Happy Birthday Briella!!

Happy Birthday Briella Lynn Booth!   

Briella is 2 years old and so much fun!!!!   She is very affectionate and loving to her family as well as her baby dolls.  :)  She is very social and is constantly making friends everywhere we go.  She loves watermelon, playing with Connor, dancing, swimming and dressing up in any and everything.  :)   She is talking a lot more and putting a few words together to form short sentences - it's so cute.  I'm sure she loves it because we can understand her a lot more.

For her birthday we went swimming with some friends at the YMCA.  Briella is our little fish!  She loves the water, so she can do her back floats.  :)    After swimming we came home took naps :) and then Matt and Connor and Briella made homemade ice cream.  They had fun and it was delicious!  Then we had dinner, one of her favorites, pasta nodka, and then the festivities!  

Connor and Briella having a balloon fight.

Right when we came downstairs in the morning she saw the balloons on the wall and had me promptly take them down so they could play with them.  :)

 I went to get a pedicure on Saturday and when I came home Briella saw my toes and kept saying 'pretty' 'cute'.  I asked if she wanted her toes painted and she said yes!  I was so excited!  I got the polish out and painted her toes right there in the middle of the kitchen.  She loved it and so did I!  (Her toes are curled but they really are painted!) 

 Mixing the homemade ice cream.  Of course there was tasting involved!  :)

 She got princess dress up clothes.

 Connor was a good big brother and helped her open her presents.  :)

 She got the lamb from Connor and the pony from Regan.

 Papa Steve made this for Briella!  It is sooooooo cute!  

I'll try to describe it.  It has 4 pictures of 'popcorn' trees.   Briella LOVES the song 'Popcorn Popping' from church.  The first line is 'I looked out the window and what did I see?'  So my dad put those words on it and the popcorn pictures have each family members' pic on it.  (Maybe you can see it better in the pic below.)

She LOVES it and keeps pointing at the pictures saying 'grandma', 'grandpa' 'Connor'.  :)

 So cute and so creative!  :)

 Connor and Briella playing with her presents.

 Here is Briella's birthday cake!  I'm so proud of it.  :)  It's nothing compared to the cakes I saw on Pinterest but this is the best I could do and it was fitting for Briella.  

A Watermelon Cake!

 She kept saying, 'My birthday cake!'

 It didn't taste like watermelon just looked like it.  I put chocolate chips in the cake to look like 'seeds'.  The frosting was a new recipe and it was DELICIOUS!  Whip cream frosting (with a little cream cheese added to make it sturdier).

 Saying 'cold!' about the ice cream.

Happy Birthday Briella we LOVE you and we're so glad you're a part of our family!

Home Improvement projects

Having our own house is awesome, but we are learning quickly, it's a lot of work.  When we got here we noticed the backyard was mostly dirt and it drove me crazy!  Growing up in Oregon we never had to worry about 'not having grass'.  Here in Colorado, specifically eastern Colorado, that's not the case, it's mostly dirt and prairie grass (so not the same as Oregon grass).  

Project #1

So our first project was to put in some grass.  Initially we were going to put in artificial grass - I thought I would NEVER ever do that (again, being from Oregon I would never consider that) - because it's so dry and water costs $$ and we're on water restrictions, but it was too expensive.  Our next choice was putting in sod.  We decided to do that the easy way!   We had 'them' do it.  :)   They did it so much faster than we would have.  :)   They did it in one afternoon.  Here are the pics.

Before

 To the right, near the slide is the sod ready to be placed.

 During

Laying new top soil and compost and leveling it out

 After

 We LOVE it!!!  

Right after it was done we all wanted to go out and lay on it!  It looked like a big green carpet!

The kids love playing in it, running around in it and sleeping in it!

Project #2

Our next project was much more ambitious!  We decided to extend our patio using pavers.  This was a much bigger job and we learned a lot.  Not only about pavers and how to do it but about ourselves and how we work together on projects!  :)  We got to practice our ever evolving communication skills!  :)  

Before

(yes, more dirt!)

 During

Dug down and leveled as best we could

 That's the sand (under the tarp) we used under the pavers and the rock we put around the patio.

 After

The finished product!  We put the rock around the patio and past the house, along the side.  I don't think we have it all down in this picture.

We love our house and all the projects it's giving us!  

We're learning a lot!

Connor's Swim Lessons (videos)

Here are a couple videos from Connor's swim lessons.  He did awesome!  At the beginning he would barely put his mouth in the water.  By the end he was diving underwater!   We're so proud!!!!  :)

Way to go Connor!

Good job Connor!!!

Catch up time!! (It's a long one.)

I know I've been a slacker!!  I'll warn you this post is long and honestly I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the happenings of the past few months so hopefully the pics will 'speak a thousand words'.  :)    There will be more pics and videos to come -  updating the blog is my goal for the week.   Cross your fingers I'm successful!  :)    These pics are some of my favorites.

(These are before Regan was born and some while we were moving to Colorado.)

Miss Catherine - Briella's physical therapist.  We LOVED her!  She was fantastic and Briella loved seeing her.  We saw her once a week from Nov-Feb to help Briella walk. 

 On our way to Colorado.  We just had to stop in Lawrence!  Connor was soooo excited to see where the Jayhawks play basketball!  (The Booth Family Hall of Athletics - wish we were related!)

 One of my favorite pics!!  On our way back from church when we stayed in Kansas City.  Two tired ladies!!!!  :)  (Matt's mom was such a HUGE help while we moved, couldn't have done it without her!  Thank you Cindy!!!)

 We got to see our long lost friends from Lawrence - Kevin and Amy Player and their cute kids.   It was so much fun visiting with them - just like old times but now with kids running around us!  :)  

 This was at the Easter Egg Hunt in Colorado at the Academy.  Our future firefighter!

 Enjoying the massive Easter egg hunt!

 Decorating Easter eggs at home.

 Fruits of our labors!   The bright pink sparkly one was just for Aunty Mel !!! 

  Easter pics!

 Aunty Mel painted Briella's fingernails for the first time!  

She wasn't sure what to think about it at first but then she loved them.  She kept saying 'pretty!'

(After Regan was born!)

We got a bunch of snow on May 1st!!!  Apparently Colorado couldn't make up her mind which season she was in.  :)    But nonetheless, the kids were ecstatic!  It was 9am and there were ready to go play outside.  It was a good thing because it all melted by the afternoon.  

 They made snow angels and went down the slide numerous times.  They were so happy!

 Joe made a mini golf course for the kids!  It was awesome!!  Katelin and Joe came to visit for a couple weeks at the beginning of May.  

The kids LOVED having them here!!!  :)  (Me too!  The extra set of hands was great!!)

 Hiking at Garden of the Gods - it is beautiful!

 This is up at the Air Force Academy.  Behind us is the cadet area and the building straight back from us is where Matt works - teaching Electrical Engineering.

 We went to the Warrior Games at the Academy one evening.  We watched the Bronze medal match in wheelchair basketball.  Those guys are strong and amazing!   It was neat to watch and fun to cheer them on, even though we were sitting in the Marines section.  :)

 Enjoying the weather!  

Lots of family came for Regan's baby blessing.  We were so grateful to have them all come - it was fun!  

 Grandma Minetto 'chatting' with Regan!  So cute!

 Hanging out in the backyard.

 Papa Steve pitching to Connor.  He also taught Briella to say (with her hands on her knees), 'Hey batter, batter!'   It was soooo cute!

 Grandpa Minetto enjoying the sunshine!

 Silly family!

 On the trail to see the Academy Chapel.

 Connor and Papa Booth tossing pine cones at each other.  :)

Regan's baby blessing

We did it at our house because we forgot that it was Stake Conference weekend.  

Grandma and Papa Booth

 Grandma Jan, Papa Steve and Aunty Katelin

 All the family

Grandma and Grandpa Minetto

 Wahlquist family

 So pretty!!!

 Uncle Joe even joined us via Skype!  :)

 

Our little fishy Briella! 

 Cutie Regan!

 Our trip to the zoo.  It was so cool, we got to feed the giraffes.  Their tongues are really long!

 This is the afternoon when the Black Forest Fire started.  That's what we saw out our window around 5pm.  It was only a few miles from our house.  But luckily we were safe and sound and so was our house.  It was scary though!

 This is Briella's favorite past time - dress up!  (in anything and everything.)

 Regan's 2 months old!

 Love this pic!!!  She's so happy and fun!!

 My little helpers!

 Connor's swim lessons

By the end (2 months total - but the 1st month was a waste of time- that's a long story) he was diving underwater grabbing diving rings.  yahoo!!!!   We are so glad he feels so much more comfortable in the water.   (I'll post some videos soon)