog.

Also, I have to apologize if you tried to load my blog with that HUGE picture in the title bar. Not too sure what happened. I was playing around with it and thought I'd deleted it, but...I guess not.

So, we just got back from a great vacation. We spent 5 days in beautiful Boise where Brent's family had a "family reunion" of sorts. All 21 of us in the same place at the same time. What was the occasion? Our niece Meggy got baptised. Thanks for choosing to be baptised so we could all have a party Meggers!

(Since I've had such a boring life as of late, I'm going to stretch this trip into many blogs. Just so you're prepared.)

This is the woman of the hour...Meghan! She was so excited to get baptised. It was fun to be around her.

What is a get-together without some video games. Julie brought her Wii and we brought our controllers and games. I think Mario Cart won the fun game award. We have a competitive bunch of people so there was some smack-talking and tears, but we all ended up smiling.

You also must play some duck duck goose on the trampoline. It makes it easier to fall and more fun to almost be bounced off the tramp. But, it always seems to end with...

A pile up. I guess Brent's out.
We also found out that if there are three brothers together and a trampoline, fun will be had. Even though the youngest of these brothers is 26 and they should all know better. (Ok, now that I wrote how old Jared is, I'm not 100% sure that's right...how old are you?) That is until Jared almost breaks his finger. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And then, as Brent likes to say, it's really fun.

And with that, I end this amazing blog. Tune in next time for....family pictures!

Before and After

For the past 2-1/2 years, I have been growing out my mop of hair in order to donate it to Locks of Love. I heard about this girl who just keeps growing out her hair and donating it and growing out her hair and donating it. So, I thought, "If she can do that over and over, I can do it once." That is how my hair brained (hee hee) idea came to be.

The only hitch - I HATE having my hair long. Here are the reasons:

1) It's hot! I am normally feel hotter than anyone else around, but with my long hair, it got WAY worse!

2) Apparently my hair naturally wants to be in dread locks. (Is that how you spell it?) I could brush and brush it and ten minutes later the underneath would be in dread locks again.

3) People tend to touch your hair more when it's long. I'm not a huge touchy-feely person. Hawaii was fun for me - the little old ladies meet you in Relief Society and give you a kiss on the cheek. I try to not be a complete nerd and scream, "Please don't touch me," but I'm pretty sure people can tell I don't like it when I freeze up. I don't know it if it was the length or the curliness, but people were always playing with it. Weird.

4) I don't think I actually have two X chromosomes. I'm not a girlie-girl. I don't wear make-up, I'm not a good cook, I don't often giggle, I'm just not a girl. I also don't have the slightest idea how to do long hair. I had 2 or 3 ways of doing it and that was it. Kind of a waist.

5) I have a confession to make - my hair is white. At least the front of it is. I've been going gray since I was 15, so it hasn't come a huge surprise, but it has been getting whiter and whiter. There's a crazy part of me that just wants to grow it out and see what I look like with white hair, but then the rational part of me takes back over and I don't want white hair. Well, I normally dye my hair myself, but I learned that if you try to dye long hair, there are more drips that get on the carpet so I have to tell Brent that I dyed the carpet. Not fun! (He took it really well, but it still sucked.) So, I stopped dying it towards the end of my hair growing experience. I love that it's now gone again.

6) I just love my short hair. It looks so cute and curly short and I just love looking cute, but not having to spend a long time on it. It's just me.

So, drum roll please, are you ready for the before?

Wowie! That's some long hair. And look how curly it is! Amazing! (I'm seriously surprised. When I was little, it wasn't anywhere close to this long when it got too heavy and pulled the curl out.

And after...

Look, I have a neck. Ahh...so much more "me"!

That's eleven inches of curly hair. So cool! I sent it off to Locks of Love yesterday. I'm proud of myself for doing it, but I AM NEVER DOING IT AGAIN! This is me! What do you think?

Random Thoughts

Lately I haven't had pictures on my blog and I've really missed it. Unfortunately, I haven't really been doing much to take pictures of lately. (Or I haven't had my camera with me when there's a cute shot.) So, the other day I walked around our house and took some random pictures to share.

We have this huge window in our entry way and I had no idea what to do with it. A few months ago, Brent found these bottles at Ikea. I need to put new flowers in them, but don't they look cute?

This is a clematis. I love these flowers. We planted this one last year and it took quite a while for it to decide to live. This year it's covered with these 5" flowers. Gorgeous!!

I realized that I've never put up a picture of our basement. I've been waiting until we decide on curtains, but ... everything else looks great huh? I love it down here!

When Brent was in Connecticut, he got off early one day and drove over to Boston to see his friend from college. When he was there, he bought me this gurgling cod. It's a pitcher that makes a gurgling noise when you pour out the water. It's pretty awesome!

These are lupine. They are now Brent's favorite flower. I like them because they smell like that fake grape scent that I love so much.

This is a monkey flower. Brent planted a bunch around the yard this year. I love them! They are called monkey flowers because they're suppose to look like monkey faces. I don't see that, but I love this flower!

Are these just pretty? They're seascape daisies.

Last year for Reyes' first birthday, I made her a blanket out of this fabric. She LOVES it. She sucks her thumb and rubs the tabs on her cheek. She calls it her bennie. (I have no idea if that's how you spell it, but that's what it sounds like.) She loves it so much that Marcela has to trick her to be able to wash it. Luckily, I had a little extra fleece, so I made a tiny bennie to use when the regular bennie is getting washed. Reyes calls it the "otter bennie." She's trying to say "other" but hey she's not even two yet.

So, there are my random thoughts about my random pictures. I know that most of them are of flowers, but I am the Plant Lady! See ya!