Playing With Our Food

Taylee has always loved letters and numbers. She amazes me with how quickly she learns things. Right now we are working on simple addition and reading and writing simple words (like cat, dog, bat, etc.) But her favorite word is her name. She is always writing T-A-Y-L-E-E out on any piece of paper that she can find, types it on the computer, uses Sean's label machine to make her own labels, and moves the letter magnets on the fridge to spell it. We find her name all over the place. Well, today during our snack time (in the midst of our princess dress-up time :-), she amazed us again with her creativity!

Monday Morning Fun

I just love my girls! They make me laugh all the time. Just Monday morning as I was trying to put my house back together after the weekend, they both kept doing things that made me laugh. Here is Bryns helping me to clean. She pushed this broom around for about a half hour! (Which was wonderful cuz it kept her from trying to break her neck climbing all over EVERYTHING!!)
Taylee walked up to me with two balloons stuffed into her shirt. But the best part was when she said, "Look Mommy, I've got pads like you!" (She thinks they are called 'pads' from when I used breast pads when I was nursing Bryns). Hmmm...I don't know if I should feel complimented or insulted...good thing she's only three. Plus, she is so freaken cute!

Learned my Lesson...

It feels that every week when Sunday morning rolls around, my house becomes the center of complete utter chaos! Whether I wake up at 6 or at 8 it always feels that I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Does anyone else feel this way??

This morning I was stressing out of control to get to church on time. I have not taken the sacrament for three weeks and I am feeling it. (We were in McCall over two weekends and the girls were sick last week.) I was frustrated with the girls for not listening (well, not listening fast enough) and I was frustrated with Sean for not knowing exactly what I needed him to do exactly when I needed it...again, sorry honey...

By the time we got to church (only five minutes late!), we were all frustrated with each other. Well, we sat down and everything was going okay, but then right as we were starting to sing the sacrament hymn, Bryns went crazy. She started headbutting me in the chest and wiggling all over the place trying to get down. When I didn't let her loose, she began to scream at the top of her lungs. To top it all off, we had a senior missionary welcome home so our meeting was PACKED! As everyone turned to find out whose child was screaming at the top of their lungs, I rushed out to the hallway. I thought I would still be okay to get the sacrament, but the foyer that I was in was skipped for some reason...maybe they knew there were quite a few unhappy babies out there :-)

So, the lesson that I learned today was that I should not rush everyone into a frenzy on Sunday morning. Not only does it ruin the Sabbath morning mood for my family and myself, but in the end, as long as I have young children, I really don't have a lot of control over what happens. So, hopefully, no more crazy-Sunday-morning-mommy will appear in my house. Heavenly Father definitely has a way to teach us what our priorities should be.

Skye and Asher

We love having visitors, especially such cute ones! Asher (and Skye) stopped by a few days ago to visit while Jordan ran up to ISU to get some paperwork done. (For anyone who doesn't know, Jordan got accepted at the PA program at ISU and starts next month. We have watched him work so hard to achieve this and we are all very, VERY proud of him. Congrats Jordan!).
Well, despite the bad weather, we decided to walk to the park. Asher and Brynlee shared the double stroller while Taylee rode her bike. Asher and Bryns were hilarious in the stroller. They were laughing and poking at each other the whole time.
Taylee loves riding her bike and was so excited to show her aunt Skye how good she is at it.
As we were walking to the park, Skye started to tell me how bad this storm is that was starting to appear above us. Tornadoes in Burley and inch-sized hail. Uh...and we were walking to the park?!? As soon as we reached the park, it started to rain. To keep the story short, lets just say that I ended up running by Taylee on her bike back to our house, while Skye ran with the stroller (thanks goodness its a jogging stroller!) . Within a few minutes of us being inside the house, it started to hail. It was small hail, but I'm glad that we were not outside. I don't think the kids would have liked it very much :-).
So, thank-you Skye for coming to visit us, but lets check the weather next time we decide to do something like that again.

Family Fun!

The girls and I went to Lava with my family this last weekend. Sean had planned on going (He had even said no to playing in a golf tournament!), but there was a last minute meeting with a Verizon corporate that he needed to be at. I wish that he could have been there, but we had so much fun anyway. Thank-you to all the sisters, brother-in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who stepped in to help me out. Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you!

Here is Taylee coming down the slide. It took a little bit of coaxing, but she did it in the end after she saw her cousin Keegan go down. But once was enough. No one could convince her to go again.

She was not happy about having to get out of the water in order to eat lunch. Here is her infamous 'mad face.'

Brynlee on the other hand was more than happy to eat. She loved the water, but she is such a fruit baby! She ate all of the grapes on our plate and then started stealing the watermelon and grapes off of everyone elses plates!

And here is an add-on pic. Taylee went golfing with Sean today. Apparently she really got to drive the cart (AGHH!) and she kept her own score. Who knew that our three-year-old would be the first in our family to get a hole-in-one (on a par 5!).

You Can Tell Brynlee Is Tired When...

...she falls asleep during dinner. Apparently our conversations were not very interesting.

Book Review

In my hurry to pack for McCall, I did not pack a book! I know. I know. How stupid can I get? Well, by Monday I was going nuts not having anything to read when the girls were asleep(we got there Sunday night). So, I went to the book store and bought a book that I was not sure that I wanted to read, The Host, by Stephenie Meyer. For anyone who doesn't know, she is the author of the Twilight series (the vampire books). But, surprise! I liked it. A lot.

The Host takes you to an all new level of weirdness with aliens. It is even a stretch from the whole vampire thing, BUT The Host is a much more positive book. I don't know if that makes sense or not. When I got done with Twilight, I knew that I had liked it but I kept questioning whether I should like it or not...come on, it was about vampires who were trying to be good, but were still lusting for human blood. Yuck.
In The Host, the aliens that are implanted into humans are actually good in the sense that there is not contention in their society. At one point a scene is remembered where a basketball game was being played by the alien/humans on the TV and the rebel humans are disgusted because they were being so polite to each other! The aliens are not bad, per se, they just don't realize what they had done. In fact, at one point the main woman/alien admits that it was not right that they had come to earth.
So, overall, if you liked Twilight, you will probably like The Host. Its a bit of a stretch with the whole alien thing, but hey, so was the whole vampire thing. Stephenie Meyers is still a great page-turning author( I read it in 2 nights!), with another great romance with another oh-so-yummy male lead. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being Pride and Prejudice, Moonraker's Bride, and The Goose Girl, I would rate The Host at about an 8. But that could change, because the more I think about the story, the more I like it. Tomorrow it might be competing with my top 3! Who knows.

Summer Senses

1-Running through the sprinklers with Taylee and Bryns, hearing them giggle as they get soaked
2-BBQ...there is something about a fully decked hamburger that just makes your mouth water
3- Fresh fruit...cantoloupe, watermelon, strawberries
4- Being behind the boat; skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, whatever floats your boat, with the heat on your back knowing how nice it will feel when you hit the water
5- Sleeping on the trampoline, watching the stars as you fall asleep
6- Eating dreamsicles on the porch as fast as you can before they melt all over your hand
7- Taking nature walks with the girls, watching Taylee become mesmerized by everything from the airplane in the sky to the creeping ant
8- Spending hours with Sean on the golf course, talking about life, work, kids, and dreams
9- Family get togethers...I know they can get old, but I love catching up with everyone as we play at Lava or at a BBQ
10- Sitting on the porch swing watching the girls run around, listening to them laugh, and enjoying the warm weather

Vacation to McCall

Sean and I have not been able to stop talking about how much fun we had this last week in McCall. It is such a beautiful area of Idaho. Glassy blue lakes. Huge green forests. You just don't get any better. And our girls were a blast. We just always have so much fun when the four of us are together. Here are some of the promised pictures and videos.



Taylee loved ice-skating. She had a lot of fun with the bucket she got to push around. She was such a trooper too. She took a few stumbles but always jumped back up. We didn't realize how hard those falls were until we got back to the cabin and saw her knees. They were literally black and blue!

Here is Sean and Brynlee. She was giggling the entire time, even when Sean took a tumble. He was so good to take Bryns since I was barely keeping my OWN balance.

We also took the girls tubing behind the boat. Taylee tried to go first, but when the tube sank and they had to bail out she was adament that she was not getting back in. I really don't know where she got her stubborness from! So, instead Sean grabbed Brynlee. Here is a pic of her being suffocated by her stupid life-jacket, but loving it the whole time!

Well, Taylee could not let her little sister show her up that way, so she went next...though she plugged her nose the entire time!!

There were aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, cousins and 2nd cousins. You name it, we had it. Below is Taylee with her second cousin, Tyson. They are only six months apart and they were inseparable, especially when it came to Oreos and Rootbeer. Can't you tell what a wonderful mother I was? :-)



Sean and I went golfing one day with his grandparents to Jug Mountain. It was beautiful and so much fun. But I decided that I am such a random golfer that I never know what is going to happen. One hole I will have the same score as Sean (which is very good and I will rub it in his face), but then the next hole I will bounce the ball off of the golf cart and have it come right back to me ( don't ask!). I will sink a fifteen foot putt, yet, miss a one foot putt three times! It is just weird.



Sean got a lot of practice wakeboarding while in McCall. The cabin was right on the lake with a private dock. I am so proud of how well he is doing. He skiied a bit as a teenager, but just took up wakeboarding about three years ago, He has been so determined and just seems to get better and more confident every summer. His goal this week was to do a board grab and he was finally able to do it Saturday night! Good Job Sean! (This pic is not the board grab. I did not have my camera when he did it. Sorry!)

No pics of me wakeboarding though. For some reason, I am the only person who thinks of grabbing a camera when someone is in the water. Oh well. I did jump half of the wake! Troy and Heather are witnesses! They live just a couple of hours from McCall and were able to come up for a day. So when Heather sends me pics that she took I will post them (No pressure or anything, Heather :-)

But, sadly, that was my final day of wakeboarding. On my last jump, I face planted (well, ear-planted) and lo and behold I ruptured my eardrum. So, my water-fun for the week was done. And if anyone talks to me in the next few weeks don't be offended if I ask you to repeat yourself once or twice, or who knows how many times because I still can't hear anything on the left side. But it was worth it cuz Heather got to see me do a great jump!

Byrns did not like the boat that much. She would last about an hour before breaking into all-out- tantrum-throwing screams, and then we were done for the day. Sean was a good sport all week, and would do non-water activities with the girls and I, but on Saturday he really wanted to practice jumping, so we split the kids. Taylee went with him on the boat (with all of her cousins that she can't get enough of), and I took Bryns and headed to Tamarack Resort. It is a beautiful ski resort up above Payette Lakes (I guess President Bush stayed there once). We walked through some of the shops (the people there were so nice and they kept giving Brynlee free stuff because she was so cute...a logoed golf ball, a little stuffed bear...maybe I should have taken her into a jewelery story, huh?). We went on some of their nature hikes. Bryns was so excited. She kept pointing at everything and jabbering.

But, she is such a turkey, and everytime I let go of her hand to take a picture of her, she would turn and start running the other way (just laughing the whole time of course!). We had a lot of fun. Bryns is such a doll and she makes me laugh!

Funny quote of the week:

1-Taylee and her cousin Hunter were sitting on the dock (nope, I was not there. I was at Tamarack with Byns). Apparently Taylee had sat on the edge and put her feet in the water. Hunter wanted to do the same. The only problem was that Taylee is significantly taller than Hunter. So, as Hunter tried to put his feet into the water he slipped off the end of the dock into the lake (thank goodness he had a life-jacket on!). It took a few minutes for anyone to realize what had happened. For some reason Hunter wasn't panicked about being in the lake, and Taylee just continued to splash her feet. When Sean later asked Taylee why she hadn't told anyone that Hunter had fallen in, she just looked at him funny and responded, "But, Daddy, Hunter wanted to go swimming."

So, thank-you Kress family for helping us to make great memories with all of you! We had a great time and will be looking forward to next year!

Craziness Continues!

I am in McCall right now. Brynlee is crawling all over my legs, Taylee is watching a movie with her cousins, and Sean is learning to play Rook with brother-in-laws and cousins. But I am determined to blog. Sorry, no pics til I get home...no cords.
First of all, this is a FULL house, but it is so much fun. Sean has the best family. They are amazing people and I love spending time getting to know them. My father-in-law is so sweet and family oriented. He rented a beautiful cabin on the shores of Payette Lake so that we can all spend time together. He also has a great boat that he brings for all of us to enjoy. The girls have gone tubing (yes, Brynlee loved it!), Sean has slalomed and wakeboarded, and I have continued my quest to jump that stupid wake! Between boating trips we also went ice-skating, golfing, driving through Ponderosa Park, painting t-shirts and ceramics, and I think tomorrow we will be hitting the hot springs.
Today we went ice-skating with the girls, and I promise to get pics up as soon as I get home because they are hilarious! Bryns even skated...kind of. It was more of Sean just holding her up as she laughed and slid around. Taylee had a blast. They had plastic buckets for little kids to push around to help them balance. Taylee basically laid her tummy on it and used her toe-picks on her skates to push herself around. We even ended up sitting Bryns on one of the buckets and we pushed her around that way. We loved it and will definitely be doing it again!