Saturday, July 21, 2012

♥Happy Birthday Lily! ♥

Lily turned 6 today! She had a rough start to her day. We had to take her to the dr. to get some antibiotic ear drops for her ear infection. But after that, she was good to go!

We had a fun little family party at home (as we have done for all the kids this year). Some years, I declare it a “family only birthday party year”. Mean mom? Maybe, but hey, it’s how I roll sometimes!

Lily helped me decorate the house and bake her cake! She was very instrumental in the colors and decorations! Pink decorations? No surprise. Chocolate cake? No surprise! She’s so cute!

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Here’s my cute little 6 year old with 2 missing teeth! :)

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Hello Kitty Movie! Card and $6.00 from Grammy Sue and Grandpa Steve!

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Her brothers colored her “cards”. Super cute!

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Sleeping Beauty, Bop It!, and…… ROLLER SKATES!!! She has been telling me for over a month that when she is 7 she wants pink roller skates! 7 not 6!!! Apparently she thought she needed one more year to be able to skate. Then yesterday, yes yesterday, she declared she wanted them NOW for her 6th birthday! I may or may not have had these overnighted to our house to be here for the birthday girl! ;)

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Hula Hoop! This girl can Hula Hoop like a champ!

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Lily with ALL her brothers! Poor little girl! But she’s tough and she’ll always be protected by her brothers!

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Lily and Daddy!

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Kisses for our little girl!

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Lily and Mom!

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Make a wish!

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Cute little girl! She is growing up so fast! She wasn’t 100% herself today with her ear infection, but despite that she had a great day!

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This girl has mad skills! Hula-Hooping with roller skates on while watching t.v.! Now that’s talent!

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♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY! ♥

Friday, July 20, 2012

6 Years ago……

My dream came true! Heavenly Father gave me a little girl! Ever since, my world has been full of giggles, smiles, lipstick, nail polish, necklaces, shoes, baking treats, doing hair, and so much PINK! And I have LOVED every minute of it! Lily has brought our family so much joy! She is my little “sis” and I love her to bits!

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Lily has always been a laid back easy baby! She brought our family lots of love and peace!

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Her brothers have doted on her ever since the beginning! They love their little sister!

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Age 2

Age 3

Age 4

Age 5

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Current

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Tomorrow we will celebrate her 6th birthday! I can’t believe it’s been 6 years! Lily is such a special little girl! She is very quiet and reserved around people she doesn’t know well. But she has very strong beliefs and views already in life! She loves to sing, dance, cook, play piano, and so much more! She is the cutest little girl in the world to me! We love you Lily! ♥

Cub Scout Day Camp

Another year of cub scout camp finished! This was Ashton’s first year and Ethan’s last! This week was H☼T!!! With the heat index over 100 almost all week!

My Ashton is a huge head sweater! This kid gets over heated FAST! We told him to drink drink drink and then drink some more at camp! And he claims he did, but despite that, we still ended up in the E.R getting his fluids replenished due to sun sickness/heat stress. Poor kid. So out of the 5 days of camp he was able to go to 3, but he still got to shoot arrows and a bb gun, so he was happy! :)

Here is where Ashton and I spent most of the day Tuesday!

But he was not to sad with baseball on tv and popsicles!

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Last day of camp! Ashton with his pack

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Last Day of Camp! Ethan eating with his pack!

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Ashton with his pack.                         Ethan with his pack.

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Fun getting a pic of them together! :)

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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Our Summer Trip!

*Disclaimer!*

*This is going to be a BIG post! Forgive me! But with over 1200 pictures taken on this trip! I think I did pretty well with what I did put on here!*

Kentucky Part 1

After 12 hours of driving we made it to our first stop! We were excited to get there! Darren and his mamma are super cute! ;)

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Grill master! Look at that skill!

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Cute girl cousins! Coby, Belle, Lily, and Cora

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Ethan gave the cousins a ride around the yard! They LOVED it!

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Slip-N-Slide!

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Off to Rochester, Minnesota! (14 hours driving)

The kids did A-MAZ-ING! They are traveling pro’s! I’m not even going to say how many slim-jims they ate! But hey it’s a road trip!

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We made it!                Cute Jen

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My two favorite Brothers! ;)

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Jerry and Mom        Shannon and Stewart

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Lots of cooking was done! Super fun!

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The kids could either be found in 1 of 2 places…. 1 in the basement playing video games, or 2 outside! They had a blast and went non-stop!

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Cute Sarah

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Ethan!             Ashton!                    Josh!

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Relaxing outside! Cute mamma rubbing my feet!

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I L♥VE teasing my brothers!

He has no idea I’m coming! Look at the possessed look in my eye! Pretty scary! ha ha! Now it’s on!!! So… I ran to take refuge on poor Jen, Jerry’s pregnant wife! 

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      I was really trying to be careful, and Jerry came anyway! Poor Jen!Look at her face in the last pic! I think she’s used to it though, cause after all, she is married to Jerry! ;)

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*Fireworks!* Jerry Loves loves loves fireworks! Always has, always will! He had a TON! It wasn’t even July 4th but we start early! Who gave him that lighter?                                            

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Ethan and Seth (They look like brothers!)

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Me and Momma!

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Look at those feet! Love it! ♥

Ashton, Ethan, Seth, Brooke, Sarah, Josh, Lily, Lizzy, Jacob, Benjamin!

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My birthday! It was fun having my birthday during a family trip! I was spoiled rotten!

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All the kiddos ready for church!

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*Our Little Family*

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Silly Boys!              Grammy Taking Pics

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Cute Stewart and Shannon

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Silly Seth!        Darren with Grandpa Steve

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Birthday Cake Time!

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Another thing Jerry is famous for is water fights! As you can see by his daughter Sarah behind him, she is about to start a water fight with her dad! It never ends well!  And the cup on my head? My brother Stewart snuck up behind me a poured water down my back and left the cup on my head!

It’s ON!

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Jacob must have a death wish!

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Check out Jerry ‘hauling’ after the kids!

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This is me getting Stewart back! ha ha ha ha!!!!!

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It was only a matter of time before Jerry got the hose out! Cups and buckets are NEVER enough water for him!

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OLYMPICS!

We did the Olympic games as a family. Super fun! (Thanks Jerry and Jen for heading it!)

This was our shirts. BrOwCR 2012 (Stands for Brewer, Howe, Conner!) Pretty cleaver! ;)

*Warning! The next few pictures are ALL RED! You’ll be seeing red for days after these pics! ;) ) ha ha!

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We look good in RED! ;)

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Family Flags

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Torch lighting! If all else fails, get lighter fluid!

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*Bucket Tug-O-War*

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*Ninja Warrior* (revised version)

Obstacle course: Up the slide, over the beam, down the net, Over another beam, across a balance beam, do a trick on the trampoline, over the buckets, across the monkey bars, up the rock wall, down the slide, run around house and touch the tree! Fun huh? ha ha!

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*Winners!* Jerry gave me his medal! ;)

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Covered in Sweat! Super fun though!

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Lily with Uncle Stewart! ♥  Winners of “Rock/Paper/Scissors”

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*Just Dance* Competition

Pretty darn hilarious!

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Winners! Gold: Sarah, Silver: Ben, Bronze: Aunt Robin

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Pool Fun!

*Racing the popsicle stick rafts they built*

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4th of July 5k!

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Ready to Run!

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Jerry                    Ethan                  Mom!          

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       Shannon            Brooke         Jen and Stewart

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             Darren! He pulled his quad, so he couldn’t run. He got stroller duty! Here’s his picture proving he was present at the race! ha ha! However, he crossed the finish line pushing Lily and Jacob in the stroller with Ashton on his shoulders while running even though he shouldn’t have!

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Finished!

Jerry beat us all! (No surprise! But he did great! Got 25 min!) Ethan stayed with me the WHOLE way! I was super proud of him! Now he wants to do races with me! :)

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*Corn Hole*

(Thank you Grandpa Steve for making and bringing it!)

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Thus marks the end of the Olympics! It was a blast!

(games not posted: Bop-it Challenge, Talent Show, Bucket knock down, Breath holding at pool, Frisbee golf, and probably a bunch more I can’t remember!)

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Lizzy! Cutest little girl EVER!

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Getting ready to say good-bye

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I post these with reluctance, but will. I rarely cry. Thus why Darren felt need to document my tears! ;) It was hard saying good bye!

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Thank you Jerry and Jen for opening up your house to the masses! It was a wonderful trip! We had a blast! Love you all!

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Off to Minneapolis, Minnesota! (only a 2 hour drive!)

Dan (Darren’s older brother) and his wife KaraJean were so kind to let us crash in on them to say hello for a couple days! As always we had so much fun with them! We always pick up right where we left off!

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Girl Cousins + Jacob getting reacquainted! And Dan, Being Uncle Dan!

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Brayden their oldest son! When we first got married he was a little 2 year old in diapers! (I thought only old people say those things!) ha ha!

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Playing!

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Cute Jacob and Sarah. Playing in the dirt!

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Cute KaraJean and her daughter Paige! Her and Lily played so well together!

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Lava Cake Time!

Dan whipped up a killer batch of Molten Lava Cakes! They were soooo good!!!! The second picture is so funny! It almost looks like he’s praying to the oven that they come out okay! :) And They Did!!!

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What could be better than this?

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Oh, I know!!!! Add Ice Cream!

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Fireworks!

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Darren and Brayden Playing Ping Pong. The others playing video games!

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Ha ha ha!

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Ethan and Mason!

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Darren being Uncle Darren!

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We played ‘Killer Bunnies’ our last night. Probably one of the funniest games I’ve played to date! We stayed up WAY too late, and we wanted to leave pretty early, but it was worth it!

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Dan INSISTED that he cook us breakfast before we left! We kept saying we had to leave early and it would be ridiculous for him to get up and cook breakfast! We even joked while playing our game that he should just start cooking breakfast now, since we’d have to get up in a couple hours any way! Well he woke up and fixed a killer breakfast! We woke ALL the kids up and they were zombies, half asleep at the table, but they all ate and we enjoyed a delicious breakfast! Thank you Dan! ♥

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*Brothers*

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Back to Kentucky we go! (+14 hour drive)

When we got back Derek and Rebecca had arrived! It was so fun seeing everyone! Derek and Darren playing chess! This game hurts my brain! Literally!

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Dawn and I attempting to play! She kicked my butt!

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Cute Jacob, Cobi, and Doon watching it rain outside

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*Fairy Houses* The kids have such wild imaginations! They spent quite a while outside making houses for the ‘fairies’!

Lily and Cora

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If I was a fairy I know I’d want to live there!

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Cute Darren

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Think he’s annoyed with me taking his picture yet?

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Cute Dawn!

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Ashton, Doran, Jacob, Lily, Cora, Belle, Ethan, Cobi

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Jacob, Grandma, and Rebecca with Cobi

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Tony and Deb

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I convinced Darren to go with me to visit his father’s grave

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Bugs. Eeeew!

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Horseshoes!

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These are some intense Horseshoe players!

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Roasting Marshmallows and frogs! just kidding! Kids had fun on their final night making smores!

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That’s all she wrote!

Then back 12 hours home! We calculated over 50 hours in the car for this trip! But we were able to visit so many family members on both sides! This trip was LONG, but oh so worth it! We left with so many pictures and memories to last a life time!