Playing Together

That's what Allie calls it. I am not all together sure that it really could be defined as playing "together" because it is more like Allie is the boss and takes away everything that Brailie is happily playing with and occasionally shoves a piece of pretend food in Brailies mouth. But it is intermixed with moments when they have each other laughing or giggling and for the most part Brailie doesn't seem to be trying to get away from her big sister so I do welcome (as I cringe everytime I see the huge mess that accompanies) these moments.

Notice Allie dousing her play hamburger bun in play ketchup-she picked that habit up from her dad!!

Ahh and Baseball officially is underway

Whether I like it or not, yet another sports season has begun. I am not so much bummed about the actual sport itself, but the fact that it means that the dreaded "S" word is about to begin, combined with the sports season and practice and that means a whole heck of a lot of time to entertain the children on my own plus make the house run smoothly. But don't worry people, I can do it, I am... SUPERMOM!!!! But I digress. Like I said baseball has officially begun with the Valley tournament this past weekend in Orderville (my former stompin grounds and the place where Greg and I met). Considering that 3 of the 4 of us were puking our guts out the day before we had to leave and Brailie decided to puke her guts out at the actual tournament, I would have to say the weekend was pretty good. Well minus:

-the sweltering heat

-the matchbox sized hotel room with the paper thin walls, paper thin mattresses and tacky bedspreads

-the pool that suddenly was closed for construction (looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a month)

-changing diarrhea diapers in a collapsible camping chair during the baseball games

-having Allie show her "terrible" side on the bus ride home, screeching to be let out of her carseat for over 30 minutes straight

-A terrible kink in my neck caused by the lack of sleep on the paper thin mattress

Thank heavens it was the one and only overnighter for the season. With a toddler and a baby who would rather be standing and holding on to something- it is just too hard to get much out of a baseball game let me just say. But we did have fun and I had a great time visiting with some of my former co-workers from Valley and especially seeing 3 of my 4 favorite boy students that have recently returned home from missions. That was the best part. Here are the rest of the highlights I caught with my camera amidst the previous mentioned items.

Brailie sporting her cheerleading dress. Loving the bus ride.

Mommy loving the bus ride too

Allie loves the bus too-she just doesn't want to have her picture taken right now.

Passing the time at the game by playing on the "bench" (bleachers)

Thank heavens for Carly Swalberg. This girl is our neighbor. She is going into the 7th grade. Allie adores everything about Carly. She loves to play with her and Carly is so good to play back.

Brailie getting ready for a rainier day 2 of baseball

Day 2 is over. YIPPY!!!

Our favorite baseball coach.

Unfortunately the team only won 1 out of the 3 games they played but they played really well in the other two games, they just couldn't keep it going right to the end. They are great kids and we look forward to hanging out with them for the next couple of months. As Allie has learned to say "L..E..T..S...G..O.. Lets go, Pirates"

Here's something fun to do on a Monday morning

at 6:45 am- wait for the garbage truck to come (Allie calls it the garbage can). Allie tries to get whomever will, to sit with her at the door and watch as the truck goes up one side and down the other of our street. Looks like Brailie has found a new passion too. Ahh the joys of childhood.

The day the cousins came

The Canada cousins, Jakob and Andrew Konopelski that is. My younger brother Daniel and his wife Jenny and their twins came to visit this past week. Allie loves seeing these cute little guys (I mean, who wouldn't; they are the cutest!!!!). They are the most content little babies I have met (well except when they are hungry and I don't think there is a baby out there that can remain calm when hungry). They came and spent the night, bringing with them a wonderful 24 hour flu bug that they have left behind and we have since endured, puked up, and recovered from and passed on to others in our community (thanks guys-next time a nice cake or something will do).
Brailie and the boys. She was not so sure about them being around at first but started playing just fine after a while.

Allie loves these little guys. She either calls them both Andrew or both Jakob. I am not entirely sure she realizes they are two different people. She was really cute with them and asked if they could just stay at our house. I said that though I too adored them I was not prepared to become a mother a 4 and therefore they had to go home with their parents.

On another note, miss Brailie has now officially got her two top teeth (here she is modeling one of them) and can consume food at an even faster pace!!

When it rains it pours

Well not usually in Green River. Usually in Green River when it rains it will be over with in a few seconds and sunny and dry before you can blink. But not yesterday (Aug 1). It was crazy. The rain just kept coming and coming, thunder and lightening, wind, no hail luckily. It lasted for well over an hour maybe close to 2. As things started to get worse and worse I got everyone to the living room to say a prayer (that is a long standing tradition in my family, to pray away the bad weather). It was scary. The temp dropped from 81 to 62 in a matter of 25 minutes. We were lucky and only had a bit of water in our basement. Some people around town had lots of flooding. Our friends across the alley had an unexpected shed planted in their backyard. Here are some pictures from our yard.

The water pooling up around our apple tree and across at the neighbors.

Here is our neighbor Bob's house. His corn was so nice and tall and all got knocked over.
Good thing we don't have a dog or he would be swimming.

This is by our carport.

Our bedraggled garden-surprisingly it wasn't that squishy today when we went to pick tomatoes and cucumbers.

Our front/side lawn by our driveway.

In the morning, there wasn't even a puddle anywhere in our yard.

The total rainfall.

We don't have a lot of humidity here, but the last week it has been so humid and we have had lots of thunderstorms. Our house feels so sticky, our carpet feels damp, you get out of the shower and are sweatier than when you got in, and our swampcooler is begging to be turned off but we can't stand our house without it. Throw in the fact that our water smells like algae-it feels like we are living next to a swamp (the mosquitos are bad enough to be in the middle of a swamp that is for sure.) Oh well, thanks to these 2 inches of rain the humidity won't be getting any better but things will be growing that is for sure.

Swimming with Daddy

Pretty much the heat and humidity are becoming super uncomfortable around here. Gotta love Green River and the fact that the Melonvine is the only "store" you can go into and walk around in for a while to cool off so we have to get creative. This little pool my mom gave us has been a lifesaver; not only for Allie but for Greg and I as well. After mowing lawns all afternoon Greg was more than willing to take a dip with Allie today.

Here she is practicing her cannon balls

Who do you think is enjoying this more?

They were out there for close to an hour- so I think they were both equally happy to be cooling off in the pool.

9 Months Old

Today this little girl is 9 months old. That is crazy. Time is flying by so quickly. I know they say to savor the baby years but I just seem to do better with toddlers who are a bit more independent and such so I am glad she is getting older and growing and learning. I wasn't sure after Allie if our second baby would be able to match up (Allie just seemed to do everything with ease and ahead of schedule or right on the mark). Heck with schedules I don't even have time to read up on what she should or shouldn't be able to do at this age; she is just a little motor machine of energy and doesn't seem afraid of anything.
At 9 months here are some of her stats:
-She weighs 16 pounds
-I don't remember off the top of my head how tall she was at the last doctor visit
-She has 3 teeth (two bottom and one top with one coming in)
-She has had tonsillitis twice and an ear infection twice and numerous colds (the luck of a second child I guess. Allie was sick once her first year of life.)
-She sleeps through the night
-She naps at least twice a day
-She eats like a machine. Long gone are my worried days when I first started feeding her solids and she would only eat a spoonful and I was sure she would never eat a thing (again compared to her sister-this was not what I was used to.) Now when she gets in her high chair she is constantly screeching for more food to be placed before her as she inhales it at lightening fast speeds. She prefers real people food to baby mush and has pretty good hand eye coordination getting it into her mouth. She loves peaches, melon, strawberries, peas, kidney beans, macaroni, bread, cheese, bananas, puffs, yogurt-well pretty much anything. Meal time is a zoo at our house with this howler monkey sitting beside me in her seat. I told Greg one night I am going to feed the kids first and then put them to bed and make a meal for us to eat in silence and actually enjoy every bite. I would like to say that this too will pass but the truth is pretty much since she was born we haven't had many peaceful meals. Love you Brailie
-She can crawl and find you in any room of the house
-She can push open half closed doors
-Pulls herself up to furniture and scoots along it
-Holds her own sippy cup
-Says "Ma Ma" but only when she is desperate for food or to be picked up
-She smiles everytime we bring out the camera
-She loves to play with Allie even though Allie pretty much takes away every toy she is holding.
-She isn't a cuddler and doesn't even really like to be held, she would rather be on the go. I have a feeling this sports season is going to be a doozy.
We love this little sweetie. Happy 9 months old Brailie.

Pioneer Day Weekend

We went to Monroe for Pioneer Day (July 24th) and the festivities they put on and to stay at Grandma and Grandpa Parsons new house for the weekend. Let me just insert that we love the new house: roomy, lots of bathrooms, room for the kids to run and I personally covet the kitchen and the glass front cupboards and the over sized island. Anyway all the family came at some point in the weekend which was super fun for Allie. She adores her cousins and loves playing with them. I can't believe that she isn't shy or hesitant around them at all like she is with some other kids. She just dives right into the fun. It was so great to see her with the other girls playing and running and of course her and Zach got along great as well. All in all it was a pretty good weekend. We had a showing of the "terrible two's" when it came to bedtime a couple of nights (those who were home are probably thinking "ya, terrible two's-more like horrific two's") but it could have been worse is what I have to tell myself. The weather was perfect and the festivities were...well festive.
The day started off with a parade-note to self: when watching a parade do so from the shaded side of the street and avoid having your brain baked by the sun. I knew this but we were late getting to the parade and had to take what we could get. It didn't seem to bother the kids much.
Allie ran back and forth between everyone giving a commentary of what was happening in the parade (possibly a future career path-who knows).

After the parade daddy took Allie down to the park where his family was selling cotton candy and snow cones while mommy and Brailie took a much needed nap. Allie got to ride in this fire truck (super cool).

Later that evening Grandma kicked us out of the house while she was having a class reunion so we all went out to eat and ended up at a restaurant with a broken air conditioning. People-if you having no AC in the middle of summer put a sign on your business door stating that fact and offer a 10% discount. We had hungry small children and were settled when they bothered to inform us that the air was actually broken so we stayed anyway. We were compensated with extra ice. After eating (the food was mediocre I might add), we went to Greg's cousins to see his elk and other animals.

Ignore the wonderful hairstyle my daughter is sporting and imagine her giving a running commentary to her cousin Rylee about the animals in the fences. "Wanna come see? Come on, lets go."

Rylee was not as enthused as Allie. Good to see a bit of my farm side coming out in her.

Brailie getting friendly with this mule.

The evening finished with fireworks. Allie's words were, "oh wow, that was my favorite one." (said after most of them)

On day two, cousin Kinsey came and that added even more excitement cause now all the cousins were together and they played and played. Grandma said she wanted to get a picture of all the cousins together. Now when ever I hear those words my blood pressure immediately starts to rise because I know what a task it is to get all the cousins together and I also know that there is about a 1 minute window of time that the picture will actually work and I don't want to be the parent who's kid is not cooperating-causing the picture to have to take much longer than necessary which usually leads to children crying, parents yelling and empty promises of ice cream and other treats if they will "just sit still." Guess what-I was that parent-my child would not cooperate. AHHHHHHHH. Before the babies came out the cousins were just sitting waiting so perfectly

And then we have this:

and this,

and this. And then Allie was everywhere.

Brailie actually loves to get her picture taken. She always smiles for the camera.

The reason no cousins wanted to have their pictures taken was because of this pile of left over ice from the snow cones. It was just too tempting and much more fun.

And then we have this-the family picture. It doesn't happen that often that we get together as a family so we wanted to get a family picture. Can I just ask the question: Are there any families out there in which the taking of a family photo brings out love, joy, closeness and agreement? In my life experience I would have to say NOPE!!! Something about families and cameras just don't seem to mix I have to say. Then the photographer says, "Smile you are supposed to look happy." We'll let the pictures speak for themselves. (P.S. Greg says, it looks like I am trying to get him to stop pinching my bum but I was trying to hide Braille's bottle).

Good times, good times. Thanks family for getting together. We had a good time seeing everyone and our children had a blast. It is fun to get to travel to visit Grandma and Grandpa. "Over the river and through the woods..."

Bountiful Baskets

My friend Allisha and I have now both completed our training to be "Official Site Coordinators" (doesn't that sound official) for Bountiful Baskets here in Green River. We have submitted our start date as the 21st of August and are waiting to hear back if we are approved (hate waiting to be approved for things). It is exciting. People come up to me around town and ask about being a part of Bountiful Baskets (quite a few people have heard about it from friends and family) and others are interested in knowing what it is about. This will be a huge benefit to our small town. Can't wait to get it started.

It is finished

Greg got it done this afternoon and said I must post pictures (are you tired of this floor yet?? We aren't). We still have the bathroom, front entry and in front of our washer and dryer but this big room is done!!!

It looks and feels so much bigger to me. Hideous carpet-have fun at the dump!!!