Happy birthday to Brenna!

It's a little early, but we celebrated her birthday on Black Friday since she was born on Black Friday two years ago. We had several aunts and uncles and Grandma and Grandpa Stanley over for a birthday lunch. It was great!

Grandma and Grandpa gave her some little rubber bands for her hair.
In this picture you can see she is wearing all the rubber bands on her wrist. She'll need to grow some more hair before they can be worn properly.


Too much birthday fun. She has a toy clutched in each hand. Couldn't stop playing until the last moment.

Grandma Stanley was inspired to buy pruple clothes. It's Brenna's favorite color, at least the one she always wants to wear. I told her to smile and instead she squinted her eyes. She knows what comes from the camera.

This is an example of how Brenna dresses herself. She picked out all the clothes. She is also wearing her favorite pink hat.

A necklace and real bracelet from Aunt Eliza. "So Pretty!"

Claiming her chair. Sort of. She still likes Lauren's chair. I think she believes she now has two chairs. What a stinker.

Brenna's birthday cake was made into cake bites. Chocolate and confetti. She got one of each without the chocolate coating for her candles. They were really yummy.

The rest of the cake bites. Since she is most definitely entering the terrible two's, she will be getting reindeer poop (left) and snowman poop (right) for Christmas. I know, I've spoken with Santa already.

Enjoying her "second" chair.

Birthday lunch of chips, cornbread and cheese. I think she likes the letter 'c'. The rest of us also had beefy mole chili. It was scrumptious.

A monkey and blanket from the Stanley's. She loves it.

Here are a few of her favorties as she nears the two year mark.

Candy, cookies, peanut butter on a spoon (I wonder who she gets that from), purple, cats, mine (everything is hers including mommy), playing in drinking fountains, watching cartoons on TV, playing daddy jungle gym, chapstick, picking her own outfits to wear, her pink hat, touching the ceiling (with daddy's help).

Videos to come shortly.

No Nap Brenna

She was so very very sleepy.

First Day of School x 2

Spencer and Lauren have started school. . .Hurray! Was that a little too loud?

Here is Spencer on his first day of school. He was excited until the night before. Then he became a little anxious. He was a bit clingy when I dropped him off at the classroom, too.

When I went to pick Spencer up he was much happier. He even got a little treat from his teacher. As he ate the different colored m&m's I asked him different questions about his first day of school.

Far too interested in the candy than being a new Hawk.

Lauren is in second grade this year. She was very excited to go back to school. Apparently summer got a little boring.

She's growing up fast. It's a little sad to think how quickly time is passing, but then again I think of all the things I can do now with just Brenna. So far all I have managed to do is keep up with housework and bottle peaches.

Hogle Zoo

We took the kids to Hogle Zoo recently with their cousins. It was a fun day until the kids got hot, tired and hungry. Then we had a horrible meltdown.

Someone Wanted More Pictures

Wow! I did not put up a single post for June. Well here are a bunch of pictures telling the exciting story of what we have been doing since Grandpa Snow's birthday.


We took our cousins on a hike to a waterfall close to our home. We had a lot of fun hiking and playing in the waterfall. Brenna was not very sure about the waterfall at first. She was riding in a backpack carrier and was a bit anxious when I got her out to play in the water.

She did not like the cold spray from the falls at all.

But pretty soon she warmed up to the noise and water droplets.

She began to explore the water and the rocks.

By the end she was loving the waterfall and didn't want to leave.

These two little boys had a lot of fun in the water and were very dirty by the end of the hike.

Lauren and her cousin Elisabeth are going to be future civil engineers. They built a pretty cool canal and diverted the water.

The cousins found a little animal den in the mountainside.

The waterfall(s) was very beautiful and cold.

We saw a rattlesnake on the hike down from the waterfall. Fortunately he was slithering up the mountain away from the trail. We saw two other snakes entwined together under a bush by a bridge. It was actually Lauren who spotted them. She got bonus points on her search check.

Classic summertime picture.

We also took our cousins to a cool park called the Novel Children's Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove. It is made of wood and looks like a bunch of forts and towers connected by bridges. It has lots of different activities for children.

Brenna loves to swing.

Brenna loves to swing a lot.

Spencer sitting in the worker bee hive.

Lauren sitting in the Queen Bee chair. Brenna wouldn't go in the hive for a picture.

Lauren and Spencer are really into Harry Potter so I put together a joint Potter Party for them in May.

They attended various classes such as Care of Magical Creatures where they made a gnome to take home.

They also learned how to care for magical plants in Herbology. My sister, Eliza, was a guest professor.

We spent a couple weeks in Iowa and Illinois seeing the Snows and the Nix's for family reunions in June. We took the kids to Carthage Jail. Brenna did not want to go in the jail so instead she helped dead-head some of the living flowers by the Visitor's Center.

Brenna tried to stand up by Spencer with the statue but the stones were too hot for her hands.

She was happy to pose at the base for a picture.

I hope they have the same loyalty as Joseph and Hyrum. I like this picture.