Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Day 2 of CGL...India

Bright colors, lots of sparkles & the BEST food in the world....who wouldn't want to go to India on their world cruise?!
When we got to India we were greeted by some lovely individuals who told us all about India and some of their festivities. We learned to Bolly wood dance (So you think you can dance has got NOTHING on us), made sparkly elephant decorations, ate some fantastic curry dishes, & celebrated Raksha Bandhan (a celebration of brothers & sisters).

 Our favorite friends from Eagar came over to learn the Bollywood dance so they could all perform it for their families on the night of our party.
for Raksha Bandhan the kids all made their brothers or sisters a card and gave them a bracelet

I think that if Grandma Luvlee could she would decorate her home like she did for India every day (that or Mexico). It was such a fun day full of happy colors. One of our highlights was watching pieces of the movie "Jodha Akbar". It is our favorite Bollywood movie. Jett is still singing the songs from it.(Only he doesn't know the words-it is quite lovely).  Watch the video here if you want it stuck in your head to, trust me you won't regret it:)

Dev borekoru
 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

the Brown's shindig

One of my favorite times of year...the Brown family reunion. This year was nothing short of fabulous as we camped on Nanette and Wade's ranch near Pine. It was great weather, great food (gourmet hot dogs, chipotle style burritos & butter with a side of French toast), and great company. Here is what our weekend looked like....

 Jett worked hard all weekend on becoming a cowboy. Thanks to "uncle" Dallas he learned to lasso and to crack a whip. The rest of the time was spent perfecting these things. As you can tell it was pretty serious work. He probably would have spent all his time shooting his BB gun that he talked his Dad into letting him bring, but it was confiscated with in the first 10 minutes for shooting towards camp.
Asher's days consisted mostly of playing in the dirt! He was in heaven because he could get so dirty & no one cleaned his face every few minutes.The rest of his days were spent eating candy & cookies, throwing dirt on himself & any one who stood still next to him. Believe it or not he was NOT the dirtiest kid at camp-not even CLOSE!

We were lucky we got any pictures of Rex. We were lucky if we saw him 3 times a day, breakfast, lunch & dinner. He was up in the mountains the rest of the time. He was building forts and looking for treasures. I would literally go hours with out seeing the kid. We figured he would come down when he got hungry and that is what he did. He always had at least two other kids with him (his posse). He was loving life.
  the Pinata
and the dirtiest kid award goes to......
It is to close to call. But if I had to make a decision I would give it to SHEA!Congratulation Shea.
The thing I enjoyed most about camp had to be the sitting around and relaxing part. I can always use more of that in my life.



 
A great time was had by all. Until next year....

Happy Adoption Day!

As always I love celebrating adoption day, it gives me a chance to really look at some of my favorite blessings (Rex & Jett) and be grateful that they are a part of our family. It gives me a chance to think of their unselfish birth mothers and remember the sacrifice that she made in order for my family to be together. I LOVE adoption, I LOVE my sweet boys, and I am grateful to start the process again so we can hopefully make our family a family of 6 (and add another girl to the equation).
7 years after we adopted Rex & Jett (Mikhail & Timur)

Their silly shot!
 The boys helped build the cake. We had to use our imaginations and pretend that the pink was red and the baby blue was really Russian flag blue. I think it turned out great.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

2nd grade....here we come!

Good Bye to SUMMER with it's lazy days, swimming pools & flip flops. Hello to SCHOOL days! The boys were excited to get back to school this year. I would have to say I was right there excited with them. Not that we didn't have a fantastic summer (we DID) it was just time.


Cassie gave us a good idea for coming up with summer activities that she found on a blog. We wrote down 50 things we wanted to do over summer break & then tried to get them all done. We did not succeed but we sure had fun trying. Here are some of our favorites....
Going to a Diamondbacks game

going to the zoo
 Running in the sprinklers

Going on a picnic-Ryan found this great spot near the river.  Rex never passes up a chance to climb something.

Going to the summer movies

the air force museum

 Things we also enjoyed but didn't get pictures of.....
 -Ryan took the boys to Sun Splash
 -getting snow cones
 -making ice cream
 -building a fort
 -making puppets
 -summer reading program
Goodbye summer see you next year!

Monday, August 8, 2011

The luck of the Irish

The highlight of being in Ireland had to be the leprachan that we caught! The bummer is that when you catch a leprachan they shrivel up and die. This was explained to all the kids before we set the trap but they figured they would take their chances & try and trap one anyway.
BLIMEY!
While in Ireland we also had the chance to kiss the Blarney stone (at least we think it was the Blarney Stone-we all kissed it any way). We learned that the proper way to kiss the stone was to lean over backwards.
Jett kissin the Blarney stone for luck
Some enjoyed this more than others
Cassie had some instruction for the older cousins & friends on how to river dance. (she was very excited)
But the younger boys were natural Michael Flatley's and needed no instruction. Lord of the Dance look out!
Lucky for us there had been a rainbow that very day and we were able to find a treasure left at the end of it. I got the pleasure of hiding the treasures and decided to hide the older kids really well. They were not all that impressed with my skill.
After a fine meal of cabbage, potatoes & stew we left jolly ol' Ireland
and all her jolly ol' jolly people
 & set sail for India.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Best Friends

We have made some really good friends while living here in AZ. They all touch our lives in some way. Last week we lost some of our favorites who fished school and headed back to Washington. Here are some of our favorite memories with the Smarts....
Our pool play dates
We started swimming in April and swam through October and sometimes every day of the week.

 Date Night
Every weekend that we were in town we would switch off date nights with the Smarts. On Friday we would get the kids while they went out and on Saturday's Ryan & I would go out while they watched the kidos. I think the kids enjoyed date night at least as much as we did.


Halloween
we loved Lore's Halloween party that she had for the kids. 

 Easter
We loved having Easter egg hunts at our home
our Adventures
Diamond backs game

Phoenix zoo

zoo splash pad

Summer movies


Mesa Air-force museum
  
We sure have loved all the fun times we got to have with our friends. Rex & Jett won't know what to do with out their favorite buddy Dalan. We will sure miss you guys!