A Touch Of Tyrell

Sometimes when our kids know we're about to take a picture of them they'll just start saying "cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese" before we even prompt them. But lately they'll say cheese while their eyes wander in every direction but ours.  Jake decided to start asking them to say "boogers" or some other toddler potty word or he'll just stand behind me and say "mom farted" so they'll look at me and give me a genuine smile. I will never forget when Breckie poked her head through the hole in the park tunnel and just started saying: "cheeeese… boogers… farts… peeps… poops…"  I was seriously laughing so hard! She is such a little comedian and so fun to raise. 

It's not Earth day until next week but our neighbors planted three new trees in their backyard yesterday. I literally almost cried of happiness because it's almost as if WE planted three new trees in our backyard! Earth day has nothing to do with them planting trees (because they are re-landscaping their entire backyard) but I thought it was ironic that it's just a week away. I remember in Elementary school (in Colorado) we took a special trip to a park and planted a new tree on Earth day. It was totally a hippy Colorado thing to do but it must have been cool because I remember it :) I seriously can't wait until we can plant a tree or a bush or something. I was looking at the pictures of this house when we were thinking about buying it and luckily I took this picture (from Breckie's window) that shows our neighbors existing lemon tree and how small it was two years ago: Look at how much it's grown in just two years! I can't wait to...

The other day we were making a (disgusting) treat (disgusting because we were super short on the cocoa powder) but the kids were just eating handfuls of the cookie dough. I had to document it and Breckie's picture face is priceless. She looks like a little spring chic to me! Then I thought messy face + living room in the background made for a weird picture… so we turned it around and she kept the same fantastic face :) And then, oh my gosh, MESSY FINGERS!!! I swear my kids turn into completely helpless creatures when they're hands are dirty and can't function until they're clean!

Saturday morning we went on a hike as a young women's group from church. Sometimes I still feel like I could be (and still look like) one of the young women! As soon as I got home we went to Jake's region/company BBQ.  Everett and the Miller boys played and got super sweaty while Breckie ate tomatoes, grapes, and held on to her soda like it was gold.  I think I had three plates of food and two of those plates were dessert! Rhett and Everett watched the magic show and then got balloon swards. Everett called it his "stick" but can't make the "s" sound very well. On the way home his balloon popped and he cried: "awwwww, now my dick is broke"… I think Jake and I laughed until we cried! At the picnic they had a caricature artist. Breckie and I got one drawn of us last year but I wanted one of the 4 of us this time and it turned out so good. I LOOOOOOVE it! Breckie scowls at everyone and her lips look...

Jake is a pretty lucky guy, ya know?!  I'm pretty great in a lot of ways… BUT I think I'm the luckier one.  Two Sundays ago I walked downstairs to breakfast: Not kidding, he totally made the whip cream and the syrup… and of course the french toast.  I think he just keeps getting better the longer we're married :)

Last Saturday, between general conference sessions, we played in the pool.  Well… Jake worked in the yard and the rest of us ran around naked… not really :) But really, the cute people in our family under 5 were naked. I really should have them wear swim suits but cute moments like this need to be captured... swim suits or not! Luckily they are wearing water in all the right places in most of the pictures.  They were having so much fun and Everett kept asking me to take more pictures so more pictures I took! Maybe someday we'll take them to a real water slide or we'll have a real pool in our backyard... but until then I think this will do!

I've been trying to find a color to paint our living room for the longest time and I just wasn't having very much luck (and it was starting to look like paint camo with all of the samples painted in there) so I moved on to the kids bathroom.  Luckily I got the bathroom paint right the first time! Here are some before and afters: It wasn't  awful  before but now that it's different I like it A LOT more :) I don't know the fancy word for it, but it's kind-of a two room bathroom. The shower and toilet in one room and the vanity in the other.  We just had random stuff in there from previous houses. We took the second door off for now since our kids aren't really old enough to really share the bathroom and need privacy... and it was blocking some natural light.  I painted it a dark teal-ish color called Plumage by Martha Stewart and put a real stool in there :) (Ikea) and a rug from Target that just happened to match ...