Utah Trip

We had an awesome whirlwind trip to Utah last week and it was so awesome to spend a couple days with my parents and two of my siblings!

I forgot how HOT Utah summers are (compared to SoCal), so Bryn spent lots of time with Logan running through sprinklers and swimming in the little pool.

Reading bedtime stories with my dad

Bryn had never been to a zoo, so we spend a couple hours at the Hogle Zoo with my parents and Logan. So fun!

Bryn's staring at the giraffes instead of the camera

The new tiger exhibit is really awesome and we spent a long time watching the 4 tigers (mother and 3 sons) fight each other. Pretty cool. Josh was in heaven :)

I wish took more pictures of Bryn with my mom because they are good buddies.

One more with Bryn and my dad

We enjoyed lots of Mom's great cookin' and plenty of other Utah treats

Logan organized badminton tournaments for us which were really amusing. Naturally, I am horrible.

I really, really miss the mountains and Utah hiking, so Josh and I fit in a fun hike one morning and it was so great!

It was so fun to see my Clarke girl cousins and aunts at my cousin's baby shower, especially since I missed the Clarke reunion this year!

We went to the ReAL soccer game with my dad, brother Logan, sister Marie, her boyfriend Devin, and Devin's brother. It was my first pro soccer game and it was so fun! And it was the first time we met Rie's little friend, so that was fun :)

And finally, here is Bryn about to hike a pigeon.

What a fun trip! I hope December comes quickly because I miss my fam already!

(We also spent time with Josh's fam at the Hawkins Reunion, but I'll post those pics later. This post is long enough already!)

Quilt for Linds

I haven't sewed much lately, but I finally had a good excuse for a sewing project: One of my very closest friends is having a baby! Lindsey and I lived across the hall in the dorms and then we were roommates at Liberty Square after our study abroad programs. She is such a great friend and I'm so excited for her to be a mom!

Here's the baby quilt I made for her little boy. I can't wait to meet her little guy!

The Latest

It's been a bit of a roller-coaster week....

LOW: My parked car got scratched and dented by another car backing out. The cute, little lady who hit me can barely speak English, so it's been super fun trying to communicate and get the details worked out with her insurance company and the body shop. Now she thinks the scratch was from her, but not the dent. Ahhhhh.....so fun.

HIGH: After almost 2 months of waiting, Josh found out he PASSED level 2 of the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Exam!!! I'm so proud of all his hard work and preparation! Woot woot! The CFA exams are only given once a year, so next year he'll take level 3 and hopefully be done!

LOW: We had miscarriage number four. I'm hoping four is my max because it's kind of getting old :) And returning un-worn maternity clothes is definitely not as fun as buying it. Oh goodness.

HIGH: This is the best news of all. We're heading to Utah for the Hawkins family reunion, and a few days with my family. I can't wait to see my fam and Bryn is going nuts, sooo excited to play with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The picture above is from our last Hawkins Reunion 2 years ago. Bryn is tiny!

Visitors

Last week we were lucky to have visitors! My Tueller grandparents, Uncle Rich, and Aunt Patty were doing a California road trip and spent 3 or 4 days in Huntington Beach. Bryn LOVED having them here and has asked for them every day since they left!

Grandma and Bryn had some cute coloring time

Bryn loved reading books with Rich during our last Utah trip, so she was thrilled to have another reading session with him and Patty. They are so sweet to her!

We also had a fun evening at the beach, watching Mark play volleyball.

Their visit went by too quickly, but it was such a treat to have a few days with family!

Anniversary Date

We walked the beach trail to the Ritz at Dana Point, then ate at an awesome place called Luciana's. It's a cute, little authentic Italian restaurant that was highly recommended, and we totally loved it. Fun night!

Four Years

It's been four beautiful years since Josh and I were married, and I'm looking forward to many wonderful years ahead! I'm one lucky girl.

Painting

We've been doing a lot of painting over here this week! (I know, another post on painting? I can't help it!) Bryn loves it and so do I. Josh makes fun of me for how excited I get about her little paintings. It's so cute to sit right next to her and see her hard at work! She used to talk and sing to herself as she painted, but now she's silent except for funny, heavy breathing of concentration.

She asks me to draw lots of circles and then she paints them.

I love watching how she picks out color. Initially, I tried to suggest colors she should use next, but she would purposely never use that color. So now I just let her do it and see what she comes up with.

Another favorite painting "game" is where I draw a design in white crayon and then she has to paint over it to see the design. I loved this one because she explained "Blue is for sky, green is for grass, and brown is for dirt!"

Whenever I'm sad or impatient about not having more children yet, all I have to do is spend good one-on-one time with Bryn like this and I'm reminded how lucky I am to have her as my little buddy.....and fellow painter :)

I look forward to a house full of kids someday, but I'm sure I will cherish these years with just Brynlee and all of our sweet, uninterrupted days of painting and talking and learning.

Well, That Was Fun

While Bryn was eating lunch I ran outside to move my car for street sweeping, and as I heard the street sweepers coming down the street behind me I was so glad I barely dodged the parking ticket!

My feelings of victory were short-lived, however, when I approached my door and heard wild laughter from the sweet little angel pictured above. She had figured out how to lock the dead bolt. And my house key was inside. Awesome.

Meanwhile, my brownies were burning in the oven and Bryn was dancing to the rhythm of the beeping timer. Bryn thought the whole thing was rather funny and kept saying "Wow Bryn! You locked the door all by yourself!" Yes. Yes you did.

My attempts to convince Bryn to unlock the door were completely unsuccessful, but thank goodness for large, low windows and a screen that popped out easily.

Rie

My favorite (and only) SISTER turns TWENTY today!!!

I look up to Marie in every way and she's always been an example to me, even though she's 4 1/2 years younger. I'll never forget the good old days of sharing a bunkbed, ballet recitals, backyard photoshoots with mom's prom dresses, and having hair-spray wars at midnight! I wish we lived closer, but thank goodness for daily texting, phone calls, and skype!

In tribute of Marie's big day, Bryn and I tried to recreate one of Marie's famous childhood pics...

We love you, Rie!!!!

Pizza

We love making homemade pizza on the weekends and lately we've tried out tons of different pizza dough recipes and toppings. Here's our favorite...so far:

For this kind of pizza dough I use my favorite breadstick recipe. (Instead of shaping it into breadsticks, I roll it into two large, thin rectangles. Everything else is according to the recipe, including the same rise time as I use for breadsticks.)

And I top it with:

Prego spaghetti sauce

Two cups of cheese (I like a mix of mozzarella + provolone, or mozzarella + parmesan)

Lots of finely chopped spinach

Lots of halved grape tomatoes (we use almost all of a 16 oz. package)

One can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

About a pound of chicken, cooked, seasoned, and chopped

A few shakes of pizza seasoning

It makes two delicious pizzas that we go nuts over!

Lately...

Besides family in town, these are some of my favorite things from the past week :

Snagging this cute little lamp at Goodwill for $6.00, after I saw it earlier this year at HomeGoods for $40.00. And my lamp budget was about $6.05, so it was meant to be. Fate.

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Listening to Bryn pray every day that "Uncle Jae will get buried in pigeons" and that we can get a new "booty in our family" .....instead of Jae getting married and us have a new baby. Unfortunately, Bryn sees prayers as a time to crack jokes.....the same jokes every time. We're working on both things with her: (1) prayers are serious, and (2) vary your jokes.

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Finding my neice sweetly combing Bryn's hair with a dirty dustbroom. And then watching her sneak behind Josh and do the same thing. So great. I love watching things like that.

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Catching Bryn slurping water from at least five different puddles....."slurping just like a PUPPY!!!" Yes. Just like a puppy.

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Discovering Bon Iver, and listening to him every day during naptime while I get stuff done.

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Booking our flight for our Hawkins Fam Reunion at Brighton. Can't wait!

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Listening to a groggy Bryn talk about her nightly dreams of a "brown goat who eats sand for lunch" and a "cow named Taco". Good stuff. I could listen to those stories every day!.....and I do.

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Reading "I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" and realizing....I don't have to make everything all better. Phew. That was a relief. (Actually, it's an interesting book).

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Researching grad schools with Josh, making goals, and looking forward to the things ahead.

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Laughing as Bryn sings "Mamma Mia! Here I go again! Ma-ma! How can I assist you?" over and over again, complete with her killer dance moves.

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I have a good life.

4th of July Weekend

We were lucky this year to have lots of visitors! My brother Jae was here, as well as my sister-in-law's family. It was such a fun weekend and it went by too quickly!

Of course we went to Duke's the Friday night with Jae. It's my favorite!

On Saturday we went to the Great Park with everyone, and had dinner, rode the carousel, and went up on the big balloon.

Here's my cute sis-in-law Marilee with James

Jae and Bryn are good buds

Bryn and her cousins on the balloon ride.

Brandon and Marilee

Sarah and Maren are such cute cousins! They were so sweet to Bryn the whole trip, and she LOVED playing with them.

Monday, on the 4th, we played frisbee golf, went to the beach, went to dinner with everyone, and then walked to the beach for the firework show at night. The girls got so silly dancing at the restaurant. Bryn was in a full sweat trying to imitate Sarah and Maren.

Tuesday we rode the ferry to Balboa Island

Maren, James, and Marilee

I love this picture of these three little buddies! James and Bryn are both 2 and Maren is 4, and they had fun playing together all weekend!

Josh got his workout for the day :)

Sarah and Josh at Wahoo's for lunch

I think Bryn's favorite part was playing dress-up with James and Maren last night! They were so cute and silly together.

Bryn was in heaven!

One last group hug before the cousins left! (I'm so sad this picture is blurry because I love it!)

Thanks so much for visiting guys!!!!

Beach + Jae

It was a fun beach day with my brother Jae today.

We actually have even more visitors in town, too.

More pictures to come!

Two and a Half

Bryn is officially two and a half as of Thursday! I really love this stage because Bryn's little personality is developing more and more and it's so fun being her buddy every day. In honor of her half birthday, here's two variations of her most stylish outfit:

"Ballerina Witch"

And "Ballerina Clown"

One ballerina skirt is never enough. A real ballerina wears a t-shirt tutu dress, stiff classic tutu, and long flowy tutu. All at once. Bryn flits around the apartment saying "Mom! Do I look like a beautiful ballerina??"

Yep, I love this stage.