Eagles Landing

Liv, the little trooper, walked up all two hundred and sixty eight of those steps. She said "Mom, my legs are kind of tingly". 

I don't know why we ever do pictures like these, but they are kind of funny to me so we did one. Thanks to Jaron's long arms, but unfortunately Liv's sweet face didn't make it.

Visit to Sister

Last September or October, Southwest had a great deal on plane tickets to one Hartford, Connecticut where sister-that-I-never-get-to-see lives. Sort of on an impulse and sort of out of desperation to visit a long lost sis, I called up my Mom, called a few friends to see if they could watch my kids, and everything was in place for a trip to visit Kelly. 

In the airport on the way there someone said to us "I hope you're going somewhere warm and sunny"! We laughed and said, "Actually, we've decided to go to the coldest place in the nation for vacation"! Ok maybe not as cold as Minnesota where brother lives, but it was dang cold! 

In spite of the weather, and the massive mazes of snow piled streets, we managed to have ourselves a great time, and I really fell in love with the little town Kel and Jared live in.

See for yourself. 

The little charming, colonial houses just a few blocks away from them. 

One night when I was talking on the phone to Liv I said "Liv! Guess what I saw! I saw a pink house." She said "Oh, can you bring it home to me?"

I really wished I could have somehow figured out a way to bring it home to her. 

The first night we were in Connecticut we had a surprise visit from Drew. It was so fun to see him, also another brother I don't see often. It was great to eat Kel's delicious home-ade dinner while visiting with long lost sibs. And did I mention Jen was there? And we all know she is one of my most favorite people on this planet.  

 

Little old covered bridge at the Whitney River

The Whitney River

Below: Picture of Dr. Henry Davis's second home at Yale where he does all of his crazy smart scientific research.

Cool little church near their home.

 

On the first night that we were there we got a surprise visit from Drew, who just happened to be in town for business. It was so fun to see him, and catch up on his life over a plate of delicious french dipped sandwiches, which Kel had made us. 

We got to steal away for a few days, and Kel played the role of tour guide around New York City. 

I was so impressed with her ability to navigate us around such an intimidatingly huge city!

Here we are bundled up as tight as we can.

Time Square

The morning before we headed back to Connecticut we had a chance to do a session at the Manhattan temple. The temple is gorgeous. It was such a surreal experience to walk in to the quiet temple from the loud and busy streets of New York. The art work in the temple was gorgeous and so fun to walk around and look at. I think it is one of my new favorite temples.

I love this picture of my Mom (below) Isn't she so beautiful?

 

Kel and I decided to buy our Hubbies a wonderful gift to let them know they were loved. And what better gift to know you are loved then a silly looking animal bini? Everyone was wearing these in New York. We saw frogs, elephants, birds, monkeys, and all sorts of crazy animals on peoples caps.

The night before we left the Davis kids spontaneously decided to dress up and put on a play for us. We were the audience of some very fine actors I tell you what.

And, very cute actors at that.

Did I mention yet, how fun it was to be with Jen. I love this girl.

A week was a long time to be away from the husband and kids. I had a great time, but I missed them dearly, so whenever I could steal a free moment, this is what I looked like: either texting or talking to the fam back home.

Farewell my sisters. Until we meet again.

Warner's 2nd Birthday

THE UPS AND DOWNS of WB's birthday:

UP- Dinner at the Rainforest cafe on Friday night. So fun. It was the longest our kids have ever sat happily at dinner, because they were so enthralled with all of the moving animals and noises. One thing to know is that you don't go for the food, you go for the atmosphere. We all had a lot of fun. And Warner, unlike most people I know, absolutely loved being sung to by all of the waiters and waitresses. He was clapping during the whole song. It was so cute.  

DOWN- The 25+ hours I spent over the last 2 weeks trying to make a video of Warner on Adobe Premier. The long of the short of it is, after attempting to burn my DVD on four different occasions, on the fourth try it was 5 seconds away from completing the DVD burn (which had been burning and using up our computer for the past 3 hours, for the fourth time) when Premier decided to shut down yet again. I gave up. I'm going to either be saving my pennies for a faster processor that can handle all of my huge photo files and HD footage, or I'm going to wish on a star that the Mac fairy visits my house next Christmas. I think I'll hope for the later. I do have one unedited version of the video on a DVD that will have to do for now. 

UP- Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa Brown. And being grateful that even though they are so far away, they got to be a part of Warner's birthday celebrations. 


UP- Watching how excited Warner got when he saw his train cake. 

DOWN- Realizing how long and how much skill it actually took to frost the cake with out it breaking or crumbling everywhere.


UP- Learning how to crumb coat a cake. I never even knew that was something people did. Now I know.


UP-Having the Singleys over, spur of the moment, to celebrate Warner's big day with us. Thanks again for coming with such last minute notice! 


DOWN- Coming to terms with the fact that Warner isn't my little baby anymore. That's actually kind of an up I know, but I'm just sappy, and it makes me a little sad too.

UP- Watching the kids devour all of the candy off of the train cake. It was a big hit with them, which made all of that time-consuming frosting and crumb coating worth it.   

Now for the pictures!

Behold, the train cake that I was so ridiculously proud of myself for making. 

 Presents (most of which were found at the awesomest consignment store in the world called Urban Kids)

 Birthday Boy (with a messy face, because his mom forgot to wipe his face off after dinner)

 Birthday Boy so excited to dive into his train cake

 Quick note: Warner blows out candles whether they are there or not, when anyone gets done singing the birthday song. I think he thinks its just a part of the song. Luckily for this occasion, there were actually candles to recieve his blow.

 First time using his hand to show that he's two. What a big boy.

 The kids, thoroughly enjoying all of the candy cargo from the train cars.

 This is a picture looking down into Liv's little fold out princess house. I found her and Jane in there playing pretend. Cute girls.

Even though there were some downs, as there always are in planning fun activities for kids, Warner turning two was so fun for all of us. He was so excited about everything; from dinner, to the cake, to his presents.  It was so fun to watch him enjoy it all.  

He is growing and changing so much every day.

I'm so grateful for my mellow, sweet, playful little Warner.

Snow

The other day it snowed, and it was so fun because the snowflakes coming down were huge! It was perfect because we had just gotten done making snowflakes of our own out of paper just a few days before it snowed these huge, gigantic, beautiful snow flakes. We were snuggled inside all warm, and then I said "Liv wanna go catch a snow flake on your tongue?" She jumped up, put on her rain jacket and boots and ran outside as quick as she could.  When it comes to snow, this little girl's favorite thing to do is eat it! 

Red Dress