August

August was a good month. We got to relax a bit from all the house renovations and unpacking since most of the painting and the main bathroom were done by now. The girls love the backyard and I love that I can kick them out of the house to, as my mom used to say, get the stink off them. We mostly hung out around the house but did get to go to a wedding of a good friend where Kami was a flower girl. She was thrilled to wear a pretty dress and we had tons of fun at a beautiful wedding.

Brooklyn is talking a ton with lots of words that we can translate for other people ("candy" is one of her favorite words) and Kami is still amazing us with her smarts. She loves anything science-oriented like space, the human body, and all sorts of animal shows. She is getting better at writing letters and is starting to see things in groups of numbers instead of having to count out all the individual items. She's also pretty good with some basic addition/subtraction stuff, so hopefully in a year when we send her off to kindergarten, she'll be ready.

Work-wise, I got moved to a new branch at the end of July. This should be a more permanent position and I've learned a lot from being at four different branches in a year. Garrett is the spiritual care supervisor for a hospice company and is really enjoying it. He gets to develop most of their spiritual care programs and has about five spiritual care providers that report to him. He's also working on his second master's degree in counseling. After this, we'll see if he decides to go into a doctorate program.

Enjoy the pictures!

The almost two year old getting a little too close to the camera.

Brooklyn drinking out of her cup like a dog. Not very effective.

The girls before the wedding. Brooklyn's hair stayed this cute for about five minutes.

Close up of our sweet girl.

Kami the flower girl and her Bear-Bear at the wedding. Pretty nice, huh?

Brooklyn hammin' it up for me.

We're pretty fond of her.

Family shot.

Brooklyn not listening. Nothing new here.

Kami getting ready to swing on the rope.

Peek!

Kami concentrating very hard on her flower girl duties.

Trying to do some somersaults.

Doggie BFFs.

Getting ready to make some pizzas.

Concentrating very hard on their pizza masterpieces.

Happy (really) belated 4th of July!

Happy belated fourth of July! We had a great one and celebrated with some family and friends. We first went out to a family friend's house to do some swimming and visiting then came back home to have a meal, fireworks, and marshmallows with the four of us and Garrett's youngest brother, Trevorr. It was a pretty low-key fourth, but it was nice because we were making headway on the house and everything was unpacked.

We also got to do some traveling in July. Garrett and I went to Sun Valley by ourselves (thanks dad!) for an Avett Brothers concert. If you haven't heard of them, check them out. They're amazing live! It was a blast to be in Sun Valley all alone, but we did miss our girls. The day after the concert, we packed up and drove over to Portland, OR to visit Garrett's family. It was great seeing everyone and for Kami and Brooklyn to have some time with their extended family that we don't get to see very often. We went to IKEA (and spent too much money, but new house, new stuff, right?), went to Voodoo Donuts (I don't get the appeal...I like Albertson's donuts just fine, thank you), and got to walk through the Saturday market downtown. If we had more time, we would definitely be spending more time over there and we hope to make some more trips soon!

Enjoy all the pictures! I took a ton during fireworks, but these kids are so cute, I couldn't resist!

Brooklyn enjoyed the corn on the cob.

They both have such dorky grins.

See what I mean?

Remy hanging out far away from the fireworks.

Sadie hung out at Trevorr's feet most of the night.

These girls end up with similar expressions a lot of the time.

I guess Sadie does too.

And I wonder why these girls are such dorks...

Having fun with the sparklers.

Don't they look thrilled?

More sparkler fun.

Kami was pretty excited about the fireworks that she got to pick out. It had pink in its name, which is her favorite color.

Brooklyn lighting dad on fire.

Caught up in the fireworks.

Mom and Kami.

There were about four or five family shots taken, and this was the best of the bunch. It's tough to wrangle two girls for a good shot.

It's a team effort to light fireworks around here.

Roasting some marshmallows.

So good.

Uncle Trevorr helped Kami cool her marshmallow down.

Brooklyn's licorice mustache.

She was a sticky mess.

I somehow managed to not take any pictures in Portland except for this one where Kami was so exhausted, she fell asleep on Grandma while listening to a bedtime story.

They were all pretty excited about the new riding lawnmower.

If I can't find my phone, I know to ask Kami for it since she's usually playing games on it.

My little Cindy Lou-Who playing in the driveway.

June 2011

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing how busy we've been with moving and job changing, but this month was no exception which explains the lack of pictures this month. The weather was so nice and sunny, so the girls played outside a lot. Garrett and I stayed inside a lot and painted, cleaned, unpacked, and moved tons of furniture. We were living without the hall bathroom and dropcloths everywhere, but the basement was done and the girls had rooms to sleep in. We love being back over in Boise and close to family, but still miss lots of our Canyon County friends/family. One of these days, we'll have a party to get together!

Man, these girls are cute!

We had a pool for a while and the girls really enjoyed it. I didn't really enjoy cleaning out everything and trying to keep the dogs out of it, which is why it didn't last all summer.

B's been doing this for a while now. Kami never did, but that's why Brookyln is our "baby monster." She cleaned her bowl though, so that was nice.

Sadie, already huge, at two months.

And Remy, at three months, still tiny.

This is how a lot of the summer was spent: outside with Brooklyn watching what Kami was doing and not being able to do all of it.

Yeah, this didn't last long. It was cute for a while though.