The wedding day

The whole reason for our trip was Brandon's aunt's wedding, which was on Friday.  We had to drive down to Salt Lake early in the morning to go to the temple, and Brandon's siblings watched our kids.  After the ceremony, I came out to find Violet with her beautiful dress on and her hair all curled.  She kept telling me that she looked like a princess.

 Charlie was not so thrilled about being at the wedding.  Brandon's siblings had lost his pacifier and this boy was ready for a nap.  He spent most of the time perched up on Grandpa's arm, snarling at us.

 After pictures, we went to the luncheon at the Lion House.  The place was beautiful and the food was good, but Charlie was screaming bloody murder by this time, and I was beyond stressed.  I was so desperate that I left in the middle of the luncheon, walked around downtown Salt Lake until I found a store, and bought a pacifier.  Within 30 seconds of me putting it in Charlie's mouth, he was asleep. 

The rest of the afternoon went much more smoothly, thanks to a sleeping baby.  Violet was surrounded by little girls who loved playing with her, and she thought Merania's wedding dress was the most fascinating thing in the world.  She loved it and we were all happy to be able to come to the lovely wedding.

Bryson's senior pictures

Brandon's little brother is graduating from high school this year, so I got to take his senior pictures this week.  He is valedictorian of his class, has tons of personality, and is also an amazing artist.  This kid is going to do awesome things.

 Also, Blackfoot has to be my favorite place to take pictures.  It's a small town with tons of old industrial-looking alleyways, but drive 10 minutes and you're out in the middle of the county with wheat fields and lava rocks.

I love this one.  It captures his moody teenager look.

Violet's birthday

I can't belive this beautiful girl has been part of our family for 3 years now.  Violet was spoiled this year and got 3 different birthday parties.  For one of them, we had cupcakes at the park with her friends.  She woke up at 4 AM on the morning of the party and wouldn't go back to sleep, so needless to say, she was a bit grumpy before her party.  She looked at the cupcakes that I had stayed up making and yelled, "I don't like them! I wanted chocolate!"  I couldn't convince her that they were chocolate.  She also had a kicking-and-screaming fight with me over putting leggings on under her dress that is so short that her diaper sticks out of it.  I ended up winning, but this sullen face was all I got out of Violet until her friends showed up.

 

 Oh well.  Soon more kids came and when she was surrounded by all her best friends singing Happy Birthday, she couldn't have been happier.

 Her birthday party in Idaho was equally fun.  She again threw a tired-induced fit over her birthday cake, but this one didn't last as long.  After opening her presents, she had a silly string fight with Mia that left her so excited that I had to lock her in her room in order to get her to go to bed.  I know, I'm a great mom.

 She had plenty of presents but her favorite one has been being able to spend time with Brandon's family all week.  Between the kitties, the wide open spaces, the family, and the trampoline, it has been heaven for her.

One fun fact about Violet: she loves singing and listening to music.  One of her favorite songs is "Just to be the next to be with you," (from the Monster Ballads CD) and whenever it plays, she sings, I'm the one who wants to be with you.  Deep inside a hole, you'll feel it too."  So I guess she doesn't quite get the lyrics right, but she makes me laugh every time.  We all love this crazy little girl!

Our fall trip... so far.

Lots of things have been going on lately, but just so that my family knows I'm still alive, I will blog about our trip to Utah and Idaho.  Travelling was about as easy as it gets with 2 kids, and as soon as we got to Utah, Violet was in love.  We first stopped at my grandparents' house and after picking raspberries off the bush and gorging herself, she asked me, "Mommy, can we stay here?"  I had to tell her no, we were headed to aunt Lena's house.  But she was equally delighted to stay there because Lena has a bunny, and both kids thought little Willa was the coolest animal in the world.

 Charlie started squealing every time he saw her. The next day, we went to BYU and took a tour of my old place of work.  I got some ice cream and brownies but nothing seemed to taste the same.  Also, it made me feel really old. Fortunately, we went back later and got bread with honey butter and it was just as good as I had always remembered.  We also headed to the Eyring Science Center where Brandon used to spend 90% of his school hours.  They have a display of some beautiful quartz crystals in the lobby, and Violet couldn't help but notice how pretty and sparkly they were.  Then she turned to me and said, "Hey mom, this is quartz."  That's right, my 3-year-old can correctly identify minerals without a field guide.  She is just like her daddy.  We went upstairs to the Geology office and the secretaries actually remembered us (they said they recognized my nose...) and it was fun to actually run into someone that we used to know.

We had planned a camping trip to Goblin Valley that day, but it ended up raining, so we stayed around Provo.  We instead went on a drive around Mt. Nebo and enjoyed the autumn colors.  And being the wannabe-photographers we are, we took about 400 pictures.


This one was taken using the macro extension tubes that we bought with Brandon's birthday money from Mom.  Thanks, Mom!

Violet occupied herself by throwing rocks into the stream and stood out nicely against the fall colors in her blinding outfit.



Lena took some nice family pictures for us.

And Charlie is always, always cute.  Even if he makes grumpy faces most of the time.

The kids loved spending time with Lena.  Who wouldn't? It was hard to convince Violet to leave Lena's house.  She told us that we could go to Idaho and she would stay with Lena.  But somehow we got her into the car and now we are in Idaho... with Mia.  Let the fun begin.

From an anonymous donor

Awhile ago I found a canvas at my mom's house.  I was a little confused because my mom doesn't paint, ever.  When I asked her what it was for, she told me that someone had left it there for me.  She couldn't remember whom it was, but I took it anyways, because I had been wanting to do a painting of Mount Rainier ever since we had been 2 years ago. Well, here is the finished product, and if you want to take credit for donating the supplies, here's your chance.

I have been a little better at motivating myself to do these projects.  People at Brandon's school sometimes ask him what I want to do with my life (apparently having kids doesn't count) and he tells them, "Lindsey wants to live off my money and be an artist."  And you know what, it's kind of true.  And I figure that if this is what I'm doing with my life, I had better get good at it.  So I've been trying.