my baby turns one

the invitation

the birthday girl

the present from mom and dad (mainly dad)the finished productthe minnie mouse cupcakeslots of them for all her friendsthe opening of presentsthe singing of the songthe cake in the facethe finished product of messiness
baby- i love you so much. thank you for being such an angel to our family and for your smiling face. you brighten my day with your laughter, hugs, kisses, words, and everything else that you do. i am so grateful Heavenly Father sent you to me so that i could be your mommy. you are so beautiful and so smart. on top of your birthday day you started walking today too. you are all too cute and mommy and daddy love their little miss brookie.

after a week of staying home...

brody is potty trained!!!

(this is the sound of me sighing sweet success)

cousins = instant best friends

we tried to get pictures of kaden and brody together and this was the best one on my camera....maybe tiff got better shots. anyways while we were in washington there was a big surprise for us. my brother, his wife, and their two kids (one of which is still a newborn) drove across the state to come and see us. oh i cannot tell you how much that just made my day, my week, my month, everything. it was so much fun to see them and spend time with them. we got to meet our new nephew beckham who is sooo cute and cuddly. kaden and brody had such a blast playing together. kaden is the best behaved boy ever!!! he is so considerate of little brookie and he shares his toys so well. he doesnt throw fits and he says his pleases and his thank yous. he was such a doll and so fun to see more of his personality. tiffany endured my screaming children and a day helping me find a solution to fight my biggest self esteem wrecker...zits. i was so tickled to see them and spend time with them. thank you so much chris and tiff for coming to see us. it truly meant the world to me and i am so grateful for all of you.

cuddles and t-bone

my parents have cows again and their names are cuddles and t-bone. brody just loved meeting them, feeding them, petting them, etc. little does he know that next time we go to my parents house cuddles and t-bone will be in heaven...(now how do you explain that to a 3 year old?)

a trip to washington

at the end of our summer we headed to washington for a week and a half to visit my family before heading out east again. while there i didnt take nearly as many pictures as i should have. the first day as you can see we went to the zoo. besides the zoo we went to the childrens museum, a park, out to eat at the elephants deli (one of my favs), to the beach for a few days, a day to the temple, we visited lots of family and friends, ran errands with my parents, went to the county fair (i am from the country and this is a huge deal with carnival rides, shows, greasy food and yummy milkshakes), ate at burgerville (another fav), and had just so much fun being with family. thank you mom and dad for letting us come and visit you. thank you for everything you do for our family. i love you both so much and miss you already.

the grand canyon

our last week in arizona we went to the grand canyon. i had never been before and honestly there are no words to describe the beauty that i saw. how truly immense and grand it is, is something that a person has to behold with their own eyes. we had such a wonderful time being together as a family and enjoying the beauty of the earth. we did some hiking (very little), and a lot of sightseeing. the food was amazing and the company even better. thank you so much scott and karen for taking our family and letting me see the grand canyon for the first time. i cant wait to hike the rim to rim with you.