camp fundrasier

On June 11th, we had our YW Camp Fundraiser.  We went with a "fiesta" theme, just like we had the previous year.  The girls helped make the flowers at mutual, and they all showed up to help us set-up and decorate. 

Each girl brought desserts to be auctioned off after the "complimentary nacho bar."  We made almost $2,500 with the auction!  Last year we made a ton of money, but we also did a service auction.  I was a little worried this year since we omitted the service part, and we had 23 girls going to camp.  But it totally worked out!  We have some seriously generous people in our ward who paid top dollar for baked goods.  I think the Anderson's peanut butter balls went for $300 this year!  

Love these girls...

And the lovely ladies I have the pleasure of serving with...

Each class performed a lip sync, which was hilarious.  The YW challenged the YM to "battle" them (Jimmy Fallon style), but they chose not to participate.  LAME :(

Overall, I would say it was a successful evening.  It was especially nice to check someone huge off my list!

san antonio

The day after Brookie's birthday party, we loaded up the Armada and headed down to San Antonio for a little family time with the Peacocks and G & G Meador.  Grandpa had been stockpiling his points to allow us to stay at the J.W. Marriott resort.  We went two years ago and had a fabulous time, so we were excited to go back.  They were even able to upgrade us to the ground level suite so we had a huge living room and dining area to congregate in.  Jerry gave us the room attached to the suite, which was so awesome.  I was able to lay Colby down for a nap, and the rest of us could hang out in the suite. Definitely a luxury! 

The kids were doing pretty good on the drive down, but about two hours in, Colby became pretty fussy.  As we stopped at a red light, I literally dove into the back seat to calm him down.  Although I was a bit carsick back there, I rode there with the littles to keep everyone happy.

Brooke and I took silly selfies, and Colby eventually fell asleep.

We arrived about 5, and the valet guys began unloading our car.  I went to get Colby from his car seat, and as soon as I picked him up, I felt something wet along my arm.  My little dude had the craziest blowout and I literally had poop smeared all over my arm.  I then set to work wiping him down, while Kevin handed my wipe after wipe, haha.  After we dropped our bags, we headed out to tour the grounds and have a s'more (a nightly ritual). Colby approved :)

Aubrey is my girl and was my sidekick for the majority of the evening.

Favorite memories:

Colby was sound asleep in my arms, so Daddy got to do hair duty for Brooke.  He is such a good Daddy.  Brooke was upset about something, hence the pacifier.  Looking at this picture makes me realize how old she looked to have a paci, but it was such a comfort item for her.  We ditched them all a few weeks after her birthday.

Colby's first encounter with sand...

I was pleasantly surprised with how great the kids did in the hotel room.  Brooke shared a bed with Kevin and I, and Colby slept in the pack-n-play.  He woke up a few times each night, but he did that at home too, so nothing new.

Papa bought Colby some sporty sunglasses, haha.

We checked out on June 8th (Brooke's birthday).  The morning of her birthday, I woke up super early and blew up a few dozen balloons to scatter around the suite.  I wanted the day to feel special, and I figured she would be excited to walk into a room filled with balloons.  She thought it was pretty great, and I love her happy smile in this picture.

We met everyone for breakfast, then headed out (just the 4 of us) to enjoy our last few hours before check-out.

Brooke even brought along her new harmonica that Sister Parr had given her at her birthday party!

It was then time to make the return journey back home.  The kids slept A TON on the way home, which was so nice. Kevin and I were able to talk a lot, which is something we don't always get to do. It is easy to get distracted with a toddler and a baby, so I really appreciated the time we had together.

The icing on the cake was opening one more present when we arrived home...a hot pink scooter!!

Thanks to G & G Meador for sponsoring such a fabulous family vacation!

third birthday

Brooke has been talking about her Strawberry Shortcake party forever!  I have discovered that I really love planning parties, and this was no exception. I ordered supplies from Amazon, Party City, and Oriental Trading Company. The week of the party was really stressing me out because rain was in the forecast.  This doesn't bode well for a pool party, so I tried to have a contingency plan.  I stayed up late on Friday night making a few games to play in case we had to move the party to our house.  The morning of the party, the weather was perfect and we had clear skies.  The pool was also totally empty, probably due to the potential for rain.  We were setting everything up, then the dark clouds started rolling in.  

But Brooke was beyond excited.  We had the balloons, her cake, two dozen strawberry beach balls, and those fun party blowers all ready to go.

As her friends started showing up, she was getting a little bit shy, but was also excited to have everyone there.  Everyone started swimming and things were going well...until the rain started.  It was literally pouring buckets, haha.  No thunder or lightening, but a solid 15 minutes of downpour.  It was still kind of fun to be outside (and luckily the decorations weren't ruined), but as soon as the rain stopped, the pool monitor kid announced that we would all have to get out of the pool for 30 minutes because the office manager saw lightening and heard thunder not far away.  It was so weird because it was totally sunny again...but we obeyed and had to head outside the whole gated area.  We ended up carrying the food table over to the park, and the pizza showed up at that time, so it all worked out.  Everyone enjoyed pizza, strawberries, carrots and ranch dip. We hadn't quite made it the full 30 minutes, so we decided to go ahead and do cake as well.  

I loved watching her as we lit the candles and sang the birthday song.  Her little hand in front of her face is priceless.  Thanks for the pics, Miss Danielle :)

Brooke is seriously blessed with the most amazing friends and family.  It was such a memorable afternoon for our family, and I have loved the last three years with my girl.

Those in attendance: G & G Meador, Peacocks, Myers, Sturgills, Crumptons, Smiths, Taggarts, Murrays, Richeys, and Hawkins.

And since I love a good comparison picture, here are cake pictures from the last three years...

colby-7 months

Here we are, at 7 months!  This was the first time I styled Colby's hair, and he looked like a stud. He must have been feeling it too, as seen in his pose, haha.

Just getting comfortable, Mom :)

Things to note this month: His two bottom teeth came in, he slept for 13 hours straight (His gift to me on Mother's Day), discovered his love for ice cream, learned how to drink from a cup, took a bottle from Daddy for the first time, learned how to clap, and says "Dada" a ton.

I'm having fun with his hair...

He drools so much, so he always has to wear his bandana bibs.  He kept hitting his left ear, so I was concerned that he may be getting an ear infection, but when I asked Dr. Joki, he said that a lot of times babies do that when they are teething.  They have a hard time differentiating between when the ears are hurting vs. the teeth because they are on the same nerve.  Makes sense, but it breaks my heart when he just keeps hitting his ear.  We really tried to work on getting Colby to take a bottle, and it was semi-successful.  He would take the bottle and sleep for a few hours, but then would have a hard time going back to bed.  I'm not sure if this was because he was drinking more or less milk than normal, or if it was because of his teething.  I guess we'll never know. 

These silly kids...