4th of July

My brother's birthday is on the 4th. So, he always throws a pretty awesome party. It's been known have the best food ever, and to last basically the entire day. No one is complaining! thanks for getting old so we can keep celebrating you brotha!

I made a short video about his fireworks show from the end of the night, here. (watch closely and you will see the one firework that went off prematurely and almost caused some real damage. luckily only their hair was singed and ears were ringing for the rest of the night.)

Everli's First Birthday

This little cutie's birthday also happened to fall on mothers day this year. So, as a big combined celebration we hosted a family dinner at our house in lieu of a traditional party. When garrison and i were talking after bayli's first birthday we realized all you need to make a great first birthday party is: loving guests, a cake to smash, and good food. no presents, no decorations (although, bayli and i picked some flowers from our bush in the backyard after church anyway) and no fuss. it really was so simple fun and easy, and Everli had such a great time, which was all that mattered. plus, we got to celebrate all the mothers in our lives at the same time, so you know, it really was such a wonderful day.

Everli's beautiful face hasn't appeared on this blog as much as i would like, she's been here a year now and she only has 3 posts so far on the blog, that is truly pathetic. I really am going to work harder to post about her, i need to make documenting and journaling more of a priority during this busy time.

From the very beginning of this girls life she found her little niche in our family and fits in so perfectly, almost like she's always been here. Transitioning into a mother of 2 has been surprisingly easy and smooth for me. Bayli never smothered her too closely with love, or was rebellious and jealous of her. Everli was always a good sleeper, and the two girls have shared a room this entire time with no problems! I'm telling you, if i could guarantee that the next kid would be as easy as Everli, i'd get pregnant tomorrow!

Everli is such a happy baby. She smiles at anyone who looks at her, even if she's tired or sad. She's adventurous and loves getting into things. She's walking now and trying her hardest to keep up with her sister with everything she does. She's done this inhale scream thing ever since she was a baby whenever she's excited and it's so adorable, I hope she never grows out of it. In the very beginning of her life we thought she was choking when she made that noise because the inhale part sounds like she can't get enough air, but we have now gotten used to it as just an Everli-ism and find it adorable.

She loves to cuddle, and find a cozy spot to sit, preferably in grandpas lap, or by mom's feet, or in a tight space between two pieces of furniture. She isn't talking much, which we are told is very typical for 2nd kids, because Bayli does all the talking for her. She currently only knows "momma", and "dadda", and every once in a while will repeat words like "ball", 'more", "up", or "out". The same is true with sign language, we're teaching her, but she doesn't feel the need to use it because she get's waited on hand and foot by the people in her life that love her, especially her big sister.

I wish every family has the opportunity to experience a baby and now, toddler (aaahhh) like Everli. she is seriously a dream, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what this next year has in store for her! That mothers day weekend a year ago brought me so much happiness, the delivery was quick, and recovery was even quicker. I truly couldn't have received a better present, and this year, watching her timidly eat her cake, and smile as everyone sang to her, and letting her dad teach her the oh-so important skill of blowing out a candle is all this momma could have asked for. Here's wishing a Happy Mothers day to you all!

 

Bayli's Party

today we had a little party celebrating Bayli's fourth birthday! we invited just a few friends and had lunch, cake, played with play-doh and opened presents. when we asked bayli a few days ago what she wanted to do for her birthday, she said have really yummy cake, make the house cute (with decorations) and play with friends. so, we tried to give her exactly that. she helped bake and decorate the cake. she was the one who told me where to put the decorations, and she came up with the guest list. we tried to do things her way, and it turned out to be really cute and fun! we will have to see if she actually remembers this one when shes older.

Everli was a champ and slept through the wholeee thing. for 5 hours.

Turning Four

I decided to ask bayli a few questions today as i was cleaning the house and making treats for her birthday party that's happening this weekend. i wrote all my answers down in my journal as i asked her and she loved all the extra attention i was giving her. she kept asking, "did you write that down?" and would even say, "hold on mom. i have a question for you now" some of her answers were just TOO good. i feel like they are the perfect way to show what life with her is like right now. this age is the best. 3 year old bayli is gonna be a hard one to beat. good luck fours. bring it on!

Favorites:
color: purple
t.v. show: Just Add Magic (or as she calls it: "the Momma P show") and Octonauts
toy: trains
shape: oval
letter: B
food: muffins (because that's what we had made that morning.)
fruit: strawberries
number: 6
princess: Elsa
thing to do: cooking
thing to do by herself: singing and dancing
book: "the dinosaur book by the cat in the hat" aka. This book

Where do you want to go on vacation? "up the mountains!"
What do you want to be when you grow up? a hero.

would you rather:
be inside or outside? outside
dirty or clean? clean
loud or quiet? this one took her a looong time to answer, she started trying to explain that she likes both, but then decided on quiet.
cat or dog? dog
stroller ride or car ride? stroller

things she doesn't like:
-going down stairs
-green leaf-es in food
-everli stealing toys
-getting stuck in everli's toys
-sleeping on the floor (??? this has never even happened to my knowledge)
-pencils. (insert laughing crying emoji here)

and cause she is the cutest. here are the questions she decided to ask me through out her interview.
what do you like to read?
do you like puppies? (hahahaha, yes. my heart exploded when she asked me this with a completely serious face.)
whats your favorite flower?

the book and puppy ones she asked before i asked her the similar questions. her brain. id love to take an in depth peek inside there one day. i think that might be one of my first requests when i get to heaven.

we love this girl so stupid much.

HAPPY five-years-of-putting-up-with-me ANNIVERSARY

5 YEARS!!! holy cow. this morning as he was getting ready for work, and i was nursing our little baby in bed. Garrison and i were talking about some of the things we remembered from our wedding. he remembered how on the morning of our wedding, we had to get to the temple with our "escorts" (our parents) much earlier than the rest of the wedding party to fill out paperwork and such at the temple. so, being a hairdresser, i wanted to do my own hair and makeup. After a surprisingly restful night of sleep in the hotel up in slc, i got up, and started to get ready and ended up being ready before everyone else, when garrison came to my hotel room to pick us up, we ended up talking together in the hotel room for what seemed like such a long time as we watched the rest of the wedding party start getting up and getting rushed. my mom would later go on to say that because of how calm i was that morning, it helped reassure her that marrying him, was in fact, the right thing for me to do.

marrying him was truly the easiest decision i ever made.

I told him about how i remembered as our honeymoon was nearing an end, (we were staying at a friend's 2nd home up in Midway) we were both getting antsy to just move in together and start living a normal life. we wanted to make breakfasts in our kitchen, and sleep in our bed, and come to our home after work, so... we left our honeymoon early to go home and unpack, hang pictures, buy groceries, and organize closets.  garrison's comment after i finished talking about that this morning: "we were such dweebs ...still are"

we really have loved every aspect of all of the craziness that has been the last 5 years. 

over the last 5 years we have:

had two beautiful children,

moved 5 times,

purchased two houses, and two cars.

remodeled 4 different houses (we remodeled both of our apartments for our landlords)

we also remodeled a 1950's camp trailer, and dozens of projects in/on our parents houses.

garrison switched jobs from digEcor, to American Crafts,

i switched salons from Salon 21 to Platinum Studio.

we have traveled together to Greece, New York, Mexico -via a Cruise-, Vegas and St George, Idaho, and California, oh, and lots of camping with a backpacking trip in the Unitas thrown in there. 

besides childbirth, neither of us have been hospitalized.

no car accidents yet, (although he did get a speeding ticket while driving home from california a few years ago)

we have had 1,825 days together as husband and wife. we have accomplished so much in that time, we have become better people, grown a family, developed talents, and made new friends. looking back like this, makes me realize just how much time has come and gone since that beautiful day 5 years ago when we made promises to each other, for time and all eternity. we feel like we have truly found our "groove" in our marriage this year, coming to a deeper and better understanding of one another and what each other needs to feel their best in the marriage. it's like we moved from being best friends and lovers, to truly becoming "one" this year. i'm so grateful for him in my life, and all of the blessings that have come to me because of the decision i made to marry him.

i won the husband lottery. seriously.

This year, to celebrate, Garrison invited me to pick a hotel and we could stay there for the night, well, as we are trying to get our littlest on a more strict schedule since her schedule was thrown off from being sick the past few weeks, we decided to stay home instead, honestly, we will probably daydream about what the next 5 years might hold for us, and end the night watching Making A Murderer on Netflix. just like we would any other night.  

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Christmas 2015