Megan smiles

Megan takes much after Brock with her very serious demeanor. But she started smiling about a week ago (when she was 10 weeks old!). After several attempts to catch it on camera - I finally got one this morning.

In case you are interested in seeing the many faces of Megan - these were my other (failed) attempts in the last week. Some of them got pretty close.

Freedom

On this - July 3rd - the "celebrated day" of the Fourth of July this year, I would like to have a moment of silence, and think about how we are NOT in Provo this year.

AHH - just the thought of having another fourth of July in Provo, on University Ave, across from Provo High School, for their stupid freedom festival sends chills down my spine.

Hallelujah - we have been blessed :)

Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?

It doesn't... well mine at least. We moved into a foreclosed home that had been vacant for a year and not taken care of for at least four years before that - especially the yard. So I have been surprised to find beautiful flowers growing in my garden beds. It has been wonderful to have roses, tulips, fruit, and other wonderful things spontaneously growing in my garden without having to do ANY work.

Here are some pictures. The first thing Brock does every morning is check our roses to see if more have bloomed. He gets so excited about our flowers.

They are pretty - not my choice of colors, but they will do for now.

So I thought to myself... "wow, gardening must be really easy, maybe I should plant a few things, just to get things going." So I researched, I went, I bought, I planted, I watered, I cared for, I loved, and how did they turn out...

dead!

How is it that plants that were COMPLETELY ignored for 5 years are beautiful and plants that are loved and tended to die! How rude ! (I am a Stephanie Tanner fan, by the way)

Apparently it is true for fruit trees as well. Most of our neighbors have fruit trees that they have planted, and pruned, and sprayed, and loved that produce no fruit, and ours that have had none of those things produce a mass quantity of yummy pears and apples. Strange.

And my other bed has a lot of strange things popping up as well. I am not "green" enough to know what any of them are... especially which ones are weeds. So I am just letting everything grow for a while to see what happens. It is all very exciting.

Summer fun at Great's

We have had 2 fun summer parties at my Grandma's house. Just yesterday we had the annual out of school party. I know I have said it before but it is weird taking my children to the exact same parties I went to as a child. Same party, same house, same games, same activities. It feels like just yesterday I was going to these parties as a child.

The "too cool to swim" cousins. At the out of school party I went to these cousins were the babies running around. They are all around the same age and have grown up together. I never had cousins on this side that were my age - I am jealous of their closeness and friendship - I don't really know what that is like. They are all so cute and fun - and so great with my kids (they better be - I was great with them :)

And last week we had my niece's 5th birthday party. It was also a swim party - it was so much fun! I can't believe how old she is. She is growing into such a big girl - she is so funny and cute, we are glad she is in our family.

My neighbor Paige came with us(on the left). My boys love her, I am excited for them to grow up with her next door - she is a huge help and so much fun!

And of coarse - Ashley taking care of Megan - she is an AWESOME aunt!

Farm Country with the Curren's

The Curren's (Sam, Jess, Rachel, and Andrew) lived below us in our apartment in Provo. They have since moved to Lehi (and added baby Cara). We have stayed good friends and I am so glad! Our kids are all close in age and we don't live too far from each other. We went to Farm Country a few weeks ago.

Doesn't Jess look great - just 3 or so weeks postpartum!

What a smile - she is used to it - her mom is a photographer!

You got to click on this to see Brock face - they are typical Brock "angry" faces - he cracks me up!

Noah loved this cow - he just kept feeding it corn.

and us.

Found my camera, and to prove it...

A little bit of Megan.

After my post yesterday my mom told me she put it in my glove box. I would have never put it there so I never looked. Thanks mom!

The sadest thing in my life right now...

I have lost my camera. I could cry.

I am still holding out hope I will find it... but it has been almost 2 weeks. That is 2 weeks of Megan growing that have not been captured. Sadness

Megan's Blessing Dress

I was very excited about Megan's blessing dress, Jason's mom bought it for her and just loved it. My most favorite thing about it was the cardigan. The dress had poofy sleeves, which I don't really like, so I wanted a cardigan it put over it - I really wanted a cafe colored one - but apparently people don't like to make cafe colored cardigan's for new borns - I could not find one ANYWHERE. But the one I found was wonderful - and just had one button so you could still see the pretty bead work on the dress. But the day of her blessing was so hot that she could not possibly wear the cardigan. She wore it for the blessing and at church - but when it came to our un-air conditioned house - she had to take it off. So in all her pictures she had the poofy sleeves.

So I TRIED to do a photo shoot at our house that night - I AM NOT a photographer... nor do I pretend to be - I just really wanted to get a good picture of Megan in the dress. But she was unhappy and just wanted her binky - I got one shot without it - but never got a good shot of the dress - I may have to go professional if I want a good one.

But for your viewing pleasure:

Her pretty hair piece

Megan's Blessing

Megan was blessed last week. Jason gave a beautiful blessing! It was a wonderful spring day surrounded by great family and friends.

Isn't he so handsom!

My grandma (Megan's great-grandma) makes blessing cakes for all the new babies. They are so wonderful and yummy!

These were the Herbert men in attendance - Travis, Jason, Randy, and Matt

A bunch of Pics of people enjoying the lunch:

So this year we were finally able to host the lunch at our own home - for Brock's blessing we were at Jason's parents, and for Noah's we were at my parents. I thought it would be nice to be able to do it at my own home - it turns out when you do it at your house it is kind of crazy. You're responsible for everything - and on top of the lunch I still had Brock and Noah to take care of... well... I really didn't keep a great eye on them. Thanks to Debbie - my mother-in-law, they both got food and cleaned up - but after she left... who knows what they really did.

Brock is old enough to not need supervision - he mostly played soccer with his older cousins.

And, this is where I found Noah at the end of the day:

wonderful!

Grandparents:

Jason's parents - Debbie and Randy

My parents: Joe and Michelle

My grandparents: Wayne and Janet

My mom and Megan

I have stayed true to my word and not decorated my house yet - there is not one picture on the wall or figurine located anywhere in the house. All white bare walls and bare shelves. I felt bad for Megan not having any of her newborn pictures out - since I had a display at my boys' blessings - it is not her fault we moved into a new house 2 weeks before she was born. So I got a little on the ball and made a nice little display on our mantle. I had intended on taking it down after the blessing - but since it is the only pretty thing in our WHOLE house (except for my kids of course :) I have decided to keep it. It is my shrine to Megan - if you just came to our house you would think she is our first!