When You Have Fun Aunts...

i remember sleep-overs with my aunts courtney and celeste. michelle and i would get to stay behind and eat fun snacks, and watch movies. we'd stay up late and sleep in the next day. breakfast was always something special with grandma or grandpa cooking. but my most favorite part of these sleep-overs was when we would get a makeover - hair, cute clothes, nails, and makeup. then courtney or celeste would parade us around the house and then out the front lawn to play and take pictures. i lived for those weekends. many times i also got to hang out with my aunts friends. i had no idea what they were talking about, but i sure felt cool, especially when they would share their slurpee's.

now my younger sisters are those fun aunts, although my girls are still too young to appreciate it. jalee had fun here the other day with charly's hair and makeup. i think she looks absolutely ridiculous, but that's part of being an aunt - you have the right to do ridiculous things to your nieces!

charly loved all the attention and was an excellent model as jalee and i laughed and had way too much fun.

My New Camera Toy

Since I can't afford an external flash, I went online and found something that was cheap and worked great. For the life of me, I can't remember what the attachment is called, but I love it. It was about $30. Just look at these before and afters.

This new toy, takes the usual harsh light that is usually known with the on camera flash and bounces it on a ceiling or wall, illuminating a whole room instead of just the subject in front of it.

with my plain camera flash

with my new camera toy

with normal camera flash

with my new camera toy

normal camera flash

camera toy, bouncing the light off my white dishwasher

again, with my new toy

My Girls

 Jalee and Kenna spend the night for a photoshoot and I took pictures of Addison and Charlene of course. They are, in fact, adorable. Addison wanted to do everything that her aunts did, copying everything from their poses to the faces they made. I admit I loved that.

loves these chunky legs and cheeks!

trying on Jalee's glasses

Charlie's Hair

 I love my chunky monkey! Having a baby with hair is so fun. I don't always have her hair done and I sometimes I don't even try, but it sure is fun when I do. I call this her "Bear Hair".

 Doesn't she look like Winnie The Pooh? Just Adorable. She's so chunky that her eyes almost close when she smiles.

 Cute little Pooh Bear.

The Arizonian Haboob

   We came home from Kyle's parent's the other day and parked in our driveway. I grabbed Charlene and started downstairs to our door, and Kyle Sent Addison after me. Just after I got inside, I heard him yell to me, "Brittney, come here quick. Bring the video camera!"
 
  I grabbed the camera and the girls and went back outside. A huge wall of dust like I had never seen was moving toward us from the south. As we watched, it expanded to the east and west and grew taller as it moved north toward us. it was crazy. Kyle began recording how fast it was moving and singing, "It's the end of the world as we know it!"

   It was one of the coolest things i had ever seen. I quickly called my mom who hadn't heard of it yet, but could see it out of a second story window. By the time I got off the phone with her about 45 seconds later, part of the dust cloud had reached Costco, about a half mile south of her house. I then called Michelle and Jesse who hadn't heard of it either. Later she told me that they were eating at Some Burros and had been caught in the dust storm as they tried to leave to their car.

moving more quickly to the east of us than it was directly to the south.

coming upon us.

later we learned that this dust storm is called a haboob. it was the biggest dust storm I had ever seen, and it was so cool! We watched the news later that interviewed people driving on the freeway that were scared for their lives. Whatever, wimps.

Our Fourth of July

We celebrated the fourth with Kyle's family by swimming and having a great BBQ. Shawn and Neesha came down and we packed up our stuffed and walked a couple houses down to the King's home to use their pool and grill. 

 Because it is so hot here in the summer, we decided to go around 5:30/6:00 pm to avoid the glaring sun. It was perfect since most of the pool was in the shade.

 Addison is pretty terrified of the water and stayed near the edge most of the time, but towards the end the realized the small donut floaty really did work. After that her and Maeli had tons of fun racing around the pool and swimming away from the monster (Kyle).

 Skinny Shiloh is three months younger than Charlene. They will be best friends.

 Kyle's dad ran the grill. We had Hawaiian Burgers (one of the only kind of burgers I like), drank Brazilian Lemonade in hollowed out lemons, red white and blue cheesecake bars, corn on the cob, and hot dogs. I stacked my burger so big it was hard to get my mouth around it. thinking about all the yummy food makes me hungry again!

Addison

how cute is this? she fell asleep on our way to visit grandma and papa mckay's so we let her finish her nap in her carseat. she is so precious.

Brown Family FHE: Chuck's Pool

One FHE every summer is at Chuck and JuDene's house. We look forward to fun in the pool, yummy food, and chatting up with family.

Charlene loved the pool. The temperature took a bit to get used to, pools are not nearly as warm a baths! She looks so cute in Addison's old swimming suit. Look at all that chunk!

Loving her some Heidi.

Addison is getting so big. Look at that long hair!

Of course I didn't think to get pictures of anyone else besides my girls. WHY???! I love looking at pics of family in years past, hopefully I'll do better in the future. Cute Kenna below.

Addison and Caleb

While we finished painting grandma's house, caleb and addison played in the mud made from the previous irrigation. as you can tell, they had so much fun.

 i don't usually let addison get this dirty, and she took full advantage of my leniency this day. below: my dad took a break from painting and tried to get several pictures of addison.

 drinking from the water that leaks out of the spout. sooo cute!

 love this girl, she's beautiful.

 perfect picture to end with: kerstyn worked with charlene and they both fell asleep.

New Hair-do and Yummy Treats

the girls are starting to interact with eachother more and more. so cute!

 i french braided addison's hair for the first time, and i fell in love. it was tough for her to hold still, but i threatened and bribed her. i think it looks adorable. lots more of this look to come...

 ...and of course charly. always adorable, even with nothin' done to her hair.

 some yummy things we made lately:

homemade salsa

 kyle canned some of it and took it took his home teaching families. it was soooo good.

lately, i've been saving pictures of ideas (foods to crafts) from the internet onto my computer. yeah, i pretty much thought of the idea that it might be cool to collect and save ideas into groups. too bad someone else also had the same idea and came up with pinterest. i could be a CEO earning lots of  $$$. all well. these (found online) were still good.