photo shoot number two!

our little babe is already two months old, so we thought it fitting that she had her second photo shoot. :)

my amazingly talented friend brittany (also a mother to beautiful twin girls!!) came down to visit the other day and brought her camera...which is much nicer than mine!

somehow, amidst all of the chaos that four children can bring, britt was able to take some pictures of miss. avery.

i.love.them.

is she not the prettiest little girl you've ever seen??

{ok, maybe i'm a little biased...but seriously. i'm in love!!}

thanks britt, for coming all the way down to nephi with your two girlies.

max has some serious crushes...

oh, and what do you think??

do you see a resemblance??

avery (2 months)

max (approx. 2 months)

i'm a piranha!

i'm not sure how this happens, but bed time at our house is usually the craziest time of the day.

{i blame it on my husband...haha}

this particular evening was no different:

gotta love my crazy, piranha chomping boys!

our little ray of sunshine

avery's personality is becoming more and more apparent and she is such a sweetheart.

can you believe that she is TWO MONTHS OLD tomorrow?!?!

my how time flies.

her smiles + dimples are enough to melt our hearts and she really is such a wonderful baby. she has been sleeping pretty consistently from 9-4 and then every 2-3 hours until about 8:30. we've got some champion sleepers for children...and it's a good thing too because i love my sleep!

sunday was her first time to church for all three meetings and both danny and i had to teach. talk about hectic. {it would probably help if we didn't procrastinate our lessons so much...}

however, she was an absolute angel and hardly made a peep the entire time.

she also looked darling in her little sun dress:

we love you miss. avery mae!

he speaks!

...kind of.

max's vocabulary isn't the greatest...but he is definitely learning new things every day.

he is at SUCH a fun stage of life right now and is constantly making us laugh :)

we love our little man.

payson lakes

saturday morning we woke up feeling adventurous.

we just found an awesome deal on a hiking backpack through ksl.com, so we thought we would put it to good use up at payson lakes.

i haven't been there since i was a little girl, and danny had never been so we packed a lunch, loaded up the car + the kiddo's and hit the road.

don't worry, we didn't even take a map :)

we knew we could get to the lakes through the nebo loop, so we headed up the canyon. five minutes into our drive, we saw something slightly strange up ahead but we couldn't quite make it out...

then we got closer:

an ENTIRE herd of sheep was being herded up the canyon road. we almost called the police. that can't be legal. but then we remembered where we live...and we decided against reporting them. they were cute little sheep though + noisy! i've never heard so much baa-ing.

seriously, though. i don't think that is safe in any way.

once we made it to the turn off, we saw a sign stating that in four miles the road was closed ahead. danny thought for sure it couldn't mean the main road, so we kept on trucking along...

turns out it was the main road. that can't be legal either :)

so, we decided to turn around and go the other way to payson lakes via I-15. forty five minutes later we were still winding up the canyon road, but luckily we didn't have any main roads close on us. we did almost hit a deer though. i almost had a heart attack!!

finally, after stopping at a little boutique for directions, asking some ladies on the canyon road {when we thought we should have been there by now!}, and driving almost an hour, we made it to beautiful payson lakes. the weather was a little chillier than we had planned for, but our kids were troopers. we walked around 3/4 of the lake before stopping for lunch and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

it really was so beautiful up there. and peaceful.

we felt like we were on vacation and we only had to drive an hour away.

max had a blast throwing pebbles into the lake:

{i LOVE it when he holds my hand!}

and avery was on her best behavior:

{she has started smiling so much more and it is the cutest thing ever. look at all those rolls!!}

we were pretty tuckered out when we made it home, but we had a blast and have decided to make saturday's our hiking days. next up: stewart falls.

anyone wanna join us??

mary mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

it's official. our garden is IN. it's nothing short of a miracle!!

we started building our growboxes before avery was born, and we just finished the last one a little over a week ago. yay!!

we have three cute little boxes, filled with raspberries, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, peas, yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.

every morning, max {and sometimes avery if she's awake} comes out with me to water.

he grabs his shovel and plays in the dirt while i water + pep talk the plants.

it has been so much more fulfilling having a garden of my own...somehow taking care of my parent's wasn't quite as fun. i'm excited to "reap the fruit of our labors" come late summer!!

i want to ride my bicycle, i want to ride my bike.

thank goodness for summer!!

these sunny days have been a long time coming, but we are soaking up every last ounce of sunshine we can get!

we decided to spend our tax return on new bikes + a bike trailer for the babies...

i am in LOVE!!!!!

this picture was taken on our very first adventure with BOTH kids in the trailer!! avery wasn't so sure about it {as you can see!} but once the bike started moving, she was happy as a clam. she did start crying about three minutes from home, but the rest of the way max was patting the top of her head non-stop. it was the cutest thing ever.

here's to many long bike rides to come!

{and stronger, more toned legs! haha}

summertime

it's officially summertime and we couldn't be happier! danny is done teaching students, {he still works everyday, but it's super laid back and flexible.} the days are growing warmer and longer, and we just discovered that the elementary school down the street offers FREE lunch every day for the kids!! score. i took the kids yesterday and it was a hit with max. he loved watching all the kids running around everywhere, and he looked so big sitting at a cafeteria table eating his school lunch. my baby is growing up way too fast!!!

i've been trying to come up with ways to spend our time + have fun as a family. max has an extreme fascination with birds. he spots them everywhere. in the morning while eating breakfast, on walks, in the car, through his bedroom window...just to name a few. he sticks his little pointer finger out and says "birrr birrr." he doesn't stop saying bird until you see the bird too. sometimes it takes me a few seconds before i see it, but when i say, "yes! that's a bird!" he gets a great look of satisfaction on his face, along with a huge smile.

so, the other day we decided to make some pinecone bird feeders to attract the birds of nephi to our home. it hasn't quite caught on with the birds...apparently they prefer worms to peanut butter coated bird seed...but max had a blast getting the pinecones from the park, covering them in peanut butter, licking peanut butter off his hands, and rolling them in bird seed:

we've also gone to the park a few times, and one of danny's students brought over some baby bunnies!

also, the last month of school, danny was asked to put together a little intramural soccer team and coach the kids that wanted to participate. nephi isn't exactly what you would call a soccer promoting city...they are just about the opposite...but danny had a great time with the handful of kids that came to kick around the ball. max got to go help out and he had a grand time. he is a soccer star in the making :)

one of the best days of my life.

yesterday we were able to bless sweet little avery mae.

the entire day was absolutely wonderful.

{it was our first time attending church as a family of FOUR!}

danny gave avery a beautiful blessing and she looked equally as beautiful.

she was able to wear the blessing dress that i wore as a baby.

something about carrying on that tradition is so special and sweet.

sometimes, i still can't believe that she's mine.

she is just so dainty, sweet, and tan!!

{everyone comments on her olive skin and her white dress made her look especially dark!}

the men in the circle included avery's:

daddy, grandpa mckinley, grandpa george, great-grandpa gardner, uncle greg, uncle aaron, and "uncles" caleb, elliot, braden, sammy, logan, cody, chris and brother jamison mcpherson from the bishopric.

we had family + friends down for the event and it all came together perfectly.

we had delicious french dip sandwiches, broccoli + potato salads, fruit galore, chips, almond poppyseed muffins, strawberry cookies, cheesecake salad, and chocolate cake:

let's just say i ate wayyyyyy too much.

yesterday morning i also cut some peonies fresh from the backyard to decorate the table with. isn't that awesome?!? i love fresh flowers!

we feel so blessed to have avery in our family, and we are so grateful to all of our wonderful friends + family who came to support ave on her special day. we love all of you!!

and this is quite possibly my favorite picture of the day:

trying to recreate this picture with me + my momma:

{almost 23 years ago, to the day! isn't this picture awesome?? gotta love my mom's hair!}

all in all, it was a beautiful day. the spirit was very strong and we were able to recognize, once again, just how very blessed we are. not only that, but the sun didn't hide behind the clouds once--making it the hottest day of the year!

oh, and last night avery slept through the ENTIRE night. it was glorious!

from 9:30 p.m.-6 a.m. she didn't make a peep!

we love you little avery mae!!