August 5, 2008.

We've been taking advantage of not having a schedule this week while Kade is gone. We've been getting all kinds of odds and ends jobs done. We have finished doing any unpacking that we could (I'll get pics of the new house up next), took Jack to the vet, took the kids to

the dentist, and went to the gardens to get our yearly pics of the kids done. These are my favorite ones.

August 2 and 3, 2008.

We started Kade's birthday off on Saturday. He got his gifts from us (He's sporting his new clothes, watch, and sunglasses in picture #2) and then he and I went to dinner and out to see Wall-E. (Thank you to Grammy for babysitting!) Then we went back to Grammy's on Sunday for cake and icecream with all the family. He got to finish off his birthday by hopping on a plane and heading off to San Diego for a business trip (he wasn't overly excited about that, but he usually enjoys himself once he gets there). Happy Birthday Kade!

July 27-31, 2008.

We headed of to a family reunion directly after Brancyn's blessing. We went to a campground just outside of Huntsville, UT. It was hot, but fun. The kids enjoyed the pond and waterslide. Skit night was a hit and the 'big boys' had a lot of fun with the water balloon sling shot. We also enjoyed lots of board games, card playing, a day at the lake, and lots of good food!

July 27, 2008.

We blessed Brancyn today, taking advantage of having so much family here. It was a nice day, but busy. Brancyn shared his blessing day with his cousin Brielle, so we had quite a crowd there.

The blessing was simple but nice and we had a nice surprise when a member of the quorum of the seventy spoke ( his wife is my sister Michelene's visiting teacher -so that is why he attened the blessing) and addressed some of his remarks specifically to the babies and their families. It kind of made what he was saying hit home for me personally and made kind of a neat memory for me.

July 26, 2008.

Today we got to go to the temple with Tyrell. He is getting ready to server a mission for our church. We were excited to be able to share this day with him. Congrats Tyrell!!!

July 23, 2008.

Yay!!! We finally get to celebrate Liberty's birthday. Actually it is only a day late, but when you're turning six even a day feels like forever:) We waited because we were moving into our new house this week and so that Liberty could celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa and all of the Aunt's and Uncle's. I think it was worth the wait, she hit the mother load as far as gifts go and thought her butterfly cupcake cake was pretty cool. Liberty is now a mighty six year old and ready for first grade!

July 20, 2008.

Grampy got the train going finally!!!! The kids were so excited. This is definately going to be one of their favorite memories of Grammy and Grampy's house

July 18 and July 20, 2008. A couple more shots of Brancyn. This first is when Judy met him and the second was the following Sunday. I love it when babies lay all curled up like that it is so cute.

July 12, 2008.

Grammy caught this funny shot of Liberty wearing Grampy's boots while riding her bike. I'm surprised she could even ride her bike:)

July 11, 2008.

Our first moving day. Well it's finally here - time to move out of our home. The move went well. We had lots of help and were able to get most of our stuff into the basement of the new home and a few things in a storage unit. Brancyn snoozed through a lot of it. The kids played at a friends house for most of the night (Thank you Bowlers!) And the rest were busy until close to midnight. We got one last shot in our empty home before heading to Grammy's for a week and a half. We won't be able to get into our new home until Monday the 21st.

July 8 and July 10, 2008.

Just a few shots of Brancyn his first week at home. It's fun to see how they change from one day to the next.

July 4, 2008.

As soon as we got home with Brancyn, Jack went nuts. He wanted to see what was in the baby carrier. It remined me of Lady and the Tramp. He was standing at the crib, trying to get a peak from underneath the crib, and then finally he gave up and waited paitently beside the crib hoping for a peek. Brancyn's crying didn't seem to bother him, but whenever he would make a squeak, Jack would come running to see what was up. I think it's because he sounded like a little puppy when he made those noises:)

July 4, 2008

The fourth of July started off with Kade and the kids coming up to the hospital to see me and Brancyn. I wanted a picture of everyone in their 4th outfits and I needed to do the girls hair (Kade still isn't very good at that one.) I was hoping to go to the parade witht them, but Brancyn was waiting for his circumcision still :( poor guy. So Kade took the kids to the parade and then came back for me. He said the kids had fun, but that the parade wasn't as good this year as some years. He probably just said that so I wouldn't feel bad about missing out, but that's fine it worked!

June 30, 2008

I'm going to try and play catch-up on the blog, but i'm not making any promises. So much has happened this month that I'll be doing good just to get the basics on here. Anyway, here is a fun one of Brylee. If anyone has been around Brylee in the last year, they will know that she has a huge fear of spiders. I've heard it compared to Aunt Elena's fear :) So today Brylee found a spider sitting on the counter. She let me know about it, but I told her not to worry about it. She just couldn't leave it alone, next thing I know she shows up in the kitchen - bat in hand-ready to take care of the spider! What a nut:)

July 9, 2008.

Brylee has been cracking us up lately, so I thought I would write down some of her funnies. They might only be funny to me, but I wanted to get them recorded for later before I forget them.

Brylee is such a Daddy's girl. She asks for him all day long, especially when she needs comfort. So, the other day I was changing Brancyn and he wasn't very happy about it because of his circumcision. He was screaming pretty good. Brylee was watching and she got a pretty serious look on her face and says "He want Daddy". Then the very next day Kade had the kids at church. It was fast and testimony meeting and there was a lady at the pulpit that started crying. Again she got all serious, turns to Kade and says "Her needs her Daddy". I guess Dad's are the only ones that offer good comfort in her mind. Mom's just must be the source of all pain and affliction :)

On the fourth of July, we had Grammy and Grampy over for a B-B-Q since we weren't up to being out and about yet. I kept telling the kids we were going to have a barbeque, but Brylee just kept asking what we were doing. Finally I realized she proabably didn't know what a barbeque was, so I told her we were having a picnic in our house. This cleared it up for her, but then she revealed what she had been thinking by telling me her 'barbie' was in her room. She probably couldn't figure out why Grammy and Grampy were coming over to play Barbies.

Today Brylee's hair was a little wild and I hadn't had time to tame it yet. While she was trying to put her flip flops on to go outside, her hair kept falling in her face. So, in frustration she brushes it out of her eyes and the looks at me and says 'I need bandaids (rubberbands) in my hair:)

Brancyn David Smith

We were scheduled to go in and have our baby delivered today at 6:30AM. Deidra was going to be induced, but Brancyn demanded otherwise. We went in to the hospital at 3:00AM and he was delivered at 5:57 AM.

He is 8.61 lbs and 19.5 inches.

His name is pronounced like the city Branson, Missouri. Everyone keeps asking if he is named after the city, but Liberty is the only one named after a Missouri town. His name is derived from Kade's 4th Great Grand Uncle Branceford. Deidra liked Branceford's nickname Brance, but didn't think that we could name him "Brance" because Brance Smith is too hard to roll off of the tongue.

All of the kids are very excited to have a new little brother. I think Brylee is the most excited to "help" with feeding and holding the baby. She kept getting mad at Deidra this morning when Brancyn wasn't ready to take the bottle.

June 25, 2008.

The first fruits of my garden! I started a strawberry patch last year and then added to it this year and it seems to be doing well. These are my first 3 ripe strawberries and there are at least a couple more dozen that will be ripe within the week with plenty more to follow after that. I'm so excited it's doing well. Kade and I have decided we will definately make the effort to start another one at our new house after seeing how well this one is doing:)

June 25, 2008.
I got a call at 2:30 a.m. last night telling me that Michelene was headed to the hospital. So I rushed over to stay with Hunter. Thank goodness they didn't wait any longer 'cuz Michelene gave birth to Brielle Jean Clark an hour later at 3:30 a.m. She barely got to the hospital in time to have her water break and have the baby. I can't believe how fast she came. They said she had only been awake since 1:30 counting minutes between contractions. So from start to finish it was a whole two hours!!!! Anyway, mom and baby seem to be doing fine. As a side note the baby weighed 6lbs 9 oz. She is a tiny little thing, a whole pound lighter than Hunter was. She definately has the family look, but still has her own look as well. Hopefully I'll get some better pics in the next couple of days. The lighting wasn't great in there, but I got the best one I could. Well the race is over so now it's my turn. One week left!!!!:)

Try-it-Tuesday

If you have a tried and true recipe that your family loves, PLEASE share it. Post a recipe on your blog and then be sure to comment here with the title of your recipe.(i.e. Deidra says....Black Bean Brownies; that's all you have to type.) That way anyone can quickly look at the recipe names listed and see if they'd like to read more about it. Be sure to tell your blog readers to post their recipe title on your own comments, etc., etc. The more the merrier in this game. Let's just see how many recipe ideas we can come up with on this first official Try-It-Tuesday!!

I had the chance to try this recipe out the other night at our Relief Society Enrichment Night. The idea of all of the dishes was to bring something that used food storage items, but this recipe goes beyond that, it’s actually a pretty healthy treat and the taste difference is not very noticeable. By using the black beans in the brownie mix, you get brownies with way less fat and cholesterol and with more protein. Give it a try, they are pretty good. A lot of the women said they have made them for their families without letting them know the difference and no one picked up on it. Only those that knew what was being used could maybe tell the difference.

Black Bean Brownies

1 Box brownie mix
1 can black beans

Drain and rinse beans. Put beans back in can and fill with water. Puree beans and water. Pour into brownie mix and mix well. No other ingredients are needed. Bake in 9x13 pan according to box instructions.

Have fun!

June 17, 2008.

Where did I get all these extra kids from? It seems we always have half of the neighborhood over at any given point. The kids love it. As for me depends on the day. Being 3 weeks from delivering number four and trying to keep my house ready to show potential buyers at any given point I don't exactly love all the company, but I try to be patient. But my patience ran out today. Every time Kade or I went out to check on the kids one of them was spraying Brylee, dumping sand in the swimming pool, or letting water out of the pool so that we couldn't keep it filled. I wasn't exactly pleased at that point, but still tried not to lose my cool to much. But the kicker was later when they got tired of the water. Some of the 'lovely' neighbor kids then found a bottle of rainex and a bottle of turtle wax and proceeded to spray the trampoline, the car, the fence, and you guessed it Brylee. She always gets the brunt of whatever mischief is going on it seems. So here is where I lost my cool, grounded friends from coming to our house for two days and then tried to get Brylee's eyes rinsed out. Let me tell you, rinsing out a toddlers eyes for the suggested 15 min is near impossible. I stressed all night about whether or not I'd done a good enough job. But thank goodness she woke up the next morning looking 100% better. The picture of Brylee is pathetic. She didn't really look as bad as the picture shows, I think we caught her mid-blink. But I was definately as grumpy as the picture shows and not exactly thrilled to be recording it for posterity. Oh well, maybe I'll laugh someday.