Brynlee is 2!

Our little Brynlee Mae turned 2 years old on the 10th of August. She is such a sweet little girl and we are so glad she is part of our family. We love you Brynlee!

Brynlee's latest obsession is horses so we made a "horsie" cake for her. Jake did some great "rope" work with the licorice! I wish I would have gotten a picture of him carefully cutting each piece just right, making tassels and everything!:) Of course Brynlee Loved it!Grandma Bennion sent this adorable tu tu and head band. Brynlee put in on and immediately started shakin her tushy:) It was great, thanks Grandma!

Jake's Grandma Crawford gave us this little doll crib a little while ago. It was a crib that Jake's Mom used to play with as a kid. I wish I had a before picture of it but Jake fixed it up, painted it and I made some bedding for it and it turned out really cute! I think it's so neat to be able to pass things done from on generation to the next.

Smith cousin's! It's so fun being close to family...thanks everyone for coming and for all the great gifts, we love you all!

Blowing out the Candle!

Reunions, Reunions, Reunions

I've heard people talked about how they hate going to family reunions, I on the other hand Live for them! I love being able to see all of my family members that I haven't seen in a long time and reminisce about old memories and make new memories as well. After each reunion I am even more grateful that families are forever! This summer we had 3 different family reunions all within about a month. It was a lot of traveling but so worth it!
The first reunion we attended was the Murdock reunion. We all got together to celebrate my mom's parents 65th wedding anniversary and my Grandpa Murdock's 90th birthday! This is them cutting their cake, aren't they cute!:) These two are some of the most special people in my life. They are such great examples and wonderful people, I'm so lucky to have them and Grandparents.Grandma and Grandpa with the Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren that were able to be there that night. (Hard to believe this hardly makes a dent in all of my grandparents posterity!)

Brynlee enjoying some form of ice cream on a stick!

The Circle Game!
Only a true Murdock can appreciate the circle game!:)

The Talent Show
Gracie, Halle and Claire entertained everyone with a little "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" with a little help from their mom's me, my sister Krista and cousin Cindy

After the Murdock reunion we said goodbye to Jake for a week and hopped in the car with my parents and spent some time up in Billings. It was so much fun since Krista and her family were there and even better when Kara decided on a whim to fly up with 2 of her little ones and join the fun. We had a great time swimming, going to the zoo, shopping and doing a lot of chit chat! I didn't get many pictures on the trip but here are a few at the Montana Zoo.

There is a peacock that just roams free around the zoo, Gracie was pretty curious and got pretty close.

After our trip to Billings we headed to the Smith Family reunion in Lander Wyoming. We took one day and went to Martin's cove. The kids were even able to ride in a handcart and pull one too (at least long enough to take a picture!). It was a really neat experience to walk the trails the pioneers walked and to feel the spirit there.

Jake's dad Paul is in a little reinactment of the war before the firework show over the 4th of July each year. It's fun to see him all dressed up and ready for battle!

Gracie and her cousin Marin waiting to the fireworks to begin. Lander puts on the Best firework show I've ever seen or heard of, it's so fun to go a watch!

The Smith Cousins and Jake watching the 4th of July Parade! We all have to laugh because each year there is a float that hands out free beer to the crowd. Tons of people flock to that float and follow it down the road to get their share...only in Wyoming!

After the Smith Reunion we went to the Bennion Reunion. It was also a lot of fun. We spent some time on temple square, swam at the pool, went to Lagoon and had our annual Bennion Tennis Classic. Unfortunately, despite our efforts Krista and Chase took the trophy for the 2nd year in a row and Jake and I had to settle for 2nd:( We'll be ready next year!

The Bennion cousins on temple square (minus Kara's youngest Savannah who was sleeping)

All of us!

Just the Smith's

It was great to be able to spend some time with Jenny, Tanner's fiance. She is so great and we are so excited to have her in our family!

Gracie and Brynlee loved going on all the rides at Lagoon

Well it seems like the summer is just flying by and it was sad to say goodbye to all of our families but we are so grateful for the time we were able to spend with all of them and hope to seem them all again soon!

We're Having a ....

GIRL!

Yep Girl #3 can you believe it!? I thought for sure that it was a boy because I was so much more sick with this baby than I was with my others. I guess that just means the sickness will get worse with each pregnancy...yikes! Anyways, we are very excited! It's been fun to have Gracie and Brynlee so I'm sure another little girl will be all the better. I also have 2 older sisters and LOVE it so hopefully they will be great friends! So bring on the name ideas...we need 'em!

The Jam Experience

I've been wanting to make strawberry jam for a couple of years now but I never was ambitious enough to try it. Partially because my Grandma Murdock makes AMAZING strawberry jam and I didn't think I'd be able to make it taste like she does...and I proved myself right! I followed the steps just right, measuring everything exactly, stirring it at all the right times and things were going well until it came time to stir in the sugar. I gradually stirred in the sugar into the fruit mixture just as the recipe stated. And I stirred and stirred and stirred and stirred.... something just wasn't right. I knew jam had quite a bit of sugar in it but this was ridiculous for the amount of fruit I was mixing with it.Well I continued to stir the stuff until my arm could no longer move and it wasn't making any difference. I had been reading and rereading the recipe over and over trying to figure out what went wrong and I had finally come to the conclusion that I just didn't have the "love" Grandma Murdock has to make the perfect strawberry jam:( Then I looked at the recipe one more time and suddenly realized I had been following the recipe for Strawberry-Rasberry jam instead of just Strawberry jam... and because of this I had only put in HALF the amount of strawberries that I needed to! So I quickly called my mom for advice hoping that not all was lost and we decided the only thing I could do was add the rest of the strawberries that needed to be in there. So after a frantic trip to Walmart for strawberries and more jars (since now I'd have way more jam than I was planning on!) I was able to finish the jam. No it doesn't look or taste like Grandma Murdock's and it didn't quite set up all the way but it's done and in the freezer and I'm chalking this one up as a learning experience! PS if anyone wants some runny jam please let me know... we have A LOT!! (it's really not that bad, especially if you don't have Grandma's jam to compare it to:) )



On another note: I discovered this nest in my hanging flower basket the other day and don't know what to do about it. I feel bad taking it out but it makes it rather difficult to water the flowers with it in there. (notice the water I poured in the nest before I realized it was there!) Anyways, would I be terribly cold hearted if I took out? Do you think the bird would be okay with me just watering around it? What should I do?!

And the Redneck award goes to...

JAKE!


Jake decided it would be fun to try out a new look...what do you think!?
Don't worry he shaved it off after I laughed hysterically and told him I wouldn't go out in public with him if he didn't! And the same day as the above picture I found him outside with the tiller rigged up to his four wheeler. You should have seen all the "double takes" people driving by were making. Our neighbor even came over and and told him that he wins the neighborhood redneck award!

Happy Birthday Gracie!

Our little Gracie turned 3 on Saturday. We had a lot of fun celebrating her big day. It's the first year she has really understood that it was her birthday and was telling everyone " It's my bertday!" We started the day by taking her out to breakfast at IHOP since she LOVES pancakes. When we are at home she'll eat 5 or 6 ...of course when we went to the restaurant she ate about 2 bites and spent the rest of the time trying to talk to all the people we were sitting next to! (we don't get out much!:) ) The best part was when they came out and sang Happy Birthday to her. We thought that she would love it but it kind of scared her to have all these strangers to come out of nowhere clapping and singing/yelling some strange chant/song! However, they gave her some ice cream and left and she kept talking about the people clapping at her for her "Bertday":) She thought it was pretty cool! After IHOP we went home to open presents . She got some great stuff (thanks everyone!) The only thing she had been asking for was a bike so she was pretty disappointed after opening all her presents and no bike, so when Jake brought it out you should have seen her face...it was priceless! Showing that she is now 3!

She was just so excited to see her brand new "Retro Red Radio Flyer Trike"! So was Brynlee!

Taking Brynlee for a spin! Gracie never gets very far on it because she stops every few feet to ring the bell...you'll always know when she's comin!

Isn't she cute!

Eating her ice cream at IHOP...yes it was like 10am!

The only other thing Gracie asked for besides a bike was a race car cake...she thought this "Bertday tate" was pretty neat:)

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

On a second note, Jake and I happen to share our anniversary with Gracie's birthday. Since we don't ever get to do much celebratin' I at least wanted to tell my wonderful husband Happy Anniversary... it's been the best 6 years ever:) I love you!

Announcment!

So some of you may have noticed the ? added to the list of family members in our "blog title". I was curious to see how long it would take before someone noticed and commented about it, well it didn't take long...way to go Cinders, very observant! Yes, we are expecting baby number 3! We are very excited and a little nervous at the thought of having 3 kids 3 and under! The baby is due the day before Thanksgiving...I'll be interested to see when the baby actually comes since Gracie came a week over her due date and Brynlee came 3 weeks early! And I suppose it's very possible I'll be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at the hospital!