The copy cat

Brylee loves to do anything that she sees her brothers doing, especially Hunter. This can be both helpful and problematic. For example, I have to be careful when I let Hunter sit across the table from Brylee. If it is a meal that Hunter likes it is good to place him across from Brylee because then I can tell Brylee to watch Hunter eat his food and she will copy him :) If, however, Hunter does not like the meal, he puts his head on the table and tries to "hide" from his dinner. Brylee will always copy this, even when it is food that she likes!

Well this particular morning, Hunter decided to eat his breakfast on the kitchen floor. Brylee had already had breakfast and was finished but once Hunter had a bowl of cereal on the ground she needed one too. She thought it was so much fun to be with him on the floor :)

4th of July

Happy Fourth of July!! Instead of trying to do everything today we did practically nothing and it was wonderful. I woke up earlier than the kids and decided to get out of bed and start on breakfast. They were super excited to wake up to star and flag shaped pancakes, orange juice, and strawberries. After breakfast I made some sugar cookies. All three had fun helping cut the cookies. After lunch we went around to meet our neighbors and give them some cookies. For whatever reason no one wanted to answer their door, except for the few people that we already knew. So much for getting to know some more people. Then we had fun running through our new water sprinkler. Bryant and I even put on our swimsuits to help the kids enjoy the fun. 

After the sprinkler fun we changed clothes and went to a BBQ at my Grandma Bonnie's house. Her backyard looked amazing with lots of green grass and very child friendly. It was a lot of fun with family. All three children managed to find dirt and get filthy of course :)

Hunter is 3!!

Hunter turned 3!!! I think Tucker was as excited for Hunter to turn 3 as Hunter. I love that we have the tradition of opening presents in the morning. It is a tradition that might change as we enter school years but for now it is working well for us. Hunter got a leap frog writing pad from us. I am hoping that it will help him better learn his letters and practice writing. I don't think Tucker learned his alphabet really well until he was 3 1/2 so I tell myself not to stress with Hunter. There is still plenty of time before he goes to kindergarten.

Hunter really enjoys drawing the shapes on the pad but gets super excited when he traces a letter and it tells him the sound the letter makes and that he did a good job drawing it.

Hunter really wanted a "rainbow" cake for his birthday. I'm not sure where he came up with the idea but that is what he wanted. I convinced him that a funfetti cake is a lot like a rainbow cake because it has all the colors inside it. Then, as I thought more about it, I decided I could do a couple of layers of cake in different colors and icing in different colors. I was however not crazy enough to make seven layers of cake to represent all of the colors of the rainbow, mainly because I only have two round cake pans :P

So the cake was ultimately a funfetti cake with a green and yellow layer then a layer of red icing (which always looks pink because I refuse to use THAT much food coloring) then orange frosting over everything with blue lettering on top. So all the colors, except purple were represented. Hunter was super excited about it, which is all that really matters.

Because Tucker had a friend birthday party this year, he kept on wanting to invite all the neighbor kids over to see what presents they got for Hunter. It took a few times of explaining to him that we were not having a friend birthday party. Hunter was a little disappointed (I think more because Tucker kept bringing it up than anything). We did go to the "water park" (the outside pool that has a great place for children to play) to celebrate and everyone had such a great time!!

It was really fun to see each child become braver and braver the longer we were there. At first Brylee refused to go anywhere without holding onto Bryant's or my hand, then she started exploring walking between us. She thought the water's ability to push her around was so cool by the end and had fun venturing everywhere on her own exclaiming "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" with every step and wave that came. It was precious. Then she would sit on her knees and put her face in the water and blow bubbles, all the things we practiced at swimming lessons. Occasionally she would willing put her head under the water.

Tucker and Hunter were both pros with the water and were not fazed by the waves but as time progressed they each got braver too. Hunter had loads of fun trying to sit on the bottom of the pool, which meant that his face went under with each attempt but was not so deep that it completely covered his head. He also enjoyed dunking himself in the water over and over again, taking breaths in between each dunk.

I wasn't sure Tucker would ever really try to do anything on his own, without coaxing but even he impressed me. He enjoyed playing ring around the rosies and dunking under. By the end of the time there he put his whole body in the water and tried to actually swim by scooping his arms and kicking his legs. He usually started moving right as he would need to come up for a breath and then he would dunk back under and start flailing about again. I was super pleased to see each of them so brave and practicing what they had been learning.

Oh and because we took swimming lessons in the summer we had three free passes to the water park, where we only have to pay for persons ages 4 and up so the three passes covered Bryant;s, Tucker's, and my admission. It was truly a happy birthday

June!

 I was trying to be covert and capture what was a truly great moment but I got caught :)

Hunter got bubbles from our day at the Utah Lake Festival and he was sharing so sweetly with Brylee. He would dip the wand and blow and then he would dip the wand and hold it so Brylee could have a turn to blow some bubbles. It was really precious. I love when Hunter is so mindful of his sister and willingly shares of his own accord. They have lots of fun together!

We went to Orem's summer fest this year. The boys thought the old fire engine was really cool They also liked looking at all the cars on display. Tucker kept saying "OOOO look at this one's engine!" I love his enthusiasm, especially since Bryant and I don't really know anything about cars :P

While we were there we got to watch a helicopter land. It was really impressive. I knew there was quite the spray of wind from them but I still had no idea just how much wind there was. It was cool to be so close and experience the whole thing. The children all thought it was cool too. Tucker moved back away as the helicopter landed and Hunter was a little upset that sand got thrown at his eyes (the helicopter was landing in the outfield of the baseball field), Bryant's hat was blown off, and Brylee just stood there and took it all in. I took a video of the helicopter landing but it won't load on blogger for some reason. It is cool though because the blades are spinning so fast in reality and the camera could only pick them up at a certain rate so it looks like the blades are turning really slow right until they actually start spinning slowly and then they turn into more of a blur in the video.

Brylee loves to chill with anyone that is laying down. She always requests her own pillow and occasionally her own blanket.

She has so much hair!!! It is a lot of fun to do up and she looks fabulous after she sleeps for any period of time :)

I had no idea this video existed until I was putting things on the blog. Apparently this is what happens when Mom is away from the house for a period of time. No wonder I can't get Brylee to keep balloons out of her mouth!

June was the month that we got to move!! My family visited one weekend on their way to Idaho, we moved on Wednesday evening, and then my family was back again that weekend on their way back to Arizona. We had so much help with the move. The members of the ward even brought their friends! They all caravaned over to the new place to unload the moving truck and then went back to the apartment for the second load and came to unload again! It was amazing. While the truck was being unloaded the first time, our wonderful new neighbor came over to see if he could help, just in time too. Bryant had not dismantled the bunkbeds in hopes that we could fit them where we wanted them without having to unscrew the pieces. Well they almost fit into the bedroom but not quite. The neighbor went home and brought back his drill with attachments, dismantled the bunkbeds and put them back together in the right bedroom with the help of one of our ward members. Everyone else went back for the second load. While they were gone the two brethern moved all the boxes out of the living room and into the proper rooms for me. It was amazing! There was so much room in the living room when the gang came back to unload the second time that they were surprised they had places to put things. I was then in a position to tell the people which rooms to put things as they came through the door so the living room didn't end up in a complete mess again. Below is a brief walk through of the new place. The bedrooms are really tiny but the living spaces are large and spacious!

Here is the view from the front door of our living room

And here is the view from the kitchen. We have two great storage closets. It is nice to have a coat closet finally!

to the left of the book shelf in the first picture is the entrance to the kitchen/dinning area

It is so nice to have lots of cupboards and drawers and room to move around in the kitchen when making a meal!

When you enter the living room there is a hallway off to the left. The washer and dryer are on the right followed by another big storage closet and the kids bathroom. The first door on the left leads to the toy room and the second door at the end of the hallway leads into the baby's room. The hallway turns right with two more storage closets, a bedroom off its left, the water heater and furnace, and ends at the mater bedroom

 Here is the toy room. It has two closets on the right wall, which are filled with all the clothes that I have saved for my children as they grow along with a grand supply of wet wipes and some diapers. We have an extra dresser at this point in our lives (surprisingly) and it is stored in one of the closets as well.

This is the baby's room. It is currently the room where we hang up our swimming suits and towels. It is the same size at the toy room, although it feels a whole lot smaller with the futon in it.

 This is the kids bathroom. Nothing super special.

We put all three kids in the same bedroom again, but without toys this time. The closet in this room is really big. Brylee's dresser fits along the side wall of the dresser and the boys love to make the closet into a pirate cave with all their blankets, pillows, and as many toys as they can before I cut them off.

And then there is our master bedroom. It is certainly the biggest bedroom and comparable to the small bedrooms of our old place. Most exciting is that we have a master bathroom. I have wanted on of these for several years and am super excited to finally have one!! It is the same as the kids bathroom, nothing special, except that it is all mine and Bryant's :)

Our new place is a duplex so we share the kitchen wall and master bedroom wall with our neighbors. I have only heard them through the walls once, at 1 am when something banged really hard into the bedroom wall and shook it. We live in a circle so I don't stress too much about the boys playing outside. It also means Tucker has lots of room to practice riding his bike without worry of being ran over by a car! We have lots of grass! Brylee loves to spend time outside but only if she is with me or Bryant or riding the tricycle. Hunter would spend his entire day outside if I let him. He loves to just wander around and explore everything there is in our circle. It has made quiet afternoon time so much easier!

We live next to an interesting family (which is saying it delicately) the two girls that live there love when our boys are outside and often come asking if they can play. It has taken a little while for all the neighbor kids to be accustomed to the thought of our "garden" they kept picking the green fruit when we first moved in, much to our dismay, but the plants have been left alone for at least a week now :) Perhaps we will see a tomato turn red before the end of the summer.

Hill Air Force Base

We went to the Hill Air Force Base Open House on Memorial Day Weekend. The weather had been nice all week and so I planned cool clothes for everyone since we were going to be outside all day. We woke up and left the house around 6:30 in the morning. All the kids stayed awake for the drive up and enjoyed eating breakfast in the van. I had the thought to grab everyone's coats in the morning, but wanted to wait until we got the kids up so that I would not wake them earlier than needed to get in the van. Well as soon as we got their and were unloading everyone from the car, the lady unloading next to us turned to Tucker and said "you better grab your coat it is rather cold out here."

Of course I forgot to grab the coats and it was rather cold outside. Fortunately, we brought each child a blanket (in hopes of helping them to sleep on the ride up or the ride home) so we wrapped them each in a blanket and tucked them into the stroller. Then we started the long walk from the parking area to the entrance. As soon as we got there, Bryant realized he had his pocket knife in his pocket, like always. Rather than walk all the way back to the van he opted to throw it away at the check in gate. It seems like he takes after his father in that way. I will probably be buying him a pocket knife every year for our anniversary because he keeps "losing" his.

Once we were inside the gate we went around to all the different aircraft. The children had lots of fun climbing into them. We got there right when it opened so there were no lines at a lot of the helicopters at the beginning. Tucker was so cold that he almost opted to stay wrapped up in his blanket rather than get out and climb in the aircrafts but eventually he got over it enough to have fun.

Brylee was particularly interested in climbing in everything!! Anytime one of the boys, usually Hunter, went to get inside of something, Brylee was right behind him begging to be helped up into the aircraft too.

Everyone was super excited about getting in this jeep! It was really tall!!

They had a great photo opportunity outside of one of the hangers and each child took a turn having a picture taken. If we had planned appropriately we would have stood in the same place to take each picture and stuck them all together.

 The tallest suit was a little tall for me and made me look like I had a really small head. I just couldn't get close enough to the cutout with my pregnant belly so Bryant had me stand next to the middle size one.

 Inside the hanger were a bunch of booths. The boys got balsa wood airplane kits, a poster, a sticker, and a paper space shuttle kit from NASA, a free toy from one of the booths, a safety whistle, candy, and a couple of other stickers from other vendors. Right at the door, there were a bunch of guns on the ground for people to "play" with. Hunter had fun laying down pretending to shoot me! He would not get up until I acknowledged to him that he "got me."

 Bryant really like this airplane so we took a picture in front of it

This was my favorite. I can never remember its name but it is the airplane that can take off and land like a helicopter. They have the side wings in an in between position so that you can get the effect of their rotation. It was really big!

This jet is meant to be an experimental new jet (or something like that) It did not have its engine inside of it so you could see right through from the back out the front of the plane. It is crazy to think that the majority of the planes are the engines and there is only minimal room for the pilot.

After we walked around and saw all the planes we sat down to watch the air show. It promised to be really cool with a lot of stunts and fly over. We started by seeing some people  parachute down. The wind was really gusty so they had to be extra careful. We stayed and watched a couple of airplanes do their "pre-show" but ultimately left after only an hour or less of the show because everyone was freezing and the dark clouds in the sky kept getting closer.

We made it to the van as it started to sprinkle and there was a slight drizzle as we were leaving the base. Once we were on the freeway we were being pounded with rain and despised that all the cars were driving without their lights on. They could be only a few feet in front of us and invisible because they didn't have their lights on, there was so much rain!

My cousin with her family, anticipating rain, and they tried to stick it out and they ended up getting soaked on their way to their vehicle once the rain storm made it to the base. After the storm passed, the air show continued and was likely spectacular but our boys were still a little young to appreciate sitting on the concrete for five hours of entertainment, perhaps next year we will plan better, knowing what to expect. The boys do have memories of one jet's "banana turns" (Tucker's favorite) and fire coming out of the back of another plane, the afterburner (Hunter's favorite) and they talked about them for the first part of our ride home.

Funny enough, Tucker and Hunter both passed out within minutes of getting on the freeway but Brylee stayed awake the whole way home and did not permit me to fall asleep!