life as i know it: better late then never

sorry i have been lacking lately with my posts! we have been crazy busy here with our anniversary, brynn's third birthday, and having family visit us. plus, i'm exhausted. when i have any time to myself, i'm NAPPING or stuffing my face. hey, why fight it anymore right? i'm gaining weight at an incredible rate no matter what i do, so i give up. food wins. plus, how else am i going to stay warm in the crazy cold alaska winters?! blubber baby, blubber.

ANYWAYS. here is a recap of the last month:

brynn turned three on thursday july 9th, but we waited to celebrate till the following saturday (11th) as we had family coming in that day and knew brynn would much rather celebrate her day with her cousins. decorating her cake was stressing me out BIG TIME as the frosting was either too thick or runny when i was decorating, so i was pretty embarrassed when i pulled it out for everyone to see. so, i had to keep reminding myself that it was just a friggin CAKE and not the end of the world (lame how us moms get so worked up over trivial things!). what mattered was that brynn loved it and it tasted amazing. i can always work on my cake decorating skillz after i've attempted all the other hobbies i want to get into...(as steve rolls his eyes)

brynn had a blast opening up her gifts and asks us daily when her next birthday is. she is thrilled to be three (and has no problem telling the whole world this), and is proud of herself for knowing how many fingers to hold up just in case people ask. she got a toy shopping cart, clothes, dora and diego lego's, a cowgirl outfit from grandma and a ton of dress up stuff as she is now entering the princess phase. i am not too thrilled with this to say the least, but can't fight it anymore. she is all about wearing her plastic princess heels and layering on the mardi gras and princess necklaces. if mango would allow it, she would be dressed up as well but she is a poor sport and chooses to spend her days under the kitchen table plotting to kill us all. well, everyone but me as we are tight.

steve and i celebrated our 6 year anniversary the next day (sunday, the 12th). lucky for steve he had to give a talk in church so that was nice (picking up my sarcasm here?!). i was just glad I wasn't the one asked to talk as that would have been too much stress for one weekend. but steve is sweet, and let the whole ward know that it was our anniversary and even bought me a dozen red roses. i picked up some art at seagull book when we were in logan a few weeks before so that counted towards my anniversary gift. but geez, i can't believe how fast the past 6 years went! it's been great for sure. lots of laughter and i'm definitely lucky to be by his side. he is a fabulous person and makes me smile all the time. ok ok, no more mushy stuff...

steve's sister kristen, her husband charles, and their three boys soren, anders, and anson came up and stayed till the 22nd with us. we had a blast with them and saw a lot of the area. its nice to have family come as it definitely forces you to get out! we did a few local things around here, and spent a weekend up north at denali national park. brynn also discovered the joys of putting things up her nose (ie. a bandaid from her owie on her finger) so steve and i had a blast pulling that baby out on the drive up there. thank goodness i always carry tweezers in my makeup bag as there was no way i would have dislodged that thing! i think brynn's favorite thing while they were here was going to chuck e cheese (it was her first time) and putting her own "money" into the machines. i had to monitor her as she kept putting coins into random machines and walking way so she didn't like it too much when i decided to be in charge of her money cup. brynn was so happy to have her cousins here and cried her little eyes out the morning they left to the airport. so sad! here are a few pictures from the 11 days they were here:

the party:

super embarrassed to be sung to by everyone!

grandma maher made brynn a cute cowgirl outfit that i just love! thanks grandma.

around the anchorage area:

brynn's favorite game at chuck e cheese! loved trying to catch all the flying bee's and put them in the jar.

brynn LOVES her cousin anson although i'm sure she drove him insane while they were here. she copied everything he did/say! poor guy...sorry anson that you had an extra shawdow while you were.

cute anders! we just love him. when i first met steve, anders was barely crawling so it just boggles my mind at how fast he has grown!

denali:

view from the front or our cabins. it was so cute and cozy!

the first night we arrived, brynn was running around the outside of the cabins and fell pretty hard on her hands. as we picked her up to calm her down, we realized that she had a few nasty deep splinters lodged in her finger tips. she was IRRATE that we wanted to get them out so it was a struggle for a good 20 minutes trying to get those things out. we felt awful as steve had to dig pretty deep with the tweezers so there was a lot of blood...and she doesn't do too well when she sees blood so you can imagine the screams that were coming out of our cabin. here she is showing her bandaged fingers.

we visited the sled dogs of denali while we were there and watched them do their thang with the sled. they are so fast! brynn had a blast petting the dogs and even drove a few of them crazy when she walked by...it must be her gorgeous long blond locks! it was pretty funny and we were asked by the dog keepers to not get so close with her as it was too distracting!