Oh What Do YOU Do In The Summertime?

I'm sure that most of you have had a summer like ours. Summer has been exciting and busy and chuck full of fun! However, I wouldn't recommend holding off updating your blog for this long! We've got a million things to cover! Starting where we left off back in May we have (deep breath) Emree's birthday, Father's Day, Kennedy's trip to Georgia, 4th of July, Kennedy's birthday, YW girls camp, Brackon's birthday, 1st day of School, and finally, Morgan's Birthday ~ WHEW!!! And yes, this is fair warning to the fact that this is going to be a LOOOOONG entry! Of course in the interest of trying to catch up I will do my best at trying to keep things short when it comes to the details, instead of going on and on about it! Some of you are laughing at me right now. The thought of me keeping anything short when it comes to verbalizing anything - I know, but have a little faith and let's see what happens!

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY TO EMREE!!!

Just after Mother's Day our little Emree turned 7. We love her so much. She is such a sweet & loving little girl. So full of life and excitement. The emotions freely flow with her which can be a good thing or a bad thing! Sometimes she will start to cry because she says that she loves us so much and other times you can imagine what it is like! She is very passionate whether it be good or bad! All I have to say is if she is this emotional and the ripe old age of 7, I can hardly wait for the teenage years!!! It's pay back time for our parents. What a riot to watch your children raise their own and struggle with the things they once did. As dad Livingstone has always said, "The Lord has a sense of humor and blesses you with children that are just like you!"
She must take after Brackon!!! ;)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO OUR AMAZING DADDY!!!

Happy belated Father's Day to all of the dad's our there! We are so lucky to have such an awesome, dedicated, hard working, devoted, fun loving, wonderful, and funny dad. We love Brackon so much and are so grateful to him for all that he does for our little family. For those of you that don't know, Brackon travels all the time so he doesn't get the chance to come home every night and hug his wife and kids and get smooches from us! We miss him when he's gone and little Berkley about turns herself inside out when her daddy gets home. She has Brackon wrapped around her finger!! Whenever daddy is home, Berkley wants nothing to do with mommy and that's the same for the other girls when it comes to his cooking! He served his mission in Italy and is an amazing cook! What else can I do but humbly step down from my cooking duties and let him shine!!! ;) We love him so much and are so blessed to have him as our daddy and husband. Thank you Brackon for all that you do for us. You are the BEST!!!
We love you, we love you, we love you!

We are so grateful for our own dad's as well. What shining examples you both are for us and our family. We don't know where we'd be without you and the wisdom and courage that you both show to us on a regular basis. You are the most amazing dad's that anyone could ask for.
How lucky are we to have the two BEST!!! Happy Father's Day!!!

KENNEDY TAKES A TRIP TO GEORGIA FOR 3 WHOLE WEEKS!!!

Little Miss Kennedy has had an exciting summer! In June we flew her out to Georgia to spend 3 weeks with one of her best friends Brooke. Yes, that was 3 weeks without our babysitter! We survived and missed her so much! She had so much fun with the Marcom's. Truthfully, we were surprised that she would fly out by herself , but she did and did great! While she was out there she went to YW camp with the girls from our old ward. She had a blast and got back on the 9th of July after a 3 hour wait on the tarmac in Atlanta! It stressed her out a bit, but she got back in one piece! A million thank yous to the Marcom's for taking care of our little girl. She forgot to take pictures so this is all we have from all of her adventures!

4TH OF JULY!!!

4th of July started early in the morning with me and my sisters running the Freedom Run in Provo. Jeannie and I ran the 10K and Mindy and Reecy ran the 5k. It was such a great way to start the day! I forgot how much I love to run.

Later that day we had a BBQ with my whole family and the Baxter's. It was so much fun to have them with us. We then got ready to head out to the Stadium of Fire. What a great time we had! We went with our good friends, Kimberly and Nelson and their two. Miley Cyrus and the Blue Man Group were the performers and Glen Beck was the MC of the show.

To start the show they had 6 skydivers jump from a plane and land in the stadium. I was thrilled with that and could've had the fireworks and gone home. It was a lot of fun and Morgan and Emree loved seeing Miley Cyrus. Thanks to mom and dad for babysitting Berkley!

HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY KENNEDY!!!

WE HAVE A TEENAGER!!! We can hardly believe that our little Kennedy is now 13!!! It seems like only yesterday that I was headed to the hospital to have her.

Kennedy is very responsible! Whatever we ask her to do she does. She is our very biggest helper! Sometimes we ask her to do too much and she feels like Cinderella of the household! The poor oldest child of every home! We put so much more responsibility on them.

Kenner's is a little shy at first until you get to know her, but once you do she is fun loving and outgoing. She is concerned for others feelings and loves to do things with her friends and cousins. We are so grateful for our sweet Kennedy and don't know what we'd do without her!

YW'S GIRLS CAMP AT MIA SHALOM!!!

In July I was called to be the Stake craft counselor and assistant cook so I was able to go to girls camp for the first time since I was 13 and a YW myself! It was so much fun to be out there with all of the girls and Kennedy. We had the funnest group of stake leaders, you would've thought we were a bunch of teenagers too!

Every morning the fog would roll in from off the lake. It was so beautiful!

Every ward had to perform a skit at morning flag. Our ward did The Ugly Duckling. Kennedy is the first face that you can see from the left.

It rained all 5 days that we were there. Kennedy and her friends at morning flag!

The reason I never wear a hat! I had to do something with that hair of mine while at camp because no way was I going to do my hair or wear make-up while camping!

All the crazy stake leaders!

My mom & dad were asked to do morning side on Thursday. It was so much fun to have them out there. They did and excellent job, as always!

Mom talking to the girls before dad.

Dad got the girls singing with him...

and called me up to sing with him and mom as well!

He talked with the girls for about 40 min. and they loved it! He did such a great job, as always!!! All day long the girls kept coming up to me and telling me what an awesome dad I have!

The walk to the lake was beautiful.

I didn't get a picture of our cabins but you can see one at the camp site across
the lake in this picture.

At the lake the girls played water games in the canoes. The wards played against each other. Kennedy and Maddie didn't want to get in the canoes. So they watched from the sidelines.

On the last day at camp the girls were gathered in the pavilion, because it was raining, for our last flag. As they were doing all of their cheers it was SOOOO loud!
Kennedy and our ward doing their cheer.

As the stake we had our own cheers. Our final cheer we wrote that morning and had a dance that went with it. At the end of the dance we all pointed to Nisa Whittaker, the Stake YW president, and she did the splits. The girls went crazy! They loved it!
I'm in the front on the right.

Kennedy and her friend Maddie!

I realize that camp isn't exciting unless you were there yourself, but I wanted to document it for Kennedy and I when we look back so we remember how fun it was for us!
We're excited for next years camp!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR WONDERFUL DADDY AND HUSBAND!!!

Happy Birthday handsome man! We love you so much and are so grateful for you and all you do for us. You are my best friend and I love you to pieces!
Isn't he a hottie!!!

THE SECOND DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

This year we had Patti and Ben's kids with us on the second day of school and since I am a lame mom and didn't have time to take pic's on the first day, we proudly display the second day!

Laureen and Emree!

Morgan is in 5th grade and Emree is in 2nd!

Tanner and Morgan

All four crazy kids!

As I stated earlier - lame mom - I didn't get any pic's of Kennedy (going into 8th grade) or Jace and when I tried to get pic's of Kenner's the other day she wanted nothing to do with it so we will try again later!

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY MORGAN!!!

Here is our darling Morgan Taylor who just turned 10! How time seems to be whizzing by on us. Our sweet Morgan is full of spunk and spirit. Everything she does is spirited, EVERYTHING! She has a zest for life and loves being with her friends and cousins. She is the only blonde in our family, which makes her unique! She loves to snuggle and give hugs and kisses. We love our little shmoopy!!!

For the grandkids birthdays my parents give them money so they can buy whatever they want. Instead of just giving them money in a card, grandma hides the money in different things. She's very good at it and it takes a while for the kids to find where she's hidden the money. Morgan got a package of starbursts! They are very careful when they unwrap and open their little package because they never know where the money will be.

Grandma hid Morgan's money inside the starbursts on the side of the box and inside a starburst wrapper that was wrapped up and looked exactly like the rest of the candies.

Whew!! Okay so this is a ridiculously long post! I really should have broken this post up into more than just one, but I got it done!!!
As far as keeping it short, well I did my best and it still didn't really help!!!