Yay! Family Pictures

We got together with some great friends Sunday evening and had family photos taken. I wanted to show them off--I think they are just so fun and awesome--casual and not all "stuffy." We were there with 5 couples, and everyone got some great great shots...I think we had the least amount of good ones, but we were the only ones with three kids...have you ever tried a family photo with three kids aged 4 and under? ENJOY!! (ps, these were taken by Jon Oliver, for those of you who know him).

This was actually the last one taken--after trying for 30-45 minutes to get these guys to pose and smile in the others

This was our favority family picture out of all of them

Here's the winner out of the Kalen photos


This was an attempt to get mom and boys, and I ended up liking it a lot because it reminded me of my daily activities

Here's the best of Brady

And this was a great one of dad and boys

This would have been my favorite family photo, but Brady decided to act like a monkey and pick 'bugs' out of Kalen's hair as the flash went off

Aren't they adorable? Our only regret is that we somehow missed getting one of just me and Brian...that's so sad, but Sarah says there will be many more opportunities (she and Jon need to practice on someone) :-)

Rain Puddles and Brothers

Let's just say I've been inspired by my sisters-in-law. They are photography experts-in-training, and they make beautiful pictures. I wish I had an eye for it, really, and one day I hope to learn from them, but it's not a huge-priority right now. However, on this particular day I said to myself (as I was sitting on an upside down bucket watching my boys play in the puddles), "That would probably be a pretty cool picture." I ran inside, grabbed my camera and came up with these two shots, and I'm pretty proud of them...taken by me...the first one un-edited. The second one came out brighter than I had hoped, so on my dad's recommendation, we turned it black and white, but highlighted Brady's beautiful red hair.

I think they bring out the simplicity of life: children, with no worries or cares, doing what they do best--playing. Kalen and Brady love splashing in puddles...and sometimes, despite my inward mom-ness wanting to say, "No, guys, don't get dirty/don't get wet," sometimes I feel that I should just let them be boys and get dirty. You know? Those are the simple, sweet times that always turn out to be the ones I enjoy the most.

Yay for Brian

See the letter we got in the mail...

For those of you who may not be able to read it, it is a letter congratulating Brian for getting higher than a 3.5 GPA his first semester! He loves his schooling, and it makes me so happy that he's found a passion; he knows what he wants to do in the future, and it's going to be a job he'll really enjoy waking up for. He needs that, otherwise he'd be too tempted to stay home with his amazing and beautiful wife :-) I'm so proud of him.

A Pinocchio Tale

Tonight at dinner I told Kalen I wanted to start doing more individual "learning time" with him and Brady during the day. I told him I wanted to teach him his lowercase letters and I wanted to teach Brady his colors. When I mentioned I was going to use M&M's to teach Brady colors, Kalen said he needed to learn his colors as well. I said, "Kalen, you've known your colors for over 2 years now...you don't need to practice colors." He said he's forgotten them, so I asked him what color the tablecloth was. He said, "Www. See...I only know the first part of the color." Teasingly, I said, "Kalen, your nose is growing right now because you're lying...just like Pinocchio." He smiled too and that was that--for the moment anyways.

We started talking about other things, but about 15 minutes later he looked up from his food and said, "Mom, I'm not going to lie anymore. The tablecloth is white." I was surprised and said, "Thanks Kalen, I know you won't." Then, a minute later and completely serious, he asked "Did my nose go back to normal?"

First Nosebleed Ever

I just wanted to document that Trace got his first nosebleed ...and it was given to him by...(drumroll please)...BRADY! (Did you think it would be anyone else?)

I wasn't home. Brian called me laughing because none of our boys have ever had a nosebleed and it had to have happened to the little one. Brian isn't sure exactly what happened, except that he was in the living room with the boys, heard Trace start crying, looked over at him, Brady was next to him, and there was blood. Needless to say, Brady was very apologetic...he just tries to love on him a bit too much I think.

Sorry I don't have pictures. Boys!

Love Wall

For Valentine's, my sister-in-law made a "LOVE" banner with her family--and they hung it to remind them to show Love one to another. Since then, I have been meaning to do something like that for us, especially since Kalen and Brady are at the point where they seem to get on each other's nerves a lot lately. Here's what we came up with--it started with just hearts saying LOVE. We put it on the wall, then we decided to add hearts with our little family names on them, then it expanded to the extended family...and we still have more to do. We got done with first cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Next comes great grandparents, and even more extended family, but I just wanted to post a picture. (P.S--Kalia's name is wrong in this picture...I had it right, but thought it was wrong and changed it--took a picture, and then found out it was right in the first place...oh well!)

I've really enjoyed having a reminder of our family--the people we love, and the people who love us--right up on our wall in the room where we kneel together at night to say our thanks to Heavenly Father. It just makes us happy.

Cousin Devin

We were able to have two FUN days with Devin this week. He's the boys' cousin and is only 5 months older than Kalen. They had so much fun I wanted to put up some pictures of them playing together. I'm so happy we live close.

I came into the bathroom (after turning off the water at a normal deepness in the tub) to find that they had turned it back on and each time the boys moved the wather sloshed over the side of the tub--it was so high, but they had so much fun.

This picture displays the reason they had to take a bath: Devin wanted to be a blue power ranger, Kalen wanted to be a Tiger Transformer--hence the TF on this forehead, and Brady wanted to be a power ranger like Devin, but once he saw Kalen running around growling, he decided to be a growler as well--so I turned him into a "tiger/cheetah power ranger"...if there is such a thing.

Devin is AWESOME with baby Trace--always wanting to hold him and carry him around, and Trace just loves Devin. He smiles all the time at him--a lot like he smiles at Kalen...nothing like how he screams when he sees Brady ;-)

Pals 4-EVER