Alisha's roommate

Poor Alisha :-) She says Eliza wakes her up singing I love to see the temple, A child's Prayer, I'm a child of God, or any number of primary songs. She then whispers, "Weesha, I need to get down." This is all at 6:30am. Rent is never free, ha, ha. Today when Alisha was at church, Eliza asked, "Where's my Weesha?"

We've been busy playing in the hot tub a lot. One day we got 12 people in there! It didn't last long for some reason.
Eliza wants to swim every day after dinner. She loves swimsuits. Whenever she sees one of my bras or tank tops, she asks if I'm going swimming. Fathers Day was busy. We got Braydan a hammock and he set it right up in the living room. Ironically, Alisha has spent more time in it than he has. Maybe that's why she gave me the idea to get it for him???

Eliza- enjoying the hammock from a different view

I spent the whole morning in the kitchen prepping his special dinner. I will never do that again! It was not a very restful sabbath. I marinated steak, had caprese salad, guacamole salad, and baked potatoes. What took me forever was the lemon cheesecake. So nummy though, and no picture to remember it.

Braydan is the best Dad I know. The kids really missed him this week. He had to work in Palm Springs, CA again. They were doing seismic refraction or something like that (blowing stuff up)

He came home grateful for our cooler weather :-) Can you see the temperature?

He almost stepped on this rattle snake

Friday I went to activity day camp all day. It was so nice not to worry about the kids with Alisha home! We were in charge of the camp cheer class and wow, our YW helpers saved the day. My energy ran out after the 3rd class and they kept going for 5 more classes.

Last Saturday we did the Stake Fun Run again. It was raining and I almost talked myself out of it, but I'm glad I didn't! Braydan did the 10k and I did the 5k, pushing the kids. One lady asked if I'd been training with the kids and I laughed. After I started running, I knew what she meant. They're heavy! Braydan passed me coming back at the turn-around point and took the kids. Good thing or I might not have made it.

Not much else new. Alisha has organized almost every space in the house: the garage, pantry, kids' closets, office, and toy closet. Now I have to find out where she put everything . . .

Our chicks laid their first egg! Braydan accidentally broke it, but at least we know one of them is a hen! We already had to kill one that was a rooster. I cried and begged Braydan not to kill it. I didn't think he had enough evidence. For instance, one of the tests we read about said if you throw a towel on their head, a rooster will freak out and attack you, but a hen will just be still. We tried this test and he just sat there. See!!!! Maybe it really was a hen! I think mostly I couldn't bear the thought of him chopping his head off. Alisha made me go inside and Braydan killed the poor thing.

OKay, that's it for now.

Siblings

I love my siblings

Wallace Falls

Last Saturday we took Alisha to see Wallace Falls. Kaleb did great all the way up (and most of the way back), skipping and running a long. Eliza, on the other hand, didn't even make it out of the parking lot before asking to be carried in the "pack pack".

Her flip flops and skirt might have contributed to her hiking abilities

Alisha and Kaleb

We did it!

"All this getting carried business makes me tired."

Zach's Homecoming

Zach came home from his mission on May 25th. We got to go home for 2 weeks to be with him and the family! It was heaven being all together again.

Zach was a little quiet at first, kinda overwhelmed by all of us I think. But, then he was okay. I kept touching his arm to see if he was real.

I loved being around him with his peaceful nature.

The kids made these signs (with a little help)

We loved staying up late listening to all his mission stories.

The kids had so much fun with all the creatures on the farm. They found at least a dozen snakes.

Sparticus came with us. Braydan was worried he would disappear if we left him for 2 weeks.

Our duck nest we found and checked every day out in the field.

Kaleb loved sitting on the "tractor" mowing with Dad.

Trying to catch frogs

One day we went on a "hike" to see the flooded Yellowstone river with Jan.

I couldn't believe the rain! I thought we were going to escape it, but there was serious flooding everywhere when we first got there.

Mom put me in charge of planning outfits for family pictures. It was kinda stressful figuring it out, but I think they'll look nice. I can't wait to see them! Here's a non-professional one from Alisha's camera :)

We stayed over at Grandma's house. She was so sweet to try and make us as comfortable as possible, including setting the heat at 80 :-) She folded our clothes, ironed, and bought us whatever breakfast stuff we wanted.

The kids had a love/hate relationship with Buddy. Sometimes they'd freak out if he got close and other times ran around with him, playing fetch.

Mom was so kind to get the horses ready for us every time we wanted to ride.

I loved our swim races, but lost every race. Sad.

Too many good pictures! We got to shop a lot, cook a lot, eat a lot, play games, Braydan golfed with Zach, fixed culverts, burned brush, sang/played songs around the piano, taught sunbeams, played volleyball (one of my favorites!) and ran across the street a lot. No need to workout, just run back and forth all day :-)

I won't talk about our 14 hr. drive there and back. I'll try and block it out of my memory. Alisha followed us back for the summer and I'm so excited to have her here! I still can't believe my good luck! It made it a little easier to leave MT knowing she was coming. We got 200lbs. of steer meat to bring home too! Braydan's happy about that.

Thank you family for the good times. I love you all!

Mothers, Fathers, Sons, and Daughters

Eliza is so funny with Sparticus. She loves him and carries him around like a baby doll. Poor turtle! He tolerates it (what can he do anyway . . . blink at her), but he crawls as fast as he can to hide in the trees if she ever lets him go.

Just a little peck

And a big smooch

Eliza thought she was going on the Fathers and Sons camp-out this weekend, so she got her doggie ready to go.
Kaleb's been looking forward to camping for weeks and had a countdown going. He kept reminding me that girls are not allowed, just boys. I think Braydan was equally excited. He got home from work early and they were the first ones from our ward there.

They did the usual:, throw rocks in the river, make cool forts, eat unhealthy food, and stay up too late.

Speaking of which, I felt like I had a hangover (not that I know what one really feels like), but I had a sleep hangover Saturday morning. We had a girls night Friday night at Ambers and stayed up late. By the end we were laughing hysterically at the dumbest things. I had a stake meeting early the next morning and felt awful for it, but amazingly I still felt the spirit really strong through all my yawning.

I forgot this video. I guess Kaleb had a different breakfast fare in mind for camping.

He had to give his first talk on Sunday. He did so good! I never prepared him at all. The week before I freaked him out about singing in Sacrament for Mothers Day. I reminded him about it all week and we practiced the song every morning, so by the time Sunday came, he was terrified. He came out of his room and said he wasn't going to church. I asked why and he said he didn't want to sing.

Well, we got him to church, but he was really quiet. When it was time for all the kids to go up, he wouldn't. I tried not to be disappointed, but I've been looking forward to having my kids sing in church. I think it's so cute when they get up there! He knew I was disappointed, so he cuddled close to me and then I felt so bad for him. He said he promised he would sing it for me when we got home, and he did. I love my boy!

So, for his talk, I never mentioned it, never told him until the moment of it. I was conducting and said, "okay, now Kaleb is going to give his first talk!" He stood up and did a great job, despite having his mom cover him up with the picture of Joseph Smith (Braydan informed me of this afterwards). Whoops.

Speaking of Mother's Day, it was wonderful. Braydan and Kaleb made me pancakes. It took them a long time because Braydan was relying on Kaleb for instruction. He thought Kaleb knew how to make them since I make them all the time for him, but Kaleb's recipe had him whipping eggs and who knows what else. I just smiled in my bed as I heard the blender mixing forever. I knew I would get breakfast eventually.

After church, Braydan cleaned up lunch and breakfast and I went and took a nap without a care in the world. So nice! We went on a walk and delivered some mothers day treats.

It was a nice day. I love being a mother to my two babes!

6 Years

What an fun weekend! Saturday we celebrated our 6 year anniversary.

The YW in our ward have been planning an "Evening in Italy: 2nd Chance Prom" fundraiser for months. At first I thought, "no way are we going to that on our anniversary!" . . . . but I'm so glad we bought tickets.

Friday I went dress shopping at goodwill and spent $120 on prom dresses to try out with friends (don't worry I took most of them back!). The check-out lady thought she added it up wrong, probably because nobody has ever spent that much there. We had fun playing dress up and deciding what to wear. Braydan and Wes stayed up past midnight Friday night setting up the lights. It looked amazing, if I don't say so myself.

Saturday morning I made him German pancakes and we headed to Molbaks. He and the kids wanted to pick out flowers for Mothers Day. They spent the afternoon planting them for me and having fun outside.

At 4, we met at Amber's to do our hair. Emily rescued me and did mine. We had a line going on: I flat ironed Rebecca's while Emily did mine. Belinda worked on Sara's while Sara curled Amber's. It was dangerous in that bathroom with cords going every where.

We raced home to get babysitters and get dressed. Braydan thought it would be hilarious if he wore a mustache (a two-day old one). I was not impressed, but couldn't persuade him out of it.

We went to dinner and got lots of stares from other guests. One couple finally asked us if we were really 17. They heard from the waitress that we were going to prom and they couldn't believe we were all that young.

The dance was so fun. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I saw moves from people that I never expected (including Braydan!). It took us a few songs to warm up, but then we were fine. In fact, by the end of the night Braydan had his tie wrapped around his head and his suit-coat thrown somewhere. He was the wildest dancer of all (if you don't count Matt and Sam).

I thought I would surprise Braydan and request our wedding song (The Luckiest), but he requested it too. It was fun to hear that song again and dance to it.I know this is cheesy, but I really am the luckiest girl to have him in my life. Mother's Day reminded me how wonderful he is. I'll have to write about that later . . . .