kitty love

The kitty idea has been the best thing ever (thank you cousin Ashley!)  

Both girls wake up looking for kitty and go to bed wanting kitty to sleep with them.

  

They can't get enough of her.  She still hasn't learned how to hide from Jane, so I don't rescue her unless her meows became tortured-sounding.  

She potty trained herself in one day and is the easiest pet ever.

   

Jane follows her around and picks her up whenever possible.  I think the novelty is wearing off for kitty :-)

birthday babe

Happy, happy birthday baby Jane!  I can't believe this girly is one.  The kids were so excited for her. They blew up pink balloons, wrapped presents, frosted cupcakes, and then it was only 9am.  Yep, it was a long day with them asking "is it time for the party yet?" Agh!

We invited our Bosnian neighbors, Jane's biggest fans (besides us of course).

They are so nice and got her a darling dress and toy!

Before presents, we had her show off her walking moves.  She is getting it!



I think her favorite present was the ball popper.  Actually, all the kids loved it, like laugh out loud giggles loved it.

She got some baby food, her first baby doll, clothes, some money from Grandma and Grandpa Barrett,



which she was happy to share, and a few other little toys.

The Corsons joined us for cake and ice cream.  She was a little freaked out by all the singing and loudness, as you can see by her face :-)  I love her frowny faces.



Braydan helped blow out her candle and then she offered her cupcake to everyone else.





Finally she took a bite.



She surprised me by not inhaling it.  She didn't like her hands messy, so I think that impaired her feasting abilities :-)

We love you Jane Marie!  You are babbling more and say a few words, like Mamma, Dadda, boo, bye, uh-oh, and hi.  You love to wave to everyone.  You hate hate getting dressed and get really offended by the whole ordeal.  You wave your little arm when you hear music or bop up and down with a little dance.  You love watermelon.  You love your blankie and thumb.  When we say kisses and hugs, you cuddle up and put your head on our shoulder or smash your check to ours for us to kiss.  

I think your funniest little quirk is that you won't go to bed until we do scripture and prayer in Kaleb's room.  You'll even fall asleep at 7 sometimes and wake up in an hour to join us, then go right back to sleep.  So funny!  I was kinda sad that you stopped nursing a few weeks before your birthday.  I don't think I had much left and you started biting!  You weren't sad about it at all. You gulp down whole milk no problem.



You still love peek-a-boo and tickles.  Your hair is super curly, little ringlets in back.  You have 5 teeth.  You love pancakes.  You are the best sleeper.  You love the stairs and sneak to go climb then when no one is looking.  You are a happy little girl and we love you so!

A Dyer Fix

Even though our drive home from Montana was somewhat miserable (only 1 stop in 10 hours people!), we had a wonderful motivation to hurry: The Dyer Family.  

Oh the Dyers. My heart almost broke last year when we had to leave them behind in Washington.

And a year later . . . I'm not much recovered.  

kids running to the park. . . these kids have had many walks to the park together :-) . . . although, not in such hot weather :-)

You know when you meet people that are so much like you that they turn into your family away from home? And who you can talk to easily and laugh with and cry with and who love you, even with all your weaknesses?  And trust me, the Dyers have seen me at my worst!  Friends who understand you and even know what you're thinking sometimes!?  The Dyers are the best kind of people!  I always feel happy and uplifted when I'm around them.  

Amber and I bought these cute shirts when we were pregnant together. So fun to see them model them a year and a half later :-)  

It was so fun to have you Dyer family.  We love and miss you dearly!

Montana

Oh man, so much for my one-post-a-day deal.  I knew I should have kept writing on vacation, but I was. . . well  . . . in vacation mode.  Now it's a huge long post.  Yay!  

We started our trip with a crazy route to Hamiton, MT.  I knew we were trying to cut miles, but I didn't realize that meant taking a one-lane dirt road in the middle of nowhere.  

Braydan loved this drive.  At one point the road took us to the very base of Mt. Borah!  

I was so happy when we drove into the Bitterroot valley!  Phew! I always marvel at how beautiful it is there and feel a special spirit there.  

I will just mention some reunion highlights for lack of time.  My favorite was the hike up Blodgett Canyon Saturday morning.  

Jane kept playing with my hat! including pulling it down over my eyes :-)

It was so fun seeing cousins hold hands and everyone help each other make it to the top.  

I also loved remembering Grandma Blodgett hiking this with us when she was 80+.

Kaleb's favorite thing was catching huge toads at Lake Como.  

I heard one of the little boy cousins say, "he's the luckiest kid in the whole world!"

Those toads came back to the hotel with us . .. and then all the way to Billings.

Eliza's favorite was the talent show, watching the little girl cousins dance.  And Braydan's was eating fast food almost every meal.  Seriously, our hotel was right next to Dairy Queen and I think we went there 3 times one night.  

I take it back, my real highlight was our impromptu cousin night in the hotel hall :-)  I'm so glad we did that cause the weekend went by too fast and not much time for visiting everyone.

After an awesome testimony meeting and going to the cemetery Sunday, we left for Billings. We did lots of things, but here they are in no particular order: 

We visited Grandma.  She is getting hard of hearing and walks a little slower, but she still came out with her hoe and wanted to help us weed.  She also patched Kaleb's jeans perfectly.  AND she hosted a wonderful dinner at her house.  It included KFC chicken, store-bought potato salad, store-bought rolls, chips, ice cream, root beer, and her famous jello salad, but hey, it was a big hit.   

We worked in the garden, both Mom's big one and Grandma's little one.

Picked yummy raspberries, 

Rode horses.  I think that a love for riding horses must skip generations because Eliza asked to go with Grandma every day.  I never did ride once this time!  Yipes. Sorry Mom.  Kaleb is more like me.  He rode a little, but then wanted to do other things.

Roasted marshmallows in this antique stove

Lots of 4-wheeler trips, always chaperoned by Ruby of course. Kaleb loved to ride out to the creek every day to check his traps for crawdads and minnows.

Family picture attempts.

  

Josh really wanted us to meet a girl he was interested in so we had a casual park/tennis night where we could evaluate her.  Kidding.  Kind of.  She passed so far.

Riding the tractor with Grandpa

Shooting pop cans with Grandpa

Favorites:
playing games at night
watching beautiful sunsets
family music/talent  night
**Special favorite: family spotlight night ; )
Dad sharing family history stories under the stars
Making 50 burritos :-)

I love you family!  Thank you for having us!

just some cuties

The kids were dressed all matchy matchy today, so of course I had to torture them a little.  Kaleb was a stud!  He held that smile for a long time.  Eliza and Jane however, well, I'm just happy i got one of Eliza looking at me and not running away.

Eliza had to give a prayer in primary today and she climbed up to the podium pretty confident.  But then I watched her eyes look out over all the kids and she turned back to me in a panic.  I tried to get her to, but I ended up saying it : )

We delivered cookies to our new neighbors.  Finally.  After a year of waiting for someone to move in next door!  I was bummed they only have one kid, a little 2 year old boy.  But, they are LDS and seem nice enough.  Have I mentioned I miss my old street?  . . . . . Sigh.  

Lucky Peak

The Allens invited us to go to Lucky Peak today.  The only problem is that we never found them!  Her phone or my phone wasn't working and we forgot to ask them where to meet: discovery park, sandypoint, or spring shores.  We guessed sandypoint and when we didn't see them, we gave up and had our own fun.  We are awesome friends.

Kaleb was in heaven with his net, creature containers, and lots of minnows to catch.  He probably caught 20, but by the time we got home, only 1 survived :-)

Eliza knows how to enjoy the water my style :-)

This is a common look I get from Jane.  Funny girly.  She probably would've loved to play in the sand and water, but I kept her in the shade the whole time.  I need to remember to buy a beach umbrella!  We are not used to sun.

4th of July

I know I shouldn't admit this, but I was not looking forward to today.  Every time I did, I just got homesick for Monroe.  I loved the 4th there, with the pancake breakfast and flag raising starting off the morning.  Then games at the park.  Our last year there we had the Thatcher's huge water-slide in our backyard with tons of friends to barbecue with.  The best part was at night when our street practically blew up!  Fireworks for 3 hours straight :-)  Then I loved climbing on the Dyer's roof to watch the big fairground show and the sometimes bigger neighborhood show.  

We were planning to go, but then learned most of our buddies would be out of town.  Long story short, my mopey attitude got in the way of organizing anything this year.  But, luckily I got with it, sort of. 

I love my Uncle David's pool.  He lives in a beautiful neighborhood and not too far away. 

We loved it!  We stayed all afternoon and the kids would've stayed longer, but Jane was done.  I was also missing my cousin today because we were with them last year on this day :-(  

Kaleb refused to wear the festive shirt I got for him.

Braydan let the kids spend $5 each on firecrackers and surprisingly, it kept us entertained for almost an hour.  

This is how we roll.  Fire and scissors.  What more could a baby want?

 Kaleb kept saying, "I'm just gonna make my own fireworks.  All I need is cocoa powder?  Right Mom?"

Right.

Happy, happy 4th of July!  Yes, I'm happy now.  I just need to choose to be happy all the time. . . . .