there's a lot goin' on...

to start things out, my family arrived on Tuesday night for dinner and a movie. We grilled steak and shrimp and asparagus and had strawberries, oranges, apples, and bananas with fruit dip. (If you marinate petite sirloin in Kraft Zesty Italian salad dressing for 24 hours it is as tender and yummy as any expensive steak you can buy). My mom brought the fruit and I made the fruit dip - 2 packages philadelphia cream cheese and one LARGE jar of marshmallow cream - tastes best cold. Then they watched Pirates 3 in our theater room. My mom had been waiting all this time because they missed it in the theater and couldn't bare to watch it on their tiny tv. My mom wanted the room to rumble and it did - thankfully that room is under the garage and the rest of the house stays quiet. My sister and I sat and talked while she gave her baby a bottle and Haeley and Coleton and their two cousins played down in the toy room. Our toys are suddenly more interesting when someone else likes them. Early the next morning after the rain backed down to a drizzle the Guys including my husband, my dad, my sister's husband, my husband's brother, and my husband's dad got to work in the mud. My sis and her husband just put in their sprinkler system last Saturday so it was fresh in their mind and they drove 2.5 hours each way to help us with ours. I wish I had taken more photos but I was busy cooking and washing dishes. I ran the dishwasher 7 times in 2.5 days and we even ate lunches on paper plates.


Since my family is small and my sister has 3 kids, Haeley and Coleton got to play with their baby cousin all by themselves and they loved it. Coleton loved her soft hair but he didn't like it when she grabbed his clothes. Haeley played patty cake with her feet. It was sweet to see them interact with her so well. L* does this cute thing where she reaches out with straight arms and grabs your cheeks with the flat of her hands. It is so cute and they gave her the cutest nickname because of it.


After taking their photo with the baby, I switched to the wide angle and Coleton was wondering why I got so close to him with the lens. The kids piled onto my tummy and tried to find my eye through the lens. I was laughing so hard I could barely breath.


And then last night after my sister's family left for home, we had the full time missionaries over for dinner. It was the first time since we've lived in Utah that we've had them over. Growing up in Alaska and Alabama we had them over quite often because my dad was usually the Ward mission leader. After they left we went out in the back yard and started working on the sprinkler system some more. Haeley was throwing a fit about her loose tooth but wouldn't pull it out. We knew at this point it wouldn't be long. While Tyler and I were in the middle of gluing some pipe together she starts yelling about her tooth which she had finally pulled out all by herself. Everything stopped so we could get photos of this special little moment in time. She made it the entire year of kindergarten with all her teeth and one week to the day later she lost her first tooth. She's growing up so fast now! I know, braces are right around the corner. Thankfully we are stashing money away for things like braces because it's very likely that she will need them.