Four!

The day started with a balloon avalanche falling on Brigham when he opened his bedroom door.

Brigham had his first friend birthday party this year. Mark and I decided that our kids will get a big friend party every 4 years. While preparing for this party I was so glad that we are not doing these more often. 

We rented a bounce house for the day and it came with a snow cone machine and cotton candy machine. 

There was a misty rain for the entire afternoon which made for very messy cotton candy. The kids had a blast and best of all Brigham thought it was the best day ever. 

Sweet Aubree

Back in September the sister missionaries had just gotten to our house for dinner. I ran upstairs to get Aubree up from her nap. She smiled when she saw me but continued sucking her thumb and she didn't get up from laying on her back. Then she heard Mark singing to her as he walked into her room. I have never seen that girl move so fast in her entire life. It was so cute to see her get so excited just hearing her daddy's voice. Me on the other hand am not worth the effort it takes to even stand up. Ha ha ha

Tonight as I was tucking Brigham into bed he was talking/stalling bed time as usual.  After prayers he gave me a big hug and then kept rubbing the side of my face.  He said he wanted to get me some flowers and then he thanked me for helping him with his third Article of Faith.  It was just so sweet.  I hope he always loves me this much. ha ha

Two weeks ago or so Aubree finally had 2 more teeth break through to bring her grand total of teeth to 6. Ha ha. This last week she had one more on the bottom come in. She now has 4 bottom teeth and 3 top teeth. She also has a molar on the bottom that we have been able to see for months but it hasn't broken trough yet. Aubree's lack of teeth has definitely not kept her from eating. Ha ha. She just swallows a lot of her food without chewing at all. It makes for some interesting and extremely stinky diaper changes!

She says a few words: boo, whoa, bebe (baby), & mama (but mostly only when she is mad. Ha ha).

She and Brigham have been playing together more and more and I love it. They really adore each other and it will be fun to watch their relationship grow. 

Brigham is a funny boy. He has taken on the nickname Magic Mike because of his face dance moves. He does a mean hip thrust that makes us laugh every time. He loves video games. Robots, rocket ships, and dinosaurs more than anything else. 

Lately he has been telling me things that happened to him when he was a girl. Most of the time he says he would fall down when he was a girl so he isn't a girl anymore. Ha ha. I laugh and ask questions about being a girl. I probably discourage him from saying he used to be a girl. It is cute and innocent to me but kids will not think it is cute. 

We started building our porch 5 weeks ago and it is finally almost finished. Today we had the wiring done for the lights and the fans. Now we just have to get the metal roof put on. I can't wait to have it finished and have furniture out there. It is going to be great! I figured out what I want to do with Brigham's room. My goal is the get it painted in the next 2 weeks. I put all the totes that were in the nursery side of his room in the attic this week. They have been there since we moved.i didn't think I would be able to move them up the stairs alone but it was easy and I am so glad to finally have them out of there. I kind of know how I want our room to be. It is next on my list after Brigham's. I have several ideas for downstairs. I really want to get it painted but I also really don't want to paint it. It is a good neutral color but I just don't like it. It looks clean but it doesn't match the vision in my head. I am trying to leave it tan until I just can't take it anymore. Our entire house is one color so maybe once I get our bedrooms painted it won't be so bad. I also really want to paint all the trim white. It is currently cream. I really don't like it. That will be such a huge task because I will also have to paint all the doors in the house. We only had 9 doors in our old house that I had to paint when I changed the trim color to white. This house has 8 just upstairs and then there are the folding closet doors. I'm just not sure I will ever be ready for that much painting. 

We had solar panels installed in June. We lost a lot of trees in the process and it was shocking to see our privacy go away but it really opened up our yard and we have more options now. Our plan is to close off part of the array and make it a chicken coop. I am pretty sure this will not happen before next year. We have to clear out all the limbs and logs from all the trees that were cut down. That is going to take forever.

Mark is doing great at his job and people love him. He is really enjoying it. We have been blessed with a great life! 

A couple weeks ago we drove to Gastonia to pick Raspberries. The swings were Brigham's favorite part. Ha ha He was great while I picked the raspberries. He helped a little bit but he mostly just watched me or played with Aubree or walked around. Scarlett and Carolina met us there a little later and he loved playing with Carolina. He threw a small tantrum as I drug him away from these swings. Aubree was beyond tired and I had a doctor's appointment to get ready for,

At least 2 times a month during the summer we have family dinner at Melanie  and Brandon's neighborhood pool. 

Brigham is really loving swimming this year. 

This is a selfie I found of our boy on my phone

He loves playing his guitar

Today he touched a pot of boiling water and burned his hand. He was falling asleep sitting at the table with his hand on the ice pack so I moved him to the couch. He slept with his hand on the pack for an entire hour. The best part was his hand didn't hurt anymore when I woke him up.

This made me laugh when I walked into the living room yesterday.

On the way to the pool/family dinner and Mark offered his sunglasses to Brigham but Brigham said he had his goggles. Ha ha ha (his hands are his "goggles" keeping the sun out)

Brigham's last soccer practice/game for the season. He loves practice and doing drills but he does not like being a part of the herd of kids chasing the ball during the games.

Fun at the Beach

A couple weeks ago we went to the beach with the Winn's. It was great! The week leading up to our trip I was worried a out the weather since a tropical storm was headed straight for the coast with landfall expected on Friday (the day of our arrival). We had to drive through the storm to get there but the weather was great while we were there! The condo we rented was awesome and the kids had a blast. 

On Saturday morning we were going to go to the Surf Shop for their delicious breakfast but our cars were over run with ANTS! I have never seen so many ants in my life. There were thousands of ants in both of our cars. It was a mess. Mark and Kenny cleaned out the cars and then drove them to a car wash in Wilmington that vacuumed them. There were still hundreds of ants left but by the time we left on Monday they were mostly all gone.  We had to pay for parking the rest of our time at the beach so that we didn't have to park beside the giant ant hill that was right beside our assigned parking spots. 

Brigham's First Soccer Game

Brigham has had soccer practice every Saturday for the last 3 weeks. Today they decided it was time for the 2 three year old teams to have a game against each other.  After 20 minutes of practice they played. I expected the kids to just all run after the ball and kick it. That is what most of them did. That is not what Brigham did. Ha ha. He was pretty much just standing on the field watching everyone else run. I spoke with him and told him he could have candy if he chased the ball and tried to kick it to the goal. After a little hesitation he began just chasing the pack of kids trying to get the ball. A few times the ball went right past him and he just watched it. 

He was just not into playing the game. He loves practice and talks about it all week but he enjoys drills better than just chasing a ball along with 18 other kids. 

I hope he begins to understand the game better and that he will enjoy it. I loved soccer. It is my sport of choice for our kids. Baseball takes up way too much time and it is such a slow game to play. Football comes with head injuries. I also enjoyed basketball. Maybe in a couple years if Brigham doesn't want to play soccer then we will switch to basketball. If he really wanted to play baseball or football I would support it but I will not be the one telling him about baseball. Ha

Today was also picture day. 

This is a picture I pulled from the video I recorded of the game. Brigham is on the far left.