Happy Father's Day

I have such an amazing father and now that I have kids of my own I realize, even more so, just how lucky I am. I feel so blessed that my kids get to experience a fun, loving, adventurous, hard-working and dedicated father that LOVES them more than they will ever know. Thanks to both of the dads in my life. I love you!

Brooke's Blessing

I LOVE everything about blessing days. I love the feeling in the home as we all get ready (even if there are moments of pure chaos.) I love getting my newborn all dressed up for her/his special day. I love going to church and seeing all my favorite friends and family members there to support us. I love to hear all the beautiful, inspired words of the blessing. Jeff said that Brooke was just looking up at him the whole time with a big smile on her face...such a tender moment between father and baby. Alright and I guess I love all the food afterward too!! I just love it....love it all! Thank you Brooke for choosing to come to our family, we all feel truly blessed.

Here are a couple shots of her in her dress:

And...it's hard to tell but I think she was done with her "photo shoot."
(For the record, the actual blessing date was May 24th, 2009)

Dear Daddy,

It's raining outside (has been for the last couple days), we've played with all the Lego's, colored and painted lots of pictures, read books, played "house", ate snacks, did a trip to Target with Mom (that was adventurous) and now...we are ready to play with you. We think that Mom may be done with us for the day so can you please hurry. We promise we will have faces like this when you get home....




....now, how can you resist that??

With Love,

Tyler, Kate and Brooke

Spring Soccer

Tyler just had his last soccer game of the season and boy did he have fun! He started out strong with a goal in the first game. Of course, I was off with little miss Kate trying to find a bathroom and missed it but at least daddy was there to congratulate our budding star.

We thought it might not be the best thing to bring out the competitive spirit that lies within him (we know it must be in there somewhere...he's half Tidwell after all) at such an early age so we emphasized on having fun. By the end of the season we realized we may have emphasized the "fun" part a little too much because he was distracted by his surroundings VERY easily. He seemed to discover, all too soon, that mud puddles in the middle of the field could be just as much fun as scoring. But...I love looking at all his pictures and seeing a smile on his face in about 90% of them. Here are a few fun shots:

(I love this one(above)...notice where the ball is)

Wow! Check out that game face.

And now to acknowledge his most loyal fans:

Never mind the look on Kate's face....let's talk about the
fact that CareBear has a blue bow in her hair!!

Good job Tyler!! We are already looking forward to what the next season might bring...

Girls vs. Boys

This is my conversation with Kate today in the car:

"Mom, I just love my Brookie. She is soooooo toote (her version of cute.) Can we keep her forever and ever??"
I replied, "What a great idea, let's do keep her."
She sat there for a minute with a smile on her face, pleased with our idea, and then suddenly turned quite serious and asked, "But, are we going to keep Taller (her version of Tyler) too?"
" Uh....yep, we're going to keep him too," I replied. "Wouldn't you miss him if he wasn't in our family anymore? He is such a good big brother to you and he LOVES to play with you. I think you might be sad if he goes."
Her response was, "Yah, but daddy would miss him the most because he's on dad's team...right?"

Apparently we have a girl vs. boy thing going on here. All I have to say is watch out boys because you are clearly outnumbered!

Girl Team

Boy Team

Man, they're CUTE!!

Pineview Dam

Last week we went up to check on"Jeff's Lake"

with our friends, Scott and Lex.
Jeff and Scott discussed their future water skiing trips (which I'm
sure won't be too far off); Lex and I caught up on the girly gossip;
the boys fished, played in the sand, had rock-skipping
contests, etc; and Kate...was wondering where all the
girls are in her life! Actually, she had a lot of
fun throwing every single rock on the beach into the water
and doing her ballerina twirls for anyone that would
watch.

Here are a few pictures of our little adventure:

Tyler and Hayes "fishing" while Kate dances

Tyler really fishing and loving it!

Cute boys

Parker striking a pose...what a stud!

Kate showing off her HUGE rock.

What a fun night, thanks guys! Jeff is now officially ready
to start the water skiing season. Bring it on!!

Two Months Old

I just want want to know how this:


can turn to this in just two months!!!!


(Who wouldn't want to squish and kiss those cheeks all day!)

Where did my newborn go?? It has been so much fun having a
little baby around the house again. I was telling
Jeff the other day that I am totally spoiling her because
I can't bring myself to put her down...EVER!
I will probably regret it when she weighs 20lbs and
wants to be carried all the time but I guess I'll
just worry about that later!

She had her doctor's appointment yesterday and he came in, looking at her charts, saying,
"looks just like a Dodenbier baby!"

Her stats, for the record:
Weight: 11lbs 14oz, 85%
Height: 23.5" 95%
Head: 15.5, 75%

Apparently, the only way we know how to do babies is...BIG!