Joel's baby blessing

We did Joel Jr's baby blessing at the Smyrna Ward on our last Sunday in Tennessee. It went great and we managed to get a picture of all 11 cousins together at once. Getting them all to look at the camera...not so much. Out of the 11 kids, 8 of them are 3 and under. It is so much fun (and so CRAZY!) when they are all together!

From left to right:
Henry, Brandon, Sam, Joel Jr, Allison, Chloe, Summer, Emsley, Sophia, Emma, Lily

And a few of our first pictures together as a family of 5 :)

kids table re-do

Last year I got this kid's table and stools from my sister-in-law Emily. I had big plans of repainting it, but being pregnant and moving across the country put those plans on hold...until now!

Here is the before:

Sorry this pic is blurry--it used to be a cute brown and white but had lots of chipping and coloring on it

And here is the after:

I used Behr "Intense Teal" for the table and stools, and then I had that same shade lightened about 75% at Home Depot with white paint (AKA: "Not-So-Intense Teal"). Thats what I used for the center piece and the numbers. I used stencils for the numbers and then put Polycrylic (my favorite topcoat EVER) on top of everything to prepare for the massive amount of destruction that is soon to come from the girls. I hope this table still looks cute after all the crayons, food, sticky stuff, etc!

 

They approve :)

Summer vacation 2013 {picture overload}

This past month we spent two weeks visiting family in Tennessee! It was a great time--the girls pretty much went non-stop from the moment they woke up to the moment they went to sleep every day! Nothing wears a kid out more than playing all day with cousins and swimming pools!

The 3 1/2 hr plane ride to Nashville wasn't terrible as soon as we got in the air. The terrible part was waiting almost an hour just sitting on the tarmac because our plane was "overweight". Two year olds do NOT have that sort of patience. It was rough. A huge thank you to Nana and Grampa for sending these awesome laptops for our trip! The girls loved them.

Summer

Emsley (sitting next to daddy)

Before this trip the girls really hadn't ever swam in a pool so I wasn't sure if they would love it. Silly me! They took about 30 minutes to figure it out once we first put on their "puddle jumper" floaties and then they were swimming around like little fish! Love those floaties--best invention ever!

Swimming with their cousin little Emma behind them!

Just chillin!

Playing outside at Auntie Em's house:

Emsley and Allison

Summer was SO proud of herself for swinging like a big kid!

Picnic! Brandon, Alli, Emmy (left), Henry, Lily, Summer (right)

We went to the Discovery Center (children's museum) two times!

Summer SO excited to see the turtles 

Emmy checking out the birds

JJ is not impressed LOL

The girls rode their first train at the 4th of July celebration. And cried huge tears when the ride ended. Haha! They are obsessed with "choo choos".

Nonstop coloring, all day every day.

Triplets! Cousin Lily has almost the exact same hair as the girls!

And lastly, Joel and I got to have a few date nights! So fun especially since we never go out in Utah because its hard to find a babysitter who can handle two hyper 2-year olds and a newborn. We played mini golf and arcades!

I wish I had more pictures of all the kids together, but unfortunately I forgot my camera and so these are all from my phone. No pictures of Sophia and Chloe or Sam and Emma. Darn it! Oh well.