And She's Six

Can't believe our Brinley is six years old and in a few short weeks she will spend the majority of her day in the influence of the world.  I can't help but wonder if I have taught her enough.  If I'm being totally honest, I'm really quite sad about it.  I'm worried I will never see her, she'll spend the majority of the day at school and our nights will disappear with reading, homework, dinner, dishes and bed time.  With that being said, I'm really proud of this girl!  I think she's mature well beyond her years.  She's a good girl, I trust her and in her I see complete honesty and total desire to do good.  I guess she's ready to step out on her own?  Afterall, it's about time the world sees what this girl has to offer.

Brinley's first friend party was a hit!  The kids had a blast!  

 Dustin was an excellent sport and totally fit the part of a carni... "Step right up and claim your prize"

 We had games, a puppet show, carnival food,

 And Dustin and I have been itching to buy the girls a little bounce house... perfect timing!

Some of our family was there to help her celebrate and of course she had supporters from afar.  Troy, Sabra, Curtis and Whit were so great to remember her on her special day.  

Shots of Summer

I vowed not to do unproductive things while my children are awake, particularly on the internet.  L is asleep and B and I had plans to make a healthy treat, but she opted to play in her room first.  The laundry is done and I chose to ignore the dishes for now so blogging it is on this hot July day.  We have had a great summer!  A few things we have captured via my cell phone...

We run and/or ride the Logan River trail at least once a week as a family.  Often times we ride to the Farmer's Market to get our CSA share.  One week we rode all the way from our house, rather than driving to the trail head, it had to be a good 6 mile or so bike ride, that's quite a bit for a 6 year old, but Brinley did amazing.  She's one tough cookie. 

And this girl likes to help me garden, AKA play in the mud.

 We have made quite a few trips to the park

 Guess who had more fun on the teeter totter?  Mom and Dad or the girlies?  If you guessed the girlies you are sadly mistaken.  Dustin and I had a blast.

Just a picture of a cute girl and her Dad on their way home from church

We've spent a few afternoons basking in the sun at the pool

And this girl has been such a great help to me lately!  (Notice the white cabinets?  Yep, that means we are getting somewhere)

We took Lun to her first big move "Despicable Me 2"

And I've been on some spectacular dates with the guy that I love.  It's pretty great when you lay on the couch together and discuss how you have never been happier...ever. Hard work pays off and fortunately that's something we are both very good at... hard work! Marriage and relationships are not exempt from needing a little TLC.  So lucky he's mine.  

Nighttime Sky

We love to sit on the front porch and watch the sunset.  Sometimes I wonder if it looks this amazing everywhere or if there something special about our little spot on earth.

A Few Things About Our Lunnie (L-uh-nee, not L-oo-nee)

I just LOVE London at this age!  She is SO MUCH FUN!  she's so sweet and says and does the cutest things right now.  Just a few things I want to remember about London at this stage:

*Her favorite foods are "sicles" (popsicles), toast, "mannas" (bananas) and cheese

*She's a Mommy's girl!  This includes both of her Mom's because often times she calls my sister Amanda Mommy and she's just as attached to her as she is to me

*She's perfectly content to sit outside in a diaper and ride her bike

*She's friendly to everyone, always smiling, waving and saying, "HI!"

*She's little miss independent!

*She doesn't sit still for two seconds!  Honestly she doesn't.  She won't sit to watch a movie or read a book yet.  The only time I can sneak reading to her in is at the dinner table when she's still buckled into her highchair

*She loves babies, love love loves babies

*She says and does everything her big sister does

*She's a huge animal lover!  Horses and Puppies are her favorite!

*Thanks to Dustin, every time we walk into Sam's Club she says, "em sample, em sample!"  It's so ridiculous!  But on the other hand, if we can't get her to eat her dinner we often ask her if she want's a "sample" and generally it works.

You Had One Job

I love my Husband!  If I'm being honest I absolutely adore him.  He's not perfect.  We are not perfect. We are a real couple with real life problems and we love each other enough to overcome them, but dispute our problems, regardless of our differences I simply can not bash my husband.  I don't talk bad about him, ever.  I just love him too much and we are happy to overcome our differences.  Having said that, please forgive me for bashing on him a bit.  We were getting ready for church and the girls just looked so adorable!  Yeah, they are mine and I'm bias so I always think they are adorable, but I asked him to take my phone and snap a few pictures of the girls while I finished getting ready.  I forgot about it, but later that day I flipped through my phone to see the pictures... REALLY?  These are the pictures, I think I'll order enlargements right now. I love you Dustin, but it turns out you do have flaws. 

Party at Deb's

Troy and Sabra came to visit last month. At the time Mom wasn't really able to go anywhere so we brought the party to her and it was so much fun!  We all brought our trailers and camped out.  We played soccer and kickball, went shooting, roasted hot dogs and really just loved being together.  This was the most normal things have been for a long time.  It was so fun for the kids to play with all of their cousins, we aren't all together too often anymore.  The girls spent hours in the bathroom doing makeup.  Such a fun weekend at Camp Clark's.

Our 'REAL" Life

I have good intentions of writing about how I feel about life and what it's really like for us instead of posting a few short sentences and cell phone pics of some of the fun things we do.  Actually, I contemplate on shutting the blog down, just letting it go, but Dustin has reminded me as of late how important it is, so I suppose you will all continue to hear about our life, at least for now.  He has been looking back through our blog and I hear him tell Brinley stories of when she was a baby (stuff he has been reading on our blog) and sadly I don't remember half of them.  And so I am reminded that record keeping serves a purpose.  I never want to forget those little moments with our children as I have come to realize, that's really all that matters in this life.  We've just been busy, there is no other way to put it.  I hate that word and I hate that feeling, yet I use it all of the time.  I long for a life or a day where we can just be, just exist.  Sitting on the patio with my family, eating Popsicles (or sicles as Lunnie calls them)  for a few short minutes yesterday was probably the highlight of my week.  I long for more moments like that, but for now we're just too busy.  Here's why:

 This project has drug on way longer than I intended it to.  We have sadly become the people who can't park their cars in their garage and when people come over Brinley tells them, "we keep that door closed because it's such a mess in there."  True!  When it feels like we are living in constant chaos and our home is a construction zone I have to remember that when we first stepped foot on this lot it was just weeds, rocks and a few enormous old trees and then I'm dang proud of how far we have come, of this life we have created literally from the ground up. We are finally starting to get somewhere, to see light at the end of the tunnel.  I can't wait to have all of my major projects done so we can just be, so we can spend a few more minutes on the patio eating popsicles as a family.

These amazing garden boxes were a gift from my amazing husband.  Isn't he awesome?  I designed them and he made it happen.  We really do make such a great team!  

Look Who's a Big Girl Now

Busy Little Hands

We took our girls to one of Home Depot's kids workshops.  Dustin was great to help them, they had fun hammering, pounding and gluing there crayon holders.  

First Camping Trip of the Year

We took our trailer to Franklin Basin over Memorial Weekend.  It's so pretty up there.  The girls had a blast!  London is a handful, Brinley said she didn't get "one bit of sleep"  because London was up playing all night.   Sure love these busy little girls of mine!