sweet home

... when Grandpa comes!"
We had lots of fun with Grandfather when he was here for the weekend.
Mostly he came to participate in the blessing of our sweet baby Deanne Abigail, but we did some other great stuff too.


Like playing Wii Party, Sleeping Queens and Blokus:
Working on my amazing sand collection. My super terrific mother in law had this sand collection holder thing made for me and it's perfect. Except you couldn't see the sand so I'm in the process of painting it black at the moment. My dad brought me 40 something bags of sand from all over the world. A lot of it I had collected but donated to his collection so my Utah family members (everyone but me) got together and put about a tablespoon of each sand in a baggie. Then my dad and I transferred it to the tiny jars. He also bought me a label maker and now I want to label everything. Martha would be proud don't ya think? It's beautiful:
More baby just because:
And hooray the giant baby fit in the blessing dress. And Lewis didn't accidentally name her Cheeks McGee (but he easily could have because look at those cheeks). The blessing was so special. It was beautiful and sad at the same time because I love that she has my mom's name but it doesn't really make up for my mom being gone. That still sucks. I know she's wishing she could chew on these baby cheeks all day long so I do it for her.
We ate lots of good food. Including the taco truck (he said they were authentic real Mexican tacos) and Saw's bbq because their ribs are the most tender and their sauces are super super good. Both the white and regular are amazing.

We had a great time and he even got his teeth cleaned while he was here! Bonus! See how much fun it is to come visit us? We were sure to tell him "Ya'll come back now, ya hear?"

sort of reminds me of "fat guy in a little coat".

3 months of a new baby goes about a million times faster than 3 months of pregnancy.

This baby is such a joy to have around. Her fussy time is getting shorter and shorter and in general she is very easy to please. She does love to be held which can be a problem if I feel like getting anything accomplished.

She is super drooly. In fact, maybe we should have named her Julie. Drooly Julie. Constantly blowing bubbles.
It's so hard for me to get pictures of babies smiling. They always smile and coo and giggle until I get the camera up in their face. I think it's because she is traumatized by the flash.
She loves to have her hands up on her face. Because she is so easily startled which freaks her out I usually have her swaddled. Plus her having her blanket on her face freaks me out. So sometimes when I'm sitting by her I let her do this and she loves it:
When she was still in my belly we never got an ultrasound picture of her face because she always had it covered up with her hands. It's fun to see her doing the same thing now.
She is such a fun addition to our little family. We call her baby, baby teluga, baby aluga, baby beluga, abba, abba tadaba, abs, abby, abigail, and cheeks. Cate will correct you and tell you "but her real name is Deannt".
Whatever you want to call her is fine, but I wish you could all hold her, squeeze her, and smell her sweet baby smell.

As a family we have been focusing on goals. One of my goals for today was to finally update my blog. Another goal I have for today is to vacuum the stairs so that is obviously why I am choosing to blog. It is going to be my goal to keep it up better because I am terrible at keeping a journal and this is a good way for my kids to see how amazingly awesome their childhood was. Ahem.

Canning. This year we canned peaches, pears, and tomatoes. I also did a little bit of salsa and marinara sauce. We'll have to see how it turned out. The peaches were so amazing and big this year but it seems like they were here and gone so fast.


The latest installment of The Circus which always precedes a major toy clean out by me because they pull out all 5 million stuffed animals to participate in the acts.
We went to the school to see who our teachers would be and who else was in our classes this year. Both kids got awesome teachers.
Aiden's teacher just had a baby (5 months ago) and Brooks' teacher is the wife of his teacher last year. Both are super nice and really organized.
We sweated it out and went blueberry picking. The bushes weren't as productive as last year.
But we did get a gallon. It took forever because the kids only helped for the first few minutes. Then they got TOOOOOOOO TIREDDDDDDDDD and HOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTT!! But I wouldn't leave until I had that bucket full, so I carried on.
Also, I would love hints for driving a Honda Pilot. I am so wishing I had a van about now. The kids have to be in the 2 back rows and with the double jogging stroller in the pathetic back there is nowhere to put groceries or other items we might need. Suggestions? How do you make it work?

School started last Wednesday. It does seem so early, but we do get out in May so how can I complain? Brooks was pretty nervous the first day but did a great job.
Aiden loves school so much, I though she might squeeze Brooks' head off in this one:


Ready for third grade!



The gang at the back of the school. I kept making them stop and pose for pictures which I'm sure they loved and wasn't embarrassing at all.
Not one tear shed. Such a sweetheart.
Big girl. I can't believe how grown up she is.
Back to school parents night was last night and both teachers had such nice, genuine things to say about my kids. I think they're pretty great too.

Cue Jaws music here.
And:

it ends with Brooks smiling.