Most Excellent Trip

Brooke and her boys joined us for a cross country trip (okay, not cross country but it was a LONG drive!!). We stayed super busy in AZ seeing family and friends and then headed up to Utah for Erik and Jessica's wedding! I am so glad we were able to go to that! We even got to see Nathan for a day!! After the wedding the kids and I headed up to Idaho! I LOVE Rexburg in the summer! I have about a million pictures. What's a girl to do?! I have to post them all!

We stayed with Kel for a couple nights and partied like a bunch of crazies! =) It was so fun being there. I love that girl plus Tess and Kens were there and it just so happens that I love those girls a lot too. =) We played Dr. Mario and watched High School Musical 3. Um - I pretty much loved that show. Best of the 3. Kelyn was an angel and cut and colored my hair and then gave me a pedicure! She's a saint!
Kel and Anika got a hold of the camera. Crazies.
We visited Grannie and Papa!

Grannie had us go through some stuff of my Mom's. My mom would have turned 50 this Saturday so she thought it would be special to give us the dolls she had been saving for us. I got the doll that my dad sent my mom while he was on his mission. It looks like a real baby so when I get baby hungry I can just rock this one. For now. =) Aunt Shaunna also brought over some stuff that she had - a few quilts and the many hats my mom wore around town. Minus the Zorro hat. That one was classic. I don't know many women that could pull off these hats but she TOTALLY did! =) Thank you Grannie and Aunt Shaunna - it meant a lot to me to be able to see these things and think of my mom.
We modeled a few of the hats:
I hung out with Mandi all day on Monday. It was glorious to say the least! Nicholas described it best when he said "this is the best playdate of my entire life!!". I agree! I always love being with my Mandi girl!

Mandi and Thomas - so cute!Anika, Nicholas, and Matthew
We had another playdate on Wednesday and I got to see the lovely Heidi! We had so much fun! I always look forward to our traditional cousin playdates.
We spent the Tuesday at Annies house! We made bread and ate at Panda Express. It was great to see Annie and her kids and also my family!

We went to Aunt Sharla's for a fabulous dinner and got to see the whole Kivett family (except Aunt Jolee and Stephanie and the boys!! So sad about that). It was SO good to see all of these wonderful people!
Here we are!
Grammy and Me and Brenan
Kelyn and Spencer. Can you believe she cuts and colors her own hair?! Sheesh.
Aunt Sharla, Chris, Grammy, Kens, and Dad
After this party Brooke and I hit the road! We drove through the night. I highly recommend it if you have a car full of kiddos! We spent the weekend doing wedding stuff, seeing Grandma West, and having a water fight at Grandpa Campbell's house. It was a blast!! I don't have any pictures of the actual water fight yet (I was too busy being in it!). I'll post some as soon as I get some copies. I didn't get many pictures from the wedding. I was always holding Bren. It was beautiful though!
Nana and Papa with their grandkids:

Carolyne, Taylor, and Keslie
All the cousins with Nana and Papa and Great Grandma West!
The kids with Great-Grandpa CampbellBrenan chillin' with Jordan and Marshall

Nathan and Brendan - these guys are so funny when they get together!After the water fight the kids and I bid good-bye to everyone and headed up to Idaho. On the way to Rexburg we stopped in Pocatello to check out Britt and Dusty's new digs!

Brayton and Raylee tried to stowaway with us! =) I'm convinced that there is no family as wonderfully fun as my family. =) Seriously. You've never played the Animal Game until you've played it with us. =) We played that along with several other laugh till you cry (literally - if you know me then you know what I'm talking about!) games. Like UHRUM:
We also did A-tootie-ta:
I got to see Brandon for a minute before he went on his California adventure. What a stud!
Brenan loved going on walks! Here he is with Aunt Baylie:
The lovely Lyssa Loo and the miserable Carly (nasty swimmers ear!) with Bren:
The girls helped in my parents MASSIVE garden. Keslie loved the peas!

We went to the zoo! Carlie and Anika:

Hannah and Keslie
Everyone that went to the zoo - minus me.
Dad, Hannah, me
We went to the sand dunes! It was a blast and the lake was super shallow so the kids were able to just wade around!

Amber and Keslie. I love that Amber girl. Seriously - I have the best siblings. All of them are fantastic!Keslie, Anika, Taylor, and Drew in their new outfits from Nana. We were just about to load up for Texas! It's nice to be home but we sure did love the trip!! Thanks everyone! Brooke - I'm waiting for you to post our road trip picture. It's so beautiful of us and I can't wait to steal it. =) Thanks for being my travel buddy - you rock - truly. I'll always think of you when I listen to our road trip cds. Thank goodness for those! Love ya!

I'm "SO IN LOVE" with these kids of mine...

"So in love" is Anika's new phrase and it is SO DANG CUTE! This morning she and Nathan were talking about her new school clothes at breakfast and she told Nathan that she is SO IN LOVE with her new kitty shirt because it's soooo cute! She cracks me up! =) I can't believe she is starting kindergarten in ONE MONTH!

I am SO IN LOVE with my Nutrimill!

I am SO IN LOVE with fresh whole wheat flour! I am SO IN LOVE with baking with my girls (and my bosch)!

I am SO IN LOVE with using beans in my recipes instead of oil!
I am SO IN LOVE with this banana bread recipe! I've tried it a couple times now and the first time it was good but this last time it was DIVINE. AND HEALTHY to boot!!

Good for you Banana Bread

3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup plain yogurt or applesauce (I used yogurt this last time)
1/3 cup pureed white beans
1tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1tsp. baking soda
1tsp. salt
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 2 8 inch loaf pans or 4 mini loaf pans with cooking spray.
Mix the first 6 ingredients together until blended. Add the remaining ingredients and mix. Pour into pans. I baked the mini loafs for about 40 minutes. The larger loaves should be done in about 50 minutes. The 3 of us girls devoured the four loaves right away! We are such piggies!

Here is a picture of Brenan and me. He's been a little grouch these past few days...
which is why I am SO IN LOVE with these things:
I despise teething. Nathan informed me that (according to one of his pedo professors at UCONN) there is nothing that proves teething causes: fussiness, drooling, runny noses, diahhrea, or fever.
WHAT??? and WHATEVER!!

Anyway, it should be a fun day today! We get to go swimming! =) We are having a great time here in Texas! I'm so excited for winter - if it's anything like AZ (I've heard it is!) the weather will be fabulous at that time of year! I've been doing a little research on different states. I love Texas but I really, REALLY love trees and green! We want to seettle somewhere in the west to be closer to family. We don't want to live somewhere that is cold from September - May - which I think rules out Idaho and Colorado. Utah and California are no's. Utah - too many dentists. California - too expensive. AZ and Texas are super close to family but aren't as green as I would like and there aren't as many outdoorsy things to do. I guess we could go camping but I have NO desire to go when there are FIRE ANTS and SCORPIONS and it is SCORCHING hot! What about Flagstaff? Is it still a tiny, little town or is it starting to develop? Those of you that live in WASHINGTON and OREGON - are there any areas that are not cloud covered the whole year? How cold does it get? How much snow/rain? How do you like living there? What about Colorado? We've heard Fort Collins is great from several people but that it stays cold all the way through May. Thanks for the tips!

Have a great Thursday!

We had an awesome time with Mom and Dad West and the Gordon's this past weekend!
On Friday night we watched Galaxy Quest - always a winner! =) Then on Saturday the kids played with Nana and Papa while we went to the Temple. I love the San Antonio temple - it's beautiful and I loved being there! We all headed to Olive Garden after that - it hit the spot SO much! Then we went to Seaworld for a couple hours. We had enough time to ride Atlantis and catch the Shamu show! The kids were WASTED by the end but it was a blast! On Sunday we said our good-byes - we dropped Dad West off at the airport and then headed up to Austin for dinner and to drop Mom West off. Thanks for the fun weekend guys! We love you!

Walking back to the car after the Shamu show

The gang waiting to see Shamu!

Poor baby! He was SO sleepy!

Big stuff happening over here!

Brenan got his first tooth last Monday - June 29th! He also started scooting last week! Go Brenan! He'll take off crawling any day now!

Show everyone your toofer Bren!!

Nathan got a massive sunburn - this picture only shows a tiny part of it

His upper legs were scorched! Poor guy! Nathan and Scott floated down the river and FORGOT sunscreen! They stopped at a gas station to get some and all that was available was 15 SPF! Anyway - the consequences were dire indeed. Some good came from the whole thing though! I have NEVER, never peeled such cool skin! I always thought the best sunburns to peel were the kind on the shoulders and back. I was mistaken. Legs take the cake!! It was a big day for Anika to say the least. She's her mother's child - that's for sure. =) Besides peeling Nathan's sunburn, Anika had a couple other important childhood experiences this past weekend.

She caught her first lizard! Meet Buzzy! She set him free before bed (her own decision) but woke up later that night sobbing because she missed him. She has such a tender heart.

Which brings me to her next big experience! She watched HEIDI for her first time on Sunday. Poor little thing. Every time Grandfather rejected Heidi Anika's little chin would start quivering. Such a good (long! Who knew it was so long?!!) movie!

AND of course we had all the 4th of July festivities! Nathan taught the girls about caring for the flag and the girls wanted to listen to Lee Greenwoods - I'm Proud to Be an American song over and over! We went to a little neighborhood parade in the morning. We decided to watch rather than be in it - my back was having issues again this weekend! Then that evening we had some friends over for a BBQ! We had a great time and the kids loved the poppers! That's about as crazy as we could get out here because I'm pretty sure anything with sparks would have set our backyard on fire! The grass is pretty much DEAD. I'm grateful that it rained a little bit last night! Maybe we will see some more of it! After the BBQ we headed off to see some fireworks! We had a great 4th. I feel so blessed to live in our country!

At the parade!
This is my version of the Family Fun hats! I couldn't find any red, white and blue bendy straws. Heidi - where did you find them?! Anyway - we liked this version too! The girls would wiggle their hats for the parade marchers in hopes of getting candy!

The girls love little Miss Hallie!

Throwing poppers with Hallie and Landon.
We found Brenan just chillin' right here. He wasn't complaining or anything. I don't think it looks very cozy!
Nathan with Aaron, Aaron and Lucas! I just cant bring myself to post the picture with the girls. Heather and Sandy are beauty queens - I'm not sure what was going on with me! =)

Um...

Okay FIRST -

It is NOT okay with me that the girls went downstairs last night around 9 (we were upstairs in the office) and came back up and told us that there was a MAN standing at the door who waved at them (our front door has some window things on it) and then turned around and left. I've tried to think of reasons that someone would have been standing out there - UPS man?? No, not at 9. Someone from the ward? No - they would have knocked or rang the doorbell - and there were no cookies out on the step. The only logical explanation is that it was someone scoping out our house. I've got the creeps. My imagination has kicked into overdrive. I've seen one too many episodes of CSI and LAW and ORDER SVU. Please give me some comfort!! I'm FREAKING out here!!

Second:

I'm not okay with our bug situation. We have ANTS crawling all over our kitchen floor. I try to keep them at bay by wiping them up and keeping the floor swept and mopped but they just keep on coming! They come through the door and a couple cracks in the tile grout. Nice. I'm not okay that we've had 2 huge roaches in our house. Nathan just vacuums them up and then I have nightmares that they are crawling out in the night - does he not understand that these are the creatures that can survive a nuclear bomb??!! Our roley poley (pill bug) situation is out of control. I feel happy that they are nice bugs and that they don't carry disease but I'm tired of waking up to 30 little roley poleys crawling all over the place downstairs! Then they die and I have to sweep them up. It's just lovely. =)

So, last night my dreams were filled with bugs and murderers. FUN!!!