Meet Little Miss Blue Eyes

My big sis gave me the photo shoot bug. Here is Brielle Bethany, at a little over 3 months! There will be many more as soon as I get Shutterfly updated!

Frenzy of Activities!

Bring on Summer! We've been soaking up every minute with great events.

Mom, Bill, Shanda, Kylie, and Karena joined us (our whole family of four plus Jordan) for a strawberry picking morning!
Rhya was so serious in her picking business until she discovered how delicious those red things were. As soon as she got a taste she sat down and chowed down every single strawberry in her pail (witnessed by Mom)
There was no hiding the guilty tasters when it came time to pay! Good thing they expect red, sticky faces.

Here's adorable toothless, Kylie, the oldest of my nieces and nephews! Happy birthday on the 2nd, Kylie!

This picture cracks me up. The fact that two of our flowering backyard trees got a disease and dies does NOT crack me up. :-( Good thing we have two more robust nut trees back there. We borrowed Dad's chainsaw and truck (thanks Dad!!) a few Saturdays ago and went to work! My handy husband loves projects like this so we got both trees cut and hauled to the compost site in about 5 hours. The kids treated themselves and us to LONG afternoon naps so we could work!

This sprinkler pool has provided HOURS of entertainment for the kiddos. When they got bored of playing with just the water they hauled buckets of sand from the sandbox into the pool. Love the creativity. :-) They also wander around the yard with their hands behind their backs, looking at the ground, saying, "hmmm, hmmm", looking for nuts that have fallen from the tree.

My beloved Alaskan cousin Heidi came back for a brief visit. We soaked up every minute and enjoyed catching up on life with each other. Heidi and Tim are about to begin their 2nd year in AK.

 Helping Nama with chores. This is a MUST every time we visit the farm! They are mixing up the milk in the remodeled milk house on this pic.

We hosted a 'Couples Shower' for our lovely friends Gary and Amber. I was worried about Amber and Kristina in the heat but they were super sports and we had a wonderful time!

The 'Husband against Wife - Diaper the Baby Blindfolded' game. Pretty sure Bill won. He was amazing!

Todd and Ina participating in the 'Husband Feed Applesauce to the Wife' game. Look at what their baby Sophia has to look forward to!

The lineup of baby feeders. Everyone was such good sports!

The men were privileged to take part in a 'water breaking' game with water balloons. The last one who's water broke was the winner. We had a few participants who were so good we had to break their water FOR them. :-)

Shower program: Ice cream social at 2:30. Games after that. Grilled hotdogs for supper. Richelle and Kristina were super duper helpers and brought tons of useful party items.

Gabriel at 6 weeks old- One of the cutest babies you ever did see! Terry, Sarah, Gabriel, and the dogs came up for the weekend.

Gpa Mark and Gma Mo with ALL of their grandkids at Kylie's 6th b-day party.

It's been SIX awesome years!!!!!!

It's so fun to see Terry and Sarah enjoying their baby! We had an awesome time relaxing at the beach with them. Gabriel didn't seem to mind his feet being dipped in the St. Croix. We are very lucky to have a beach just down the hill.

It has been a great summer so far and we anticipate many more fun filled days!

Happy Birthday Twinny!!!

Also known as Sneaks, a Chimney Chuck, Thing Two, Slash Boyd

I am so lucky to share my DNA with someone so amazingly wonderful! 

Hundreds of miles may separate us but twin intuition is wireless. :-)

Rolling along

Brielle is not just roly poly on her legs. She's roly poly as in 'tummy to back'! We noticed her on her back when Kayla was home (and I had laid her down on her tummy), but we saw the rollover in real life last week!
We've ticked off quite a few accomplishments in her book (hold back the sniffles). She's been smiling, cooing, and laughing for quite some time. Now, at 12 weeks, she rolled over.
EC is going quite well. I started it at the beginning of week 11 and she's only had a couple of poopy diapers since. The rest have made it in the potty chair! She pees almost every time we put her on it. It's a little more of an effort to sit her on the thing at every diaper change but it sure beats a messy hiney! She loves the interaction since we look at each other and smile/talk/coo and GRUNT while she's perched on her mini throne!
I love how attentive she is! She just LOVES to gaze into eyes. Here's a 'phone' picture:

I'm going to Spoil her ROTTEN

We left Sakari in our backyard today since we were going to be gone ALL day.
We didn't know what else to do because she needed to relieve herself at some point and the forecast was for hot weather so we couldn't leave her in the car.
We pulled in the driveway at 10:00 pm and I immediately ran to the backyard to hug our pooch...
She didn't come!!!!!! The gate was pushed open!!!!!! We called and called and no Sakari!!
Nate called the police dept and no Sakari. I ran over to the neighbors and no Sakari. Nate biked the neighborhood and no Sakari.
I was freaking out inside. Nate was a solid rock. He assured me that someone would bring her back in the morning. I was sure that someone stole her, being the pretty, friendly dog that she is.
I was so scared that no one was around to comfort her during the lightning and thunder. I felt so bad that she missed her supper.
HOWEVER,
Nate got a phone call!! She's at the police dept!!!!! Yipeee!!!!!!! I hopped up and down like my daugher Rhya! am going to let her sleep in our room tonight. I am going to appreciate her every single moment of the rest of her life. I thought she was gone but not anymore!!
Bring on the dog treats, she's a coming home!!!!!!!!

Where did the week go?!?

We went back in time last week. Kayla came home for one week! Her time is already up and she's back in FL with Ruth.

All four of 'us kids' spent a lot of time together at the farm. It felt like 'old times'.

Wed- Kayla flew in. We had meeting at Mom and Dad's

Meeting her 2nd niece for the first time

Thurs-

We planted the garden (That's Dad, Mom, Sakari, and Kayla)

Kabob supper in Mike and Kristina's newly fenced in backyard

Kayla, the kids, and I spent the night at Mike and Kristina's. 

Fri-

I don't have pictures from this day...but check out Kristina's smug mug or Kayla's shutterfly. I'm sure they have some pics.

We enjoyed a scrumptious omelette breakfast thanks to Mike. Then Nate arrived (after he woke up from his afternoon shift) and Mike got off work early. We ate subs at a lookout in Red Wing. Later that afternoon we all went to Great Gma Edna's visitation (the reason why Kayla came back)

Sat- 

The day of Great Gma Edna's funeral. Our girls contributed to the FIFTH generation until she passed on. The funeral reminded us of her faithful life that grasped the gospel wholeheartedly. We are sad to miss her presence among us but so happy that she was dismissed from old age. 

Sun-

We enjoyed morning meeting at Mom and Dad's. Dave and Dawn stayed late to take some family pictures.

The original 'Daryl and Vicki Boyd' family

The current family minus Mike (he was in Tokyo)

Hymns make a wonderful finishing touch to Sunday

 Mon.

Kayla and I rode horse...trotted down the field rode,  jumped logs through the night pasture, barged through branches down the dead cow trail, walked calmy through the campsite, cantered around the curves in the double K woods, and stomped up and down the steep hills of the valley pasture. It was SO FUN- we loved remiscing of our teenage carefree days. 

Mon night we were joined for supper by Gpa Elmer, Gma Jane, Gary and Amber, Kerry, Darla, and Jenna, and Del and Becky. Somehow the evening flew by before we knew it started!

The Mon. evening clan. (Those shirts were an early bday gift from Mom and Dad)

Tues

An outside day!

Kayla and Rhya played in the grass.

Mom and Kayla rode horse. It had been over a year since Mom rode so I'm hoping she's hooked again (right Mom?)! Shayla has a gait that is hard to beat! From the sounds of it they ran all over the place. :-)

We enjoyed a laid back evening full of stories at Gpa and Gma Boyd's.

Wed- Departure Day

Rhya squeezed in one last playtime with Kayla in the goat pen. Mom and Dad drover Kayla to the airport right after lunch. sniffle.

Thanks for the good times, twin!!!! We miss you already but know that life must go on!

Sweet thing...

We got to get lots of snuggles out of this little man this past weekend! 

Gabriel is the most darling, cute, snuggly, squooshy little thing you ever did see.

He has tons of slooow, long, stretches full of adorable expressions. 

Congratulations to the Ault family! We are so happy for you.  

Brielle- 8 weeks and 12 lbs 12 oz

Gabriel- 5 days and 7 lbs 6 lz

Wow- what a difference a couple of months makes! Isn't it cool how the cousins have very similar names? I guess Terry and Sarah groaned and then laughed when they heard that we named our baby Brielle!