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 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

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!

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.

Black River 2011

Dinner at the Park

carson and jen recently moved and are now in our stake. we have visited them a couple of times since they moved, and the other day decided to have dinner at the park in their neighborhood. addison loved getting out of the house (when you only have one car, and it's hot outside during the day, you don't really leave the house.)

for dinner we decided to make hawaiian burgers. if you know me, you know i can't eat classic hamburgers - kyle says i'm unamerican with all the foods i don't like. so to get around this, we make hamburgers with a twist. tonight's twist includes: carmelized onion, bacon, mango, pineapple, and a mango-pineapple sauce. it's totally awesome!

our setup:

cute huh? well, so is this girl, who slept for quite a while...... and this awesome griller. super cute. and yummy.looks awesome right? they were loved by all.
cuddled with my girl while kyle and addison played on the playground. fun family time.

Easter 2011

both sides of our family got together for easter. unfortunately, i only got pics of the brown/ stradling dinner. we met at clint and debbie's around three pm with our food. we were missing quite a bit of the married grandchildren, but we all had a great time.

isn't this just the sweetest?

addison stopping for a second to smile for me. she had a blast, running around and playing with the other kids, most of whom she didn't know.all the stradling/brown aunts and uncles talking and having fun.

addison playing with her second cousin sophie. love those cute curls!the older cousins played flag football with carson and todd as referees. the game got quite intense when brian and allison trotter's little zeke - 15 months- took off with the football to the playground. it was so funny. watching the game and talking:

earlier i took some easter pics of the girls. it didn't go as well as i had hoped. charlene cried much of the time, addison picked up and dropped my camera, it was nap time, and it was hot. plus i did this shoot without kyle to suprise him. i did get some cute shots of addison, but she wasn't really in a listening mood. next time: cooler weather, napped kids, kyle, and bribes - lots of them.the sun was a bit bright for my pics, but these are sure cute huh?i couldn't get a shot of charlene looking at me, she was too interested in her bright dress.had this pose worked like i'd had it in my mind, it would've been beautiful. charlene cried the whole time and addison just wanted to throw her down. all well.i love addy's adorable smile in this one. she's such a good sister.