Happy Birthday Mommy!

Today is Mommy's birthday.
I am celebrating by getting out the picture book.
I love that I am the keeper of the family pictures.

Picture at the hospital, brand new baby Melody.

Pretty baby.

I love that my grandma has labeled these pictures.  Seeing her handwriting just reminds me of her and makes me happy.

Don't you just love how Grandma can pull off any style and look awesome, look at that beehive hair.

Mom is smack dab in the middle of seven children.

So beautiful.

Hey, I hope today is a lovely one for you Mom.

Love you.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my Daddy's birthday.

Dad and Aunt Bev, 1998

Lane gets his napping habits from Dad.

Heck, who am I kidding, I'm sure taking after him now a days too.

Rad shoelaces Daddy

Daddy Daughter Date night - 1st grade

*cough* glasses.that.cover.my.face *cough*

Daddy & David

Me and Daddy

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Have fun with everyone at Leatherby's tonight.  Love you.

Me and Nin

Family Visits in July

So, back at the end of June/beginning of July a bunch of my family came out to stay for a couple weeks.

Which I loved.

A lot.

{come back please}

So this post is the part of their trip that we were hanging around our house in Michigan.

It's a bit long.

We flew back from Nina's wedding in Vegas with her baby in tow and got her all to ourselves while Mom, David, Lane, and Shane  drove from Vegas to Michigan.

She's pretty dang cute.

The driving portion of the family arrived the night of David's 22nd birthday, so I had a cake waiting.

Most of us don't like frosting if you are wondering about the cake decor.

Although I think there's a lot to say for my laziness too.

Yep, definitely a factor.

I am in love with the following picture of Curt holding Ellie.

I don't know, maybe it's just that she's such a little person. Maybe it's the perfect way her itty bitty bum fits on his arm. Maybe it's the way she has her arm thrown over his shoulder and is grinning at Mom. Maybe it's her pigtails.

At any rate, I just can't get over it.

So, we bought a high chair at a neighbor's yard sale earlier in the summer.

I think it was a good idea. 

Spaghetti + Ellie wouldn't have worked well without it.

Since we had the two weeks off of work, Curt thought it would be a good time to try out the totally shaved look.

It took some getting used to but I like it.

On the 4th of July we did some fireworks.

By "some" fireworks I mean some snakes and sparklers, pretty minimal, but it made Shaners happy.

By the end the boys may or may not have been bored enough to actually take my suggestion of reading a book. :)

I'm not quite sure how they ended up being related to me and not being avid readers, I mean, come on.

But they took the suggestion good naturedly enough, and even took the books home to finish.

But they did get to do some cool stuff.

Curt took all of the boys to a tour of a Ford factory that puts together the F-150.

And everyone but me and Ellie went to a Detroit Tiger's game. 

And then they drove home to Utah.

With a one year old in the back seat.

Did I mention that is a 24 hour drive?

Yeah, they did it straight.  Left at Ellie's nap time one day and made it home the next afternoon.

The crazies.

But I miss them.

{come back}

Thanks for the visit guys.

Love ya.