Bridals - Part 1

Just some of my favorites from a photo shoot I did today.  It was overcast but still around 100 degrees during the shoot.  Also the first time I shot with an assistant who made my job 10 times easier!

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and these last two are at the top of the favorites list:

The Best Birthday Present -- Part 2

So remember Allie's best birthday present (her Dsi-XL ranked #2)?  I know many of you just couldn't wait until I could post this.

Enough of the suspense...

Maddie is going to be a BIG sister!

And if that news wasn't enough....Kevin's right once again and we are having

A BOY!

The kids are so excited.  They have been begging for a baby (literally!) the last year - I have tons of letters and cards that say "I want a brother/sister/twins".  I wished for twins, but I guess that wasn't in the cards!  Collin wanted another sister, and was a little disappointed when the doctor confirmed it was a boy.  But he got over it quickly when we told him he would have someone to teach and play legos with, etc. All that fun boy stuff.  Cute little baby was kicking and stretching during the sonogram. The kids thought he looked like an alien. :)

Lorraine and Andrea came with me to the ultrasound.  Kevin couldn't make it, but said he didn't need to be there since he already knew what we were having.  He has this uncanny gift of knowing what we're having.  He's been right about all of our kids.  In fact, I bought crib bedding for Allie, Collin and Maddie weeks before we found out what we were having.  Allie and I played like we found out it was girl, and he told us "not this time".  So we had to 'fess up and tell him he was right.

We found out we were pregnant the end of May, and waited to tell the kids until Allie's birthday.  We knew just how much they were wanting a baby in the house, so Allie had to be the first to know.  But since it was way too close to when we were finding out anyway, we decided not to OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE until this week!  I am now 17 1/2 weeks along, and due on December 29th.  I haven't been super sick, except for the month of May, when I was getting an unusual share of migraines and nausea all day, but no dry heaving.  Besides that, this pregnancy is nothing like it was with Maddie.  I am just crossing my fingers I don't get carpal tunnel again.

So anyway, yesterday, we stopped by the mall to check out some uniforms, and Allie couldn't resist the baby clothes.  So she picked out this cute outfit for the baby. She wanted to buy all the cute boy clothes she saw! She plans on dressing him every day once he's home from the hospital.

Here you go...Baby #4's outfit, handpicked by his big sissy:

and I bought this for me:

Oh the excitement of a new baby!

July 9th - Time to head back!

We were sad to leave the cool weather!  We headed out early morning and on the way home we stopped at Clint's Well, where our ward campout was.  It was one of Kevin's spontaneous ideas - it was nice weather up at camp too so I wasn't complaining.

It rained on and off on the way there so we knew the rain was going to come to camp sooner or later. Sure enough it did.  Kevin's dad was riding his quad when it came down - he got drenched!

It was fun to get to see all of Kevin's family (minus Drysuit), and a few of our friends.  Allie and Collin both instantly disappeared with their friends and cousins.  We were there for a few hours, and headed back to Gilbert around 6 p.m.  Unpacked. Threw in the laundry. And went swimming the next day. Back to the heat!

July 7th/8th - More fun in the cool weather

Maddie got out of her jammies and put on Allie's swimsuit inside out and slept in them.  She awoke looking like this on Wednesday.

Wednesday was a nice day to relax!  He did some light yard work while I read Eclipse (I read all 4 Twilight Books in one week -- I loved being able to sit and read without any housecleaning to worry about, and dinners to fix!).  Anyway, I fell asleep while reading and felt lots of small balls in my hands.  Pretty soon I hear snickers and found that Maddie had gotten all these little pool balls and had placed all of them in my empty hands.  It was too funny not to take a photo!

Then we went to dinner with Bishop and Sister Bliss at Brick Oven!  It was so nice to reconnect with one of our old bishops (the other one we visited with was Bishop Bloomfield who had us over for some yummy breakfast!).  Anyway, we also ran into the Wares (also from our old BYU ward!) while we were there.

After dinner, we went by the Provo temple and let the kids enjoy the grounds.  The temple was closed for interior renovations, so there weren't many people there; the grounds were quiet and peaceful.  Little did we know that a few hours earlier in the afternoon, a man had gone to the grounds of the temple and killed himself with a gun.  We read about it in the newspaper the next morning.

The next day I ran all my BYU and shopping errands.  Allie wanted to stop at this new shop at the Riverwoods - and what a nice surprise it was!

Blickenstaffs would be one of our favorite stores if we lived there still - lots of awesome one-of-a-kind toys and old-fashioned candy!

Allie and Collin filling up on pucker powder.  They had a whole bunch of flavors!

July 6th - Park City

We took the kids to Park City on Tuesday to ride the Alpine Slide.  It was Maddie's first time to go down the slide, and she thought it was the funnest thing ever!

We were riding in the lift right behind these guys so as soon as they got off at the top, I snapped this photo, then we continued on our long ride up.

The view from our lift

Kevin, me, and Allie went on the Scenic ride, which was breathtaking and so relaxing, I could have gone on that forever.

The ride is an hour long, so while we were gone Archie and Andrea took Collin and Maddie up the slides, then the kids got to go a second time after we got back.  On our way back, we "ran" into Collin and Archie who were on their way back up for another turn on the slide:

Allie's little traffic jam

Allie went by herself again this year and Collin wanted to do it a few more times, except we had to run so we could be on time for a dinner appointment with Kevin's old law school classmate (the Lee's) in Sandy.  It was a fun day!
And this of course happened a couple of times:

Maddie threw herself on the ground because Archie told her not to sit there because of it was dirty, and when she couldn't get Dipping Dots in her mouth fast enough. Silly child!  We all just had to stand there and laugh about it.

July 5th - Parade, Fair, Tucanos

We headed down University Avenue for the parade early on Monday.  It was so packed as usual, but since there were only 5 of us, it was easy to squeeze in and watch the parade.  There were some awesome new floats and a few we recognized from last year.

We all liked the float "How to Train Your Dragon", got a kick out of the Missionary AP's riding in a convertible (while the rest of the Utah Provo Missionaries marched!), saw our former BYU Stake President, John Lewis (and missed the chance to get a good photo to send him!), and stood up and cheered for all the men and women who serve in the armed forces. Maddie didn't care about all those except for the giant blowup things.   Collin and Allie just wanted me take photos of every single float and marching band that came thru.  Here are some that we liked:

It was a cool 70 degrees the whole entire time we were out there.  We didn't even break a sweat while walking up long flight of stairs by the Richards Bldg (BYU)!  We saw this huge BYU big rig on the way to our car, so we had to take pictures by it.  We grabbed lunch at Bajios while Kevin went out to lunch with an old MBA friend.

Part 2 - The Fair

My sisters and Danny came by our hotel later that afternoon and we walked down the street to check out the fair.  We enjoyed kettle corn, gelato, and cotton candy, and Collin scored a rubber band pistol, which he was so happy about.  My sisters were looking for some Caribbean hot patties and jerk chicken (just like back home!) but we didn't find any so we were all a little disappointed about that!

After the fair, Kevin and I went out to dinner at Tucano's with our good friends, the Largeys (Kevin and Zach served together in a bishopric a few years ago) and their kids.  We got to meet their new adorable baby girl, Afton!  It was so fun to get together and talk for a LONG time, we had to just kick ourselves out of their house because it was bedtime for the kids.  My sisters, Danny, and Archie watched the kids for us while we were gone - and took them swimming and fed them dinner.  I think the kids had lots of fun with them!