Bryce, Maddy, Britton & Damon

Thanksgiving in Clevelend with the Clarks

2012-01-11T00:17:00.001-05:00

For Thanksgiving we went to Cleveland to visit our good friends the Clarks. It's a pretty long drive, but honestly, we have loved all our visits up there! Matt and Bryce have been friends since high school, roomed together in college, and then both were on their way to med school. We've kept in touch (and Mary and I always joke that we talk more than they do and they wouldn't see each other if it wasn't for us!) and its fun to see our little families grow together!

I don't remember what the boys (as in the dads) were doing, but Mary and I took the little boys on a walk to a nearby park. It was BEAUTIFUL weather while we were in town. Our older boys are 6 weeks apart and our younger boys are 4 months apart - fun, huh?

We weren't at the playground very long before it started getting too dark, but Mary and I got a workout pushing all the boys and it got them out of the house, so it was much needed :)

These next pictures I stole off of Mary's blog since they were on her camera. Thanksgiving day was tiring and long, and so fun! We made a non-traditional meal of whatever sounded good to all of the adults, because really, we were the ones that would be eating everything. Matt pulled these carrots out of their garden earlier in the day and they were the best carrots I've ever had! Small, yes, but packed with flavor.

And Damon liked eating the carrot tops :)

Part of the non-tradition was roasted asparagus. Soooo yummy.

Their cute dining room ready for the feast.

We skipped the pie and made this amazing sour cream chocolate bundt cake. Uh-mazing. It weighed 5 lbs before we started cooking it and it was so dense. We accidentally cooked it a little too long, but since then I've made it again and cooked it less and it is soooo moist and so rich, it's to die for.

The last day we were in town, we went to this really cool park by some amazing houses - some of the biggest I've ever seen. It was fun watching Damon and Devin trying to attack each other in the stroller!

There was a huge spider web - climby thing that the boys spent 95% of their time on.

Since this trip, Damon has gotten out of the habit of putting everything in his mouth, but here he was just eating some leaves :)

Bryce and Matt played badminton after our picnic

Mary might kill me for posting these pictures! Haha! She was flipping her hair out of her face and Bryce caught the action, but out of context between her head flipping and my face, it makes a funny picture.

There we go!

After our picnic we went to this cute shop called Sweeie Fry. They serve ice cream and fries, both were so good!

Sorry, Mary! I can't resist posting all these funny pictures of you!

We got Britt and Luke to say things like "peace out," and "sup yo" in their cute hats and it was so funny!

We have some cute boys

On the drive home we made frequent stops to let the kids run around and get their wiggles out on the 10-hour drive home. They just looked cute sitting on this curb!

Damon's first steps | November 4, 2011

2012-01-09T10:55:00.001-05:00

Damon is an ambitious little guy and started taking steps super early - at 9 months. He would take 2 or so at a time, but when Ryan and Jessie came out to visit, he took off and started taking 5 or 6 at a time. It took some coaxing, but we finally got him to perform for us!

randoms in november, 2011

2012-01-09T00:38:00.000-05:00

Another trip to Carter Mountain! Ryan had an interview for med school at VCU, which meant another trip for them out to good ol' RVA! It was so pretty while they were here, and the colors were perfect! Our boys love Ryan and Jessie too :)

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Ryan and Jessie were so great and helped us move. It was a long few days of packing and packing and then packing some more. Our house was crazy, but our townhome was even more chaotic once we got all our stuff in there! There was no room to even walk. This was about 1/4 of our things. I have a lot of sorting and purging to do!!

Saying goodbye to our cute house. It was so sad to drive away for the last time.

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Mid-November we had another visitor- Bryce's cousin, Brandon, who is also in med school in Iowa and also going into Anesthesiology. He and Bryce had residency interviews on the same day at VCU. Notice what's wrong in the picture??

Here's a closeup: They put Brandon's picture on Bryce's name tag. Both Egberts and both start with Br, so I can see why they'd get confused, but you'd think someone would have noticed the exact same picture on 2 name tags!

The first part of the month completely flew by, but we still had lots of fun on our Thanksgiving trip! Coming up next...

halloween 2011

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Our Halloween was really low-key this year since it was just a week before we moved. My mom was out to help us pack and luckily I bought the boys' costumes on clearance last year so I didn't need to remember to get them! :)

Even though Britton's not so much into Toy Story anymore, he still loved his Buzz costume. He had a party at his preschool and went trick or treating around the halls. He even has the goofy Buzz smile down!

On Halloween we got the boys ready to head out before it got too dark, and luckily we headed out early enough we didn't get hit by the rain!

Damon wasn't too pleased with his alien hat, so Bryce helped him out - haha! No one around the neighborhood knew how to react until they realized it was Bryce. It was so funny! :)

pumpkin picking with the blacks | october 2011

2011-12-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Amongst the craziness of moving, we still wanted to somewhat celebrate the holiday season. Every year since we've lived in Virginia we've gone pumpkin picking with the Blacks. Britton and Bayles have equal amounts of energy and it's so nice to let them run wild together! I am so going to miss this family when we move! Our play dates have kept me sane over the years :)

Britton and Bayles on the hunt.

I love how Britton is straining so hard in these pictures - haha.

The cute boys with their pumpkins.

Scott showed off how much he's been working out lately by carrying all the pumpkins so we could use our coupon. Awesome.

Pumpkin picking next year just won't be the same!!

October Fun

2011-12-19T19:19:00.001-05:00

October was another crazy month for us! We were busy packing up our house, every weekend was packed with photo shoots and blast-ball games, Halloween, preschool shin-digs... etc. It was very fun and very busy!

In his down time, Britton loved finding worms in our backyard. Our neighbor bought him a little bug house, which he took with him everywhere.

We signed Britton up for this cute game called Blast Ball. It was basically an easier version of t-ball for the attention span-deficient age of 3-4. They hit the ball and ran to one base that squeaked when they jump on it. It was the more adorable sport I've ever seen!

Britton loved jumping on that base. But, lets be real. He and his 4 teammates really just wanted to play in the dirt. Their hands were filthy by the end of the games.

The Red Wings minus one player. Adorable, right?

When Damon started getting squirmy, I took him to the grass and had a little mini session with him :) I love these eyes!!

I looove baby toes.

I'm jealous of my baby's eyelashes.

I love the photo of him with the lens cap in his mouth. I have one almost just like it from when I was little. Like mother like daughter with a camera always on hand, and like mother like son for wanting to suck on a lens cap? :)

apple picking | september

2011-12-01T22:16:00.001-05:00

Back in September my family (minus my siblings' spouses) were all together again in Virginia. That hasn't happened since we moved to Utah! Even though we lived here for 16 years, the rest of my family had never been apple picking at Carter Mountain. We called up Lorel and another friend, Kelly, who now lives in Charlottesville and they came up with their families. It was such a great reunion and a blast from the past! Kelly was a med student wife when I was in high school who we've gotten back in touch with since B and I have lived back in Virginia. I never knew I'd be following in her footsteps :) And it's so great that both Lorel and Kelly live just down the mountain from the orchard so we could all get together!

Between my mom and I, we got a whole heap of photos, but I loved them all, so here they are!

The whole gang

My favorite apple is Pink Lady, but that wasn't available yet, so we went with Jonagolds. They were the BIGGEST apples I have ever seen.

I love Damon's face in this one!! I love all my boys.

For the apples at the tippy-top they have this claw/bag thing. Genius and so simple!

These pictures aren't properly showing how massive these apples were. Take a look at the one below of my dad. My dad has a big head. As in very large. That apple has got to be huge to look that proportionate to his head! I couldn't use 2 hands to completely cover the whole apple!

Although this picture says otherwise, they really do get along great :)

Ella and Mariah with my dad. Cute girls!

Anthony Yama from Kenya was in town for Koins for Kenya business with my dad. He flew into DC the day before and joined us. He was amazed at the amount of apples and the size. He was blown away by all the apples on the ground and kept commenting on how many of those wasted apples would be eaten right up by the kids in the village.

Remaking the Twilight cover :)

One of the best things about Carter Mountain are their apple cider donuts. To-Die-For!

Britton's a lucky boy to be surrounded by such beauty!! But, when we asked the girls to kiss him on the cheek they were totally willing and he ran away squealing! Ha!

It was such a fun outing. Almost fun enough to make me want to stay in Richmond to do it again next year :)

Randoms in September

2011-11-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

September was a pretty busy month for us! We had a lot of fun things going on, and also some not so fun things. Our house sold, so we were busy packing, Britton started preschool, Britton got new teeth, and lots of snuggles in between the craziness.

A family friend gave us this "I Love You" book and it has 5 or 6 short stories in it. I absolutely love it and think the little stories are so cute. I read it to Britton every night until he was about 2.5 and could read the book from memory. I have started reading it with Damon again, even though he doesn't really hold still long enough for me to read for very long.

One of the boys' favorite things to do was sit in front of the storm door and watch the animals outside. Look at that size difference!!

Bryce started Britton early with the Anatomy flash cards! Britton is so interested in bodies and bones. Guess it runs in the family?

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Britton started preschool again in September and it's fabulous!! He goes 3 days a week from 8:30-12:30 and on Fridays until 2. I've said this so many times, but I love his preschool and I love the time it gives me as well :)

Britton reminds me of the dog on UP, except his weakness is airplanes. This is him making an engine noise as the airplane flew by.

And lastly, this is Britton getting his new teeth. Apparently he got Egbert teeth instead of my teeth, which means he's an unlucky boy. He had to have his 4 front teeth covered in veneers because of how bad they were and how many cavities they had. Apparently, one of Bryce's siblings had the same thing and also another cousin is getting the same thing done. It was a total hit to my pride since we've been so thorough with his teeth. We brush and floss them, but genes override any kind of maintenance I can do, I guess!

hmmm... who does bryce look like?? :)

2011-11-20T22:57:00.001-05:00

Coinciding with my previous post and having nothing to do with anything...

I have thought this since we met, but does anyone else see the resemblance?

(from our dating days back in 2005)

Dark hair, blue eyes, thick eyebrows, toothy smile, bump on the nose, big chin... right down to the hairy chest!! Haha! And no one does shoot like Bryce... :)

hmmm... who does damon look like??

2011-10-24T21:17:00.000-04:00

Britton looks so much like Bryce and his personality is definitely looking like Bryce's as a kid (or so I've been told.) Damon, on the other hand, is leaning towards taking after me. And according to my mom, his personality is a lot like mine - calm, easy going, a good eater, and just easy. Whew! Thank goodness! :)

The biggest differences are in our noses and mouths, but our eyes are really similar.

Same eyebrows, smiles, double chin, hairline...

My mom is ROCKIN these glasses! Damon's hair stuck up in the back like this before it grew out too, and now I know where he got it!

These 2 pictures look the least alike, but you get the idea... :)

I need to do one like this comparing Bryce and Britton! I always think it's cool to see the similarities and differences, and it's just amazing the things our kids get from us- all the way to their personalities!

a little bit about Damon

2011-10-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

{ 9 months }

Damon is the happiest kid on the planet! He has the biggest grin, laughs and smiles at everyone and everything, isn't afraid of anyone, eats everything, sleeps well, and is just GREAT :) Everyone knows I needed a kid like this after Britton!

He's a whopping 30 inches (95%) and 22lbs 4oz (77%).

He cut 6 teeth all at the same time, that week wasn't so great, but he was still pretty good considering :)

He basically eats everything that we eat now, just in tiny bites. He hasn't made a face like he doesn't like anything yet, and the only thing he isn't fond of is baby food now. His most recent foods that he liked that really surprised me were chicken bruschetta pizza, sauteed squash and zucchini, and lima beans... what kids eat like this?? I'm still working on Britton eating spaghetti sauce!

He is starting to stand up for a few seconds at a time. It doesn't matter to me if he starts walking early or not, but it's looking like it will be sooner rather than later!

He zooms around the house usually chasing after Britton. And he's also trying to climb the stairs now too.

He's starting to mimic what we do and sounds we make. We can tell he's starting to understand or at least predict the world around him a little more each day.

He still just loves Britton and they are starting to play together really well.

He entertains himself really well and I'll usually hear him talking to himself sitting in a corner playing somewhere.

He is such a sweet, sweet boy and has made my heart about 1000x bigger than it was before. We love you, Dame!

totopotomoy... say that three times fast!

2011-10-21T09:30:00.000-04:00

There's a creek near us called Totopotomoy (toh-doh-pot-uh-mee) that I remember from when I was little. We went kayaking down it with friends, and it also ran through our backyard at the house we lived in before my family moved to Utah. I wanted to take the boys somewhere a little less dangerous than Belle Isle so they could get in rapid-free water before it started getting cold outside, so we went on the little trip! The place I remembered was about 20 minutes north of us and directly under the overpass. It was the perfect spot with kids!!

There was sand, slow moving water, and just 2 other people there. Perfect!

The water was a great temperature, and Damon was loving it almost as much as Britton.

Damon loved the water, and even liked the sand, but we had to be careful because he just kept trying to eat everything :)

Britton was kept busy for most of the time digging rivers and building dams. It was cute watching him work and think it all out.

It was a fun farewell-summer outing with the family, and very low key, which is what we needed after coming home from Utah!

hurricane irene

2011-10-20T09:30:00.000-04:00

Finally, Bryce got to experience a hurricane. It wasn't even a very strong one, but because of how persistent and slow-moving it was, it did some serious damage and we were without power for 5 DAYS. It was brutal, but kind of fun at the same time. By day 5, we were very annoyed with the whole thing. For Christmas I promised Bryce a camping trip, and that counted! :)

We didn't have any damage in our yard, but our neighbors' deck was basically demolished. It's kind of buried under the tree in this picture.

I told Bryce about how we used to always play in the hurricanes growing up. I've ever flown a kite during a hurricane before... it's the perfect amount of wind! :) He always thought that was crazy that anyone would go play, but now that he was finally in one, he found out why it was so fun. The puddles are crazy big, it's a really, really warm rain, and when it's not too windy, it's fun to just get soaking wet!

When we found out we weren't going to get power for a while, we started panicking. But, a big thank-you to my parents who helped us out with the generator. I don't know how we would have functioned without one! We had the fridge plugged in and a few extra outlets so we could switch out what smaller appliances we wanted to use - the crock pot, the toaster, charging our phones, etc. By the 2nd day, every one of our neighbors also had generators and it was a constant hum from the engines outside all day.

The first night when we didn't have the generator yet, we lit lots of candles and got out our electric candles as well. It's amazing how pitch black it is when you don't have the glow from the city or neighbors' porch lights on! You can't even see your hand in front of your face!

Our living room all a-glow.

Our massive damage - it was out of control!!

There actually was some serious damage all around Richmond. Trees were down all around our neighborhood, many missing houses by literally inches. Flooding, damaged houses and cars, major power outages... it was pretty chaotic the first few days. One good thing that came of it was that my friend, Amy, was stuck in town a few more days since her flight was cancelled, so Karley, Catherine, Amy and I reenacted our high school days during hurricanes and hung out in the dark every night! It was so fun :)

And, I'm glad we could check that off our Virginia bucket list!

August Utah Trip | The Rest!

2011-10-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

One of the Saturdays we were in Utah, we went on a little rafting trip with my family and my uncle's family. Along for the ride was a family friend, Samuele Fragiacomo. We drove up Provo canyon and all hopped in our rafts and kayaks.

The whole gang!

Our rafting crew - minus my dad who was taking the picture.

My dad served his mission in northeastern Italy, and specifically in a city called Trieste (hence, my sister's name, Triest,) which is how my dad knew Samuele's family who still lives in Trieste. Samuele was in Utah filming some movies for the church. He was casted to play the role of Jesus, but because his Italian accent was so strong, he is playing another role instead. So, look for him in the new church movies coming out in the next year or so. He had been growing his beard for almost a year! They trimmed it because it was getting a little too long, so it was much shorter than the last time I saw him. He said he was followed in the airports because people thought he might be a terrorist (ha!)

He has modeled before, so apparently that killed his ability to just take a normal picture. We never got one out of him!!

One funny story: As we pulled up to my parents house, Britton asked where my parents' dog, Deuce, went. He passed away a few months before, but we haven't discussed death with Britton yet, so we told him he went to live in heaven with Jesus. Well, we went inside and Samuele was standing near the doorway and the first thing Britton said was, "Hi Jesus! You have Deuce?? Where is Deuce?" Haha!! So, 1) Britton's adorable, and 2) Samuele passed the Jesus-look-a-like test.

Me and my lover boy...

The last few days in Utah was filled with down time (finally!) Britton and I had fun with play-doh and I made some pretty amazing little sculptures for him :)

Larre the 1st and Larre the 4th just hangin' out.

And Bryce and I went to watch my mom's regional tennis tournament. There were teams from the midwestern states all competing, and my mom's team qualified for nationals!! She actually just finished her nationals tournament and her team did really well. Go MOM!!

And this concludes our trip to Utah. It was such a fun trip, and full to the brim of activity! It will be nice if we end up living a wee bit closer so we don't have to jam pack everything into 2 weeks of the year!

Thanks to our parents for making it such a great trip!

just kidding! not done yet...

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Bryce informed me that he hadn't given me his pictures from Fish Lake yet, so I get to provide you with more pictures for even more picture overload.

Bryce's camera takes some awesome panoramic photos. Here's from our 4-wheeling trip and we were at the top of the saddle overlooking Fish Lake.

I believe this was from the boat across the lake from our cabin.

Driving through Zion on our way to Fish Lake.

Skipping rocks in an overly-huge sweatshirt makes you look like you have noodle arms :)

Down by the lake with our cabin in the background.

This is Bryce's favorite video from the trip. Fish gross me out, but I sucked it up and was going to touch one. It was a perch, and you have to be careful because they have spikes on their backs and fins. Bryce showed me how to hold it without getting poked, but obviously I did it wrong! It really hurt, but I don't remember acting this girly!!

The first morning we were there, Bryce woke up early and started fishing off the edge of the lake. Britton woke up and saw him, and headed down for some male bonding time. One thing I love about this age is that he can do things all by himself... I didn't even know he was awake, let alone found Bryce and joined him down by the lake :) Very cute.

Our 4 wheeling ride was beautiful. Us again with some different scenery. It was perfect weather and just gorgeous up there!

Smiling one moment, passed out the next. We wore him out this trip!

I love Damon's big grin!! Now he has a whole mouth full of teeth (8!) so he looks so little in this picture without all of them!

I now have all the photos and videos posted that I want, so Fish Lake is checked off the list :)

August Utah Trip | Capitol Reef National Park

2011-10-17T12:15:00.000-04:00

About 30 minutes from Fish Lake is Capitol Reef National Park. It was beautiful!! You just can't help but look in awe of the red cliffs and how huge they are.

Daddy - AKA "pack mule."

That gray mountain in the background is only about 200 MILES away. You don't get views like this on the East Coast!

Bryce's little camera takes some amazing pictures, and some amazing panoramas!

Apparently I have been to this park before when I was little, but I have the worst memory ever, so I'm glad we got to come back again. It was amazing!

August Utah Trip | Fish Lake Part 3

2011-10-16T10:40:00.000-04:00

Here's my last post about Fish Lake - we took a LOT of pictures! The rest of the time we were there, we did a lot of fishing. Bryce, Ross and I woke up around 6 every morning to head out on the boat. We had crazy good luck in the morning and caught some huge fish. My dad wasn't so lucky and wasn't really catching anything, and when he did finally catch one, it was pregnant and ready to pop, so he threw it back. After a few hours out in the morning, we would head back to the cabin to pick up the kids and anyone who wanted to go out. Britton loved his mini fishing pole and he actually caught a good amount of perch with it! We had to be careful to watch the boys, but they were so excited about anything that was caught and really seemed to love it. They played outside and on the deck a lot, and also had fun just chasing each other around the house. It's nice when they're all together so they can just wear each other out! :)

I love Gabe's face in this picture! Haha. My sentiments exactly, Gabey.

Our little neighborhood. Our cabin is the one on the left.

What boy doesn't want to go fishing in his skivvies?

At one point Britton dropped his pole overboard on accident. He was devastated, but Daddy came to the rescue! He re-hooked his pole with the biggest hook we had and was able to fish it off the bottom of the lake in a few minutes. The water there is so clear we could see all the way to the bottom, so that made his job a bit easier, but it was still amazing he actually got it!

Not sure what I was doing in this picture, but it's cute of Britton. :)

Damon enjoyed the ride most of the trip between being in this carrier and the stroller. He was a trooper, and I think he just liked being outside.

I love this picture of him looking through the hook!

Me and my sweet baby boy had lots of wrestle matches. He's such a happy little thing!

We had a lot of fun and it was such a great trip! It was nice to spend our time in the good outdoors away from cell phones and internet and just have fun as a family. Thanks for the trip Mom and Dad!

August Utah Trip | Fish Lake Part 2

2011-10-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Going from Virginia at about 100 feet above sea level to St. George at about 3,000 feet above sea level is not that bad. But going to Fish Lake at about 9,000 feet above sea level about did me in! I got awful altitude sickness, the worst I've ever had. I woke up in the middle of the night with the room spinning, I couldn't think straight, my head was pounding, I was nauseated and felt like I was going to throw up and somehow I ended up downstairs on the couch in the cabin we were staying in. I really don't know how all that happened, I just remember being in a daze and not thinking straight and feeling awful. At least it didn't last very long so we could get on with having fun!

Continuing on with the night of my mom's birthday, we went down to the lake, which was just outside the cabin's back door, and spent about an hour down there with all the boys skipping rocks and enjoying the sunset. While I was packing I wasn't thinking of the cooler nights at Fish Lake, so we had to make do with what we had for the boys!

Auntie Tree kept Dame warm!

Britton did look mighty cute in Bryce's sweatshirt :)

I never knew Bryce was so good at skipping rocks! He got it to skip 17 times I think.

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The next morning we woke up bright and early and went fishing. The water was so still when we went out at first and the fish were biting like crazy!

We had quite the loot! And Bryce introduced us to chubbing where the perch bight at every cast. I never thought I'd like fishing so much!

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Later that day, we wanted to go 4-wheeling with Britton. So us 3, my dad, Ross, Taylor and Caden were all with us and we went in the middle of nowhere, but it had the most amazing views. Here are the boys before the ride began.

I love 4 wheeling in Utah. You can't beat the open views like this and it's so fun to be in the crisp air getting dirty.

The weather was PERFECT and so clear. It was a beautiful day to be out and about.

Bryce and I went on the actual 4 wheeler, while the guys squeezed onto the Mule. The little boys loved it.

At the end of our trail was the view of Fish Lake from the top of the saddle. It was so gorgeous! We were basically right across the lake at the top of the mountain from where our cabin was and probably 10,000+ feet high at this point.

You can kind of see to the left of my shoulder where there is a cluster of cabins - and that's about where ours was.

Throwing boulders over the edge of the cliff... I'm pretty sure this might be against some rules, but the boys loved seeing it crash down the mountain.

Along the trail there were hundreds of trees carved into. This one said 1935!

Ain't no thang - we just saw a MOOSE!

August Utah Trip | Fish Lake Part 1

2011-10-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

After we left St. George, we all crammed into the tiny little car we were driving and headed to Fish Lake. We decided to take the route that was a little bit longer, but went through Zion National Park. I'd never been there and who knows the next time we'll be able to go, so we took the hour long hit to see it. It was worth it!

This is why people with children should have a minivan. :) I was always that person that said, "Never will I ever be caught dead driving a minivan," but now after having one, I'm totally convinced. Small cars, or even cars with doors that open instead of slide, just don't work!

We were on this road and literally were the only ones for miles... and miles... and miles. So, we pulled over and stood in the middle of the road and stretched, then I struck a pose because it was pretty cool to be in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the highway. And it was just pretty.

We took a lot of funny shots, but I don't want to embarrass myself, so this is all I'm willing to show. :)

Finally! Fish Lake!

We pulled up the cabin and immediately the boys got to running around and playing.

Then, we decided to go test out the fishing.

Poppy and Gabey.

We got Britton a mini Buzz Lightyear fishing pole and he was the happiest kid around!

The next day we went to church at the 100 year old cabin just down by the lake, and it was also my mom's birthday! We had a little birthday party for her, which was followed by her present...

My mom's birthday and anniversary are a week apart, so my dad always combines them into basically a bigger birthday present. This year was their pearl anniversary and my dad had no idea what to get my mom, so he played a trick on her that we were all in on.

That little smirk on my dad's face is from trying to hold back the laughter. We got my mom the ugliest dangly pearl earrings I've ever seen. We acted like we were giving them to her for real and we were all anxious to see her fake reaction :) Reading the card....

This was her face as we were explaining how awesome the pearl earrings were and she was trying to act like she liked them and was about to put them on... but we couldn't hold back anymore, as you can see by my dad's face!

She was very relieved when she didn't have to act like she liked them anymore... Here are the real ones. Why are moms the best ones to play tricks on?? Love you, Mom!

Much more from our trip to come...

August Utah Trip | St. George

2011-10-11T20:35:00.001-04:00

Our trip to Utah was a little chaotic to say the least, and right from the get-go! We flew from Newport News to Provo (which was $200 cheaper per person than from the bigger airports!) and somewhere along the way they lost my bag. When we first arrived in Provo 2 of our bags were missing, but right after we left the airport we got a call saying that someone had just grabbed one of our bags by mistake... Then we saw the bag that the lady left on accident compared to ours and we have no idea how she mixed them up. Our luggage has broken zippers, is bent in on one side, has no handle, and hers was pristine and nice... weird. It made for a frustrating night. Ryan and Jessie picked us up at the airport, which followed by the girls arguing the guys that we didn't want to go up to Heber for the night, which is where the rest of the family was staying, to leave early the next morning anyway to head to St. George. I'm still frustrated about that! Haha :) So, we spent the night in Heber, with no luggage, and all 15 of us cramming in 3 hotel rooms... It turned out fine, but just thinking about the situation is bringing up those frustrated feelings between no luggage and no sleep with the kiddos. Anywho!!

We left for St. George only to get a call an hour later saying the Provo airport finally had my bag. Gah! So frustrating, so they had to ship it down to St. George for me. 3 days later (4 days after we arrived) my luggage finally showed up. Hallelujah! So, in St. George we stayed in an AMAZING house! It is the 2nd home of one of my in-laws neighbors. It was massive and it took me about 3 days to learn my way around that place. Here is picture overload.

My cute nephew Miles.

Kyle and Franny hanging out... she didn't want a picture for some reason! I wanted to get one of her and her cute belly.

Before we headed to Tuacahn to see the Little Mermaid. And a big ol' thank you to Jessie again for letting me borrow basically EVERYTHING.

Here's the whole gang at Tuacahn. Britton and Joce were big enough that they handled being at the play the whole time, but the babies went to the nursery they had set up at the theater. It was an awesome setup actually! They had 4 adults for the 4 kids checked in that night, they had cribs and lots of toys and an entire building just right at the top of the seating area. After we brought the kids to the building, they gave us all buzzers with tags attached. If there was a problem, they would have buzzed us and if we were super paranoid, all we needed to do was find a kiosk inside the main lobby area, scan the tag and it would pop up videos of the entire baby building. Genius! If you ever go to Tuacahn, don't worry about finding a babysitter!

Britton was thrilled to be there... Haha.

Another night in St. George we had a karoke night. Jessie and I spent a long time putting the songs together trying to get songs for everyone. I still love that Kyle would only sing to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" : ) We put the duet from Tangled for Jocey and Ryan sang along with her. I wish I had video of it.

Then the girls broke it down! This is why it's so fun to have 5 sisters in law the same age and we all like to do the same things. We tend to get a little wild... :)

We were singing "Tonight, Tonight" and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Next up was Jessie and my performance of Just Can't Get Enough - like in the video I posted a few posts ago. We knew all the words this time and totally rocked it - we even had some coordinating choreography! Haha.

Mr. Robotoooo

After karoke, and we all had sufficiently had our workouts for the day from all that jumping around, we did sister gifts. I love this idea! My mother in law does it with her sisters, so we decided to do it too! We all get the same gift for everyone and exchange the gifts instead of doing birthday gifts, and we all chose some of our favorite things. I got everyone a top coat for nail polish, Erica got us these awesome sunglasses (I seriously love them), Franny got us all scarves (I love mine!!), Jessie got us good-smelling natural soap, Andrea got us the cutest necklaces (I wear mine all the time, Andrea!), and Janet got us the sharpest knife ever and chocolate. Can't go wrong with any of that stuff! So, we modeled our gear.

And then the sisters-in-law proceeded to do what we do...

This one is my favorite. I love these girls.

The last day we were there, we went to the temple and it was great to be all together again.

The whole clan, and of course matching shirts for every trip :)

Damon thoroughly enjoyed his bath by Mimi.

After St. George we packed up the teeny little Honda we were borrowing and headed to Fish Lake. Coming up next!

House Tour | Upstairs

2011-10-04T08:30:00.000-04:00

Our upstairs has had its fair share of changes, but not nearly as much as the first floor. It is mostly more superficial with paint and fixtures.

So, you go up stairs and directly at the top of the stairs is a linen closet. To the right is the master bedroom and bathroom.

Master bedroom before:

Weren't those curtains AWESOME?! We should have kept them forever.

We've painted our room a few times, but ended up with this dark color, which we both love. We left a lighter wall so it wouldn't be overwhelmingly dark. We've moved the furniture a few times as well, but we both like how it looks now. We found the accent table through a friend who was selling it and the recliner actually matches our couches downstairs, but we don't need 2 recliners down there :) The dresser is mine from high school with the matching nightstand. We will be selling those to get new ones that match our bed once we're in residency. We did have curtains up until a few months ago when I got tired of them, and I just never got around to making new ones for this room. We completely redid the closet and bathroom and those were the biggest projects upstairs by far!

Master bedroom now:

The door on the left is another linen closet, the door in the middle is our bathroom and the door on the right is our closet.

Our revamped closet! It's such a puzzle making the closet pieces all fit together and measuring everything perfectly! Instead of having 2 rods down each side with little to no storage room, we have more than enough room in the closet now! It's amazing the difference a smart layout can make! Bryce also installed a timer light switch and the track light. One thing I will really miss about this house are the hampers. Sounds weird, but I love having the hampers how they are in this closet!!

I've done a post about the bathroom before, but it didn't have the new tile yet. Our neighbor helped us out laying it out to prevent cracking in the grout by bad tile placement.

My $5 Target clearance shower curtain that I LOVE.

We changed the cabinet hardware in every bathroom as well as the kitchen. We also changed the light fixture, added the medicine cabinet, updated the faucet, and the curtain rod.

So, if you go outside our room, you look straight into Damon's room, which is to the left of the staircase. There's the boys bathroom at the top of the stairs.

Boys' rooms and bathroom before:

Not only was there bad linoleum in both bathrooms, but there was unmatching, bad linoleum.

The boys' rooms have changed a few times as well. When we first moved in, we painted Britton's room orange. Orange just fit him, and it was a really pretty color. Damon is totally not an orange personality! And, we were trying to get it ready to be sell-ready, so we painted it a really pretty gray, neutral color, but everything else was pretty much the same. We replaced all the blinds again in their rooms, but that's about it. Britton's room was once my craft room area before we needed to use it for him, but I like how it looks a lot more now :) In the bathroom, we replaced the curtain rod, light fixture, curtains, tiled it, added the medicine cabinet and changed out the faucet.

Bathroom now:

As you walk by Britton's room, there's a stairway going up to the attic. The previous owners finished it and now there is an extra bedroom and play room.

Attic before:

This is the view from the side of the playroom looking back at the doorway where the staircase is. It's a good sized room that is now the playroom/craft area.

The only things we've done up here are adding handles to make easy access to the storage areas, brought my craft stuff up, rearranged the furniture about 10 times in the guest room and added curtains and blinds.

Attic now:

One of the bookshelves from Bryce's office was where the black chair is now. I think that looked a lot better than it does now, but what can you do when you can't afford another bookshelf?? :) This room has changed so much as we've rearranged furniture around the house and I always joke that every time my parents come out we've changed something else about it. This was my bed from growing up and so was the bench that matches it. And, there's a little door that leads to the walk-in storage part of the attic on the wall you can't see.

So, that, in a nutshell, is the little tour of our house. I want to add a disclaimer that this post is in no way trying to say "look at us." Bryce is a paranoid blogger and thinks that blogging is all about being "look at me." This is not my intention! I am merely documenting our house since we just sold it, especially since I was able to get it mostly clean before we put it up for sale and I could document it being that CLEAN!

Over the past 3.5 years, this house has kept us busy, busy. Maybe I'll do a post about the outside and all the yardwork that we Bryce has done. We feel very fortunate and blessed to have lived in this home, but are now moving on to the next step. We are excited and sad about moving from this house, and it has definitely been a learning experience.

Lesson #1 learned from this house - townhomes are great because with Bryce being gone so much in residency, I won't have to do yardwork! I never mowed the lawn once and didn't ever intend to :) That would have been nice to know before.

Lesson #2 - find a house with stairs that aren't creaky. Our stairs are the loudest stairs I've EVER heard!

Lesson #3 - ask your neighbors how loud the street is. Our neighborhood is mostly quiet, except for our little corner. We have a family with the biggest, loudest trucks I've ever heard, a 22 year old who thinks he's the next greatest undiscovered drummer and practices all day long, 2 dogs neighboring our backyard that are vicious and aggressive and bark nonstop, and 2 very loud Ford Mustang driving neighbors. All this put together makes naptime impossible.

Lesson #4 - we love having a professional bbq-ing neighbor. We get free ribs that are to die for! Look for large BBQ smokers in neighbors' driveways.

Lesson #5 - live in a neighborhood where young kids are novelties because our kids are treated like royalty :)

We've been trying to explain that we're moving to a new house to Britton and he totally doesn't get it. This is all he's known, so I wonder how he'll adjust.

And for those that don't know, we're moving to Chelsea Square in November, and in May of 2012, Bryce will be graduating med school and we're moving who-knows-where. We will be finding out March 15th.

Life is good.

House Tour | First Floor

2011-10-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

Well, it's official! We have sold our house and will have to be out by November 8. We put the house on the market August 8, had 6 or 7 showings total, and by the 5th showing, we had a serious looker. What's funny is it was the showing we got a call about when my family was in town. We were going back and forth about showing it while everyone was staying at our house, but I decided to not say no to any showings and it was the magic number apparently! We've found an apartment and are now waiting on the inspection to go through to start packing.

Right before we left for Utah in August, we took pictures of the whole house. I wanted to share with everyone (who still even reads my blog) what our house looks like, then and now. It's quite the difference! (Mary, you will like these since you saw it at the very beginning!)

The house when we looked at it was very 80s, and pretty much just ugly on the inside. We knew we had some work ahead of us, but we were excited to see what we could do, especially on a small budget!

Entry before:

This is when you first walk in the front door. Stairs to the right, living room to the far right, Bryce's office to the left, kitchen straight ahead. We took out that hideous stair runner, sanded and stained the steps and painted the risers. We also replaced the chandelier hanging in the doorway and painted the hallway. We decided not to paint the wood.

Entry and stairs now:

I can't stand the clutter of offices that you can easily see, so I made these curtains to shut out Bryce's office if he's been too busy to clean it. :) Love you, hun!

I don't have a good before picture of the office, but for a long time we moved the built-in bookshelves from the living room into the office for Bryce's hundreds of books. We recently sold the bookshelf on craigslist and replaced the unit with 2 smaller bookshelves and made it look a LOT better than it did! This is mainly due to Bryce being able to get rid of about 100 books!

Obviously, we're ready to walk out the door on our trip!

Living room then:

Whew! This room was a constant work in progress. When we first moved in, we painted it blue. The blue did NOT turn out the color I wanted it, but I still liked it so we left it. But, after 3 years I was tired of it, so we painted it a neutral color since we knew we'd be selling it. I don't necessarily love this color, but I do love the decorations in this room. (I especially love the painting to the right of the TV, but you can't see it. I bought it for $5 at a garage sale and it turned out to be worth about $600!!) We first mounted the TV on the brick, but didn't like that set up. I changed out the carpet without Bryce knowing because it was hideous and where we took out the built in bookshelves, there were rectangle fragments of the old, old carpet that didn't match the current carpet and I couldn't deal with it anymore! :) We got a frieze carpet in a speckled pattern and I love it. We (as in I) painted the wainscoting and crown molding - that only took a whopping 25 hours and 3+ coats of paint! We painted the ceiling also. My first saved up tip money from the salon bought that TV stand, and my second batch of saved up tip money bought the IKEA bookshelf off craigslist for $100. I found a guy on craigslist that was looking for a wood burning stove and we basically traded the stove for the labor to remove it, so that was free! And good things because those things are hard to remove and about 300 pounds! Then, I found those glass doors for really cheap on craigslist to cover the opening. We changed all the blinds in the house to faux wood blinds. I found my desk on craigslist for $20 and refinished it, but it's still not finished because all the stores stopped carrying the handles I need! I made the yarn-wrapped E, the book wreath, the rose wreath, the pillows, multiple curtains we've had in this room (and I didn't like any of them so now we have none!), and the shadow box with our wedding announcement. Not to mention the 12 furniture arrangements we've done in here! I finally have it how I like it, of course right before we move :)

Living room now:

This walkway leads into the kitchen, and that walkway on the left leads back to the front hallway. Then, right by the fridge to the left is a doorway to Bryce's office.

The kitchen before:

We changed out all the lights in the kitchen, which included a fan over the table area (I always thought that was weird.) We put a track light over the sink, which is SO much better! We took out the 80s wavy wood thing over the sink and Bryce made it a clean arch. We replaced all the cabinet hardware from 80s brass to a chrome to match the appliances. I have Old English stained the cabinets at least every 6 months so they're always looking pretty nice and scratch-free. We painted the walls twice and painted the ceiling as well. We started out having a really nice table, but having kids with nice furniture isn't a good mix, so we sold it on craigslist and replaced it with a beat up pine table, which is perfect for what we need, and so I don't stress out every time Britton stabs it with his fork! I also got the curtains by the table with a Pottery Barn gift card we still had left over from our wedding. Finding curtains is really hard for me for some reason, so I'm glad I could find these ones because I love them, but I am sad I won't have an excuse to go in that store anymore! :)

My crowned jewel of the kitchen is the sink and faucet. I found a plumber on craigslist who was getting rid of a bunch of sinks from his recent jobs. People with already nice sinks who just keep up with latest trends give their old sinks to him once he replaces them, then he sells them on craigslist for $25!!! Including the $100 faucet! Basically, we got a $450 sink and faucet for $25. I'm still very proud of all my craigslist hunting over the years :)

Kitchen now:

To the left of this picture is a hallway leading to the side door, the laundry room and half bath.

Laundry room, 1/2 bath and hallway then:

These rooms haven't changed dramatically. We changed all the light fixtures, removed the wallpaper in the bathroom, updated the faucet in the bathroom, added shelving in the laundry room, and painted the bathroom and hallway.

Now:

Britton was following me the whole time jumping in all my pictures :)

Whew! You still with me? We've definitely stayed busy over the years working on our house. It's been fun to have a constant project to work on, but sometimes it's been a big hassle during stressful times. (Like when Bryce was studying for 14+ hours a day and I was refusing to do yard work!) And we still have 2 floors to go! Those will be in my next post...

Damon at 7 months (in August)

2011-10-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

Damon is adorable, a sweetie pie, so squishy and loving, and is just awesome!! He's the best baby, eats great, is so happy, easy to smile, easy to laugh, and here are a few more things about him at 7 months...

Our scale says he's about 21 pounds, but he was last measured at six months and he was 19 lbs 8 oz. and 28.75 inches long.

He still adores Britton. No one holds his attention like Britton.

He's starting to really get into balls. He will chase them around and looks so cute trying to crawl after them really fast. His mouth is usually open and panting while doing it.

He's starting to do more baby talk. He's such a silent kid more of the time, but he'll hold a conversation with you now.

His hair is definitely getting long! It's getting really thick too. Bryce keeps telling me he needs a haircut, but I can't cut off those baby hairs yet!

He likes to suck on his toes still, but doesn't really have any comfort items. And he gave up binkies at 6 months, but doesn't need one anyway (Britton did the same thing.)

He got 2 teeth and was trying to cut 6 more... at the same time!! He was grumpy for about a week straight, and I don't blame him!

He is starting to like finger foods a lot more than mushy baby food. He's working on picking up food, but still shoving his whole fist in his mouth trying to feed himself. Most of the time he misses and it's cute when he gets frustrated.

Finger foods he likes (and I dare feed at 7 months): avocado, banana, peaches, and puffs.

He's a champ at crawling.

Walking along furniture.

Pulling himself up to a sitting position, but still balances himself with his arms. For how active and mobile he is, he has no interest in sitting still, so sitting up is not a strength of his at 7 months!

Likes to see himself in the mirror. When he wakes up from naps I'll pop in the bathroom and show himself in the mirror. He automatically smiles and looks at himself while I ask him, "Who's that baby??" and he concentrates very hard and looks back and forth between me and our reflections in the mirror. I think it's adorable...

For some reason, he loves to suck on wipes. He will grab a wipe, put just a little bit in his mouth so most of it is hanging on the floor and just crawls around like that - it's so funny and so cute!

He loves to chase things and people and he and Britton will just makes laps around the house.

He's a funny little boy with lots of spunk - I can already see it shining through. He has an adorable and goofy grin, he makes funny baby talk sounds, he's so quiet, but loves to make lots of noise, he has a kung fu grip and you don't want his fingers wrapped around your hair, earrings, nose, eyes, ears, moles (haha!), and the back of your arm. It results in scratches, pinches and bruising!

The best way to describe him is sweet and content. We'll see if it stays like that :)

Here are his first 2 teeth that cut through. I don't know about anyone else, but it makes me sad when my kids start getting teeth because it means they aren't my babies anymore! It is cute to see those little chompers though.

And here are 2 videos. Like I said above, Damon likes to make noise. He is always smacking or kicking something to make some kind of noise. Also, this video was taken right before he turned 7 months, so he wasn't crawling that great yet, especially on the wood floors, but you get the idea :)

Damon is going to be my curious child. I can see him taking apart the microwave just so he can see how it works and to see if he can put it back together again. He's always this quiet, and he even cries with his mouth closed so it's hardly loud at all. If for some reason his mouth is open when he cries he scares himself and quickly shuts it - haha! He just wanders around the house quietly sucking and climbing on everything!

lazy days of summer

2011-10-01T07:50:00.000-04:00

During the hot days this summer we set up the little pool either on the grass or the (bug-free) deck. Our neighbor is always bringing our boys little toys (a basketball hoop, bubbles, books, crayons, playdoh... she's awesome!) and one of the things she bought Britton was a bug habitat. He had worms in it at first, but then it turned into a bug "swimming pool." Damon had fun watching Britton and then we both joined him in the little pool.

And, again I'm perpetually behind in blogging, and will continue to be so until we are all packed and moved in 6 weeks!

for your entertainment... and our humiliation

2011-09-30T22:19:00.001-04:00

When Ryan and Jessie came out in August, Jessie and I decided we were going to learn all the lyrics to Just Can't Get Enough. I showed them my awesome rapping skills to the song Empire State of Mind (yes, I can rap the whole thing!!) and we decided we'd do the same thing for this song. We got to work. Bryce snuck in some videos of us rapping without us knowing, but this one is funny too. We were watching the music video as we were singing, so we're trying to mimic some of the dance moves they're doing, and we definitely can't sing as low as Will.i.am!

Enjoy... :)

brotherly love

2011-09-30T11:16:00.001-04:00

I snapped these pictures in July (Damon has grown so much since then!) and I love them!! These boys really do love each other and I'm so happy they have each other to grow up with and get in trouble with :)

I love these 2 pictures side by side. Damon has such a cute, goofy grin and it doesn't take much to make him smile.

Britton loves to try to make him smile, and feels like he's hilarious when Damon laughs at him.

We just love our cute boys!

emilie's bridals

2011-09-28T22:44:00.002-04:00

These photos are long overdue! I was able to be the photographer for the beautiful couple, Andrew and Emilie. We went to local locations around Hanover County for the photos (including her grandparent's barley field) and I love how they turned out. They grew up and got married out in Studley, which exactly where these photos were taken. Studley is also where I grew up, and they graduated the year after me.

She looks very calm in the barley field pictures, but right after this picture was taken a wolf spider the size (no joke) of my HAND starting running up her dress. Her mom, best friend, mother in law to be, and I were all screaming and freaking out trying to figure out what to do while she's trying not to cry and also freaking out as this huge spider was quickly getting closer to her face. Looking back it would have been quite the hilarious scene, but totally scary in the moment!!

Their wedding was stunning and because they have been together so long, the whole group was just one big family and everyone was involved. One of her friends strung these pearls and made her necklace for her. Beautiful!

I loved working on these photos and can't wait to share the rest from the wedding!

Leave some comment love and tell me what you think!! It was my first bridal session :)

Horse races with Lorel and Craig

2011-09-15T13:19:00.000-04:00

A few months ago there was a groupon for Colonial Downs, the horse race track just outside of Richmond. It included dinner for 2, the races, bets on the races, and a tour of the stable and track, all for $40! It was on our Virginia bucket list since we've never been before and it was so much fun!

The food was not great, but the company was!

On all my pictures of B and I, the first take was always funny - he wasn't trying to make funny faces, but they all turned out funny.

Take 2.

We got to see the yearlings get all geared up and ready to race their first race. I believe they're about 2 or 3 when they do their first races, and they were just little babies! Here's Craig and Lorel checking them out.

We all places bets where we chose 3 horses and one of the 3 would be the winner. We all chose different horses, and NONE OF US WON! How does that happen?! We were just super unlucky because there weren't even that many horses racing.

We hopped on a cart and went on a tour around the track. It was very cool. We got to see the starting gate up close and the stands from across the track.

It was a fabulous date night and a great bucket list item to check off!

more fun with ryan and jessie

2011-09-14T22:30:00.003-04:00

I still have a few more photos from when Ryan and Jessie came to play! We did SO much while they were here. We were all exhausted by the end of the week because we were constantly going somewhere. One day while Bryce was at the hospital, we went on a canal boat ride in downtown Richmond. Britton adores Ryan and was just following him around the whole time they were here.

As you can see from these pictures...

On the canal looking towards canal walk.

It was a bit windy!

Another day we went to Busch Gardens. We got season passes this summer since they were offering free passes for preschoolers. We've gone about 6 times so far and it's always so much fun! We love going. When we went with R&J it was so hot when we first got there, then there was a torrential downpour for a few minutes, which cooled everything off, thank goodness!!

Thanks for these pics, Jessie!
During the downpour (it was seriously crazy rain!) we quickly found a little pavilion to sit in so we were stranded in a store with the kids. The roof we were sitting under was leaking on everyone around us, but we ended up choosing the perfect spot where we didn't get wet.

It was so hot and humid!!

They have an area of the park that is just for small kids. There's a little roller coaster, which Britton LOVES, and a mini "big shot" bouncy tower thing, a few smaller rides, and this swirly swing ride. It just kills me! I can't handle swinging because my stomach is so sensitive, so the boys were laughing at me as I was freaking out.

Another day, we went to the beach. Virginia Beach definitely isn't my favorite beach ever, but it's nice that it's so close and it really is great for a little day out in the sun.

Me and my man!!

Their trip was so much fun! We had such a great time with them and they're coming out again in November - YAY!! Now we're just crossing our fingers that Ryan gets into med school wherever we end up for residency. It would be a constant party! :)

9|11

2011-09-11T21:37:00.000-04:00

Bryce and I are watching a documentary on 9|11 and the firefighters of Ladder 1. We are talking about how we can't imagine being in that situation, how to react, how the people in Tower 1 probably didn't know what was going on since the couldn't see the flames in the floors above them before the 2nd tower was hit. It's heartbreaking, but we can't stop watching and remembering.

I was in 9th grade in my math class when my teacher was called out of the classroom. A few minutes later she came back in crying and turned on the TV. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was and was confused about what we were watching. A few minutes after the TV was turned on, we saw the 2nd plane fly into the tower. I started crying even though I still didn't know what was going on.

3 months after 9|11, my dad took me on a trip to NYC. We went to ground zero, stopped at the makeshift memorial they had set up, and went to his colleague's office which was just down the street from ground zero, but high up. Here are the pictures of that trip:

I remember the streets were still dirty and dusty. Even with so many people, it was quiet and somber.

This building was hit by the antenna on top of Tower 1. It sliced it right down the middle and gutted it towards the bottom.

By this point, they still hadn't moved all the debris from the towers. They still hadn't even reached the lobbies of the buildings.

This is one of those days that you will never forget where you were and what you were doing. I am grateful for all those fighting for our freedom, including my cousin, Thomas, in the marines who was deployed, yet again, just a few weeks ago to Afghanistan.

Never forget.

Today I . . .

2011-09-07T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today I went to a podunk town to meet with a guy selling awesome lenses on craigslist, then the Children's Museum with my family, then Whole Foods.

Today I hoped that we could make it through this year with minimal loans because of all the flights B will have to take.

Today I dreamed of a day where all the kids would be in school and B and I could have lunch dates, and a day when we can afford lunch dates!

Today I forgot to have my phone on me and missed a call about someone wanting to see the house, an hour later! We rescheduled for this weekend. Whew!

Today I remembered to bring the plastic cups to comedy night for mutual.

Today I heard my boys playing and laughing together. And it was adorable.

Today I read the last chapter of Bloodlines - and it was so good!

Today I watched Grey's Anatomy.

Today I broke an Amazon box that wouldn't open.

Today I said "I love you," to all 3 of my boys.

Today I believed that I can survive this little thing called motherhood. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Today I felt so proud to be married to Bryce - he got his first request for a residency interview!! I also felt excited to one day get the lens, overwhelmed by my ever-growing to do list, anxious to sell our house, happy that my boys love each other so much, happy.

Today I wondered if Brian Regan writes all his own jokes.

Today I bought wheat germ at Whole Foods.

Today I cleaned my very neglected kitchen and the half bath that Britton seems to get dirty on a daily basis.

Today I was me.

4th of July

2011-09-06T21:14:00.000-04:00

We had a great 4th this year! We went to a church party in the morning for breakfast and a little flag ceremony at the local veterans memorial. Lorel and her kids were in town so we spent the morning with them mostly.

Britton had been practicing the song "My Flag" for when the primary was performing, but as always, froze once he got up in front of everyone. After it was over he started crying that he wanted to sing for everyone, but he missed his chance. It's cute hearing him sing the song and I should record him doing it for memory's sake!

Next we had the real Patrick Henry come give us a monolog. I'm sure whatever he said was great, but all I could think about was the Ben Franklin episode from The Office and I couldn't stop giggling.

My dear friend Karley's parents live just a few minutes from us and they were at the activity as well. Her mom, Karen, is so great with kids and watches ours from time to time. She put Damon right to sleep - and that takes some skills! We love the Jorgensens!

Lorel and I thought Patrick was pretty awesome. He deserved a cuddle! You can tell we were really excited, and he wasn't quite sure how to react! He just kept saying "...OH... uh... ohh?" Haha! I'm giggling just thinking about it.

After the little get-together we headed up to Ashland with Lorel, her kids, and her younger brother for the Ashland 4th of July parade. Ashland is a cute tiny town and the parade was all of 5 minutes, but it was perfect for the kids.

People were dressed up for the occasion, but I'm not quite sure what Jack Sparrow has to do with Independence Day...

This was the Lawn Chair Brigade. They had a different stunt for every stop along the way and they did these poppers right in front of us. Britton loved it and kept asking for more. Each stop they did something else cute and they were the best act of the parade!

After the parade we walked around the main square where they had booths and things set up. They were giving away watermelon and balloons and Britt was so excited!

Ella did a watermelon seed spitting contest and seriously spit further than some 12 year olds. It was amazing!! What a talent she has... :)

Please ignore my face in this picture, but Lorel was cracking me up!! Hilarious, and I'm sure his hair didn't smell that good. Ella looked very concerned and Britton wasn't sure what to do.

It was SOOO ridiculously humid that day! It wasn't terribly hot, thank goodness, but it was seriously like swimming it was so humid. You can see that some of the pictures are foggy because of it.

The night before, we kept the boys up late to go watch the fireworks over the James. The night resulted in a ticket, which we are now contesting, but it was fun to see how excited the boys were, even D was excited!

It was a great 4th, and weird to think that it was our last in Virginia!

dance party!

2011-09-06T20:46:00.000-04:00

We do a lot of dance parties 'round these parts. Britton loves MIKA and I love Justin Timberlake, Black Eyed Peas, old school Britney, and other music that is perfect for dancing. If we start getting bored, we turn on the iPod and break it down. Bryce got home one day to this scene - craft supplies and play-doh strewn across the kitchen, a big ol' mess, and a happening dance party!

I'm not sure who he gets his moves from, but let's face it, they're pretty sweet!

Damon eating rice cereal - June 2011

2011-09-06T20:23:00.000-04:00

I am so behind with this blog, so this is my attempt to try to catch up a bit.

With Damon, I haven't been as excited about each new stage like I was with Britton. I'm okay to let him take his time with things, where I was just excited for Britton to do each new thing. Hence, I waited until D was almost 6 months old to let him try solids. He was very interested in what we were eating all the time, so I figured it was high time he try some rice cereal.

Poor kid didn't know what he was getting himself into. He kept gagging because of the texture and wanted nothing to do with it! He still hates it! Luckily, he likes all fruits and veggies.

Britton was performing since he knew the spotlight wasn't on him... of course.

We got this face a lot. He wasn't too impressed.

Since this point we have tried lots of other foods. He really doesn't like the texture of mushy baby food. He likes any little bites of things we give him, I just have to be really careful that they're tiny. He loves puffs and those could keep him happy all day! He really likes:
Avocado - can't get enough, he'll seriously eat half an avocado in one sitting.
Green beans
Peas - loves them!
Tiny bits of peaches
Squash
Sweet potatoes
Carrots
Mangoes
Bananas
Apples
Corn

And he basically likes most of the food we've given him except for the granola and raisin baby food.

This week we're starting the mixed meals like ham and pineapple, apples and chicken, and things like that. I've made some of his baby food so I'm excited to get him adjusted to normal food tastes so I can just puree whatever we're having for dinner. I'm determined to NOT have another picky eater, and so far, Damon's a champ! This kid eats everything!

my boys have stolen my heart

2011-09-06T11:46:00.000-04:00

I love my little boys and this video melted my heart. I'm so happy I have them, and I'm so happy they have each other.

baby story

2011-08-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

If you follow my photography, you've already seen these pictures, but I just had to share again.

I don't think newborn photos are my forte. I'm not very good at getting the right angles, getting the babies to pose, getting the right things in focus, etc. And newborns are always pulling all kinds of funny faces. But, I love the photos I got of Story, our friends Jami and Scott's baby. She is beautiful!!! And their kids have the most amazing hair when they're born!

She has the sweetest, cutest face!

I love that we caught this little smile!

Most of the time babies like to stay curled up in the fetal position, but she was sprawled out most of the time we were trying to pose her - it was so funny.

Congrats again Jami and Scott!! She's perfect.

new website

2011-08-04T08:56:00.000-04:00

My new photo website is up and running!! I'm still working out some kinks and making it look its best, but please go check it out!!

madison e photography

Thanks!

on my mind | perfection

2011-07-31T22:50:00.001-04:00

This is a random post a little out of the ordinary from my "family story" style of blog. I used to use this blog as a way for me to voice my opinion and get "heard" out in the world while I was struggling to figure out who I was. Basically, now it's a way for me to write down what we've been up to so I can later print it, so I can avoid having to scrapbook with what few minutes I have alone every day. :) But today I'm going to use it as a way for me to write down what's been on my mind for quite some time.

I've been away from Utah for 3 years now. I've been out of the reach of the culture there, the competition and the image of the "perfect" woman. I'm still in touch with Utah obviously since our families are out there (which I have to say has kept me up to date with clothing and hair trends because the East Coast is quite behind in this department,) so I have been able to observe the Utah mindset while we've been away. In the 3 past years I have grown up. A lot. I still have a ways to go to gain wisdom, but I have learned what's important, what makes me happy, what I shouldn't worry about, what I should worry about, and what I want my life to be about. Like I said, I have a long ways to go and am nowhere near "perfection," but what I love is how free I feel because I'm doing what makes me and my family happy. I have started caring less and less about what others think of me. I don't care what people are saying behind my back (if anything, because I try my darnedest to be nice to everyone around me and make them feel loved) and I honestly don't have time to worry about these things. I'm too busy making me, my husband, my family happy. And I love making us happy.

Please read this article.

This article came out a few months ago. I loved it. It's saying everything I want to say. Everyone has their struggles. Everyone feels imperfect. Everyone knows everyone else has to have struggles but it seems as though everyone tries so hard to hide even the smallest of flaws.

One of the biggest things I have learned is not every woman does everything. When I first joined the blogging world I was following all kinds of blogs which were mainly based out of Utah. Scrapbooking, photography, cooking, sewing, DIY, home design, interior design, kid crafts, mom blogs... ahhh! I felt overwhelmed because I thought every woman was doing everything to perfection... and I felt like I wasn't able to do anything. Over the years as I've tackled home improvement projects, sewing and craft projects, wardrobe revamps, hundreds of new recipes, interior design dilemmas, etc. I've realize I can do all these things. I can do anything I really want to do, but do I really enjoy it? Was I doing these things just to be able to say I did them to prove myself or was I really enjoying it? Most of the time I found a craft that I really loved and wanted to try it out, but after the 4th time having to redo it, I was finishing it just to say, "Ha! I can do that too!!" I was doing it to look like I could conquer all and keep up with these women claiming they, too, do everything to "perfection." Now, I have over 1,000+ blog posts I still haven't read because I JUST. DON'T. CARE. I read my photography blogs, family, a few friends, a few interior design blogs if I have time, and that's that.

One of the biggest struggles since having Damon is my post-baby body. It's taking a little longer this time around than after Britton to bounce back. I've been feeling self conscious about this even though I should know that I work hard to stay in shape. I could always work harder, but I'm healthy and strong and should be and I am proud of that. But, it's always on my mind when I see myself in the mirror. I got a hit back to reality when I saw the Today show the other morning. They were talking about "mommyrexia" and this mental state a lot of moms have these days thinking weeks after having a baby you should be right back to a size 0 because select celebrities are. When most women aren't like this, it onsets depression and baby blues, which directly affects the type of mother you are. I know when I'm feeling down about myself it definitely affects my mood and my mothering that day. I don't want my children affected by my own self doubts. I don't ever want my girls to hear me say that I think I need to lose weight because they, in turn, will think the same about themselves and will never be self confident. I never want my children to look down on themselves and say they learned it from me. I want to teach my children to be strong, try their hardest, be their best and be proud of who they are and know that we are proud of them. I have to consciously tell myself daily, "you are beautiful," and some days I don't believe myself, but I'm starting to believe more each day I say it. Every woman should feel beautiful.

I love finding other women who are real. I love talking to another girl my age and realizing she's being straight with me. She can point out her flaws to me, I can point out my flaws to her and we can help each other. If I can admit I can't do something or I'm having a rough day and the other girl reaches out to me, I love you for that. I won't love the person who feeds off my imperfections. Those are the people I want to avoid. I love being around people who lift me up, make me feel better, make me want to be truly better. I love REAL. Real makes me happy, and that is my goal.

I am grateful for the real women in my life. I am surrounded by wonderful role models and people I want to be more like. Not because they have the image of "perfection," but because they do things that make them truly happy, and that is what I admire.

Please, spread the REAL, not the disease called "perfection."

ryan and jessie came to play!

2011-07-27T21:58:00.000-04:00

Bryce's brother, Ryan, and his cute wife, Jessie, came to visit at the end of June. We had sooo much fun with them and we were all worn out at the end of the week from all the things we did. We didn't get many pictures, but I'll share some of the ones we did remember to take :)

One of the days we went on a Segway tour around Richmond. There were 2 versions of the tour and the one we went on wasn't our first choice, but it was still awesome. None of us had ever been on Segways before, and even though we felt super nerdy, they were so cool!

We got to wear stylin' helmets.

The boys looked sooo adorable... haha.

We went on a few practice runs up and down this alley and after a few minutes, we were pros.

The guide gave us little snippets of history along the 12 mile tour. Usually I hate guided tours, but it was actually really interesting... or maybe it was just the Segways?

This is where I have a lot of photo shoots - down by the farmer's market and Main Street Station, which is just a few blocks from Bryce's school.

We went on the Churchill Tour and we saw some awesome views, went by the church where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, saw where all of Richmond was burned down during the Civil War, really, really old buildings, learned about the slave trade in Richmond, etc. All really interesting stuff!

The guy said Segways are used a lot by people with disabilities or temporarily not able to walk, but after we were done, we all felt like we had walked the 12 miles. Our legs were tired! I definitely want to do this again and recommend it to everyone in RIC!

damon singing

2011-07-17T23:03:00.001-04:00

For a few weeks in May and June, Damon was on an opera kick. He was constantly singing and it sounded like he kept trying to see how high he could make his voice go. I loved watching him because his face was so serious while doing it, but it sounded so funny. He just loved the sound of his own voice apparently!

Sorry for the turned video... Bryce is still working on that one :)

things that are cute.

2011-07-17T22:39:00.000-04:00

When I see my boys' shoes next to each other on the stairs and notice the huge size difference, I think it's cute.

When I see Britton reading (and actually reading!) to Damon, even though Damon has no idea what he's saying, I think it's cute.

When I watch Damon chew and attack the toys on his Exersaucer, then he notices me in the room and immediately starts crying, I think it's cute. But, mostly because I know he loves me, not necessarily the whining part.

When Britton is big enough to go on roller coasters now, I think it's cute. I also think it's cute to see how little he looks in this picture. It won't be too long until he's bigger than me.

When I see a hat that correctly displays this little boy's personality, I think it's cute.

(Pictures from Bryce's camera, and the last 2 from Busch Gardens - the true "happiest place on Earth." (: My MIL might kill me for that last part!)

I love my cute boys.

a little sneak peak - bridals

2011-07-16T16:18:00.000-04:00

I have been so excited to post the pictures of the wedding I did on July 9th. My photo site is under construction for a few more days, and I want to wait until my new logo and everything is done to start posting more photo sessions to it, especially when the pictures are from my first big wedding.

I did want to give a little sneak peak from the bridals we did.

The bride was absolutely gorgeous, and so was the wedding. I had so much fun taking their engagements, bridals, and working with my friend Alicia while at the wedding. They are so photogenic, which makes my job easier! I'll post when my photo site is all done so anyone can take a gander if they so desire...

the little things in june

2011-07-16T16:12:00.001-04:00

One of the main reasons we've been so busy the last month or so is because we're getting our house ready to put in the market. It is quite the process. First, we (as in I) sorted through all the closets, the attic, the nooks and crannies and started putting things aside to sell in a yard sale. We had piles all over our house and I still don't know how I didn't go crazy. One of the piles was in Damon's room and was seriously as high as my neck. I don't know how we have so much stuff.

In between all the craziness, I tried to hang out with my boys on the floor as much as I could. Damon adores Britton and if he's in the general vicinity as him, he's usually happy as a clam. Britton is sharing his love of trains with Damon very early. :)

Just as much as Damon loves Britton, Britton loves Damon back. I never have to tell him to be nice, I have to tell him not to be too loving and "nice." The other day when Damon woke up, I brought him downstairs and Britton said, "Good morning sweet boy! You have a cool shirt on! Did you sleep well? You're a handsome boy!" in the cutest baby-talk voice. Then he proceeds to give him a big hug, which is more like squishing him, so I have to intervene.

It will be so fun watching these boys grow up together. I hope they always love each other this much.

And here are some pictures of the yard sale. I'd say it was pretty successful and we sold everything except 2 small boxes worth, which was basically just junk that I really didn't think anyone would be anyway. It was a perfect day for it too, not too hot, which is rare in June in Virginia!

Britton couldn't bare to part with this neck pillow when he saw it out for sale, so we did end up keeping it... mostly because Britt wore it around his neck like this all day and wouldn't take it off - haha!

2 of my cute boys. I sure am outnumbered.

just because and damon has a tooth!

2011-07-15T23:27:00.005-04:00

Before I go on with posting about June, here are just a few randoms.

Britton's really been into music lately. He loves the group MIKA and we sing and dance to them all the time. And, tonight before bed he said, "Mommy, I like the song that says, 'Baby I like it!'" and I think he's referring to the Enrique song. Haha! So great, this age is funny.

Britton is like a little parrot. He repeats everything that we're saying, even when we don't think he's paying attention. There's a girl from our church that comes over to be a "mommy's helper" a few times a week so I can get some editing and cleaning done. When I was driving her home yesterday she was talking about how her dad broke his tennis racket strings for the first time (this is a proud moment for tennis players, by the way) and Britton very seriously said, "Jenna, I'm sorry you broke your tennis strings..." Ha! I don't think he had any clue what he was talking about, but I didn't even know he was paying attention.

Another funny thing about Britton... he's a very tender boy. Those of you who met him around the lovely age of 18 months to 2 years would not believe this, but truly, he is. The other day I was cooking and trying to read the recipe and wasn't listening to him at the moment. He screamed (more like loudly squealed) to get my attention and acted like he was mad so I would listen to him. After I asked him what was wrong he touched my arm and said, "Mommy... I'm sorry I got mad. I'm happy now, see!" Then gave me a big, cheesy grin.

Damon has his first tooth!! He's been super ornery lately (I hate that word, and writing that made me think of Lorel and how much she'd love to read it - haha) and not sleeping well. He usually sleeps from about 7-7 or so, and the past week he's been waking up in the middle of the night or super early. I kept checking his mouth, but never saw anything. Today, he was acting lethargic and cuddly, which is totally not like him. I stuck my finger in his mouth again and felt that sharp little tooth just barely cutting through the gums. No wonder he was grumpy. I would be too!

And................

Bryce is officially DONE with 3rd year!!

He's also chosen what he's going into, but until he's actually 100% positive, he told me not to say anything.

Wahoo!! 4th year in medical school is kind of a joke. He'll have about 3 months worth of actually "work" but besides that we'll be playing and flying around the country applying to residencies. Here are examples for 2 of his rotations: 1) Rosetta Stone online for a month learning Spanish and 2) walking a dog around a hospital to cheer up the patients. Awesomeness! He has worked so hard the past 3 years. It will be so great having him around more and doing lots of day trips in Virginia and trips for residency. It felt like 4th year was so far away when we moved here as first years, but it really went by so fast. I wouldn't want to do it over again, but we've definitely loved the experience of med school. Now the only pressing thing we have left to do is Step 2 of boards in a few weeks and checking everything off our bucket list. Bring on 4th year!

strawberry picking in may

2011-07-15T23:20:00.000-04:00

Last year Catherine and I went strawberry picking with Britton while Bryce was studying for boards. This is when we always joked that she was my husband because B was studying 14+ hours a day and we spent basically all our free time together. This was also before we announced we were pregnant (though I think she knew all along...) Anywho, this year, we had a much bigger gang with us! Damon, Chris and Bryce all joined us this time around! :)

The day we went was free admission with canned goods day. Last year the weather was perfect for picking, but this year was bloody hot! Also, I never used to sweat until after I had Damon, and now I do... I hate it. I think it's as much as any normal person does, but it's about 100x more than I used to, so I was miserable!

Bryce and Dame.

Out in the field.

His face is completely red with the mixture of strawberry juice and being flushed from the heat. Poor kid was so done after about 20 minutes.

While at the farm, we also played in a bouncy house, did the duck races, fed some animals, and rode on the tractors. Britton had a blast, heat and all.

This was the day before we went to the farm. This kid as some crazy hair, I never know how to do it. He has my cowlick on the front of my hairline, but I can at least fix mine by parting my hair a certain way... his hair just lays funny on his forehead. The only way we've learned to deal with it is buzzing his head. One day when Bryce is earning a paycheck, we'll actually take him to a professional who knows how to fix these things! :) One perk of having a buzz is I never have to do his hair!

Finally caught up with May! Whew!

britton's preschool graduation

2011-07-13T18:45:00.000-04:00

These aren't the best photos we've ever taken, so I'm scrapping the photobucket route and just uploading through blogger (aka - crappy quality photos.) Gotta save some time if I'm going to catch up this week, right??

Britton's preschool had a little ceremony for all the kiddos completing the school year. It was very cute seeing them all excited to go up on stage and say some of the things they learned this year. Britton knows the pledge of allegiance, a little song called "I Love this Flag," he knows the days of the week, weather forecasting, and a whole bunch of recited prayers that are so cute!

What do you do when you're waiting for the kiddos to come on stage and you have a very lovable, squishable baby and a camera??

Take some pichas and smother him with love!!

Britton gets nervous in front of groups of people. He didn't want to sing or say the pledge of allegiance. (He doesn't sing during primary performances either, even though he knows all the songs.)

He looked so happy and proud once he was all done though!

Me and my preschooler. When did that happen??

a little of this, a little of that...

2011-07-12T22:15:00.000-04:00

To say the least, life has been kind of crazy. Kind of, as in a lot.

I'm finally posting from May and I am determined to get up to speed in the next week before I get crazy busy again editing photos from the wedding I photographed this past weekend. (!!!!) More on that later. To say the least, it was so fun, absolutely beautiful, and I'm so proud of the pictures! Okay, back to May.

Nothing major happened in May. It was a lot of away time for Bryce, a lot of house redoing, baby watching, photo shoots and editing, house cleaning, and just keeping up with the daily grind for me... sans hubby. I hate internal medicine. Bryce only has 2 more days and we will be DONE WITH 3RD YEAR!!!

The first weekend in May, I had a photo shoot in a little town called Tappahannock. If any of you are Chris Brown fans, he is from this little town. I did an engagement and a family photo shoot at the "Rivah." Bryce came along so we could have a little date and so he could be my helper. It was fun having him along! After, we stopped at this little Mom and Pop shop called Parr's where I've gone with friends before when I'd go to their river houses. It is so good and has some of the best shakes I've ever had. Bryce was impressed.

I love these luscious little lips!

Britton has crazy hair. Britton likes green eggs and ketchup. Britton never makes normal faces for pictures anymore.

On May 11, we finally got some belly laughs out of Damon. He'd chuckle here and there, but these were full on belly laughs.

Have I mentioned before how much I love Britton's preschool?? Of course I have... :) They hosted a Mother's Day tea and it was adorable.

Britton takes after Bryce in almost everything except singing. I've heard stories about how I made up songs about everything, and Britton also does this. Anywho, just look at them standing next to each other. Is he not a little mini Bryce? And Britton likes to do things all by himself, which results in never having pants on and his underwear on backwards. If I was 3, I'd try to get away with it too.

Damon likes sitting in his Bumbo... most of the time. His new favorite thing to do is look at the world upside down, so after a few minutes, he'll completely flip himself backwards and hang there until he turns red. Funny boy!

Damon can't run away from me as soon as I whip out the camera, so he's often the subject of most of my photos.

It's funny to see features of yourself in your children... Britton is so much like Bryce I've never had a child to compare to until now. Damon looks like me as a baby (mostly), has my deep belly button while Britton has one exactly like Bryce's, but one thing I can't claim are his monkey toes. That's definitely from Bryce's side!

......................................

Damon had his first rice cereal in May. He's had banana, peas, squash and sweet potatoes and seems to like them all. I've noticed this time around I'm not as eager to get to the next stage, so I'm not very consistent with trying new foods. This little chunk is not lacking in nutrition, that's for sure.

These are both from Bryce's phone. I'm not sure what the one of Britton is from, but the one where Bryce is swinging from a vine is a good story! We went on a little hike one Saturday morning with a group of people from our church. I saw a vine hanging from a tree and thought we all should try to swing from it. It was on the edge of a ravine and no one wanted to go first, so I did it first to make sure the vine would hold and it sure did! It was awesome! So, everyone took a turn, and I snapped this picture of Bryce while he was doing a little Tarzan move. This might be one of my new favorite things to do :)

We hang out a lot on the floor these days. Little D makes it much more entertaining.

Britton is showing Damon his robot dog. I love his faces in these pictures!

Britton likes to involve Damon in everything he's doing. We made a fort one day and Britton wanted Damon in there with him, so we compromised so I could still see both of them. Britton loved it!

Hangin' out on the floor again. I just loved these cute pictures and had to share.

Pondering life...

Britton looked at me twice!! :)

May was a pretty chill month while we waited for Daddy to get home every day. (Most days he didn't get home before the boys went to bed.) We went on lots of walks and went to the gym, but besides that, we didn't get out much! (I kind of liked it!)

britton is reading!

2011-07-02T11:05:00.000-04:00

Britton being able to read kind of snuck up on us. We have been working on all the letter sounds and matching upper case and lower case, and then one day we were reading a book and he just sounded out a word. He totally blew me away and he just started doing it with several words. It is amazing how fast kids learn!

We had been working on words for a while, so he was a bit distracted by the time I started recording this video. I was reading with him again yesterday and he read all the words correctly, and one of them he even read while hanging upside down- haha! Last night he also read "stop" and after seeing it once he didn't have to sound it out every time he read it, he just recognized it. Kids are amazing!

Children's Museum | Philadelphia, Pa

2011-06-21T23:40:00.000-04:00

After we visited with Dave and Suzy, we headed down to Philly for Bryce to take a test. He's taken so many tests over the years they all kind of just blur together, but we are on the final countdown! Only one more shelf exam (the test at the end of each rotation) and step 2 of boards and that's it for med school. WOO HOO!!

While he was taking his test, the kids and I went to the children's museum which is connected to our membership here in RIC, so it was free. It was incredible!! It was probably 10x the size of the bigger one here in Richmond. We spent over 4 hours there and hardly touched the surface of all it had to offer. Can you believe this building is meant for kiddos??

Their water play area was enormous and put RIC's to shame!

They had an entire area just about Alice in Wonderland. Britton joined a tea party with the Mad Hatter, played golf with the flamingo heads, painted some roses red, went into a warped room, went through a hedge maze, crawled through card guards - it was so fun!! They had an entire construction area where he manned an excavator, built with bricks, and played in a dump truck.

They had an entire train station in the building, a supermarket the size of our entire smaller children's museum, a science station full of fun experiments meant for smaller kids that Britton loved, a full auto garage with real cars for them to fill with gas and tinker around with, a "central park" where you could get food and play at the playground, and a bunch of other things we didn't even get to. It was amazing!

Damon loved the lights and thoroughly enjoyed his fingers :) He was great the entire time, but I wasn't expecting anything else from this easy-going kid.

And this is the result of almost 5 hours in the gargantuan children's museum. Made for a great drive home!

Philly, I would hate to live in your city, but we LOVED you children's museum!!

home videos

2011-06-21T09:07:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to be better about taking videos as well as pictures. There's something about the movement, capturing voices, facial expressions, etc. that make me love home videos.

This was taken a few days before Damon turned 5 months, so the beginning of May.

I'm still trying to learn how to do video the best way. I'm trying to learn to manually focus while recording, how to get the best colors, if it's best to be zoomed in or out. It's really fun! I forgot to turn off auto focus before I started recording the video below, so when I manually zoom and focus it's really loud in the recording.

This was taken on a gorgeous day at the end of April, just a few weeks after Damon started rolling both ways.

Britton has been in speech therapy for a few months now. Not necessarily for his speech (enunciation), it's more like language therapy to help him form his sentences and get his thoughts across better. He has improved about 100% since this video, which was only in April. His vocabulary has always been great, but he, for whatever reason, had a hard time getting a full thought process out. He's speaking much, much better, and it makes me so happy to see improvements so quickly!

Another piece of news - BRITTON IS READING!! He reads everything he can now and it's so amazing how fast they learn! I'll get a video of that soon too.

you can never be outside too much with boys

2011-06-17T11:49:00.000-04:00

Britton loves dirt, loves to get dirty, and loves being outside. He usually spends hours outside every day. One of the projects we did earlier in the spring was planting monkey grass along the sidewalk. Until we finally had time to plant the grass, there was a long strip of dirt perfect for Britton to play in and find ants. He also made a "castle" around the feather :)

Finding lots of bugs. I give him jars to collect some of the bugs he finds.

His face is somewhat clean here, but usually by the end of the day he has dirt streaks all over him.

We're so glad when Daddy comes home!

Every afternoon we're home, Britton patiently waits for our mail lady to make her rounds around the neighborhood, and our cul-de-sac is her last stop. Britton rides out, watches her drive around, and is my little mail man. He's so excited every day he gets the mail and brings it to me. He and the mail lady are good friends and she has brought him a toy mail truck and lots of treats.

Winter babies are hard because you're cooped up for so long. It was funny watching Damon at first when we would come outside because it was so bright and he'd just look around in awe - haha.

Here's to crossing our fingers that this summer isn't like last summer (bloody hot!) and that we can spend a lot more time outside without baking in 100+ degree weather!

damon laughing | May 31st

2011-06-13T23:03:00.000-04:00

As a parent, this is one of the sweetest sounds you could ever hear. There is something special about this boy and his sweet nature! We couldn't love him more.

scranton, pa | part 2 - easter

2011-06-09T14:47:00.001-04:00

It's hard being away from family during holidays, so we were so happy we could spend Easter with Dave and Suzy. We went to their church, then came back and got ready for the egg hunt. I neglected to get any pictures of us in our "Easter best," but Suzy snapped this one of Britt and Knox (thanks Suzy!)

Stuffing the eggs - I'm glad Britt didn't mind stuffing the eggs he'd be hunting in a few minutes! :)

These 2 were so great about sharing their candy! They'd find the eggs and just give it to the other. It was very cute.

Here's Suzy showing off her extra-strong thighs - haha. And our little family right before we left.

Thanks for having us Tranters!!

Damon at 4 months

2011-06-09T11:46:00.000-04:00

27 inches (95%), 17 lbs 3 oz. (90%)

Head circumference: 17 inches (60%)

I figured since now he's almost 5 months, I should go ahead and post this!

Damon is a big boy! He is much chubbier than Britton ever was, and I love it! I love his squishy cheeks and thighs. :) He was nice to me when he was born because his head was only in the 9th percentile, and it's slowly getting to be a good sized Egbert head :) The doctor was surprised at how big he was and showed me on the charts how he was consistently above 90%. I guess I just make really big babies since I've had 2 in the huge category so far!

A little bit about Damon:

He is still the sweetest baby. Of course he has his moments, but they're few and far between.

He only cries when he's tired. And it's not just crying, he shrieks a loud and piercing shriek. It usually lasts about 30 seconds, and then he falls asleep.

He found his feet and tries to suck on them all the time.

He has learned to scoot. I don't know how I feel about this.

He rolls and scoots and moves all over the place. I'll put him down and he never stays where I put him.

When we put him in his crib he moves all over the place. We have a video monitor and he's learned to scoot over to it and start playing with the camera. It makes for some funny faces and pictures through the monitor!

He loves Britton.

He's very easy to laugh and is always very smiley.

He's a big flirt with older women. :)

He likes to sleep on his belly. It scares me, but now that he's rolling all over the place, there's not much I can do about it!

He is starting to mimic and has lip-smacking down.

He sleeps best in his swing, which is okay with me so I don't have to hook him up to his monitor during naps.

He is grabbing anything and everything now. And if it's not close enough to him, he just scoots over to it until he can grab it.

No teeth yet!

He loves a noise-making teething cloth and we have it with us everywhere we go.

He's really ticklish and likes Bryce's beard.

He has the cutest smile and it fills up his whole face.

He has a bald patch behind his right ear. Very strange.

He talks and babbles a lot already.

Anytime we put him in his swing or bouncy seat, we have to buckle him down. He's the kamikaze boy and tries to escape by flipping over in the seat. I'm tellin' ya, this kid is STRONG.

He's been rolling both ways since he was 3 months old and he just keeps getting stronger every day. He'll be sitting up and crawling in no time.

We are just smitten with our little man!

a little photo shoot with my boys {in scranton, pa}

2011-06-09T11:11:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned before, our house gets hardly any natural light. While in Scranton, I took advantage of Dave and Suzy's big front window to snap a few pictures of her boys and mine. Here are my cute boys...

I absolutely LOVE this picture of Damon. It looks like he's doing a little Taebo punch, and I love the wink and smirk. This is frame-worthy, and one of my all-time favorites. :)

His little fists are always up by his mouth, and most of the time getting sucked on. He always has his fingers in his mouth - sometimes 4 at a time.

I love his toes... but who can resist baby toes? Britton's toes were just like Bryce's from the time he was born; Long, monkey-like and they were all crooked for some reason (and still are!) They were adorable, but not the normal pudgy, small baby toes. I don't know whose toes Damon has, but they're just perfect!! And I love his big eyes.

Damon has always been a little super baby as far as holding his head up.

We tried snapping some of Britton too, and with about 30 pictures, here are the ones we got that actually worked.

My silly boy. I love this boy's energy because he's hilarious, and his pictures always turn out funny so you can see his personality... he's all over the place!

And a good smile... pictures like this are one-in-a-million, so I treasure them.

And finally, both of my boys together. Damon is just in love with Britton. It's so sweet and I hope it always stays that way. Britton really loves Damon too, and now that he's moving more, he's more entertaining. Britton's always trying to do things to make Damon laugh.

are you my mother??

2011-06-08T17:38:00.001-04:00

This is a little video Bryce took while we were in Scranton. I'm so busy right now with just LIFE and I really hope to catch up soon, but to fill in the time, here's a cute video! Britton loves the book "Are You My Mother," and he's quoting it right here. (I remember "reading" books from memory when I was little, so it's so crazy to know I now have a child old enough to do the same thing!)

"Are you my mother?" he asked the chicken.

"I'm not your mother, I'm a chicken!"

"Are you my mother?" he asked the dog.

"I'm not your mother, I'm a dog!"

"Are you my mother?" he asked the cow.

"I'm not your mother, I'm a cow!"

"Are you my mother?"

"Yeah!"

So cute :)

Kids say the darndest things

2011-05-26T15:39:00.001-04:00

Britton is now at the lovely "honesty" age, where they say what they see and don't know when to keep their mouth shut. It's hilarious afterwards, but I have no idea how to react in the moment!

There are some things that he has said just this past week.

Today while walking out of the bouncy play place, we walked by an older (kind of scary-looking) toothless lady and Britton was just staring at her. He then turned to me and said in awe, "Mommy... is that a witch???" Right when she walked by. I about snorted I was trying so hard not to laugh.

A few days ago at Wal-Mart we passed by a man in a wheelchair, who I'm pretty sure didn't really need the wheelchair... Anyway, Britton kept yelling at me to stop, I asked why, and he said, "I want to watch the sad chair man."

Bryce and I were talking around Britton about how babies are kind of like pets. Think about it, they like to chew, they slobber, they like squeaky toys, they like to be with you constantly, and you can't communicate with them, but you love them to pieces. Bryce said something about how Britton still acts like a pet sometimes and Britton looked up with a stern look on his face and said, "Hey!! I'm not a pet, I'm a big boy!" They always make you think they're not listening.

I missed a turn the other day and said crap in the car. Britton said, "Why'd you say crap?" I had to backtrack and say, "Uh... not crap, I said map! Yes, map!"

While at the park, I was pushing Britt on the swings and while at the top of the arch he said, "Mommy, I see black people!!" As loud as he possibly could. I don't even know where he learned that! When do kids start categorizing people by color? I have never mentioned race to him or tried to point it out, but kids certainly do catch on, don't they?

Oh the things that come out of kids' mouths. It's really hilarious how they see the world.

scranton, pa | part 1

2011-05-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

Easter weekend, we headed up to Scranton, PA to spend some time with Bryce's cousin Dave, his wife Suzy, and their 2 boys Knox and Wes. Bryce was taking a test in Philadelphia the Monday after Easter and we figured we'd make it a fun trip too. I really wish we could have spent more time up there because we had a great time. Thanks again guys!!

Here's Britton on the drive up. Of course I couldn't get a normal looking face out of him :) Thank goodness for DVD players. It made the drive a lot better for everyone - except Damon.

Bryce concentrating on the drive - his profile looks very mean and intense right here... haha

Potty break! Usually Britton has a very strong bladder so he can go forever without having to go potty, but he informed us that he really, really had to go. This is the great thing about boys!! We pulled right over and went asap.

Suzy and I took the little boys shopping one morning while the older boys studied together. (Dave is in PA school.) After one store Suzy and I were worn out! Having 4 boys with us was a LOT to take care of! We went to this cool store called the Christmas Tree Shoppe or something like that and it had everything you could imagine. I ended up finding cute curtains (that ended up not working :( ) and the most ADORABLE wall hanging that will be going in the boys' room in the next house. Yes, their next room is already planned. I have lost all drive to do anything with my house since we know we're moving in less than a year. But, the next one is already getting planned! Anywho, Suzy got some cute pillows, and we both found some awesome tupperware.

The babies hanging out. They're only a week apart in age!

Britton and Knox were having a little too much fun together :)

Once the older boys were done studying and came home, we went to a train park. Knox and Britton are both in the train stage right now, and it was free national park week (yay for being cheap! (: ) They had so much fun, but it was actually really interesting for the adults too. This train, for example, was HUGE!! Britton is about 41 or 42 inches tall... and that train is still towering over him. It's one of the biggest trains ever made and it was so big it was only allowed on a few tracks across the whole country. Seriously, I was blown away.

They're deeply discussing if this is Mavis or Diesel from Thomas and Friends...

I love it when kids aren't sick of me taking their picture so they actually look at me! It's impossible to get pictures of Britton these days.

This picture of Knox and Britton was not planned. Britton loves maps, so he sat down and looked at the map and Knox followed suit. It was cute because he kept looking over at Britton to see if he was doing it right :)

They look like 2 old men on a park bench.

This train was left open and they cut away at parts so you could see how all the innards worked. I never knew trains were so interesting. And we went into one room that didn't look off limits or anything, it just looked like part of the museum, but it was so dusty and loud! There was a fire going on somewhere, some engines were running, and I could hardly breathe from all the exhaust or whatever was in there. We don't know if we were supposed to be in there or not... but it didn't last long!

The boys were loving running around inside the trains. Again, some of the upper class traveling cars were so cool! And the cute Tranter family, minus Wes in his stroller.

The mail car.

2 of my cute boys.

It was a beautiful, fun day in PA!

Family Pictures

2011-05-22T19:52:00.000-04:00

This year my sister, Triest, took our family pictures. She was nervous about taking them, but she did a great job. I didn't need a ton of pictures like I do during my photoshoots, I just needed a few good ones of all of us. My mom got me a Groupon for a 16x20 canvas that expires at the end of May, so we had a deadline, and we found the perfect picture to fill it! (And the rest of the empty frames around my house.) We went to the U of R campus - oh I love that campus. It's one of the prettiest spots in Richmond, I think.

This is the one we're using on the canvas.

This is totally not posed - and I love it. He's not doing his annoying "cheese" face with his scrunched nose and it just shows how my sweet boy is when he's just himself.

I couldn't decide if I liked the b&w or color more. Opinions?

I thought this picture was great. So many parents get stressed during photo sessions because their kids aren't sitting perfectly still and smiling for the camera, but that's not how sessions go with kids!! Here was a picture Triest snapped when both kids needed a "water break" :)

This was a runner-up, but Damon wasn't looking.

I love this one of my boys! Again with b&w and color.

Damon's head looks so bald right here! His head was in the 9th% (so much nicer than Britton's enormous head!) when he was born and is now above 80%, so it grew a ton!! He still has all the hair he was born with, his head has just gotten so big it looks sparse. More hair has grown in since then - thank goodness! :)

I love when we get a picture of Britton's actual smile! He is such a cute boy, but I guess I am a little biased.

Thanks Twee for taking our pictures!! Ya dun good.

(All photos still edited by me.)

Damon rolling | 4-18-11

2011-05-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

This is kind of old news, but I haven't posted anything about it yet. Damon's always been an extremely strong baby. Since he was first born, he's been able to hold up his head and was only wobbly for a few weeks before he could steadily hold it up. He rolled from his belly to his back in February (so early!) and then surprised us in April by rolling from his belly to back. Britton didn't do that until he was about 5 months old! He was just over 3 months - this kid is seriously strangely strong.

Here's a little video I took on April 21st when he hadn't mastered getting his arms out from under him yet

Britton loves to cheer him on and coo and giggle at him - it's really cute. Now that Damon is smiling and laughing, Britton loves to play with him. He dances and does silly things trying to get him to laugh, but he doesn't have to work hard because Damon LOVES Britton. I can be playing with Damon and no matter what I'm doing, if Britton walks in the room or if Damon hears his voice he starts looking all around trying to find him. He can be screaming so loud, but if Britton comes by him, he stops and stares in awe. I hope that brotherly love continues because they are so adorable together.

The other day, I made a tent for Britton and he wanted Damon to come in with him. I sat Damon up in his Bumbo and half put him in the tent so I could still see him and Britton was giggling so hard showing Damon all his toys. He was so excited that Damon was "playing" with him! It'll be great when Damon can actually play back. My boys are cute together!

damon's big scare

2011-05-17T17:42:00.000-04:00

I mentioned a few posts ago about Damon's ~~little~~ terrifying health scare he gave us. Here's what happened...

The night we got back from Utah we went to bed like normal and we were all exhausted. Bryce woke up at 6am for no reason and decided to check on Damon. We brought our monitors to Utah with us so we hadn't set them up again at home yet. He was hoarsely screaming, he was really sweaty, his face was pale, his arms were rigid to his sides and his legs were limp. Limpness in babies is NOT good. Bryce picked him up and still he was completely limp, his eyes weren't focusing on anything and he wasn't responsive to us. This is how Britton acts when he has his febrile seizures. We put him in a bath (more like Bryce put him in the bath while I start panicking in the corner,) to stimulate him and he starts to come to, his arms relax, and his legs start kicking. We were so nervous to let him out of our sight.

It's called an ALTE. Apparent Life Threatening Event.

There's no real explanation for what happens, but it's a red flag and can be a precursor to SIDS.

We took him to 2 ERs that day to get him tested and we wanted to get him admitted so he could be monitored overnight. Let's just say the ER docs were not impressive. The one we went to at MCV (Bryce's school) wrote in his note "fussy baby, parents concerned." REALLY!?!? Not once did we say anything about him crying and the resident that saw us before the doctor came in got this belittling look on her face and said, "Awww... is this your first baby?" like she was treating us like over-concerned, first-time parents. No ma'am! It's our second, our first gets seizures, Bryce is a student at this hospital, and his dad is an ER doc who would admit a baby with this same story in a second! Bryce literally fought the ER doc for 10 minutes so we could just stay in the ER for Damon to be monitored. It was quite ridiculous.

Luckily, his pediatrician actually realized the severity of the situation and ordered an EEG, an esophageal test (barium swallow) testing for reflux, and prescribed an apnea monitor, which he has to wear every night to monitor his breathing and heart rate. If he stops breathing or something strange happens, it sets off a piercing alarm. The alarm has gone off twice, both false alarms, but boy does that thing make your adrenaline pump!!

The first test he got was the barium swallow to test for reflux, which could have caused a choking episode. The results were perfect. Cross that off! This test was really sad because they had to tape him to a board so he wouldn't move. Poor kid!

The next test was the EEG to monitor for any signs of seizure-like activity. I don't really know the technical words for explaining it, Bryce would know better, but it all came back perfectly as well. This test just looked sad with all the wires stuck to his head.

He sat like that for about 45 minutes while they were tracking his brain activity.

When they took off the wires, he had all the jelly and gauze stuck to his head. It looked funny, but so sad at the same time. Babies should never have to go through things like this!

The results all came back perfect. Nothing is wrong with him, the ATLE was totally random. It was very scary, but we are so grateful everything looks perfect with him. We really love having the monitor because it gives us peace of mind at night.

For any parents or soon-to-be parents, I would really suggest this monitor. The peace of mind is worth every penny, in my opinion. I wouldn't wish the worry and stress of this on anyone! I am grateful every day that our sweet boy is still growing perfectly and hasn't given us any more major scares.

Springtime

2011-05-10T16:14:00.000-04:00

Spring in Virginia is the best - minus the enormous amounts of pollen that turn everything neon green. It's so nice to let Britton play outside again, the flowers are gorgeous, the Dogwoods are amazing, and I love when everything turns bright green. But, Britton playing outside is really the best part. He gets so worn out! :)

Here are some pictures of Damon to start us off...

Now, back to spring. Our cherry tree is amazing. We love it. I say that every year we've been here.

I love our dogwoods too.

Triest, this picture makes me think of you. :)

Here, Britt is giving the ants a "bath." I imagine in A Bug's Life how the ants run for their lives when the rain starts, but he just wants to wash them off! Haha

This first picture is when I asked him to look at the camera. He huffed and turned around - little stinker! He had no choice in the swinging picture!

We were playing in the backyard and I grabbed his shovel full of dirt and started chasing him saying, "I'm going to put it in your hair!!!" After a few minutes of chasing him, I put the shovel down, then he snuck up behind me and tried to chuck the dirt in the shovel at me and said, "No! I'm going to put it in YOUUUUR hair!!!" as he was laughing like a crazy boy. This kid cracks me up.

Then, we proceeded to the front yard and driveway. I pulled out the chalk and told him to lay down as I traced him. He thought it was so cool!! Our driveway looked like a murder scene with all the trace marks on it. He kept asking me over and over to keep tracing him.

Then Daddy came home and he jumped in too.

And Britton requested that he trace Daddy.

Then we went on a little bike ride around the block. It was the perfect spring day!

Triest came out to Virginia a few days after I left Utah. It was great to get to spend more time with her. We went to the Grahams (her in-laws that live about 10 minutes away) one night for a BBQ dinner. Our connection with them is awesome. Ross and Triest have been friends since they were 7. Catherine and I are the same age and have been friends since... forever. Julia is our favorite babysitter, but I feel so bad because I remember teasing her with Catherine when I would go play at their house when I was little. Sorry Julia! I love Bruce and Theresa, and they're technically like family. It's great to have some "family" away from family.

There's always so much to do in the spring. It's so much fun!

The afterparty

2011-05-09T21:57:00.000-04:00

After the blessing, my family and Bryce's family headed to BYU for dinner and the BYU volleyball game. When we were getting ready to go we couldn't find Britton. After a second of panic, we realized he was just outside swinging with Papa. I thought it was so cute and I'm glad I had my camera on me! Both of them looked like they were having a grand old time.

We ate at the SAB on campus above Legends Grille. It was nice to have both families together!

Rufie and B

Both my B-boys

Britton was lovin' the Italian ice. I really like how this picture isn't focused...

My mom and Damon

These guys have incredible verticals!!

Britton really loved it. We've been working on his volleyball swings at home and we were showing him how the players do quick balls and high balls just like him. Gotta train 'em early! :)

...........................

The next day while the boys were at the priesthood session, the girls all hung out. We ordered Chinese food and played games. Jessie and I didn't plan this outfit matching. :)

How did we keep 2 3-year-olds entertained??

Papa and Mimi with their growing bunch of grandkids! It is very hard getting a picture of all 4 kids looking decent, and this was the best looking picture out of about 10 I took. I love how Damon and Miles are looking in opposite directions and Britton and Joce both have their legs kicked up. This group will be lots of fun as they get older!

It was a VERY fun trip to Utah. And a big thank-you to Momma E for letting me use her car! I have to say that I am definitely sold on my minivan though. Her Pilot was way too tall to put kids in car seats easily, and NOTHING is better than automatic sliding doors. I am still so, so grateful for the freedom I had of using a car while I was there though. Now that Bryce and I have established the "come to us" rule except for if you're family, my trips are a lot less stressful and I always leave feeling sad that I couldn't stay longer. We love our families and can't wait to live closer to them again!!

Damon's Blessing

2011-05-09T18:07:00.001-04:00

On April 1st, we blessed Damon in Woodland Hills. We decided it would be easier if we came to Utah instead of worrying about everyone coming to Virginia. Spring is always a busy time for everyone and the only time everyone would be home was conference weekend.

Here's the man of the hour before everyone arrived. I love his little smirks.

The Van Leeuwens

The Egberts - minus Kyle & Frannie, Sam and Jess

please ignore my bad hair day.

All the men who helped in the blessing - Damon has some great examples in his life!

4 generations of Larres. Smurf (Larre Sr.), Bryce (middle name Larre), Bryce's dad (Larre Dean, goes by Dean), and little Damon Larre.

Great-Grandpa Van Leeuwen, Great-Grandpa Egbert, Damon, Bryce, Grandpa Egbert, Grandpa Van Leeuwen.

Bryce and his boys

We got a smile out of Britton :)

It was so great to be with most of the family, and a very special day for our family. It's amazing how many great men we have in our families, who are such great examples to our boys. I love how the blessing brought our families together for such a sweet gathering.

We love our little Dame!

playing at the park with joce

2011-05-07T23:28:00.001-04:00

Now that Britton and Joce are older, they play so well together! It was a little touch-and-go for a while when they were younger, but they really get along great now. Britton is always hard-core boy, except when he's around Jocey. It's really cute to watch how nice he is around her :) Andrea and I took the kids to a park one day. We were the only ones there and it was nice to let the older kids run around while we chatted on a bench by the babies.

They were on the swings for a long time. Andrea and I were chatting while they were chatting and singing the alphabet song together. I recorded a little bit of it, but it kind of makes you dizzy because they swing in and out of focus the whole time - haha.

I was amazed at how daintily Joce runs around, and Andrea was amazed at how much of a monkey Britton is. It's just engrained in boys and girls to be that way!

It was a fun day at the playground with the cousins!

hanging out with family in utah

2011-05-07T22:40:00.000-04:00

Bryce and I decided that our trips to Utah had gotten too stressful. Not only do we have to fly across the country, but then everyone expects us to come to them while we're in town. Not happening. So, if they wanted to see us (besides family), they can come to us. Especially when I was there without Bryce with both boys! So, this results in a lot of family time, which is GREAT because that's what we mostly want anyway :)

My mom and I went on a few shopping trips the first few days I was in town. Britton is a champ, and lucky for us, Damon was still mostly sleeping. We spent a long time in the DownEast in Sandy, and after about 2.5 hours Britton finally said, "Huff! I'm so tired!! Let's go Mommy!" in the whiniest voice possible with his shoulders slumped - haha! It was hilarious. He was being so patient, but I think boys learn early to hate shopping. He's still so cute though!

Bryce and I have decided that we will, from now on, always have lots and lots (and lots and lots) of natural light in our houses. We have ZERO natural light in our house right now and it drives me crazy because our pictures are always so awful indoors. This picture of Damon was taken at my parents house in their living room, which is basically walls of windows. Ahh, so perfect.

The first night I was in town, I convinced Andrea and Jessie to try sushi with me. We went to this yummy place in American Fork and while I was enjoying, they weren't 100% sold. They did eat it and I think they liked it, but were grossed out at the same time... we're trying it again ladies!! Next time, Frannie will be with us and we just won't get the real stuff. :) Here's our platter.

Andrea and I had our boys with us. Miles was nice and happy... Damon - not so much.

Thanks for this picture Jessie!

One of Britton's favorite things about my parents' house is the tub. He loves taking baths in these huge tubs - it's like a kiddie pool!

He's been pulling this Popeye look a lot lately - ha! Funny kid.

Damon spent a lot of his time like this. Poor kid, we were constantly going somewhere, so a lot of the time I didn't even bother taking him out of his seat to nap. (And holy cow, this was only a month ago and he looks so tiny!)

I was there too!! (Again, that natural light is amazing!!!)

And my trip would have been a lot more stressful if it weren't for grandparents that LOOOVE playing with my kids. I hardly saw Britton during the trip because he was running around either one of the grandparents' houses playing or off on some adventure with them.

These boys love to jump, and run, and move, and throw, and jump some more. They love to jump so much they even broke my parents' couch, in 2 places! No more monkeys...

Only at a grandparent's house can a kid get away with eating popcorn for breakfast. I came upstairs after my parents let me sleep in a little bit and saw Britton loving life watching Dora, without a shirt, and a tub of popcorn. He was a happy, happy boy! :)

.........................

The boys and I drove up to Bryce's grandparents house one morning so they could finally meet Damon. My boys are so lucky to have so many great-grandparents in their lives! Here little Dame is with Mumsie and Smurf (what we call B's grandparents, I don't really know why, but I've never heard them called anything else!)

Bryce's grandpa, grandma, dad, and me with the kiddos. There are 3 of the 4 generations of Larre in this picture. (Said like Larry. Smurf always jokes that it's Larr-E not Larr-why!)

Larre the 1st with Larre the 4th :)

Britton was very shy when we first got there, but warmed up to Smurf as soon as he started playing hide and seek with him. It got him laughing, and then they were automatically best buds.

And all best buds do the wheelbarrow. I never remember my great-grandparents playing with me! I love this picture :)

The grandparents and great-grandparents. Lucky, lucky kids.

Smurf and Britt.

Mumsie and Little Dame. Gotta love the glare!

We are so lucky to have so many amazing people in our families!

BYU volleyball game

2011-04-28T17:58:00.000-04:00

The day after we arrived in Utah, we went to the BYU volleyball game with my dad's company, Stratus, which is basically like just saying we went with the family. My brother-in-law and brother work there, my uncle and cousin work there, I used to work there, and once all their families come, it's basically a family get together. We ate at the SAB on campus while watching the basketball game, then walked right over to the Smith Fieldhouse for the volleyball game.

We snapped these pictures when someone was talking to Damon. I love how his face totally lights up :)

I love having a baby again!!! It's amazing how not having insomnia really makes life a lot more enjoyable :)

Me and my siblings.

Snapped this cute picture during dinner

I love BYU volleyball. Those guys are amazing. The action shots are the best because you get to see how high these guys jump.

And, I thought this picture was cool of my dad.

It was a fun BYU-filled night!

March Vacay Part 1

2011-04-28T17:31:00.000-04:00

My life has been crazy. It's been good, but a little crazy. I felt like the world was spinning out of control for a minute, but it's starting to get back to normal (minus me being sick... who gets sick when it starts to get warm finally?!) I had so many photoshoots, so much cleaning, so much to do with the kiddos and so few hours in a day. I wish I was like Elastagirl from The Incredibles: my arms could be all over the house doing what needs to be done and I'd never get tense from stress, right? :)

Mid-March my mom came out for a little visit. We had fun playing with the boys, enjoying the warm weather, shopping, she tempted me off my diet hard-core, and just hanging out. It was a low-key trip and it was fun to have her here.

We went on a few walks, and here are some pictures around the neighborhood. I feel like Damon's whole view of the world has been from this car seat. He just gets lugged everywhere, poor kid! But he sure is a handsome little guy!

Britton loves his trike. He's very good on the roads and knows when he sees a car, he needs to pull to the side and stop and wait. He's such a good kid! And he's so stinkin' cute on his bike.

The Bradford Pears were blooming and Britt wanted to smell the flowers. But those trees STINK and this was the face he pulled when he smelled them - haha!

The daffodils are always the first sign of spring.

We went to Short Pump to check out H&M and made a stop at the fountain. I think every kid in Richmond loves this fountain. And Britt has been loving super heros and does lots awesome punch and kick moves. Luckily, he doesn't try to actually hit anyone yet.

The best part of my mom coming out was that I had help on the flight out to Utah. I don't know how people fly alone with their kids!! I could finally handle Britton by myself, but he is easily entertained with an iPod. If she hadn't been there, I think I would have cried about 12 times. Thanks for helping, Mom!

Next up, Utah!

Kind of obsessed

2011-04-18T10:30:00.000-04:00

Bryce and I are currently obsessed with this song. Enjoy.

The perfect storm

2011-04-14T23:48:00.000-04:00

Today was one of those days where I was stressed to the max all day, everything was going wrong, and it was going wrong all at the same time. Everyone needed me at the same time, I had to get about 15 things done, but I had my kiddos with me which makes everything take about 10x longer to do, I have a million things on my to-do list, things kept popping up, Bryce is working longer hours plus studying for a big test this week so he can't give me much help... AHHH!!! I seriously couldn't think straight by 2pm.

Then I saw this.

So simple. I got rid of all my plans. Tomorrow, I plan on being on the floor 90% of the day playing with my boys. I'm going to play trains and cars and wrestle and dig in the dirt and pull silly faces and talk baby talk and give lots of kisses and hugs and love on my boys.

Every once in a while I need a little wake up call to realize I'm human, I can't do everything all at once, my boys won't always be this age and they won't always think I'm the coolest person on the planet, and even though I know they know I love them, I need to show it a little more. The dishes can wait, my projects can wait, but I can't resist my sweet 3 year old saying, "Please play with me, Mommy??"