Love my "LOVE BUG"

Those of you that don't live in the south are probably wondering why these ugly looking bugs called Love Bugs are on my blog (especially if you are aware of my true phobia of bugs.) Let me explain:

During the semi-annual Love Bug flights (seasons), the air is covered in these little bugs that are attached to each other. Don't keep your mouth open too long or you will have a mouth full. It wasn't until the 1940's, in Galveston; when these bugs were first named. The reason these bugs are always attached is because a Love Bugs entire mature life is spent copulating with its mate. The male and the female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight(I have never seen a single Love Bug.) After mating the male Love Bug dies and the female continues to carry him around until she is ready to lay eggs.

My point of this post is that the other day our entire family was jumping on the trampoline along with probably 300,000 Love Bugs mating around us when Jace looking so innocent said, "Daddy your my favorite, I wish you and I could stick together forever like Love Bugs do." Brandon and I started laughing, and as he came around the trampoline one more time we both grabbed him and gave him the biggest hug. He brings so much love into our family. He is our little "Love Bug."

A bus station covered in Love Bugs (this picture does not do justice but it was the best I could find.) You know it's bad when you take your kids to the park and they can't go down the slide because its covered in smashed Love Bugs. :-)

30 reasons I love Brandon

1. First off, I love his heart. He is the kindest most loving person I have ever met.
2. I love that we are totally attracted to each other.
3. I love his intellect. One of the first things I noticed about him when I met him was his intelligence. I know it might sound crazy but I was totally attracted to his mind.
4. I love his drive and motivation. When he puts his mind to something he makes it happen quick (an example of this is his education. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in three years and had his MBA from Thunderbird at the age of 26.)
5. I love how great of a dad he is to my boys. He adores them and they adore him right back.
6. I love his testimony and that he knows the gospel is true.
7. I love that he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and that he studies it daily.
8. I love that he makes attending the temple a priority and I love attending with him.
9. I love that he is my best friend.
10. I love his patience with everyone and everything in life.
11.I love that he has never raised his voice at me or my boys.
12. I love that I have never heard him talk bad about anyone or judge anyone.
13. I love that I feel safe with him.
14. I love that he can sing.
15. I love that he can play anything on the piano by ear.
16. I love that working out is as important to him as it is to me (and I love the muscles in his arms).
17. I loved watching him play soccer in college and still love watching him play even if it is only in the backyard with Jace.
18. I love the kid in him and so do my boys. I love that he loves fantasy, and his imagination that comes with it:)
19. I love that he bathes the kids every night.
20. I love that he loves his parents and sister the way he does.
21. I love that he loves my family and gets along really well with every single one of them (sometimes my brothers call him for advice or just to run their ideas past him and he is always eager to listen and help.)
22. I love that he enjoys teaching as much as he enjoys learning. I was amazed when he decided to teach at University of Houston on the side for a few semesters. He said that he always wanted to lecture in a classroom setting and...he did.
23. I love that I can be myself 100% around him and he still loves and appreciates me.
24. What I love most about our long talks is his insight.
25. I love that everyone that meets him loves him and considers him a loyal friend.
26. I love that he truly loves and appreciates his friends.
27. I love when my friends call on the phone and he answers. He loves to give them a hard time in a nice way and is always interested to see how they are doing:-)
28.I love that he is such a hard worker and because of his hard work has always been able to provide for our family.
29. I love listening to him pray.
30. Most importantly I love how easy it is to love him.
31. oops, one over oh well...I love that he makes me want to be a better person.

B, I adore, appreciate, and love you...and am excited to spend the rest of my life with you:)

Happy thirtieth Birthday!!

Yesterday was Brandon's thirtieth birthday. The boys and I had so much fun preparing. We made him, not our favorite, but his favorite Lemon Cake. We made him his favorite dinner Raspberry Chipotle Glazed Pork Tenderloin, his favorite vegetable broccoli, his favorite fruit mango, seasoned rice, and had a Spiderman themed party :)


The boys were most excited to give him his gifts. Kai got him the infamous Guitar Hero III, Jace got him the guitar, and I got him a paper shredder for a business he started six months ago. The boys were busy all day coloring birthday cards for him and sticking them all over the house and gifts :)

and, of course in two days, once the boys were in bed; Brandon had already passed off the easy level and was into the middle of the medium level.

At the time we didn't know if Brandon would be in town on his birthday so we headed to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse a few weekends prior to celebrate with close friends:)

Happy Birthday B, we love you!!

mOVie NiGht

In all reality this night was not intended to turn into a movie night. We were just watching the Taggart's kids and of course Ashton came over to ease he and Jace's withdrawal of not being with each other all day when suddenly Jace asked if we could turn this into movie night (which is something we do occasionally at our house and the kids love it). I quickly popped the popcorn and we watched Ice Age. I had to get a pic. of how cute they all look lined up waiting for the movie to start.

Jace, Ashton, Kai, Brooklyn, Nicholas

Kai and Brooklyn

Are you a polygamist??

The other day I went to Burger King with three friends (and all of our kids.) As we were leaving a lady walked up to me and asked, "Are all of these kids yours?" I replied, "Me and three other moms." She looked shocked, "All of these kids belong to you four?" My friend Nora jumped in and said, "what do we look like escapees??" With a serious look on her face she said, "That was my next question, are ya'll polygamist? We all kind of chuckled and said, "yah, were just the modern day type."

Between the four of us we have eleven kids. If you do the math that is three kids per mom and two kids for me. I guess in the state of Texas that qualifies as polygamist!!

Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory

Today we went to Brenham, Texas to tour the actual Blue Bell Ice Cream factory. Now, I am not a true fan of ice cream. In fact I could go the rest of my life without ice cream and never miss it, which explains why I thought everyone would know what I was talking about when I said, "Can you believe we only live one hour away from the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory?" In all reality Blue Bell ice cream is only sold in seventeen states but, it is spreading quickly and I must admit if I had to eat ice cream this would be the one.

Chayse, Brooklyn, Sophie, Kala, Kai, Jace, Cubby


Cubby, Kai, Nicholas, Jace

Jace and Cubby being Super Hero's

Playing Red Light Green Light waiting for our turn to take the ice cream tour

Yum, according to the boys the best part of the trip was the generous ice cream serving at the end :-)

tHe BoY's...

Whenever we go to SLC one of Jace and Kai's favorite things to do is to just hang out with my three crazy brothers...

Chase, Breck, Brandon, Jace, Beano (Bryant), Kai

Kai, Beano, Spiderman (Jace)

Breck, Jace, dad, Kai, Ashlyn

Jace, Brittany, Chase, Kai

Most of you know that at any point during the day you can find my kids in some sort of costume. Yes, we even pack costumes whenever we travel:)

Nanny's Day

This past weekend has been a busy one. We were supposed to be in Sea World this weekend but found ourselves in Utah for the second time in three weeks. This time was especially special because we went up for Nanny's funeral.

Early Friday morning we left our house at 5:30am to catch a flight to SLC. Before the viewing we went to Chuck-O-Rama for dinner (the kids wanted Sweet Tomatoes..this was the closest thing to it.) The viewing was so incredibly peaceful. Jace understood what was going on and placed his letter with Nanny. Kai on the other hand got extremely emotional when he realized Nanny was not going to get up. The entire weekend was emotionally hard on him.

The funeral service was wonderful. The reason it was so wonderful was because Nanny was a wonderful person. Brandon had the chance to speak about his memories of her being a wonderful person. When Brandon was only six years old Nanny was in her eighties. She loved his angelic voice and made him promise to sing, "Did You Think To Pray" at her funeral. For the past twenty some odd years she has reminded him that he promised he would sing. This Saturday he did sing and it was so beautiful...just how she wanted it.

After the service we headed up to the cemetery in Farmington. So...here is part of our days pictures...The boys were so excited to be in the Limo without their car seats:)

It was so nice to spend the day with family...

Brandon, Brant, Michael

Michael our brother-in-law and Wendy, Brandon's sister

My in-laws Susan and Stephen

Wendy and Stephen

Alyssa, Brandon, Wendy, Michael, Susan, Stephen

Definitely, one of the highlights of the cemetery was that they had a playground. We sent the kids up there and had peace during the dedicatory prayer.

Don't they just look like they would have been loud?

We ended the day at Chili's restaurant. It was so nice to be together as family. It makes me realize how blessed our family is to have each other.