Here is what our summer looks like so far:

 Fresh peaches from our tree.

 pb&j sandwiches with buddies

 COD parties with the boys

 sewing summer skirts

 and fixing Navy's broken necklaces

 mexico with the shreeves

 new knock off raybans

memorial day activities

 lots of swimming,

 ice cream,

 and white buns.

And no more baby food for Brock:)

Three of my friends all got married on the same weekend. 

That is what occupied our time the last couple of days.

Mark and Tia got married on Friday the 13th. We went to Tia's reception at the Wright House. It was beautiful of course. They had all kinds of yummy food and candy and the decor and flowers were so pretty! She was a lovely bride.

Mark's reception was in his bride's parent's backyard. 

They live in the most gorgeous neighborhood, my dream neighborhood actually, so of course it was wonderful looking! I was obsessing over all the pretty twinkling lights everywhere.

Him and his bride Amber looked great and super happy! 

Megs, myself, and Lar at Mark's reception.

Saturday one of my best friends Cecily got hitched.

I did her makeup for the wedding so the day got started at 7am. Then we were off to the temple by 8:30 for the sealing at 9. After that was the luncheon at 11.

She had the luncheon at the Wright House and it was so pretty! I was in love with her center pieces! Dano was in love with the food. They had Tia Rosa's cater and it was divine!!

Right after the luncheon they had to catch a flight. They were off on their honeymoon to HAWAII for a whole week! What a lucky girl! I bet they are having a blast!

Cecily was one of the most beautiful brides I've ever seen ( and not just because I did her makeup!! ha!). During the sealing ceremony I got all teary. I watched my Cec-squwatch grow up into the beautiful young woman she is now and I am just so proud of her. She couldn't have chosen a better husband. He loves her so much. I was dying over the way he was looking at her from across the altar. 

He was mesmorized. 

It was beautiful and precious.

I love you Cec! Congratulations!!

 Doesn't she look flawless??!

                           Lachelle and I, and the fab center pieces. Lachelle is Cec's sis-in-law and my friend! We used to dance together back in the day. She is my new favorite person because I left Navy's sippy full of milk at the store she works at. Guess who returned it to me squeaky clean and not full of rotten stinky milk?? Lachelle! 

Love her!

Megs and Wy

Mmmm food was delish...I can still taste it.

We all had lots of fun celebrating!

Hurray for getting married!!

(My sister informed me the other day that hurray is really spelled "hooray" but I don't believe it.)

When you give a 2 year old blackberries....

What does she do with them???

Rubs them all over her body of course!

This is what a typical dinner looks like at our house. 

A filthy body from head to toe!

The other night Dano discovered a pigeon's nest in a little nook by the roof in the backyard.

There was a cute little egg inside.

Dano thinks that pigeons are the spawn of Satan. He hates them with every fiber of his being so he destroyed the nest. Being a mother I felt sad that she would come back to find her egg and nest taken. It's sad right?! But then again I don't really want a pigeon living in our roof. We washed the egg and let Navy play with it because she kept calling it her baby birdy egg. She loved that egg. Unfortunately it broke 2 minutes later, so that was the end of that.

Last night we went over to my mom's to say hello for a little bit. 

She has discovered a new love of jumping all over Ryder.

So that is what she did.  For a very long time.

Uncle Ryder is a very good sport.

 Here is my Brockster just because.

So potty training has been put on hold lately because I just don't feel like cleaning up accidents all day. Navy is going through a "I have to do everything by myself" phase. (I don't think this phase will ever end though if she is anything like me)

Anyways, for the last few days Navy has been changing her own diapers.

She mostly does it when I'm not looking of course.  But she takes off her diaper when it is wet and puts a new one on all by herself. This morning was the first time she did it with a poopy diaper. I found her in the bathroom sitting on Mr. Froggy (her frog potty chair). There was an already pooped in diaper laying on the floor along with her shorts. So basically she pooped in her diaper, then hurried to her potty to poop some more. Then she insisted on pouring it into the big toilet and flushing it all by herself.  

Does this mean she is ready to be potty trained??!!

I just heard the sound of lots of water being poured all over the floor in the other room. Followed by a big thud and some crying........Guess I'd better go investigate.

This is what I woke up to on Mother's Day morning.

Navy and Dano made a yummy breakfast for me. I thought it was such a sweet gesture. 

And yes I got my pedicure gift certificate! Woohoo! My feet are so excited! 

(My mom got me one also so my feet will be happy for a while!)

After breakfast I put on a movie and made Navy hold still while I did her hair.
It is one of my new favorite things and since it was Mother's Day
everyone must oblige to my wishes.
(I might have made Dano change every dirty diaper that day. It was my day after all.)

 

On 

our way 

to church!

 After church we went to the Shreeves to talk to Jake. He is on a church mission in Denmark.

It was so great to talk to him. We all miss him. He gets home in 6 months so we'll get to see him soon!

All of the men made us all Sunday dinner. I have to admit we were all quite worried, but to everyone's surprise it was actually quite delicious! They made grilled steak and chicken, some yummy potatoes, corn, salad, and jello. Pretty impressive for a bunch of crazy dudes. 

  Jake was on the phone for 5 hours at least. The babies got a little worn out!

My momma had to work on Mother's Day so Megs and I made her dinner Saturday night. I forgot to take pics so I don't have any unfortunately.  My mom is the most beautiful and talented and most wonderful person I know. I'm so lucky she is mine! Love you Mom!

Tonight was our Spring Neighborhood Block Party.  My fabulous neighbors Jackie and Ann throw these a few times a year. It is the greatest! I love seeing all of the neighbors and getting to know them better. It is full of great food and fun! This time they rented a jumpy jump with a slide. Navy couldn't get enough! She was afraid at first but after a few minutes she got brave and wouldn't come out! She had a blast!

Brock was a little bummed he couldn't participate....maybe next year buddy!!!

I have always wanted to be a mother.

 I never would've guessed I'd be a mother at such a young age. It definately wasn't my plan. But I wouldn't change a thing when it comes to having my kids. 

I love being a mom to Navy and Brock.  They are my everythings and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have them both. 

Yesterday, while I was doing my makeup and hair, Navy spilled a huge puddle of water on the kitchen floor. Then she got yogurt out and fingerpainted it all over my tables and chairs. After that, she found some lotion and styled her hair with it. Sometimes things like this get me upset because I like my house neat and tidy but all I could do was laugh. Navy is hilarious. She is me I swear......but a little worse and I love it. I wouldn't have her be any other way.  She is like a little sponge soaking up everything around her. She can say anything now and can string words together into a sentence. She can count to 10 all by herself which is crazy for me because i never taught her how. She loves to sing and dance and run and play and swim and take baths. She is very strong and independent and wants to do EVERYTHING by herself. She is my sweet and sassy Navy May and I love her so much!

Brock is such a fun little baby. I think 8 months is my favorite age. He just crawls all over the house and finds stuff to play with and stuff to stand up on. If I can't find him I know he'll be under my kitchen table standing up and patting the seats of the chairs and crawling in and out and under and over the legs of the chairs. He loves to cuddle and give big slobbery kisses. He loves to grab my hair and yank it and pinch my neck when I feed him his bottle. He loves his sister so much. He is always watching her and laughing at her and trying to steal her blankie. And of course, I love his precious dimply smile. He is the best!

(Photos courtesy of bestie Lauren)

I just wanted to shout out to whoever is out there that I love my kiddos!!

They are the best gift I've ever been given and I don't know what I'd do without them!

For Mother's Day this year all I want is to see their cute little smiling faces

( and maybe also a pedicure gift certificate:))

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms and moms to be!!



Dano & I took an early anniversary trip for the weekend. Back in November, some guys at Bass Pro cornered us and talked us into a 2 night stay at the Cibola Vista Resort near Lake Pleasant for $99. If you go to the little orientation you get $125 in gift cards to Bass Pro so we were down.

We left on Saturday and stopped and had lunch at Cafe Rumba in Glendale. I used to work at Cafe Rumba when I was a sophomore in high school and I haven't been back since. I was excited to go back and the food didn't disappoint. As soon as I walked in the smells brought back so many fun and hilarious memories. Those were the days! After lunch, we headed to the resort. It ended up being really nice.

 Some views of the outside

All I wanted to do on this trip was see movies so we went and saw Water for Elephants. I can't even express how much I loved this movie. It was fantastic! Dano never likes movies I like and even he gave it a 9 out of 10! It is a must see!!!

Sunday morning was the orientation for ownership. We thought it would be a complete bore but it was actually fun. Weird. Our salesguy was so personable and fun to talk to. In fact, we ended up talking to him for over 2 hours. Usually I would be driven to insanity at this point but it was enjoyable. We said no of course but there were no hard feelings and we were on our merry way.

We grabbed some lunch at Chipotle and wanted to catch another flick at the movie theatre. There was a Krispy Kreme across from the theatre so I wanted to check it out first. It was the biggest Krispy Kreme in the country I swear. It was so cool and there was a milk bar where you could pick your flavorings and they'd mix it up for you. We didn't get a milk but some day I'll come back to try it.

Dano really wanted to see a scarie movie so we chose Insidious. Half way through I decided that I didn't want to see the scary guy because I am home alone with the kids a lot at night. I knew that scary images would be burned in my mind forever on so we saw Soul Surfer instead. I loved that movie too!!! I seriously was choking up and teary eyed all through the movie. I don't know if it was because of hormones or because my eyes hurt so bad from watching so many movies , or just because I'm a cry baby all of a sudden but it was such a great movie. It was clean and inspirational and I just loved it!

For dinner we went to a local family owned Italian restaurant. It was called Cucina Tagliani. The restaurant had the cutest decor. There was lattice on the ceilings with vines strewn in and out all around. Pots of geraniums and other plants covered all of the nooks and crannies and it was just so charming. The food was great too! Every single thing there is made from scratch. They brought out some delicious hot bread and olive oil for dipping. We ordered Pasta Tagliani and Montalcino Chicken. So Yummy! If you are ever in Peoria, Arizona you must try it!!

 Their portions are huge so we ordered half sizes and it was the perfect amount.

We came home Monday mid morning. The kids acted excited when they saw us so that made me happy!! I secretly missed them like crazy so I was so glad to be back.
Its Wednesday now and I'm ready for another few nights away.............

Kidding!!!!!!!
(sort of )

An Easter morning tradition that I grew up with is waking up early in the morning and finding your Easter basket out in the backyard. We have kept to this tradition since Dano and I got married so that is how our Easter morning started. Navy thought it was the greatest thing ever that the Easter bunny left us baskets. She found hers in the bushes. After we all found our baskets we went inside to open them. Dano got me some awesome stuff and of course the kids loved their presents and candy. Dano opened his and acted as though he liked his stuff. Later I got it out of him that the Michael Jackson greatest hits CD I got him he already had. I also got him a book I thought he would like. I heard it was really funny. He read a little bit of it and turns out there was profanity in almost every sentence. Oops!! 

That was the beginning of a lovely Easter morning turning to crapsville.

The night before Easter I started making rolls I was assigned for Easter dinner. It was a new recipe that I'd never tried. In all honesty, I've never made rolls all by myself before. I've helped my mom make them before but her recipe had things crossed out and no directions so I couldn't make it out. Well all night and all morning I prepared these rolls from this new recipe. I let them rise while we went to church. When we came back from church I took a peek. The rolls hadn't risen a millimeter. I let them rise 4 more hours and nada. I decided to go ahead and bake them and see if they'd magically rise. Nope. They were the most unattractive rolls I've ever seen and tasted even worse. They had the texture of a very dense hockey puck biscuit. 

Our Easter dinner party was in an hour and I didn't know what to do.  I called Sue up on the verge of tears. She told me she had a couple of muffin mixes I could come pick up. I sent Dano over. When he came back I hurried and mixed up the mixes. One of them was a blueberry mix so I went to get the blueberry can out of the box. I reached in and lo and behold.....no blueberry can. This day could not get any worse. At that point I was crying as I mixed in some nasty stale raisins I found in the cupboard. 

I felt like the biggest loser in the world on that Easter afternoon. Motherhood is a lot of things but a big chunk is cooking for your family. Welp turns out I can't cook. I can't make a roll to save my life. I can't even make blueberry muffins from a mix. AND I can't pick out a present for my husband that he won't end up taking back.  I sulked all night. We sat by Kiea and Cory at dinner and I watched him as he picked up his pretend blueberry muffin and took a bite. He looked at it funny and then asked me what was in them. I wanted to die in that moment. But hey at least I can live to tell the story. 

One good thing that happened on Easter was that Navy sat still for me while I did her hair. It was the first time we used a curling iron and I think it turned out pretty cute!

 I didn't get a great close up of the hair but this one kind of shows the back. 

This morning I woke up with a headache and I just didn't feel that great so I skipped out on the gym. I felt a little better later so I decided to head on over to the zoo. Going to the zoo burns calories my friends. Lots of walking, pushing heavy strollers, chasing toddlers, sweating to death....its great really!

Dano was able to come so it was fun!!

Brock really enjoys sitting up like a big boy instead of laying in the infant seat.

Dano can grow a fu man choo. Can you??

 Can you see the elephant right in between Navy and that random boy??

We have never done the sting ray exhibit before. It is SO cool!! We told Navy they were Mr. Ray from Finding Nemo. She kept yelling " Missa Ray Missa Ray". It was so cute. She was a little scared at first but after a while she stuck her hand in. She was too afraid to touch them though. Brock had fun splashing the water too. 

Before we went to the zoo, I made Navy some oatmeal for breakfast. I told her it was ready so she came and sat down. She stared at the bowl and exclaimed, " Ewww! Yut! Ewww! Yut!". 

Not cool. Where does she learn these things?!