Days of summer

Now that we have turned our driveway into kid central, Alex loves hanging out in the front yard, and I love not having to walk to the park every day.

I can't get over how cute and small Heidi is, and how fast she is growing up! A few days shy of 3 months already!

I also can't get over how filthy Alex can get in a single day's activities.

When Alex get tired of hauling baby Kelly around, Heidi becomes the baby sitter.

Heidi is smiling all the time now and I finally caught a good one on camera........

I love how her eyes twinkle, so you know she's happy, even if it hasn't reached her mouth yet.

The baby game

At least every Sunday I get told how much Heidi looks like a Brady. I'm not very good at the "assigning baby features to a specific family" game, which every parent is forced to play at least for the first few months of a new child's life. Tyler and I look like brother and sister, so I don't blame people for telling me Heidi is ALL Tyler's child. But I would like to submit some evidence to the table that might prove otherwise.

Exibit A.

Who is that adorable Baby you ask? Is it Heidi?

No.

It's me.

These are Heidi.

It's hard to capture in a picture how much Heidi looks just like I did as a baby, she definitely has some Brady in her, but I looked at that top picture, and then at Heidi, and I couldn't believe it. So even if every lady in Relief Society tries to deny my contribution, I have proof, Heidi is mine too.

Brady Family Reunion

We had a great time at the Brady Family Reunion over the weekend. It was so much fun going camping and watching Alex play in the dirt with her cousins.

Any time Alex wasn't following cousin Toby around, she was making Grandma hold her.

These two girls got really dirty, and had a lot of fun.

We had to sit her down and wash her really well before bed time.

Grandpa and Grandma Brady were cute as always!

I got to experiment with some late night photography away from the city lights (It was so dark when I took this photo, I had no idea what I was pointing the camera at!)

This is about how Heidi gets woken up every morning.

Alex always wakes up pretty cheerful in the morning.

Alex usually has to wake us up in the morning.

It was sad to pack up, leave, and head back to civiliation.

I need to post pictures of our "garden". What started out as a few sunflower plants and some black beans in buckets has turned into a mini forest of peppers, lettuce, jalapenos, beans, tomatoes and sunflowers.

We've made a habit of riding our bikes to Grandma Jakes house a couple days a week to water the garden, pick raspberries and play with Grandma. We were there for almost 6 hours today playing with Grandma's dolls, playing with blocks and just having fun!

Alex loves the garden.

Last week we tried to beat the heat by turning the sandbox into the ocean.

Heidi had a fun time.

I finally caught a smile on camera.

We even played with Ashes a bit.

I've discovered the only way to get Alex to look at the camera.....

Is to shout "WHAT'S THAT!!!" or "WHOA, whats on my face?" I might not get smiles, but at least it makes her look.

Heidi is starting to coo and smile a lot. I think she looks just like I did as a baby in this picture. You can also see her red hair pretty well.

We love our bikes

This is what we've been up to lately. Meet my mom's old biker trailer (the one that used to hold little David- now 16 years old and 6' 2").

Alex LOVES the rides to Great Grandma Jakes house to pick raspberries, play in the garden, and search for the cats, but I can't say the same for Heidi. She's still a bit wobbly and small for the carriage, and probably dying from heat in this picture due to our makeshift support system. But at least we can finally ride bikes as a family!!!

(Can you believe how tall that little girl is? She's all legs!)

Asay Family Reunion

Saturday was a full day! We started off with a beautiful wedding ceremony at the Mt. Timp Temple for our cousin Jamie. She was beautiful, and I couldn't believe how intense the love radiating from her husbands face was, it made me tear up. I was so glad both Tyler and I were able to go thanks to Jamie's sister Jerica watching Heidi. Poor Jerica is the go to babysitter for everything always, and she seriously deserves some kind of awesome reward.

Starting at the same time as the ceremony was the Asay family reunion!!! Tyler had a test to take, so the girls and I went without him to a beautiful park in Sandy after the wedding. It was so much fun seeing all those wonderful people. Just about all the memories I have with every single one was from fishing trips in Wyoming as a kid, and it was so fun to reconnect and rem anise. I really liked seeing my grandpa and his brothers interact, they are all so funny, these old cowboys all with a great sense of humor. It really made me want to move to some small town in Wyoming, go on cattle drives, and fish every weekend.

Heidi got to hang out with Grandpa a bit.

I love the stark contrast here. The rough working hands of my Grandpa holding the new soft hands of my baby.

Some of those fantastic Asay women that were so much fun to talk to.

Alex outright refuses to pose for pictures anymore. We caused quite the scene trying to get this one. You might notice Alex is soaked, she decided to go swimming in the ice filled swimming pool used as a cooler, and made sure to shake up all the cans of soda put there. It was 103 degrees in her defense.

My little portable heater behaved very well and was a doll as always.

When we couldn't take the heat anymore and things were starting to wind down, all the Aunts and Uncles and kids headed to Aunt Susie, and Uncle Jim's house for a BBQ of sorts.

Aunt Susie is about 70 times worse than Alex's grandma's when it comes to giving her sugar! Here she is finishing off a brownie piled quite high with whipped cream and strawberries. This was after she ate the popcicle, and before she ate half a piece of cake. You can tell she doesn't get sugar that often.

I don't know if I've ever laughed as hard as I did when Alex and her cousin Ellie emerged from the house all dressed up.

The picture doesn't do it justice, you should have seen her walking across the lawn, it was so funny.

She probably would have worn it forever, but she went back inside, only to emerge later.....

The greatest part was that the kid who won't wear a hat for more than 30 seconds kept the wig and crown on for a good 30 minutes!

Aunt Susie's house is a lot of fun. In fact, all my Aunts and Uncles are a lot of fun.

I'm glad I married into the Brady family, but I wouldn't want to have been born anything other than an Asay.

A very special birthday

Today is a very special someone's birthday. I always knew he was special, but I never REALLY knew until I started thinking about it a few days ago when I was trying to figure out what to get my Father-in-law for his birthday. I thought I had all these great ideas but then I realized that I wasn't so sure what Pat might like after all.......

Every year Pat plants a HUGE garden. So I thought maybe some fancy gardening tool or some nice gloves, but then I realized......I'm not sure if he actually likes gardening. Does he always do it because he loves putting in a long day of work at the shop and then heading straight to the garden for hours is much fun or does he do it because we always say we want to plant one, and then he ends up doing all the work so we can enjoy the fresh veggies. Either way I've never heard him complain.

In fact I've never heard him complain about ANYTHING. Not even when Ben dumps a pitcher of water on his head in the middle of a dinner when guests are over. Not even when our dog (which he has graciously taken care of for the last year, feeding, walks, treats, love, you name it) chewed up his deck, dug holes in his beautiful landscaping and put yellow spots all over the lawn.

I started to realize that just about everything Pat does is service for someone else. Playing with the grandkids so the mom's can relax. Working to feed all those hungry mouths that show up at his dinner table multiple times a week. Walking the dog, gardening, Yard work, moving kids from house to house, indexing on Sunday afternoons, teaching the Sunbeams in church, holding a fussy baby. As the list grew and grew I could only think of a few things that this amazing man actually does for himself!!

So I thought we could get him a book, Pat is very well read and knows a lot of stuff. I could picture him in his easy chair reading, But I decided against it because we ALWAYS get him books for every occasion.

Then I thought about a puzzle and some nuts, but then my mind wandered to the closet full of puzzles that seem not to get enough attention as it is, perhaps because no one every wants to do puzzles with him.

Finally I settled on our standard gift for the year, a camelback water bottle. I love mine, everyone we have bought one for seems to like theirs, it seemed like an ok gift. But I've decided to keep my eyes and ears open, because this great guy deserves an awesome gift every year, and next year, I'm going to be ready.