Ellingford Family Pictures

My entire family was in Richfield to see Ryan before he left on his mission to Seoul, South Korea.  We will miss him, but are so proud of him and know he will make a great missionary!  Since it will be a long time before we're all together again, Mom wanted to get family pictures taken. (What great luck that I happened to be 38 weeks pregnant at the time, every girls dream to have family pictures taken then, right? :) Anyway, I love how they turned out.  I am really blessed with an awesome family.  I sure loved getting to spend the weekend with all of them!

Lyric Nazi

Chandra is very particular. Very. Particular.  At bedtime her blankets have to be placed on her in a certain order, a certain direction ("NO!! That one's upside down!") with her water cup in a certain spot.  At breakfast she requests "Grandma Lisa eggs" (poached), mashed up, on a pink plate, with a small green spoon.  If anybody is feeling generous that morning she'd also like us to feed them to her, but that really only happens when her Grandma Lisa is here to do it for her.

When Chandra learns a song, she learns it the one and only right way (in her mind.)  Brian has always loved changing the lyrics to songs to something silly.  Bracken thinks it's hilarious and plays along, giggling.  But if Brian changes the words to one of "Chandra's" songs. She gets all bent out of shape and shouts, "No, Dad! That's not right!"  Brian got fed up with her correcting him constantly one day and said, "Sheesh Chandra, you're a lyric nazi." At which she burst into tears and said, "I'm not a little nazi!"

Let's go to Hooters!

Here's a conversation between Bracken and Brian from the other day:

Bracken- "Dad, sometime we should go to the pet store again." 

Brian- "Okay."

Bracken- "And then we should go to the owl store."

Brian- "The owl store?" 

Bracken- "Yeah, the one by our house.  Hooters."

Brian- (laughing) that's not an owl store buddy.  It's just a restaurant."

Bracken- "Oh..."

We won't tell him about the restaurants reputation for a while. :)

Broken Arm

We went to Cedar City to visit friends while Brian taught a class at SUU for prospective medical students.  On our first night there, Bracken was playing on his friends playhouse/swingset and fell off the top and broke his elbow.  It was a pretty sad night.  We took him to the Insta-care where it was x-rayed and put in a splint and sling.  He got his red, water-proof cast a week later.  Once he had a cast on, his fractured elbow didn't slow him down much.  He was constantly on the go, went to the water park at least five times, (and went down all the water slides he could), still jumped off the couch, climbed too high, and went swimming every chance he got.  He had his cast on for 5 weeks, and is now as good as new! 

Strawberries and Summer Fun

We love having our own little strawberry patch.  Chandra goes outside every day and eats until she can't find any more berries.  The boys had more fun digging for worms, or finding cool sticks to play with.  Tyson came to visit for a few days and we loved having him here as always.  Bracken had just gotten his new water-proof cast on so we spent several mornings at the waterpark.  The kids love going to the waterpark with Brian.  Chandra and I spend most of our time in the wave pool and the lazy river while Brian and the boys went on the slides...over and over again! 

That's Love...

I didn't think I'd ever see Brian dressed up in bows and a tutu. But that's what I came home from the gym to find.  I guess it just takes having a little girl.