Blueberry Picking!

Yesterday we decided to get out of the house and go do a little blueberry picking at a farm about a half hour from our home. It was so beautiful! The berry bushes were at the base of this mountain. We went with our good friends the Nelson's and had a fabulous time!

They had six different types of blueberries and we decided that we wanted to pick from the blue crop because they were bigger and sweeter!

We all grabbed little buckets and headed into the berry bushes! Berkley was so excited!

(sidenote: she still won't let me do her hair and it was sprinkling a bit!)

If you look into Berkley's bucket you can see ONE little blueberry. She was so proud of that one little berry...we could've gone home at that point and she would have been proud as a peacock over it! I know she doesn't look that excited, but every time she looked into the camera it was to bright and she would look down again.

Emree and Carrin!

Morgan getting ready to gobble up a blueberry!

The rows of berries were pretty close together so some of the branches tried to eat our little birdie!

Kennedy had fun too!

Shalyn & I at the end of our berry picking adventure.

All our work in a flat! The most delicious blueberries and they all came to $10! What a steal!

Of course, we made some delicious blueberry cobbler and Shalyn and I got together and made some amazing blueberry jam! It was my first time making jam and she was the perfect teacher! Thanks Shalyn!

Our next trip....Apples!

WHAT DOES THAT SAY!!!

How many of you just know that you are done having kids...you can feel it? Brackon and I knew that we were done having kids once we had Berkley. We just felt complete! We were so sure in fact that we got rid of all of our baby things and all of my maternity clothes. So...it was a complete shock for us when we found out on Aug 1st that we were expecting baby #5! How can this be...well, we know how this can be, but...HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!

I personally thought that my jeans were starting to fit a little more snug because I was eating too much texas sheet cake! I was positive that the cottage cheese and yogurt that I had been CRAVING and eating every day for breakfast AND lunch for three weeks was healthy for me and was mad that it had made me put on a few pounds! I decided that I'd better not let myself go so I started to do pilates and PX90! That being said...I know that you don't start getting big when you are only a couple months pregnant, but this is my 5th so I am stretched out like a balloon and yes, my jeans are snug already! I, not being a fan of the "muffin top", have got myself using an elastic on some of my jeans that were a little more fitted so that I can wear them for longer!!!!

We've had a chance to let it sink in and told the girls and they are soooo excited! I went to the doctors last week and found out that I am 7 weeks along and am due March 27th! I've just started feeling sick and it's not too shabby...so far! I'm excited that I was unaware for 7 weeks and I'm hoping that this whole pregnancy with go by quickly. We are also crossing our fingers that we are getting a little boy! If we have a boy then we would've had to get new things anyways so getting rid of our stash of baby things won't seem so bad!

We are excited to strap on this new adventure and will keep you all posted on how things are coming along!

Let's Play Catch up!

This summer has been CRAZY!!! We have so much to update going all the way back to March! Let's get started!!!

It had been quite a few years since we had family pictures taken and we wanted our good friend, Kimberly Nelson (Tilt Photography), to take them for us before we moved to Seattle! They turned out awesome and we LOVE them! Thank You Kimberly!

This piggy picture is one of my favorites! It was the last picture that we did and the family didn't want to do it...mostly because they had to lay down on lava rock (ouch!) and we were at a 45 degree angle! My mom was there to help out with Berkley and she had to keep pulling us back up on the track, by our feet, so that we could get the picture! We had being shooting for 2 hours at this point...everyone was tired and spent, but I really wanted this picture! Of course Berkley was a no go! Thank you mom and thanks to my family for appeasing their mother!

OUR MOVE TO SEATTLE

A year and 3 months after our move from Atlanta, GA back to Orem, UT, Brackon received another promotion that brought us here to Maple Valley, WA! Our good friends that lived out in California when we lived in Rancho Cucamonga, Joe and Shalyn Nelson, were living out here and we gave them a call when we found out we were coming! We wanted to get the 411 on the best place to live. Of course, they directed us to their neighborhood. Shalyn actually found our home for us! It has been so much fun to be close to them again!

We love our home! We have fabulous neighbors and love the ward too! We live in an 'L' shaped cul de sac and we are on the 'elbow' of the L! We have a great little park across the street from our house that the kids love to play at...when it's not raining! You can see that there is a retaining wall on the far side of the park so the kids can't get out of the cul de sac.

There was quite a bit of rain at the beginning when we first moved in, but the summer has been gorgeous! Normally, we've been told, it doesn't get too sunny until July or August, but this summer has been very sunny and hot starting in May. We are going thru a crazy heat wave this past week and are DYING!!!! It's been in the high 90's and has even gotten to 101 which is a new high in the history of the state of Washington! Some of you may be thinking, "That's not a big deal!" It is when you don't have A/C in your home!!! I know...who doesn't have A/C!!! The folks that say you don't need A/C must not live here in the summer!!!! Our home at 10:30 pm is 88 degrees and it's much hotter upstairs! It is grueling to attempt to get to sleep at night! On the news this afternoon they said that only 14% of homes here in WA have air conditioning! HELLO!!! Granted we only need it for two months out of the year, but talk to anyone that is suffering without it right now and they'll tell you it's worth it!!!

BERKLEY TURNS TWO

Our little Berkley turned 2 on April 2nd, which was the day we moved into our new home so we don't have any party pictures. As a matter of fact, we didn't even have a little party for her. We were going to do one when we got settled, but we all know how long that takes, right?! She's 2 and won't even remember...we hope!

Berkley has such a fun personality right now. She is starting to talk a lot more, but we still can't understand her sometimes so we joke about her being so brilliant that she can speak chinese before she speaks english!!! She loves to talk on the phone and do anything her big sisters are doing.

Berkley is in a big girl bed now and loves it! We moved a TV and DVD player into her room to keep her in her bed. I know what some of you are thinking, but honestly, when you're used to your down time at night and the baby starts getting out of bed and doesn't go to sleep until 11pm, you get desperate!

Our little birdie, also still has her bottle and I KNOW that I need to get rid of it, but truthfully, I'm not sure that I'm ready for it because she takes it to bed and has them at nap time too! I've tried putting her milk in a sippie cup and she will have nothing to do with it!!! I've decided that I need her to help me put all of the bottles in a garbage bag and then we need to throw them in a trash FAR, FAR away from our home...otherwise, I will be diving into the trash if the crying gets to be too much! Wish me luck!

EMREE TURNS 8

Our sweet Emree turned eight at the end of May! She is getting so big. She has such a bubbly personality and I love the way she crinkles her nose when she smiles. She loves to play with all the kids on the block and is friends with everyone. Emree is our little tomboy and loves to wear a hat! She always has one on and more often than not it is turned sideways! We are so glad that she is in our family!

She has a good friend named Derby who lives across the street from us and her birthday is at the beginning of June so we did a combined b-day party!

We had a Mexican fiesta with a pinata...

sombreros and lots of food!

Emree, Maddie, and Derby are BFF's and always have a great time together!

Emree also got baptized! We are so proud of her! Grandma & Grandpa Livingstone came out and so did Aunt Patti and her kids. It was so nice to have them here with us. I completely forgot to take pictures with everyone.

MORGAN

Morgan has become fast friends with the kids here. She is going into 6th grade next year which is Middle School. She's excited and has started to look for things to put in her locker. I remember decking out my locker when I was in Jr. High and loved doing it! It's so fun to see our kids growing up and doing the things we used to do. It seems like so long ago and then sometimes it seems like only yesterday!

Our little Shmoopy has such a fun, loving personality and she loves to tease...wonder who she got that from. ;) She and her friend Abby are inseparable and want to spend every waking moment with each other! They are so cute together!

Abby will probably die when she sees the picture that I posted, but it was the only one I have of her and I think it's darling! I wanted to post one of the two of them together, but there wasn't one!

KENNEDY TURNS 14

Kennedy has been having an exciting summer! She flew down to Utah on the 18th of June, 2 days before school let out, to go to Girl's Camp with her friends. She has been gone for 6 wks and has been all over the place. She has been staying with G&G Livingstone, her good friend Maddie, she's gone to Colorado to see Aunt Honey and her family for Riley's baptism, St. George to visit G&G Curtis and cousins! She has been busy as a bee and we have missed her a lot!

Kennedy turned 14 yesterday and I honestly can't believe that we have a 14 yr old! Kennedy is the most responsible young lady you will ever find! Our neighbors out here say that she's my mother because she's always reminding me of things I need to do! What would we do without our sweet Kenners? We are so glad to be getting her back tomorrow! We have all missed her a lot.

Thank you to everyone for taking such good care of her for the summer and especially on her birthday! She loved going to get her piggies painted with Grandma Curtis and going out to breakfast with Grandma Livingstone. She was so excited to be going to a sleepover with Cassi at Aunt Micki and Uncle Spencer's and to dinner. You are all so awesome!!! We are so blessed to have such an amazing family!

Kennedy starts early morning seminary (6 am) now that she will be in 9th grade. It kills me! So grown up!!!

This is Kenners and her friend Sierra. They have a lot of fun together. She's excited to get back and see her.

Well that about wraps things up for us. We hope that you are all having a fabulous summer! I will definitely do better at updating our blog more frequently since this just took me FOREVER to do!

So Much To Update, So Little Time!

We have had so much happen this past little while that I need to blog about! We've packed up and moved to Seattle...Berkley turned two...I need to post our family pics that we had taken that I LOVE...and honestly I don't remember everything else, but I know there's more!!! I'm busy unpacking and getting our house all pretty, but once I find a widget of time I will jump on here and get some pics of our new home and fill you all in on everything that has been happening in our busy little life! I have decided to try and keep our blog up at least every 2 weeks! Wish me luck on that one! Of course, I'm thinking if I keep up on my blog everyone else will too since we are so far away and won't know what ya'll are up to....hint, hint, hint.

Trip to St George for Mom's Last Chemo!!!

Brackon and I headed down to St. George without the kids for mom's last chemo treatment! It was so great to spend time with everyone and especially mom and dad! Mom just looks amazing and has come out of her chemo with flying colors!

Look at that sassy lady!!!!

Coby and Kacie were there too!

Mom started her radiation at the beginning of Feb and is doing well. We are so grateful for what an amazing, strong woman mom is. We love you so much mom!

Cute mom and son pic!

Christmas 2008

Okay, we are so lame and hardly took any pictures of Christmas...only 4 to be exact. Kennedy is going to kill me for putting this on here, but this is our little family journal and I wanted to have a pic of her on Christmas! She looks darling to me!

Most pictures we get of Berkley have her squinting. She knows the flash is coming and our camera has a CRAZY flash that blinks a million times before the picture takes and sucks the batteries dry after 10 pics...well not really, but almost!

Emree's all smiles. All she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth!

Our little schmoopie Morgan is excited to open her presents!

Well that's all folks and because it's taken me sooo long to post this I can't even remember what we did Christmas Day. Isn't that awful?! I do know that we had loads of fun.

Emree the Squirrel

Emree's Class had a little Christmas party and they wrote a play without much help from their teacher Mrs. McTeer. Emree was a little grey squirrel and so hilarious.

The kids sang songs and built a paper snowman and had a lot of fun

Emree was gather nuts for the winter.

When she came back to her tree it had been cut down and she passed out. It was so funny! The funniest part was listening to her tell me what she had to say and do a few days before the play. She kept laughing and was so excited. She had the fluffiest grey tall and we forgot to get a picture of it, but you can see it to the left of her in this next picture.

Hooray for Emree!!! She was the best little squirrel ever!!!

Lights at Temple Square

This year we headed to Temple Square in Salt Lake with John and Mindy and the kids to check out the lights! It was FREEZING!!!! We were all bundled up and spent most of the time inside the visitors center and Joseph Smith Memorial building drinking hot chocolate. Yummy!

Daddy and Berkley

This year there we hardly any lights. It was kind of a bummer to drive all that way and have so few lights. A few weeks later we found out that it's because the lights are damaging the trees...poor trees!

Morgan and Emree all smiles...nice and toasty inside!

We were waiting for the dad's to park the cars so we snapped a quick shot of Aunt Mindy with all the kids. What a sassy group of ladies and, of course, a handsome gent mixed in there!

It was a fun evening enjoyed by all...especially the hot chocolate...yup, the hot chocolate was our favorite part!