Georgia on Their Mind

Patti and Ben came out to visit us a week ago. It was so much fun to have them here with us! We got to spend a few days with them and one of the places that we went to was Jim & Nick's BBQ. Brackon and I went on and on about how delicious it is and how much they would love it. Patti ordered the 'Pig in the potato patch' that was literally the largest potato that any of us had ever seen!!!
We all finished eating and patti was kind of leaning over in the booth. The guys were standing up getting ready for us to leave and patti said, "I don't feel very good." To make a long story short she threw up her potato. She started at the booth in a bag and then in the car on the way home. Of course, Jim & Nick's only have paper bags so when she lost it in the car the bottom of the bag ended up breaking out. Poor patti! Luckily, we have a plastic mat down and it didn't get anywhere on the car. We pulled over on the freeway and cleaned it all out and continued on our way. Brackon was driving and later told us that he about lost his lunch when patti lost her's! A fun little adventure for all!!

Berkley didn't know quite what to think of patti and ben when she first saw them, but warmed up very quickly. Here are just a couple of recent pics of her. Sorry that I don't have one of all the girls on here. For some reason I can't get the pics of all of us with patti and ben to pull up so I'll have to take pics of the girls and post them later. You can see one that I was trying to pull up on patti and ben's blog.




Berkley's latest stats - just weighed in at 18 lbs, has her 1st tooth, and is starting to sit up all by herself. Such a big girl!

Hilton Head Vacation at the Grande Ocean Resort

On Labor Day our family headed out to Hilton Head Island & met up with Rob & Flori (my cousin) & their girls for a little vacation. We had a blast! We stayed at the Grande Ocean Resort & relaxed for few days. Flori & Rob's 4 girls are around the same age as ours and they all LOVE to be together! In the mornings around 7:30am we would walk on the beach looking for shells & investigating the tide pools (shocking I know for some of you, the 7:30am bit). We were quite the sight to behold for most people. Walking around with 8 kids was surprising to some & even more so with the fact that they were all girls! We got asked if some were twins, especially the babies. It was always fun to be the one trailing behind the group to hear the comments people made.

Thank you so much to the Christensen's for joining us! We need to do it again soon! Here are a bunch of our pic's. Enjoy!

This is Berkley's new face that she's been making.

Brackon's 63 Mile Ride

This is for you Jeannie! You wanted to see pics of Brackon and his bike. He and a few of his friends were in an organized bike ride this Saturday the 11th in Northern Georgia. They rode 63 miles and it was so hot and humid. They'd had heat advisories the whole week and Sat was no exception. This first pic is of him and his good friend Zane. Zane is the one who got Brackon really involved in road biking. Zane did the 100 mile ride with a some of the other guys.
This is Mike he works with Brackon. This was his first ride with the guys. He did the 63 miles with Brackon and Justin. The pic was taken after the race so they were exhausted and had an hour and a half ride home from there. In our ward there are about 12 guys that ride together. Brackon loves it and has lost 30 lbs already.

Berkley, Berkley, Berkley

Berkley has gotten so big! She's 4 months old now and you can see just how big she is in this picture with Morgan. The girls love to hold her (as long as she doesn't spit up on them) and Berkley LOVES it! She misses them when they're at school. She just rolled over for the first time last night from her tummy to her back. She is such a content baby, but sometimes has her moments so we thought we'd let you see one. We put her in her jumpy seat and she didn't last very long!
My how you're hair has grown! Morgan's baby doll that grandma & grandpa Livingstone gave her for Christmas lost her hair and we thought it would be funny to put it on Berkley. Her head is a little too big for the wig. This picture may be a lot funnier to our family than it is to anyone else, but we laughed our heads off!
I need to talk to Rob and Flori and see what it is that Rob does to get Bea to smile in her pictures. Everytime we take Berkley's picture she stops smiling! It's like standing on your head to get her to do it in pictures. She really is a very smiley baby, but we just can't show you! Her acid reflux is still horrible. I always have to put her down on a blanket with a burp rag because she is spitting up none stop. It's not just after we feed her either. The only time she stops is at night when she's asleep. Poor baby! They say that it should get better when she starts eating solids and sitting up on her own. She can start eating solids next month so we're crossing our fingers that it will at least slow down. Most people I talk to whose kids have acid reflux say that it doesn't really change a whole lot until they are around 9 months to 1 year. We'll see!

We have dicovered that Berkley LOVES books! It's so cute to watch her get excited when we read to her. She loves to hold the books herself as well. She straightens her legs out and points her feet and shakes with excitment. She is also starting to make that noise that Kennedy made when she was little and concentrating on something. It's so funny how each child is so different yet they will exhibit little behaviors that are the same.

1st Day of School

On Monday the 6th the girls headed back to school. They were ready to be there! The bus leaves at 6:55am so we quickly snapped a few pic's before we headed to the bus stop. It's so early to be going to school, but we're used to it now. In Utah our school started at 9am so when I called their school here in Georgia and was told what time they started, I hung up the phone and started to cry, literally! It cracks me up to think about it now. The tears were more for my sleep than theirs.

Morgan is in 4th grade this year and has a great homeroom teacher. When we went to the open house to meet her she was hilarious and talked up a storm. Now let's be realistic here for a second, we all know that I could talk the ear off a tree so I walked out of there knowing that we would be getting along just fine.

Emree also has a great teacher. She's in 1st grade this year. She's at the age where school is sooo exciting and loves to be there!

Kennedy is now in 7th grade, her 2nd year in middle school. She is growing up so quickly! All the girls are. Kenners loves her math and science teachers. Everyone asks me if I'm excited to have my girls back in school so that I only have one at home. That's not the case because I've lost all of my little helpers. Berkley really misses them too!

Kennedy's 12!

Happy Birthday to Kennedy! I have been really bad about keeping up our blog so we are starting back in July. Kennedy didn't want to have a big birthday party so we had a fun day as a family. She wanted to go see the movie Hairspray so we went and saw that in the morning and then played around for the rest of the day until we had cake and ice cream in the evening. I still can't believe that we have a 12 yr old. Wasn't I 12 myself not too long ago?! Crazy how quickly life seems to pass us by.

Kennedy is such a great girl! She is very responsible and so much fun to be with. It has been so fun watching her grow up and mature into a young lady. She's the self proclaimed second mom around the house. On Mother's Day Morgan and Emree brought breakfast up to me while I was in bed. Kennedy was on my bed talking to me when they brought it up and asked the girls where her breakfast was because she was like their second mom. It was hilarious!

We are glad that we have Kennedy in our family. We don't know what we'd do without her!

The 4th of July

This picture somehow got erased from the bottom of the post so I put it back on again and don't know how to move it to the bottom. This is a picture of Kennedy and Emree with some of the neighborhood kids on 4th of July evening!

The 4th of July was a busy day for us. We were up and out the door by 7:15am to head out to The Silver Comet Trail! The Silver Comet Trail is an old railway path that is about an hour and a half from our home. They removed the railroad ties and paved a path for bike riders. Brackon has recently taken up riding with a group of guys in our ward. There are a quite a few of them, but there was only eight of them that met with us on this particular day. Part of the trail runs along a park with pavillions and a stream so we went there to ride and have a BBQ. Some of the wives even rode, but I stayed back with the kids. Brackon and his friend Justin took the longest ride. They rode 42 miles!!! They were only about 5 miles from the Alabama border! They didn't realize they were that close or they would've kept going.

Emree was our biggest helper and feed Berkley when we got home from the trail. You can see how blue Berkley's eyes are in this picture. Around 6pm we headed to our other friends for another BBQ and fireworks. Berkley was exhausted and feel fast asleep. I would've liked to join her.

Morgan was having so much fun running around with her friends. There was six families there. We all had a great time!

Brackon cooked up some steaks for us. They were yummy! Take note of the In-n-Out apron!
My next door neighbor's boyfriend is a fireman and one of his friends sisters lives down the street from our friends. Every year they have an amazing fireworks show with illegal fireworks so her brother will show up with the water engine just in case.

He let all of the kids climb into the fire truck if they wanted and gave them all hats. They were tickled pink about the whole thing! It was like going on a field trip for them. They were so thoughtful and kind to the kids! It was the highlight of their day.

When we got home the neighborhood kids were all out on the road. Our kids were so excited to get out and spend some time with their friends since they didn't get to see them all day. All-in-all it was a long and exciting day. You'll have to ask me about the firework that malfunctioned and shot out the side instead of shooting into the air when you have me on the phone. One of my girlfriends went into protective mother mode with her children. Picture fireworks spraying all over the place and total caos! She was histarical & very impressive!!! We all learned that night who the real mom is out of the group of us. A big shout out to Stephanie Meredith! We love ya girl!

I just had another pic here with the neighborhood kids that I somehow deleted when I backspaced. Fancy that! When I want a pic removed I can't fiqure it out and when I want it on I delete it! I'll add it again, but it will be at the top of this post now instead of here where I wanted it.

A Smile From Berkley

Are these not the squishiest cheeks you have ever seen?! People can't believe how big they are. Of course, our families can attest to the fact that these are the only cheeks this Curtis family knows how to produce!
We were finally able to capture her smile on camera. She has been smiling for awhile now, but everytime we tried to get a pic we'd miss it. Her cheeks are so plump that they push her eyes closed when she smiles! Her cheeks are so scrumptious that we just eat her up! We love her to death and can't imagine our family without our sweet little Berkley Paige!

A Day at the Lake!

The Spiedel's are a couple that we know at church who have a home on the lake. They invited us and a couple more families out to their place on Saturday for a BBQ so we headed out to spend the day at Lake Arrowhead. We spent the afternoon swimming, riding on the boat, tubing, and relaxing! The kids had a blast jumping off their dock and just floating around in their life jackets.

Morgan is a little nervous about putting her head under water. She had tubes put in when she was a baby so she's never really put her ears in the water. This last week she realized that it isn't as scary as she thinks it is! She has been putting her head under the water and having us count to see how long she can stay down. She's gone to six and is very excited about that! She loved being able to practice her swimming while having on a life jacket. She's great at doggy paddling, but gets tired very quickly. We've been trying to teach her to do big kicks and move her arm's in front of her and 'scoop' the water. She's doing great!

Emree is our little fish! She was the only one who would jump off the front of the boat & ride the tube. She went on with Brackon and our friend Richard rode the other one. Richard kept bumping into them and as you can imagine, with it being two men on the tubes, the boat was clipping pretty fast! Dear brave Emree! Our little neighbor Reese came with us too!

The view from off the lake was beautiful!

It took a little persuasion to get some of the kids in the lake because of all the fish. In the middle of their dock was a 12' x 10' opening that we threw bread in and a million fish would swim up. Reese thought that he was going to get eaten by a sea monster. It was a lot of fun. The kids especially loved the paddle boat. They loved being out on the lake by themselves. A great time was had by all!

How Tall is Kennedy? And What about Berkley at 2 1/2 months?

It's been a while since I've actually had the time needed to sit down and catch up on everything that has been going on in our family. There are five more new entries below this one so be sure to check them all out if you want to see what we've been up to the past month or so. This picture is for you Jean. When we were on the phone you asked me if Kennedy was taller than me. She still has a way to go before she passes me up!

Whenever we put Berkley into her swing, the first thing she does is look up to see the little birds and butterflies that spin around. She loves to watch them! You also have a pretty good shot of her cheeks! She doesn't want to be out done by her sisters and their cheeks when they were little!

A little talk with Grandpa!

We were at the store and Emree wanted to hold Berkley so we put her in the cart so that she wouldn't drop her.

Here are a few picture of different faces that Berkley was pulling the other day.

She was looking at her toy that hangs from her carseat handle. She got very excited and kept pursing her lips. It was cracking us up. Berkley has start to show us her little personality. She loves to talk to us and gets so excited over things. I even managed to make her laugh yesterday. The girls are just loving it! It is so much fun to watch them interact with her. Berkley is definitley not starved for attention! When she gets older we'll have to ask her what it was like to be raised by four mothers!