New page element

Hey, just letting you all know (mostly family members) that I put a new page element on the bottom of the page. It's all the funny quotes and incidents of Claire and Cole that I've recorded. I will of course add Ava when she starts talking, which hopefully won't be for a while :) (although she started crawling on Saturday!). Anyway, they were really funny for me to read through as I was typing them up - I'd forgotten a lot of them! Enjoy!

The Beach

Yes, there is a beach in Milwaukee (and I'm not talking about the nasty Lake Michigan beach). OK, so it's not really in Milwaukee proper, but only about 20ish minutes away from us, so it counts. It's a man-made beach on a lake with a playground and snack bar. It was so much fun! Our friends, the Pothiers (Steve & Kara), invited us last Friday since both Steve and Grant had 1/2 day off that day. It was so fun. The kids loved the water - even Ava giggled every time her feet were submersed. Both Claire and Cole loved chasing fish in the water, although Claire was upset that she couldn't "swim" since we could only go in the part where her feet could touch the bottom. We tried to explain that you could still swim even if your feet can touch, but she would not hear of it. What can we say, she's a purist. Anyway, as you can see from the pictures we were in desperate need of tans, but unfortunately it was a little bit cloudy, so no browning occurred. By the way, Kara took the adorable feet pictures at the end.

My sweet Ava Rose

Here's some pics I took today of my sweet little baby. She is an angel - very easy and low-maintenance, which is such a blessing with two other kids! I love her green/hazel eyes and her big cheeks and her chubby little arms. I love the warmth of her soft skin and her mushy grin. I love when she sleeps with her little bum in the air. And I love, more than anything, her little giggle. I will do just about anything to try to get that giggle to come out!

My 29th Birthday

Ok, so I spent WAY too long (as in hours too long) on making the graphic that is now on the top of our blog. What can I say, I'm a perfectionist - also, I couldn't figure out how to size it right. Anyway, everyone better enjoy it cuz I wasted almost an entire day on it, dang it! :) So, Monday was my birthday. I'm 29 now. It's my last year of being in my 20's. Sigh. I really, and I mean REALLY cannot believe I'm going to be so old. Anyway, Grant was so cute and planned a very creative birthday party for me. It was a "traveling" birthday party - he called three friends and asked each of them if we could come over for 1/2 an hr or so, bringing the party with us. So we packed the fam in the van with balloons, cupcakes, candles and party hats and brought the party to three different families! It was a lot of fun and a fun twist on the norm. Grant loves to add silly to everything, so he also had us all dress up - I had a bday princess crown and a feather boa on (That sounds like that was ALL I had on!), Claire had a princess ballerina dress on, and then the boys were the best - Cole had on shorts, cowboy vest without a shirt on and a batman cape on (to put it as one of the girls, Grace, did when she opened the door and saw Cole, "Why are you dressed like that? What are you?") and Grant had a short-sleeve button-up shirt, a nasty muscle shirt with an eagle on it over the button-up and his pajama pants. Grant loves this nasty muscle shirt - one step up from a wife-beater - and wears it whenever he gets the chance (which thankfully is not very often). Now that I'm writing all this, I realize we should have taken a picture of all us together. I don't have documentation of the freak show! Anyway, we were a sight to behold. Here are the pics from the evening:

Star Spangled Celebration

We had a lot of fun on the 4th. We had all the Kohl's people from BYU come over (well, the ones that weren't out of town) and had a huge bbq at our house. It was lots of fun. There's so many new people, it's amazing. Long gone are the days of just the 4 or 5 families that started out here together. It's an enormous family now! After our bbq we went to fireworks in Hart Park in Wauwatosa with a bunch of families from the ward. All day Cole had been asking non-stop about when the fireworks were going to start and asking us to make it dark outside so they would start. But, of course, true to Cole's nature, he got freaked out by them when they actually started. He started to cry that he wanted to go home! But, Grant, king of distraction, got him looking for red fireworks and then blue fireworks and then at the guys who were lighting the fireworks, and finally Cole decided he loved the fireworks! Claire liked them and only once covered her ears. She thought the ending was too bright, though, but only covered one eye so she could still see. Ava started off being startled every time one went off, but finally got kinda used to them.

You wouldn't know it, but it took FOREVER to get everyone (esp Grant!) to cooperate for this picture!

Jake Morton was wrestling with the kids - they LOVED it!

This is what I get when I say to the kids, "Smile!" Claire poses and Cole shakes his booty at me.

So here it is!

Here's my first attempt at a family blog! I'm not the best blogger, so we'll see how it goes. It's hard to know what to write on your very first entry - it seems like it should be really meaningful or something, but I can't think of anything meaningful to write. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm watching "Pirates of the Caribbean" while I write this cuz I'm incredibly distracted. Well, the most exciting thing that's happened in our family recently is that I was "Anna" in "The King and I." The kids came and watched it on "family performance night" (which was really a glorified dress rehearsal) and loved it! I was really surprised. They were sitting with Grant on the second row originally, but apparently they were complaining about not being able to see, so a couple sitting in front of them said they could sit on their laps. So, when I peeked out into the audience later during the show I saw them both sitting on people's laps I'd never seen before! I kept taking a second and a third look to make sure it was them - my kids are not the type to hang out with people they don't know. But, there they were, staring at the stage like it was the best thing they'd ever seen. In fact, Grant said that Claire sat mesmorized the whole time, and it was 3 hours long! Apparently, Cole was a little checked out by the end, but I'm amazed he stayed interested as long as he did. His favorite part was the dancers who were dogs during the ballet act. It was so cute, though, because I guess he got incredibly worried that during the "whipping scene" (when the king almost whips Tuptim, for anyone familiar with the play or movie) the king was going to whip me. He kept telling Grant "The king is going to hit mommy! He is, I know he is!" So Grant told him that if the king hit me he would go up on stage and hit the king. Well, Cole really liked the sound of that! He kept prompting Grant to jump up there and fulfill his word, but of course the king never hit me, much to Cole's dismay (although, not to Grant's!). Another funny story was that one night of the performances (we had four) the king lost his pants in the middle of "Shall We Dance"!!!! It was absolutely hilarious! His pants didn't fall completely off, just the back part (you had to see what the pants looked like) so we kept going. It was absolutely the best acting I've ever done, because right after that we had to go into the whipping scene, which is the dramatic climax of the whole show - it was all I could do not to absolutely bust up laughing the whole time! I about died! The audience was laughing the entire time - they thought it was great! Anyway, it was so fun for me to do, I feel very blessed to still have opportunities to do what I love - and a husband who'll support me! I already posted pictures in my photography blog (http://www.capturesbycassidy.blogspot.com/) but I'll post some here too, cuz I'm not sure my readers of each blog are one and the same. I'll post some additional ones, too.

Me and Erica (helped me w/ costume changes)

Me, Rachel Bauer (the director) and Bryon Bowers (the king)