It's been so long for me to not do a post! I do have two excuses though, one-our computer is not working, Mark thinks it's the hard drive, I'm praying it's not since I have all my pictures on there and haven't backed all of them up yet! We have to make an appointment to get it looked at so until we can find the the time I am computerless, I do have my dad's but it does this weird thing when I'm typing, where ever the arrow is from the mouse it moves the cursor there after a few seconds and it makes it a pain to type! Number two is that I haven't had too much to blog about! August has been pretty uneventful for us! We've been busy with our house, it's got about a month left and we've just started painting the rooms we didn't want to pay the painters for. I figured I painted our whole house before, what's a a few more rooms right? Wrong! Way harder to find the time with two kids and when you're not even living in the house! So I think we'll look into hiring some cheap labor if anyone has any suggestions! :) Charlie got to meet his preschool teacher this week, he keeps asking everyday when he can go to preschool, we are both extemely excited for that to start! Kenya is officially down to one nap now, it took me a while to let go she was still so young to go to one nap compared to Charlie but I had to face the facts and nap time is not such a struggle anymore. She also has a full mouth of teeth! Yay! no more teething! Still to come, bye bye binky...

A Little Holbrook Family Update

This year on the 23rd Jayme and Jeremy had us over for a bbq and some sparkler action! We had a fun time. Charlie and Samara loved the sparklers. Later that night Mark took Charlie to his Grandma Holbrook's to watch the fireworks from Mueller Park. She has a great view on her back porch from across the canyon. I missed out so little Miss Kenya could go to bed. There's always next year though right?



This little one is so busy! She loves stairs so she didn't want to sit on my lap, she just wanted to climb the stairs. She's so entertaining just to watch her walk around. And look, she still has a little bow in! Well, sort of...at this point she had it in for maybe 1-2 hours. That's a record!



Jeremy, Mark, my rugrats and Jayme's mom Lottyann and her husband Rick.

On the 24th we went to the Bountiful Carnival and man was it hot! We only lasted an hour but Charlie scored these sweet sweat bands at the fish pond. He insisted on wearing them for the next day or so.
I found sweet little Kenya in the bedroom reading herself a little book. She is such a little cutie, but she's not sleeping lately! This has happened often enough that I'm not so worried about it but for the past couple days she's only slept 1 hour during the day instead of 4! I don't know if it's teething or starting to grow out of the 2 naps, probably a mixture of both. She actually has always done this, she sleeps great for a couple weeks then has a really bad week. Both my kids are like that....does anyone else notice this in their kids? The great thing with her is that she's happy no matter what her sleeping is like, Charlie is not. I saw a little quote the other day that said "Sometimes I wake up Grumpy but sometimes I let him sleep." This is Charlie! Kenya loves pretending to color, stealing wet wipes and eating them, (mostly sucking on them but she has been known to actually swallow pieces, don't ask me why, she's done this since she was a few months old.) saying "uh oh", pulling hair (including her own.), and reading books. Both of my kids entertain themselves pretty well. I lucked out in that department. She's 14 months now! Not really a baby anymore! :(

Charlie is growing up so fast too! I can't believe how big he's gotten since I had Kenya. He's getting a little attitude though! The things he picks up! The other day he was drinking a smoothie and he said "this is my coffee." Mark and I looked at eachother "What?" He said "This is my coffee, like Kailan drinks coffee." I guess no more watching Kailan! He's also been a little mover since he was born, he's been dancing since he was in my tummy, here's a little clip of his latest moves, the other one is of Kenya reading her book. We don't have a video camera right now so my camera is all I have to record stuff on.



As for Mark and I, well we've just been busy getting stuff done on our house. Mostly Mark, he deals with most of it but I am sick of picking stuff out! We should have about a month and a half left so it's moving along. This picture is from about a month ago, the rock and brick, actually pretty much the whole exterior is done and the inside is getting ready to be painted. I can't wait to have a home again! Mark is getting ready for his flag football season, and getting excited for the Utes football season. I have been training for the Logan marathon with my sister Cami, still a little unsure about the idea but I know that if I'm this close and don't do it I'll probably always regret it. It's September 20th which is right around when our house should be done so hopefully it won't conflict with all that.

Lagoon and Mark's Birthday

We had Stake Lagoon day last week. Last year we had passes to Lagoon but didn't get them this year and Charlie was so excited to go back to Lagoon! We went during the day for a couple hours and met up with our friend Michelle and her girls. Charlie wanted to go on Puff, last year he was really scared, this year his first trip around he looked pretty scared but by the third and final time around the track he was smiling. He still didn't like the Lady Bug Bop ride and when we went back that night with Brooke and Brady he said he wanted to go on the Dino Drop ride (which is like the Lady Bug Bop) he seemed like he was going to be fine but once he was strapped in and ready to take off he started crying so I had to have them lift up everybody's safety restraints and take him off. Maybe next year. :) Kenya got to ride the boats with him though, she loved that.


Brady and Charlie right before the tears came, he really was trying to be brave.

He was much happier on the swings.

Mark's Birthday was on the 13th, 29 years old! I can't believe we are reaching our 30's! Happy Birthday babe, we love you!!!

4th of July

We went to the Centerville parade on the 4th, what a great parade! I can't believe how much candy they threw, Charlie got more here than he does at Halloween. Kenya was so excited when the horses walked by, she was very entertained sitting in her stroller and watching. After the parade we packed up and went to Park City for the weekend, it's a great way to spend the 4th since it's about 10 degrees cooler up there. We had a great time.

Washington

This last weekend I decided to take a road trip with some of my family up to Washington to visit my Oma and Opa. Mark was going to be gone at a church camp so I was brave and took my two kids by myself. Cami took her 6 year old daughter Kaia and we squished into our maxima and headed north. My brother Colby his wife Erianne and their boy Knox drove up with us. The car ride actually wasn't too bad! Thank goodness for dvd players! Kaia and Charlie were pretty content the whole time taking turns watching movies and Kenya loved watching her own baby einsteins. We left Thursday and on Friday decided to find a beach to go to. The weather was gorgeous and actually got hotter each day. We went to scenic beach and once again Charlie braved the cold water and got in. Kenya loved the rocks and playing with Knox. It was such a pretty view.


I Love that you can see Charlie in the background playing in the water.
On Saturday we took the ferry boat into Seattle. We had to stop at Ivars and eat some fish 'n chips and feed the seagulls of course! This is a must when you visit Seattle. The birds will come snatch them right out of your hands. We went to the aquarium too, Charlie and Kaia got their faces painted, Kenya slept the day away in her stroller, it was great!

We always stop at the German meat market and buy their German weiners. My kids loved them!

After Seattle I took the kids to stay at my good friend Lynette's house. We were exhausted from the day in Seattle and it was so nice to relax at her house, Charlie played with Gavin and Kenya played with Carston, and Abby and Josh played with both of them! They had a blast. It was so good to see her and her family, Charlie and her son Gavin love playing together. The next morning we were going to head back to Bremerton and Lynette offered to take Charlie for another night and he wanted to stay and play of course so I couldn't pass up her offer. It was a nice little break, so thank you so much Lynette! It was so great to see you guys, we still miss having you here!



Since Lynette was so generous in taking Charlie and my mom watched Kenya and Knox we got to go sailing! My aunt Marialynn and her husband Larry have a boat and they are nice enough to take us all out into the Puget Sound and sail. It's so gorgeous and we always really enjoy it. Below is a picture of my aunt and my opa.The drive home! What a long drive, we had a few missed exits (one that added an extra 70 miles onto our trip!) And it ended up taking us 16 hours to get home, but once again the kids were good and managed to all take a nap for a couple hours at the same time. Charlie and Kenya have both taken 4 hour naps since we got home, catching up on some must needed rest!
Here is my Oma and Kenya. She loved doing "Bacha Bacha Kuchen" (no idea how to spell that) which is a german patty cake. Kenya loved it. We love visiting Oma and Opa and seeing how there house hasn't changed one bit since we were kids. Although it's a little disturbing, and you find yourself thinking why won't they just get new carpet or finish the deck? It brings back so many memories of our childhood it's kind of comforting.

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary! Where does the time go! I can't believe I've been with Mark for 8 wonderful years. Mark is such a great husband, I don't tell him enough about all the things he is great at doing, so I think it's time to write some down...

He's loved me through thick and thin (literally!)
When he plays with Charlie he becomes a little boy again, it's so fun to watch and I can tell how much it means to him to have a son to do "boy things" with.
I love the sweet voice he talks to Kenya in and love when he calls her "princess"
He totally surprised me yesterday and sent me some beautiful roses at work.
He accomplishes anything he puts his mind to.
He's never putting himself first, he's always last on his list and most of the time not even on his list!
He loves his family dearly and is always there for them.
He is good at just about everything he does.
He can dance! :)
He puts up with me and my want for things even though he would be happy living without.
He makes me happy everyday and I'm so glad he's mine!

Ragnar Relay Wasatch Back

Well it's come and gone and I think my body is still recovering! I had a fun weekend running in the Ragnar Relay Wasatch Back. For those of you who haven't heard about this it's a relay race from Logan to Park City and you have 12 people on your team, you all run 3 different legs. We started at 8:40 Friday morning and finished at about 2:00 Saturday afternoon. It was such a fun experience and I'm so glad Paige asked me to do it and that I did it! I really lucked out on my legs because I never had to run in the super hot heat of the day. My first leg was about 11:00 am but it was right before Avon Pass and although it was my hottest run it was nothing compared to what others had to do. My second leg was through Morgan County and the sun had just gone down behind the mountain, about 9:00 pm. My third leg was the one I was most worried about because it had a couple good hills in it and it was on the last day when we had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep. But I took an energy drink and I was good to go! I started at about 6:45 am so the sun was just coming out but the air was nice and crisp. I ran up past Jordanelle and it was beautiful. Like I said, I really lucked out on my running times. Others had to run in the middle of the freezing cold dark night (It got down to 45 degrees!) We had a great time with everyone in our van and I think I'll be signing up for next year!



The Dashing Divas!


Here's Cami again running down Trappers Canyon in the 85 degree weather.
This is after my second run, thinking "What am I doing!"We actually got decent shirts for this race, ones that I'll probably find use for. Lot's of people ask us if we're twins, why would you think that?
My last run, the sun came out and the layers came off!
Here's the view at the top of my last run, it was so pretty!
My cute family came up to Park City to see us cross the finish line, Charlie ran up to me and said "Mommy, I'm so proud of you for winning!" It was cute.