Cousin Time

Barrett has been getting lots of cousin time in lately!

Bear and Lindsay snuggling and playing.

2 of his favorite girls!

Alex and Bear are best friends!  Ali was so sweet to read books to him.

Bear actually really liked playing in the kiddie pool with Hadley.  Probably because it was filled with bath water and not the hose!

Shelley and Dane

Berrie, Max, and Cord

Tink, John, and Hads

Britt and Hadley Ann

Hads and Bear

The boys had a fun Lego day with LaLa, Bear participated for a minute too and loved it!

Reags read "Baby Bear" to Bear while Tink played with him.

We're trying to get all the family time in that we possibly can!

Welcome Home Party

Neil's parents got home from their 6 month mission yesterday. I was so glad to see them!  Blake put together a little barbecue so we could all come and hang out with his parents again.

Grandma, Neil, and Barrett

Papa, Mary, Barrett, and Grandma

Papa and Bear.  Bear mostly just wanted to take his nametag.

 Monica and her kids made this cute sign for them.  It was meant to hang outside for them to see first thing but with the wind and rain, it worked better to keep it inside.

Ryan got 2 bee stings while he was there. One of the stings was obviously on his lip- poor guy! 

Westlake, Texas

Here we come!~

It's about 30 minutes outside of Dallas and it's a really nice area!  I think it will be a good starting place for us (me especially!), but we still don't know exactly when we need to be there.

Kacey and Nicole came over yesterday with their boys Zeek and Elias.  I absolutely loved it, but Barrett wasn't sure what to think about having friends over at our house.

I love that Zeek is eating Bear's arm!  Eli and Zeek are 5 months old and Barrett is 7 months.  Eli's a bit shorter than Bear but he actually weighs more than him.  Little Zeek is long and skinny, he's definitely a few lbs less than both the other boys.

Finally everyone's having a good time!

Best Mom on the Block

Yesterday was my wonderful mother's birthday.  I am only one of about 10 million people who is so glad she was born!!

On Saturday we all went and got some delicious lunch at Hire's in Salt Lake.

 It was a blast!

Sunday was her actual birthday and Grandma CC made her birthday dinner and Jill made her cake!  Nice work ladies! 

After we sang Happy Birthday, my mom was just sitting there assuming the kids were going to blow out the candles and I don't know why the kids were just sitting there, but once we brought it to everyone's attention, they all raced to blow them out.  

Happy Birthday to the best mom and LaLa EVER!

iFly

We've been wanting to go to iFly forever and today we finally went!  It was ridiculously fun!  We have a dvd of us flying, but they wouldn't let us take pictures of ourselves so we have a before and an after in our killer jumpsuits!

This is the after pic, which is why my goggles are are so crazy!

Seriously, if you've never been you have to go and if you want someone to go with, call us because we will definitely be going again!!

Tay Tay

For Taylor's birthday, he wanted to make dinner for everyone.  He made red wine braised short ribs and they were so awesome!  My mom made his delicious german chocolate cake and he just sat back and didn't even try to blow out the candles- he must not need any wishes!

I love this picture of him curling E and Lou!  All of their faces are priceless!

5 Year Olds

These 3 little darlings turned 5 on July 1st.

Ethan with his elephant cake.  He already has his fork ready to dig in AND already has blue frosting on his chin...

Alex and Dane with his Spiderman cake.

Lindsay with her Hello Kitty cake.

Singing happy birthday.  Both Lindsay and Alex put candles right in the eyes of their cakes and when they were each asked which piece they wanted, all three of them wanted to eat the eyes.  They've all got an eye fetish apparently!

Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue

Although I'm quite patriotic, I'm not particularly crazy about the activities of the 4th of July.  Because I didn't want Barrett to miss out, we took him to his first parade.

Here's Daddy and Bear at the Kaysville parade.  He didn't really like the noise but he didn't cry like I thought he probably would.

He really liked the flag LaLa gave him.

Lindsay and a few of her friends.

Just hanging out trying to see around the ridiculous group in front of them.  We were next to the biggest jerks on the planet!

More of our parade watchers.

We skipped the fireworks since Bear goes to bed pretty early and just hung out at Pops and LaLa's for a little while.  He wore the cutest 4th of July jammies and I love that 4 of his 7 teeth are showing here!

He's happiest when he's with his LaLa!

Possible Destinations

We don't get much of a say in where we end up living over the next 2 years but I made a list of my top choices for them just in case they ask.  We'll definitely be in 4 of these places since these are the locations of the big Fidelity sites.  I hate that there's nothing on the west coast!
Here's my preferences  (in order of best to worst)

Toronto

Jacksonville

Ireland

Raleigh

Boston

Westlake

Covington

Smithfield

Merrimack

Albuquerque

India

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down a few posts and it'll make more sense.  

Baby Theo

We had a baby shower last weekend for Michelle and baby Theo.  Michelle is about 7 months, looking so cute and is going to be the sweetest mama ever!  I'm so excited for her and her hubby Richard!

 She got some really cute things!

We missed a couple of our darling girlfriends, but we had tons of fun as always!

Yes, I totally reused the darling box that Chelse gave Bear's present in earlier that week!

Birthday Present

Last week on Bear's 7 month birthday, he finally got to meet my friend Chelse.  I only see her about once a year these days.

She was super sweet and brought Barrett a present.  Here's Bear waiting to open one of them.

She also got him some really cute toys.

Chel got out all the toys and Barrett was super glad- he ate them all!

Thanks Belle Star, hopefully we'll see you again soon!  Next time I'll take more pictures of us, like the olden days :)