Enjoying the Fall weather

Fall is beautiful here in the south. I love seeing all the leaves changing colors. It has been so long since I've enjoyed an east coast autumn. We decided to enjoy the last of the warm nights by going camping. We went with our friends the Hamblins and it was so much fun. We borrowed a friend's boat and went out to an island out in the Tennessee River. It was really nice to be out there by ourselves. It was fun cooking smores over the fire and enjoying the stars. Madsen asks to go again all the time.

The beautiful autumn leaves

Bryan cooking our yummy dinner

The morning after.
My little Pierson stayed nice and toasty warm all night

we miss you heiners

Between the wedding and family reunion we were able to visit our forever friends the Heiners who we had dearly missed, unfortunately sans Matt, in Provo right before they moved away. Madsen was so excited to see Max and Sambo again. It's amazing how much they remember. He immediately recognized our old apartment building and new exactly where we were. It was such a fun reunion for the little best friends. They hit it off as if they had never seperated. And the next set of best friends, Sam and Pierson, hit it off as well :)We had a fun two days with them and we were sad to say goodbye again. But we know that we'll always keep in touch and someday visit each other again. :)

Connie told me later that Sam came out of his room
the morning after we left and asked where the baby was. Cute Sambo :)

Best friends reunited

Pierson loved his Aunt Connie

We realized all of the boys had their converses on,
so we had to take a cute picture

Yes we are still alive :)

I know it has been monthS since I last posted. I will just say that this summer was a whirlwind for us. Wedding prep, traveling cross country TWICE, missionary homecoming, actual wedding and family reunion all in the space of two months. And then there was the settling back into our home after. I'm not even sure where to start. We were lucky to be able to visit all our family and friends back out west this summer and we had a blast. We went in June for a good friend's wedding and for me to go wedding dress shopping with Kristi. I'm so glad I was able to be there. I would have been extremely sad to miss it. We went boating with the Harmon fam and had lots of fun even though the water was pretty cold and we had Wyoming's reliable wind to join us. Madsen loved the "beach" as he called it. We came back home for the month of July and blessed Pierson and then went back out to Utah and Wyoming where the boys and I spent almost the entire month of August there. We welcomed Kyler back from his mission to South Carolina and then celebrated Kristi's wedding two days later. She was a beautiful bride and we're so happy for her and her husband Cameron. We had a family party for Madsen's birthday, nothing super elaborate. We followed the Harmon family tradition of a train cake and he loved it. He especially liked that I let him pick all the candy and that it was Thomas the train. I was glad he recognized who it was meant to be. I had planned for a more elaborate cake but ran out of time so I must say it looked good for being baked and decorated all in one day. We later enjoyed a fun Grigg family reunion and were able to spend time with all of Josh aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on his mothers side. We felt that it was pretty important to be there as his Grandpa Grigg's health has been declining and we're not sure how many more opportunities we will have to spend time with him.

PS. Sorry this is such a long post but obviously there was a lot of catching up to do :)

Crazy Jacob who swam out to the deep where it was colder

Poor Madsen was confused as to where all the seashells were :)

Josh bet his dad a one way ticket to Chattanooga to get in the water

So obviously he's coming to visit soon enough :)

Madsen trying to get excited about the cold water

Classic nieces and nephews pic. Madsen running away and Isa crying :)

The cute couple

Madsen's Thomas train cake

My sweet Pierson.

As crazy as this sounds his hair looks short

to me in this picture compared to how long it is now.

He couldn't wait to eat that cake

Mmmm...delicious

Obviously he got quite a few Toy story toys. He was ecstatic.

And to top it all off Papa and Grandma got him a scooter!

He immediately went outside to test drive it :)

Swimming

Madsen loves swimming and has become quite a good swimmer.

My boys

Being the mom of two boys has been so rewarding. I love my little guys even though we have times of meltdowns( we take turns trading off) and cleaning up messes (This is where Madsen and Pierson trade off). I've felt like Madsen has grown up so much lately. He's such an independent thinker and he's always watching us and trying to learn how to do what we do. He's recently discovered his own strength and coordination in opening bottles or anything that twists open. I'll admit my house is not baby proof. I just never had to baby proof with Madsen. He knew what he wasn't supposed to touch and what were his toys and that was all there was to it. However ever since discovering his new ability, I'm having to put things up on higher shelves. His latest adventure was opening the baby vicks container and upon seeing that it was the same consistency as his daddy's pomade, applying it VERY generously throughout his hair. I'll admit that when I saw him I was initially upset and then realized there was very little I could do and just had to laugh and take pictures. Pierson is such an aware baby. He's already recognizing voices and turning to people and looking up with his pretty eyes and smiling at them. He is such a happy baby, who loves to eat, and treats his mami very nicely by giving her 5-6 hour periods of sleep at night. I'm so lucky to have these two special boys as my sons.

I finally got a pretty good picture of the boys. :)
My sweet Pierson all ready for church.
My mom got the boys matching ties. They looked so cute.
Madsen's vicks adventure

I washed his hair out three times that day and we're still washing out the remainder of it out 3 days later.

Goodbye Huita

Time has flown by so fast. Pierson is 3 weeks old and the time came for my mom to go back home. She left yesterday morning. I am so grateful to her for her willingness to come stay with us and help. We all love her very much and miss her. She's the best huita in the whole wide world. Its a good thing we live closer and can visit more often. I'm thinking next week :) The boys and I are going up for Emmanuel's baptism and we're very excited to see everybody.

Garden excitement

My poor garden has been kind of cast aside for the last couple weeks. Luckily it has not taken offense and everything is growing fantastically. We have been harvesting lettuce and spinach for the last month and it has been so nice to enjoy a delicious garden fresh salad almost every night. Unfortunately both are cool weather crops so their season is coming to a close, right as my tomatoes and cucumbers are starting to come in :( Madsen has been thoroughly enjoying his sugar snap peas and on Sunday I collected our first yellow squash! It's so fun to go out and see how fast everything is growing and the funnest part is reaping the rewards with our fresh veggies.

Our lettuce looks like its ready to explode

Our 3 kinds of lettuce:Red blend, buttercrunch, and romaine

Having success with the cilantro this year!

Our 3 types of peppers(sweet, green and red) and yellow squash and zucchini

I've already picked 2 squash since taking this picture on Sunday!

The first yellow squash I picked.

We're going to have lots of tomatillo. I need good salsa recipes.

If you have any please feel free to share them.

Our cucumber and tomato plants

This is the biggest cucumber out of the many that are growing :)

Every one of the tomato plants has this many tomatoes on it.

I'm so excited for the many cucumber tomato sandwiches to come.

Isn't this head of lettuce pretty?

It's been pretty busy around here while adjusting to life as a family of four. Thank goodness my mom is here to help out. I don't know what I would have done without her. We love Abuelita and all she does for us. So here's just a few pictures of what we've been up to:

Lots of loving

and cuddling :)

Some of us are sleeping.

And continually trying to get a cute smiley picture of the two boys.
(unfortunately this is the best one so far)