The Banbiznass

Snow!!

2012-01-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

It finally snowed!!! It felt like winter for a few days here, which was kinda fun. But I'm not gonna lie, I'm totally fine if that's the only snow we get this winter. Although it was really fun to see Lucy's face light up when she looked out the window last Saturday morning. "Snooooooow!"
It was such a fun, relaxing day. Trey even took the day off from studying to play. I tried something new, I made crepes for my first time that morning. We put fat-free vanilla yogurt in the middle, then topped it with cut strawberries and a dusting of powdered sugar. It really hit the spot! I'll definitely be making those again really soon. We played around that morning, cleaned a little (not much at all), played our daily dose of Just Dance 3, and bundled up to head outside for some snow time!
Luce loved to pick up snow and throw it. This snow wasn't like regular PA snow, it was nice and fluffy. So fluffy that making a snowman was out of the question. But it was fun to play in nonetheless.
The slide was super slick so we built up the snow at the bottom so Lucy would have a nice place to land. Here is a clip of her flying off the slide, ha ha.

She also insisted on swinging. She really misses her playtime outside(me too Luce!). Can you tell? Such a happy girl.

We went in later and had a lunch of grilled cheese, tomato soup and apple slices, the perfect lunch on a cold snowy day in my opinion. Later we went back out for round 2 and then headed over to our neighbors, the Hills, house to play, chat, and drink hot cocoa and munch on cookies. It was such a loverly snow day. I guess I could go for a few more of those...but then bring on spring! This pale skin is in need of some vitamin D! :)

Bump baby bump!

2012-01-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

I knew it! I'm not a complete crazy prego lady, although Trey might tell you otherwise. :) I said I swear I feel bigger this time around and this is proof that I most certainly am! The little bean is most definitely popping out more than Lucy did. The first picture was taken on Jan. 18, 2009 and the second we just took last night, Jan. 22, 2012. Since I'm due a day after Lucy was due, I'm guessing the weeks to pretty much be the same.

So what does this mean? Either we'll have a bigger baby this go around, the mama lady is bigger (which is probably true), or I may be further along then they think. Let's just go with the last one, that one makes me feel the best. :)

It's time for another...

2012-01-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

...birthday post! Has it seriously been a year already? I feel like I just turned 27! This is just odd. Oh well, I'm over it. 28 is no biggie. Here are some highlights from my past year of life...

-Successfully carried out our first Blue & Gold Banquet and Pinewood Derby. It was a lot of work but they both turned out to be a hit!

-I was released as a Den Leader and called to teach the 6 & 7-year-olds in Primary with Trey. Our class had 12 kids in it! This year they split the class in half so it's a little more manageable since it's a class of mostly boys. We are grateful. :)

-We went to D.C. during Trey's last "spring break". We all enjoyed ourselves at the Museum of Natural History and Good Stuff Eatery of course. That place is hands-down my favorite place to get a burger...In-N-Out is a close second.

-I enjoyed having my parents on a mission out here. We got to see them about every 2 months. Luce loved having them stay over and it was fun to see her get to know them better. They went back home in July.

-The summer was so awesome! We went to Hershey Park almost every week. Trey was even able to come a few times. I loved riding the roller coasters with him. I forgot how much fun those things are. I love me some adrenalin rush!

-Had a crazy party for Lucy's 2nd birthday where we invited a ton of people and crammed them into our little apartment. This year will be a lot more mellow, since I'll probably just be getting out of the hospital on her birthday (at least I hope!).

-We survived Trey's 2nd year of med school (Neuro was crappy) and him studying for Step 1 for a month straight. I'm glad that's over. It was worth it though, he totally rocked his test. :)

-During the month of Trey's studying for Step 1, we visited my parents in Somerset, PA for a week and got a glimpse into what LDS couple missionary work is like. I could totally do that when we're retired.

-Took up a new hobby of kite flying as a family. It is so much fun!

-Made a few fun things with Trey: fabric wall hangings, repainted Lucy's bookshelf, and the huge map on wall with pins in it of places we've been and lived.

-Made lots of crafties: owl oil painting, stuffed owl, baby receiving blankets, more sock monkeys, Brobee shirt, cross stitch of Trey & I as pixel people, stick wreath (from Pinterest), onesies with embroidery, embroidered ornaments for Christmas ornament swap, shark and bird rice bags, plush Muno doll, and the lucy bird purse.

-Made my first batch of homemade strawberry jam! Turned out great! I wish I would have made more. :)

-Went to a friend's lake house (by Keuka Lake) in upstate New York over the Fourth of July weekend. It had been sooo long since I had been boating. I miss it dearly! We had a blast with all of Trey's single class mates.

-We finally visited the Indian Echo Caverns (got a good deal on Groupon). It was actually cooler than I thought it would be.

-I flew on a plane with just me and Lucy. I was so nervous about it but she did great! We visited Cheyenne, WY and stayed with Phil and Nicole for a week. Then went to the Brenchley Family Reunion in Star Valley, WY aka one of the most beautiful places I've been to. Then went to Centerville and Tooele to visit family. And of course went to Logan to visit my sweet Grandma Darley & friends that I miss. Good times were had by the Banbury ladies.

-5-year anniversary!!! The paddle boat dinner cruise was awesome! I sure love my huzbee and his creative ideas. :)

-Survived my first earthquake and major flood! The Hershey Flood of 2011 was insane!

-Had a blast when Traci came out for a visit. When she was here I found out I was pregnant!! She knew before Trey did, ha ha!

-Enjoyed the freakish snow storm that produced 8 inches of snow on October 29th. It was all melted by Halloween.

-Lucy's first successful Halloween! Woohoo! Yes, this is a highlight for me.

-Experienced our 2nd Hershey Halloween parade and it was just as awesome as last year. Lucy got soooo much candy this year. One guy thought she was a boy and gave her 2 pieces of candy, ha ha!

-Robin came for a visit in October and we had a blast as always. We took her to Hershey Park in the Dark and Intercourse, PA for some good old Amish home cookin'.

-Thanksgiving was a blast at the Niehoff residence in Baltimore. Miss Bev cooks a mean Thanksgiving feast.

-Christmas in Utah was busy but so fun to be with family for the holiday.

-We found out we're adding another GIRL to the fam!

Party Rocket

2012-01-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

We got an Xbox with Kinect for Christmas this year and we are loving it! I got Just Dance 3 for my birthday and it is definitely Lucy's fave. Over the past few days we've played it at least twice a day. Her favorite dances are the "robot one" (aka Daft Punk "Da Funk") and "party rocket" (aka LMFAO "Party Rock"). Watching her has been so amusing. Sometimes she'll just sway back and forth to the beat and other times she'll really try to follow what the avatar is doing on the game. Too dang cute! We might just have to sign her up for dance lessons. I want her to do tumbling this summer after she turns 3. Maybe we'll try dancing when she's 4. I'm pretty sure that's when I started.

I'll try to get a video of it next time we have a dancing session and post it. For now, here is a cute picture of Luce with pigtails in! She lets me put ponytails and pigtails in her hair now...sometimes. :) All our friends that see her keep telling her that her hair is getting sooo long so now several times a day I hear, "Mom, look at my hair! It's getting soooo loooong!"

Our Utah Christmastime Adventures

2012-01-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

I guess I better finish up my Christmas posts since it's the middle of January. :)
We went to Utah from December 18 - 30. It had been 3 years since we've had a Christmas in Utah so it was fun to be around this year and get to spend so much time with family. We were even able to squeeze some friend time in there too. I'm so grateful that Trey was given 2 weeks off this year!
We had a long day of traveling and got into SLC at 11:30pm, but it felt like 1:30am to us. My brother Phil and his fam were also staying at my parents house so we were greeted by my parents at the airport and then by them when we rolled into my parents house at midnight. We got our 2nd wind and ended up staying up for another hour just chatting by the fire. Lucy had a blast with all her cousins. Here are a pics I snapped and a little video of Lucy and her cousins Nate & Zach having a dance party. Such little sillies they are!

We were able to go to all the places we missed in Utah (In-N-Out, D.I., Pei Wei, Little Caesars, Cafe Rio, Blue Iguana, Apollo Burger, the Gateway Mall, and CPK.) and I even went to a few new places that I looove (Cafe Zupas, Hip and Humble, and Little America!). While we stayed at my parents house we...

Made gingerbread houses
Went to the Bountiful Temple and did sealings as a fam
Took Lucy to her first movie ("Chipwrecked"...oh my goodness it was painful for me to watch but Lucy sure loved it...I'm sure the bag of popcorn she scarffed down had something to do with that as well) with her cousins
Had a fun holiday party with my extended family (on my mom's side)
Trey played bball and went on a man date with most of my brothers to Mission Impossible 4.
Participated in Christmas Eve festivities (6-foot-sub, acting out the nativity, christmas eve jammies, favorite things, and the candy bar game) I was a little bummed that we didn't play my favorite Christmas Eve game, the peanut game. I guess when I moved away the tradition died or something.

I also met up with my childhood friend Mel and we played the old school Nintendo game that we were obsessed with as kids, Bubble Bobble. It was so much fun. I just love her to pieces, that Mel.

And her cute little boy, Benjamin, looks sooo much like her, it is too funny.

And we saw the Hulls! They were our neighbors in Hershey for our first 2 years here and they moved back to Utah for Nate's intern year. They were the best neighbors ever! We miss them terribly.

Here's Reese being her funny little self

Cutest family ever, and they have one on the way too! Jen's due 2 weeks after me. :)

On Christmas Eve Eve night, we met up with Trey's parents at Little America and had a delicious dinner and then hopped on Trax and went to Temple Square to see the lights and go on a carriage ride! It has been about 10 years since I've been on one, it was so much fun! Lucy was loving all the horses. And being silly with Grandpa Chuckles of course.

We totally lucked out and got the heated carriage! It was sure nice and toasty.

Of course Lucy took over the camera and got some great shots...

Ha ha ha

Here's a funny video Trey took while on the ride...

Isn't that just beautiful?

Luce and Grandma Robin having a grand old time

We went back to Tooele that night and stayed and moved all our stuff there. Lucy helped Gma Robbie make some sugar cookies on Christmas Eve to take out to my parents house. She loooves to help in the kitchen. Gma Robbie got her that cute little apron.

Lucy made a crazy looking mega cookie. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Gma showed her how to use the cookie cutters on the mega cookie.

That evening we headed back out to Centerville for my family's Christmas Eve extravaganza. Here are a few pictures from the Brenchley festivities...

This is cute little Addison. I wanted to just take her home. She was always so happy to see ya.

The kid candy bar game...no one cried this year! It was a Christmas miracle!

The adult candy bar game. Mike Dee was the big winner. I think he came away with 5 or 6 candy bars.

The kids acted out the nativity. My parents have a ton of random dress ups that they layed out and the kids picked what they wanted. Lucy chose this stylish vest and headband. She said she was the donkey. Nice.

It was impossible to get a shot of them all looking so believe it or not, this is the best shot I got.:)

Lucy the donkey

The kiddos in their pjs...as you can see Lucy refused to turn around for the camera

That night we headed out to Tooele to spend Christmas Eve night there and the rest of our time. Christmas morning was nice and relaxing. Lucy totally made out like a bandit. Church was really nice. I actually read my book for a good portion of the day, I loved it! We had delicious meals and Trey, Heath, and Chuck went up into the mountains and shot guns for a few hours. Random but it sounds like they had a good time.

We relaxed a lot in Tooele, which was nice. We went into Salt Lake quite a bit to do stuff. We met up with Trey's old roommates from Utah State and their wives for lunch at Cafe Zupas. We visited Heath at the Magna fire station, which is suuuper nice by the way. Trey and I got to do a few sealings in the Salt Lake Temple for some of Trey's relatives and he got to seal his grandpa to his parents. It was a really neat experience. Lucy played with Gma and Gpa and they took her to Discovery Gateway. It sounds like a fun children's museum place with lots of random stuff they can play with. One night we met up with Trey's brother Matt and his wife Kristy and also our friends the Fraziers at the Blue Iguana. We sure love good Mexican food. You just can't find that stuff out in Pennsylvania.

One day I left Luce with Trey and headed back to Farmington to my friend Christmas party/get together. It was so fun to see so many of my ladies again! I haven't seen a lot of them in 2.5 years! You can really tell how good of friends you are with someone when you can not see them in so long and just kinda pick up where you left off last and it's not awkward or anything. I sure love these girls, it made me so happy to chat and catch up with them. They will always have a special place in my heart. We had some of the best times together.

Me and my Kayleners

And of course me and my "Ex" (not ex-girlfriend, ex-roommate you sillies!)

That night we got together with Trey's high school buddies and their wives for dinner and games. Here are all the boys...

and their hot ladies...

and one with everyone + the childrens.

Joe and Karli's little girl Claire was so stinkin' cute and hilarious. Lucy had a good time with her. I think Luce actually took this picture of her little buddy.

The night before we left we went to a Filipino friend of Trey's house and had authentic Filipino food. It was the bomb! Trey was in heaven.
We had such a great time in Utah and I'm pretty sure we each put on 10 pounds from all the good food we ate. Thanks again to both our parents for having us! And I'm so happy we didn't get sick this time...that came right after we got home. Unfortunately our New Years and also my birthday was spent on the couch being ill. Trey and Luce are over their colds but I'm having a hard time getting ride of mine. Gotta love the winter!

Lu birdy purse

2012-01-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Lucy has recently taken an interest in one of my purses. She loves carrying it out to the car for me and keeps telling me it's her purse. I looked everywhere for a cute purse to get her for Christmas but I didn't see anything that tickled my fancy. Then I thought, why don't I just make one? It didn't seem too hard and it actually wasn't. I was pleasantly surprised. I basically used this tutorial but simplified it a bit. I didn't use a liner fabric because the corduroy is pretty darn thick and Lucy doesn't care what the inside looks like. I also made just one strap instead of 2 because that's more of the look I was going for. I had the cute embroidered bird from when I cut up the window valance that went with Lucy's nursery bedding so I stuck that on there for good measure. She was pretty excited when she woke up from her nap and found this happy little birdy bag waiting for her. She's even put a few toys in it already. Success!

It's a...

2012-01-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

LADY!!!

whoa whoa who, she's a lady!

(i've got you singing tom jones now, don't i? tee he he)

Our pretend Christmas, PA style

2012-01-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

A week before the real Christmas Eve we had our pretend Christmas Eve in PA. Santa came early to the Banbury's because we are that cool. We didn't want to bring all the presents with us so we thought it would be fun to just have 2 Christmases, a Pennsylvania one and a Utah one. Luce opened her Christmas Eve jammas and we set off on our mission to find the most awesomely decorated house. We saw some pretty good ones but this one took the cake. Yikes! It was a little bit out of control but they definitely win this year.

On Christmas morning it was so fun to watch Lucy open all her presents. She was so excited that Santa came and brought her toys! I only took a few pictures because that morning it was a bit crazy trying to get everything ready to head to the airport at 11am. Here is one of her cute face when she opened her Mrs. Potato Head.

We had our traditional breakfast of Swedish pancakes & bacon. Delish as always! Next year we'll have to make ebelskivers...or maybe for my birthday in a few days. :)

Christmas crafting

2012-01-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

This year Trey's fam did a homemade Christmas theme. All the kids made their cousins stuff and so did us big people. We made Matt & Kristy fleece blankets with things embroidered on them. I didn't take a picture but we were happy with how cute they turned out. Matt's was black with a big red "U" in the bottom right corner. Kristy's was navy blue with cool medallion designs on it and we sewed a big dragonfly in the bottom right corner. Lucy had her 10-year-old cousin Dylan so we made him a shark rice bag that you can heat up in the microwave to keep you warm in the winter and a mustache shirt.

I also made Lucy a Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba with some scrap fabric a neighbor gave to me a while ago. (thanks again Jenni!) His arms turned out a lot buffer that the real Muno. He's been pumping some iron. :)

And I made myself a corn bag to replace my old gross one. It's so great to have to warm up my feet or put on my lower back when it's feeling achy and such. Since we've been sick the past few days we've been watching Portlandia on Netflix. I totally "put a bird on it" and it looks so much cooler now.

Next craft I will attempt is making Lucy a purse...I'll let you know how it goes because this will be my first purse/bag making adventure. Wish me luck!

Trimming our tree

2012-01-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

Luce helped trim the tree this year, it looks pretty freaking awesome. Can you tell which part she did? I love how they're all in a big clump. Originally she packed 6 ornaments on one branch so I had to convince her to spread them out a little more. She's a good little helper, that Lucy girl.

Anytime she sees the camera she immediately wants a turn. Most of her pictures these days look like this as she's lunging for it.

And then the Lucy photo shoots begin. She usually says "Say cheese Mama!" first...

And then she says "K, now make a funny face."

And then she just keeps taking more and more until I run out of funny faces. Then she'll move on to Daddy.

Thanks for getting my bum in the background in this one Luce.

And of course here is a shot of the ever-growing baby bump at 16 weeks in front of the tree.

Thanksgiving

2012-01-02T18:43:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving with our east coast adopted family, the Niehoffs this year and it did not disappoint. Miss Bev cooked one of the most delicious feasts I have ever partaken of. Trey kept saying "mmmm..." while he was eating and he didn't even realize it. We had some great guests there with us, a bunch of old people that liked to tell stories, it was quite entertaining.

Lucy enjoyed playing in the leaves while the food was cooking.

We went to the park and enjoyed the awesome 60 degree weather.

We helped them put up their monster tree. It reminded me of the tree on National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. Kate wasn't there so Trey dressed up and posed as Kate in a few family pictures.

The fat pad was kinda sticking out in this one.

We also did a little shopping, got some killer black friday deals on amazon (xbox + kinect!!), and introduced the Niehoffs to Skookies. It was one delicious weekend.

Ornament swap 2011

2012-01-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the cute ornaments I received from the ornament swap I did again this year. So fun! I think the polar bear is still my fave but I love the other 2 too. I totally got lucky.

A few thoughts...

2011-12-01T11:52:00.001-08:00

I have recently discovered the beauty of leggings and have come to the conclusion that they may be the most comfortable things in the world! From here on out, I'm swearing off jeans. Just leggings, skirts, sweats, and yoga pants for this girl. I don't remember my jeans feeling quite this uncomfortable this early during pregnancy #1. I'm looking at pictures and I'm definitely showing more this time around so I guess it makes sense.
I just read the sweetest birth story on The Daybook, but good golly miss molly, did that girl have a rough labor! She was laboring for 9 days before she actually went to the hospital for "show time". And after she made it to the hospital, she labored for another 13 hours on top of that! Makes my labor with Lucy seem like a piece of cake. Well, to me, at that moment, it was not. But oh soooo worth it. If it wasn't work, they wouldn't call it "labor", right? :) It's funny how all these babies make their way into the world, each with their own special story. I really enjoy reading other people's birthing stories because they are all so different.

P.S. Is it too early to feel the baby move with your 2nd pregnancy? Because I swear I felt Fetus move last night...either that or I had some squirrelly gas rumbling around in there. TMI? Haha! It's just strange because I didn't feel Luce until I was 22 weeks. It seems rather early since I'm only 15 weeks along. It must have been gas.

And to family and friends who live far away, here is proof that there is definitely something growing in my womb...

...or that I went to town on Thanksgiving Dinner this year, which I most certainly did. :)

Catch Up

2011-11-22T18:07:00.001-08:00

I'm going to play catch up for a minute. I've been a lazy blogger lately, this baby growing business makes me so tired by the end of the day. I usually will just park it on the couch and craft while I watch my "stories" after I get Lucy to bed. I'm kind of banking on this pregnancy being like the last one and that I'll feel better in a week or two. I can't wait to start exercising again. This is my last week of the first trimester! Woohoo! I can't believe I'm already 1/3 of the way there!

So let's rewind a bit...

In September, my friend Traci came to stay with us for a few days while Trey was on his Surgery rotation. I actually found out I was pregnant when Traci was here. She found out I was pregnant before Trey did, haha.

I actually made something that I found on Pinterest.

In October, we had a ward temple day. It was so great to have most of our ward there. We didn't do sessions or anything, everyone brought their families and friends and we walked around and listened to different presentations from a few ward members about the temple. It was fun to see how excited Lucy was to visit the temple again. She grabbed my hand and we marched right up inside the doors.

We saw our friends, the Hartwells, from our married student ward in Utah State! It was so randomly awesome!

After we made a special stop to Olney, Maryland to eat at Cafe Rio with our friends the Bordons. I'm so happy they finally came the East Coast! Even though I was prego-sick, it still tasted amazing!

We had another special visitor come stay, Trey's mom Robin! We went to Hershey Park in the Dark and Lancaster and had tons of yummy food.

We went to the Hershey Halloween Parade with the Bakers. Lucy got so much candy, it was insane!! We had a good time, as always, with those Bakers. Here are a few pics I stole from them...

On October 29th we had a huuuge snowstorm! We had like 8 inches! It snowed all day and didn't stop. It was super wet snow so by the end of the day it was just slush. It was kinda gross but we had a fun time playing in it.

In November, a friend invited us to visit a dairy farm. Luce was in heaven!

Lucy and Murphy had a sleepover! She loved to feed him his dog food.

I joined another ornament swap on Flickr. I decided to embroider on felt this year.

I've only received one of mine so far and I am in looove with it! This lady has inspired me to learn how to knit.

Lucy has really been into dancing lately. She loves The Black Keys and Daft Punk. Here is just a taste of some of her moves...

Trey and I were both released from our callings in cub scouts and we are now primary teachers for the CTR 6 kids. We sure have a lively bunch. They're good kids though, for the most part. :)

Last week I had a dr. appointment and got to hear the baby's heartbeat and it was nice and strong. It almost made my cry. Also, we scheduled our ultrasound to hopefully find out the gender of the wee babe on December 15th! My doctor said I'll only be 17 weeks and 5 days along but I should be far enough along that they should be able to tell. If the baby feels like cooperating of course. :)

Trey just finished his Psychiatry rotation and he's happy that it's over. No interest in that whatsoever. Now he's on to Anesthesia and after his first day he's really enjoying it. I'm excited to see how the next month goes for him.

So that pretty much catches you up on what's been going on with us. We're looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with our good friends the Niehoffs in Baltimore and then spending Christmas in Utah! Eeek! I can't wait!

Best out of three...

2011-11-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Well I must say that this Halloween was a great success for Miss Lucy in the trick-or-treating department. I was beginning to think my daughter would be one of those weirdies who just doesn't like Halloween! This year was definitely the best out of the three Halloweens she's experienced.

The first year she just wasn't happy that night (she was 5 months old). The second year Trey & I took her out and she refused to go to people's doors. So after like 2 houses, we went home and called it a night. This year I thought it would be more fun for her if we went along with a few of her buddies. She started off being a little grumpy pants but we eventually got her into her costume and out the door. Once she saw her friends she got really excited and easily got the hang of knocking on people's doors, saying "Trick or Treat!!!", and then getting candy for it! A few times she even said "Happy Halloween!"

She threw us for a loop 10 minutes before we were going to leave when she said she wanted to be a ghost, not a monster. We told her she could be a fuzzy blue ghost and after thinking about it for a minute she decided that would work. Thank heavens! Otherwise we would have been 0 for 3. No bueno.

So here are some pics I snapped that night of our cute little blue "ghost"...

Lucy monster, Ian dragon, and Batman Stockton

"Okay Mom, enough with the pictures! I've got candy waiting!"

At the first few houses, Lucy just started eating the candy as she went. Once she found that pink dum dum it did not leave her right hand for the whole night. She's holding it in every picture.

We went to this cool street with beautiful houses and this one house had tons of blow up haunted houses you could walk through. They also had tables set up with hot dogs, apple cider, hot chocolate, a fire pit, and they handed up full-size candy bars. This house totally wins awesomest house award this year.

Then we stopped at Beth and Aaron's on the way back and ate more candy...can ya tell?

Here is Beth holding Lucy's best dog friend Murphy, the wonder dog.

Now what to do with all this candy?? It won't stop taunting me...

Holy moly, me oh my...

2011-10-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

Lucy's going to be a big sister in May!!! Woot woot!

We told our fam yesterday and we are sick of keeping it a secret so there you have it!

The Great Hershey Flood of 2011

2011-10-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

Let me give you a little timeline of the craziness we've experienced in the past month and a half:

August 23rd - Earthquake
August 28th - Hurricane Irene
September 2-7 - A whole lot of rain and Tropical Storm Lee (which brought a ton more rain)

September 7th was the day shiz hit the fan here in Hershey. Our town and much of central PA was under a lot of water. It was unbelievable! I was glued to our TV screen for the whole day. I couldn't believe my eyes. I collected some images from Facebook and town websites so you can see the kind of flooding that went on here.

This is Hershey Park and Zoo America. 2 bison died because of the flood. So sad. :(

Here are some images from around town...the Pizza Hut was almost completely underwater and so was that 7-Eleven and other restaurants were partially flooded. Some of the Pizza Hut walls completely collapsed.

Luckily we live on higher ground, but we did have a little flooding by our apartments. Here is a shot I got of a spot in our apartment complex...yikes!

We got sick of being inside and I needed to get away from the internet and TV because it was sucking me in so I took Lucy out for a walk. This girl loves her puddles. Look how happy she was!

I got a little clip of her dancing in the puddles. Towards the end she plays the puddle like a drum too, silly nilly!

On Friday, I went walking with a few of my neighbors so see some of the flood damage. Here is what we found.

That big building is the Penn State Medical Center/Med School. That lake is not supposed to be there.

This is right by the trail we walk on in the mornings.

We found a little salamander friend! Something tells me he was far away from home.

Stockton and Lucy were intrigued by the funny little creature.

So what kind of natural disaster do you think will hit us next? I'm taking bets... :)

Happy 5 to us!

2011-09-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

It was our big 5 year anniversary on August 8th. I can't believe it's already been 5 years! Ca-ray-zee!! It's funny to look back at our wedding pictures because we look so young! And thin!

Trey is so sweet. He surprised me by planning the whole thing. We kind of stretched out our anniversary celebration between 2 weekends. Friday (Aug. 5) we finally went to Harry Potter 7, part deux. It was soooo good! We are huge HP nerds, I seriously almost cried several times. And we ordered the super-good-for-you super buttery popcorn, something we never do because it's so stinkin' expensive! But man was it good.
The next Saturday Trey reserved us a spot on a dinner cruise on the Susquehanna on an old school paddle boat. He also gave me some moneys to go buy myself a "hot" dress and shoes! He really knows the way to my heart.

We had quite an interesting time getting to City Island (at one point we were running to catch the boat so it wouldn't leave us) but we made it just in time! It was really fun to get all dressed up and go out just the two of us. The boat was awesome. The view was beautiful. There were a ton of old people and they liked to stare at us. I think they were just jealous because we looked smokin'. :) I'm totally bummed we didn't bring our camera but Trey brought his phone so we snapped a few shots of us being nerds. (I guess I'll be adding those later because I can't find his phone...) Here is a pic of the boat I found online...

Cute huh! I kept thinking about the "booze cruise" episode on The Office, probably because of the open bar they had going on. I was just waiting for the impromptu dance competition to start. Unfortunately we did not have any Michael Scotts on our boat that night.

So that pretty much wraps up our anniversary festivities for this year. It's sure been a wild first 5. I can't wait to see what the next 5 brings!

Ain't nobody else I'd rather spend it with. :)

Lucy's 2-year-old pictures

2011-09-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

Most of you have probably already seen these on Facebook but I thought I would put some on the blog for good measure. And I need to do something to distract me from all the crazy flooding that's going on all around us. I have seen flooding like this once before in my lifetime (in Iowa, summer of '08). I do feel safer knowing I'm on the top floor of our apartment complex and we don't have a basement to worry about. Enough about that...here are some cute pictures of the Lucy our friend Beth took at the Milton Hershey School. Lucy had so much fun. It took her a while to warm up to the camera but once she did, she was posing left and right. She was being such a little ham, Beth got a kick out of her.

This one is Trey's favorite, he says it "melts his heart", awww...

See the bench she's laying on? Who knew that there was a wasp nest underneath it! We disturbed the wasps and Luce and Beth both got stung! She was super upset so we calmed down by relaxing in the grass and eating Craisins. Poor little thing.

I totally wasn't planning to be in any of the photos but Lucy tackled me and Beth got some great candid shots. You can see by my arms that Lucy decorated me with stickers.

Just like old times

2011-08-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

I forgot one to mention one other thing I did while I was in Utah. I went to the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert at Pioneer Park with Tbone and Nico. It was totally a last minute thrown together outing but I'm so happy it worked out so I could see these 2 lovely ladies.

I haven't seen Tara in 2 years and Nicole in 4, I think. Yeah, it's been awhile! Way too long if you ask me. I've been friends with T since middle school and we met Nicole our sophomore year at Utah State. We had the best apartment that year, we had way too much crazy fun together. It was awesome how well all 6 of us roommates got along and became such good friends having not known each other at all beforehand. It was definitely meant to be. Gosh it feels like that was a million years ago!

The concert was pretty funny. The main singer, I'm guessing his name is Edward, was nuts! He looked like a homeless man and flitted around the stage like a fairy. Is that what's cool these days(hippie-grunge?)? There were sooo many people packed in there. The crowd was made up of hipsters and a few real hippies...and then there was us. Ha ha, not exactly our crowd. It made me feel old, but it also made for some great people watching.

I had such a good time catching up and having some good laughs. A ladies night with good friends is definitely good for the soul. Thanks to my Mom and Dad for watching Lucy so I could go pretend I was back in college for a night. And hopefully it won't be another 2 years before I see these beautiful faces again.

Centerville

2011-08-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

We had a blast in C-ville, especially when Chris and Cheryl were staying there too. Luce and Luke had so much fun together, especially on the trampoline.

...and the gutter! I used to do this all the time when I was little and I loved it so how could I say no?

She's so happy when she's wet and dirty. That our little ragamuffin.

We went to Mike and Mandy's to celebrate Mom and Mike's birthday (they share the same birthday). Here is little miss Addison, my newest niece. She is such a sweet little thing, she's so content just to sit and watch everyone. She reminds me of a little doll. I love her onesie too.

A gnarly storm rolled in...

The kids went outside after it calmed down a bit and ran around. This is my niece Anna giving Lucy and push.

Aren't those clouds mean-looking?

And the clear sky in the opposite direction.

The kids dried off on the driveway.

The two red-heads posing. Devan and Max.

Lucy had to get in on the fun too.

One day we visited our old neighbors, the Hulls. Nate is doing his intern year in Utah and then they're heading to the Mayo Clinic for the next 4 years. We miss them sooo much. They were the best neighbors.
Here is cute little Jett pushing his truck.

I love all the kids faces in this one, ha ha ha

They live at Jen's parents house and they have the coolest backyard I have ever seen! Complete with a playhouse, huge garden, greenhouse, and a zip line! This is how Jett rides the zip line, he loved it!

Reese pulled Lucy around the yard with this jumprope and Luce was loving every minute of it.

Reese showed us how the pros do it.

I gave it a go, it was really fun!

Isn't she a beauty? I love little Reesey. She used to call down from their balcony when I'd be walking by and ask me where I was going and what I was doing. It was too funny.

Ba bye Hulls! Cutest family ever.

I saw my bosom friend(we both love Anne of Green Gables) Melanie! Mel and I grew up together. We were next door neighbors and best buddies for as long as I can remember. I sure love this girl.

It was fun to see her and her little boy Ben. He is hilarious! He is a mini Mel for sure, with red hair.

Love the cheeser! And he is a little performer. He loves music and he will do the funniest little dance for ya.

I got a little clip of it...

Tee he he, too stinkin' cute!
Lucy pretty much lived on the trampoline at my parents house. Someday when we have a yard maybe we can get a trampoline...maybe...

Her hair did crazy things with all the static she built up from being on the tramp. Ha ha, love it!

I saw Kaylene!!! My long lost friend that I haven't seen in 2 years! Yikes, what's wrong with us? Oh wait, we live 2,000 miles away from each other. That's what was keeping us apart. Here she is showing off her new ride...isn't it awesome? I'm really really loving the black rims. The inside is cool too.

We had a nice little chat at one of our old high school hangouts, Wendys. Tee he he. She told me the guy she's dating now loves hamburgers so she was craving one. Oh Klean, you beautiful lady you!

Oh and I cut my hair. You saw pictures of that already. Isn't that pile of hair gross? It could totally make a nice full wig. Apparently I have thick hair.

We played with Jen & her little boy Drew at her parents pool. I miss my Jenny Penny. She was a college roommate and we got to be good friends. It was so fun seeing old friends. The best part about it was that it feels like we've barely missed each other. You just pick up right where you left off, even though it had been a year since I'd seen her. That's the best thing about good friends.

Lucy thought it was fun to splash Jen.

We got some shave ice from a little trailer parked by the Subway in C-ville. Not too shabby. Luce was in heaven!

My favorite part was the gravity chairs you could lounge in while you ate. Oh and the shave ice was pretty awesome too. Not quite like the stuff in Hawaii, but close.

We went to Bryan and Jamie's house to play. It was the first time I'd seen their new house, it was beautiful! It will be so fun to have one someday. I loved their big yard in the back. They were setting up a tent and the girls and my bro were going "camping". I loved doing that when I was a kid.
Here is Jaycee being a silly...

Their playroom was unreal! It was called "Pixie Hollow". Isn't that painting outrageously amazing?

Cute Brooklyn posed for me...

I love all the hanging butterflies and houses. In the bottom left corner you can see a snail shell and Tinkerbell is riding on its back. This is a little girl's dream playroom.

Here is my newest nephew, Boston. He is sure a cute little guy.

The next day we got back on the airplane and 4 hours later we were greeted by this handsome young man...

I barely recognized him! He cut his hair too, doesn't it look good? I love it! It's fun that he wears his dress clothes every day now that he's started rotations. Trey is all growed up now. :)

Logan

2011-08-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

After Tooele, we headed back to my parents house and the next day we went to Cache Valley! As we were driving through Sardine Canyon I was getting so excited to come around that last bend in the road to see this!

Ahhhh....how I've missed you my beloved Cache Valley! It felt like I was back at home. It's strange how I can feel that way about several places. CV will always hold a special place in my heart.
We first stopped to see my cute Grandma Darley. I just love her to pieces. We took Lucy out back to feed the goats. Look at those baby goats! They were so stinkin' cute!

That one got a little friendly with my dad, ha ha

It was also the most aggressive and wouldn't let any of the other goats eat. Lucy kept saying "He's hungry!"

Then I ventured out to Logan to meet some of my ladies for lunch at Firehouse. Traci, me, and Melissa all were brought together by Icon, the place I used to work. These ladies helped me stay sane during the Icon craziness. It was so fun to chat and to meet Melissa's little lady Wren. She looks 100% like her daddy. She's a little cutie.

Then I made a stop at the USU Bookstore to get Trey a game day shirt and I met up with my parents, Gma, and Lulu for some Aggie Ice Cream! I convinced everyone they needed to try the Aggie Blue Mint and it did not disappoint. Just as delicious as I remember it!

Here is a pic of the beautiful Wellsville Mountains taken from the back seat of the car...

We drove back to Grandma D's and hung out for a little while. Lucy was entertained by my sunglasses.

Nice "blue steel" Luce.

It was so great to visit Wellsville and Logan. I have made so many great memories there. So many childhood memories playing with my cousins, but also college and then meeting Trey, getting married, and living there for 2 more years and making great friends in our married student ward. Like I said earlier, Cache Valley will always have a special place in my heart. If we could somehow end up back there after all the med school and residency business is over, I would loooove it!

Tooele

2011-08-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

After all the Brenchley family fun had ended, we headed out to Tooele for some Banbury family fun too. We had a grand time with Gma Robbie and Gpa Chuckles. Luce helped Gpa give Zeke a bath. She giggled when Zeke started running around the yard and rolling on his back and shaking to dry himself off.

We had so much yummy food while we were there. Robin always treats us to delicious food. We made sugar cookies and chocolate cookies one night. Here is Lucy waiting in anticipation for the dough to be ready so she can lick the beaters. That's always my favorite part too. :)

Here's a cute little video of her and Gma Robbie...

She pretty much cleaned off the whole thing. I took this picture right when she was saying "dough!"

Lucy found a little friend in the garden. I was totally grossed out. Lucy the bug whisperer.

On Saturday we went to a little tiny old mining town called Ophir. They were having Ophir Days so we decided to check it out. Lucy ate this whole snow cone by herself, and half of mine! Luce loved the bouncy houses and even got me and Gma Robbie to come in and jump too, ha ha. Good times.

They had some old replica houses you could check out. They were so tiny!

Here is the inside...

Cute!

This is a replica of the old post office...hello creepy lady in the window with a freakishly long neck! I told Robin I had to get a picture of her by the awesome mannequin. She was equally freaked out by it.

This is a huge cart they used to haul rocks, dirt, etc.

We had such a fun and relaxing time in Tooele. We got to see Chip and Heath too. We played some Wii Just Dance which was super fun! And a great workout too. After several songs I started to sweat a little. :) Lucy thought it was entertaining and tried some of the dance moves too, until she caught someone watching her.
I'm sad I didn't get very many pictures of Lucy with Robin and Chuck. I guess there's always next time. I did manage to get one of me and Robin. I'm so lucky to have such awesome in-laws! We just felt right at home with them, even though we didn't have Trey with us.

Star Valley

2011-08-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

Now onto part 2 of our Wyoming stay. My parents finished their mission and drove back across the country and met us at Phil & Nicole's. Luce & I rode with them and we caravanned across the state of Wyoming to Star Valley. We had a few close calls with a few deer but thankfully no animals were harmed on our journey. Lucy complained that her "tummy hurt" a few minutes before we arrived and sure enough, when we pulled up at the cabin we were staying in she threw up. Poor thing still didn't have that nasty bug out of her system. I decided that I would rather clean up poop than throw up. The smell is unbearable to me! Oh it was sure nasty. It was times like that when I really wished Trey was there to help. But I know he handles barf worse than I do so I would have been cleaning it up anyway. :)
We stayed in Nicole's neighbor's cabin for the first few nights and then we met up with the whole family on Sunday at Reunion Ranch. We had such a great time! We went to Jackson Hole and stopped by the Snake River to watch some people go down on rafts. It killed me to be so close but not be able to go river rafting like we usually do every year with the Banbury clan. It was such a tease! But we had a good time in Jackson checking out the overly-priced stores and strange clothes and such. Of course we had to get a picture of the antler arches.

And one of the kids on the giantor bear chair

We had lunch and then all the girls got pedicures while the boys and Lucy went out and saw the town. That pedicure was heavenly! The lady even popped my toes which was weird.

One day we went to the world's largest intermittent spring in Afton. The kids had a grand time. Lucy did not want to leave.

Here we are at Reunion Ranch. It was a nice cabin with a firepit and v-ball net.

The Hawaiians came! I love little Lukey and his funny faces he pulls.

The kids thought it was funny to smash their faces on the screen door.

A bunch of the girlies and a few of the boys decided they wanted to have a "spa" on the front porch where they were giving us "pedicures" and charging us a penny. It was hilarious and super creative. They basically were dumping soapy water on our feet and hands, rubbing it in, and then wiping it off. They made a lot of money!

Here is Suzanne and Brookelle and Luke and Chris getting their "pedicures", tee he he!

Here are some of the silly girls who thought it up. I love their poses.

Lucy loved chasing cousin Carter in the pasture.

A bunch of the childrens roasting some mallows.

Lucy and her mallow

We had a few good games of v-ball going

Here is a good view of the cabin.

And another view of beautiful Star Valley. It was gorgeous up there.

And one more shot...ahhh...

Cheryl and I took a bunch of the kids with us and walked down the road to see our neighbors, the horses.

This is the one picture I took inside the cabin...typical Wyoming cabin decor :)

A pretty rainbow

My cute missionary parents

Banburys minus our man

And here is almost the whole fam (sans Trey)

The night before we left we had an awesome firework show. Here are the kids anxiously awaiting the show.

Another fun thing we did was had a little girl outing where we went to a local consignment store/boutique and bookstore and then got a treat. Good bonding time with all the sister-in-laws. Oh and we went to the Cheeseburger Factory in Alpine and had some delicious burgers, they seriously are the best! And their fries are the bomb. And of course there was plenty of late night Nerts playing going on. Nicole will always and forever be the Nerts champion.
We had a blast catching up with family and it was fun watching Lucy get to know her cousins and play with them. I wish it could have been a few days longer because it all went by so fast! I guess that's usually the story when you're having fun.

let us pause for a moment

2011-08-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

Before I continue with my Utah trip pics, I have 2 things to say.
First, I chopped my hair! Check out the pile that was on the floor after it was all done. You would think I was bald! We could have made a wig out of it, no joke.

It's so fun having short hair again, I love it! I kinda forgot how to do it though so it's been interesting experimenting on it. What kind of products do you shorter-haired people use?

Second, Trey & I have been married for 5 years!!! Our anniversary was on August 8th. We went to Harry Potter for the first half of our celebration and for the second, Trey planned a night out on the town...well more like a boat! On Friday we'll be going on a romantic dinner cruise on the Susquehanna. He planned it all while I was gone. How sweet is that! And he gave me some moneys to go buy a hot dress, heels, and some jewels to get all schnazzied up. Husband of the year award right there! I'm so excited.
I wanted to make Trey something special for our big #5 so this is what I came up with...

There is an etsy shop that has a bunch of these cross-stitched pixel people and I thought it would be fun to make a little Trey & Meesh with clothes that we wear. It was my little project I took with me to Utah so I could make it secretly without Trey finding out. He always sniffs out surprises so I was happy to completely surprise him on this one.

Okay, that's all I have to say for now. So is anyone still reading our blog? No one has commented in quite a while so I'm just curious...

Jiggity Jig

2011-08-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

We're home! And it feels so good. I do miss my familia and homies back in the west and it was super awesome to see everyone but there is something so great about coming home. Last night I loaded all of the 300+ pics I took from the past 3 weeks I've been gone so get ready for a load.
So we started off the fun in Cheyenne, Wyoming with my brother Phil & his fam. They treated us so good. It was so fun to see Lucy interact with her cousins that she hadn't seen in a year. Here are a bunch of pics from the week...

Nate took Lucy for a ride in his awesome truck

And here she is riding in the back with Alyssa and Zach in front

And this is their beautiful house. They did the whole med school thing and now my brother is finally all finished and is a full blown Anesthesiologist. I just look at it and think, someday this will be us. Someday we will earn money rather than live on the borrowed stuff. Someday we will get to repay everyone who has helped us out and who continues to help us out. (We really appreciate it soo much!)

My brother Phil works with a guy that owns his own little ranch with horses and a pot belly pig. McKell was so excited she got to ride one of the horses all by herself.

Lucy was just as excited about chasing around this pig. She kept snorting at it hoping it would snort back. The best part was when all the kids chased it around the yard. You wouldn't guess it by the looks of it but that thing was fast!

Poor Miss Luce got sick one day and threw up a bunch of times (I felt so bad!)

So we took it easy for 2 days and just lounged.

We went to a fun children's park with lots of fun things to explore and do.

Luce loved playing in the pond

Her, Zach, and Nate all in a row

After we went to a nearby lake and rented some paddle boats.

Phil, Nate, Zach and Alyssa were on one. Me, Nicole, Lucy, and Mckell were on the other.

Lucy and Zach were being silly. They were taking rocks from one side of the patio and throwing them onto the other side. This entertained them for a good 20 minutes. Zach is such a character.

Other fun things we did that I didn't get pictures of: had a women's world cup party and watched them totally choke in the end (booo!), went to a park, played with the dog, ate lots of good food, visited the awesome library, and played around the house. Nothing too crazy, it was perfect. Thanks P & N for showing me that Cheyenne isn't such a hick town like I thought. You guys are awesome.

Our next destination was the western part of Wyoming - Star Valley. Post coming soon!

She's a lady, oh, whoa, whoa, she's a lady...

2011-07-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

She's a lady, folks. Miss Lucy finally has some hair! It was like one day I woke up and realized that her hair finally filled in...well mostly...she still has some weird spots that just won't grow on her hair line. In other Lucy news, I was helping her brush her teeth last night and noticed she has 3 of her 4 two-year-old molars poking through, I'm talking like practically all grown in! That would explain the crazy mood swings lately...I just thought she was being two. :)
Well, I just wanted to say hi and post a few pictures of Luce because they make me happy and also I didn't want them to get lost in all the vacation pictures that will soon follow when I get back from my adventure to Wyoming & Utah. That's right, in 2 more days I will take a very busy 2-year-old on an airplane for 5 hours, BY MYSELF. I'm a little nervous about it. I'm just praying Lucy will have a happy day. I'm sooo tempted to go buy a portable DVD player with money we don't have. :) Wish us luck!
The plan is to go to Cheyenne and stay with my brother's fam for a week, then on to Jackson Hole for the Brenchley Fam Shindig, and then to Utah to visit Trey's parents and fam, play with friends, and then head back to Hersh. Should be 3 weeks of crazy fun. I'm really sad that Trey can't come with us, he always makes things more fun.
Hope you enjoy the Lucy pics...

Lucy always wins for best morning hair

She wears headbands! But only if she can put them on like this...

Or they end up around her neck in this fashion. She's playing the bleachers like drums.

Look at the flowing locks!

Daddy tickles are the best.

This face always cracks me up.

Her hair does the flip out thing sometimes.

Covered in stickers, surprised?

Lucy looooves to watch our home videos. She requests "Lucy movies" all the time. I snapped this while she was watching one of her, she gets quite a kick out of herself.

Dazed and confused.

I told her to smile while I took a picture of her and her tower and this is what she did...

Lovely honey. The double finger approach. What can I say, she's efficient.

Crazy hair, crazy eyes...she's up to something

Giving Franklin a ride on the horsey

And now it's Lu's turn. Picked this awesome little horse up at a yard sale. Gosh I love yard sales.

Keuka Lake

2011-07-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

This 4th of the July weekend was our last few days of family fun time before Trey started rotations. Trey's classmate Jessica aka J-Wal invited us and a bunch of other people up to her lake house located along one of the Finger Lakes in New York. We thoroughly enjoyed vacationing and being spoiled with all the awesome cooking. J-Wals mom was an excellent cook & hostess. We lounged, skipped rocks, paddle-boated, tubed, waterskiied, cornholed, foosballed, tie-dyed, played volleyball, roasted marshmellows, introduced everyone to the Reeses smore, sparklered, set off fireworks, and enjoyed a fantastic firework show put on by the neighbors. I'm still trying to recover from the overload of funness. And my poor shoulder muscles are still trying to recover from the tubing craziness. I'm not as spry as I was back in high school when we went tubing a lot.
Here are a bunch of photos of our Qka Lake fun...

Can you see why we are still recovering? Too much stinkin' fun!

And now, let the rotations begin!

Staycation

2011-07-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

I always laugh when I hear people use that word or see it in a magazine but I am using it right now because that is exactly what we had the one week Trey had off. And we had a rockin good time! It was so nice to just relax and do fun things close to home. We pretty much went to Hershey Park every day. I am a huge fan of our Hershey Park passes. I can't believe I forgot how much I love rollercoasters! Lucy is such a little daredevil. She loves all the fast rides, especially the Scrambler because we get to "squish Daddy" and yet we can't get her to ride on the horses on the carosel. Oh Schmoocy.

Our friends, the Smiths, came up from DC to stay with us and go to Hershey park. They are awesome photographers and just plain awesome! We had so much fun hanging out. Lucy just loved Van. I was surprised at how well they got along, seeing as how they are both active little 2-year-olds. Here they are sharing a bowl of cereal...

This is sweet little Lila. Such a little cutie.

We all went to Hershey Park together & had a grand old time.
One day the weather was supposed to be crummy so we used our Groupon for Indian Echo Caverns. This place was so much cooler than I thought it would be. We ended up getting an hour long tour of it! The cave was really deep with all these different rooms and crazy rock formations. There was a room in there called the wedding room and people actually get married there. Our tour guide said 2 couples had ceremonies there over the past month...strange...but to each his own I guess.

Here we are inside the cave. Nice Luce. The girl doesn't like to smile for the camera these days.

The jellyfish

There was a little pond down there and the water was crystal clear.

I felt like I was hiking through a slot canyon only underground.

This was the main room. It's hard to capture how interesting it was in there with pics because it was really dark in there. It kind of felt like we were on another planet.

This is the entrance to the cave.

When you come out you have climb the 72 steps you took to come down to the cave entrance and there is a little petting farm area for the kiddies. As you can see, Luce thoroughly enjoyed feeding the sheep.

The week after Trey had a bunch of orientations and things so he had to go to the school every day but he was pretty much free in the evenings so we were still able to have some family fun before he started rotations.

Trey turned 27 on June 29th so we celebrated with all his med school buddies. He requested banana cake with cream cheese frosting so I tried it out. It is sooo delicious! Think of banana bread only lighter (like cake) with yummy cream cheese frosting on top.

Luce was in charge of candle placement.

Trey enjoyed the singing

The candles were blown

Here are most of the nerd birds, we were minus the Bakers, E-Chang.

The past weekend we hung out with all these peeps up at Keuka Lake, NY. We are still recovering from all the crazy fun. More on that later. :)

Kid History

2011-06-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

If you have 5 minutes to spare you MUST watch this video. Our friends the Hulls introduced us to this. Once you watch this one you'll probably want to watch the other 4 episodes. If not, there's something wrong with you. :)
It's such a clever idea. Oh and it's hilarious! The kids in it are crazy cute, and this little girl in pink is full of beans!

Summer projects

2011-06-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

If you know us, you know the Banburys love a good project. During the past week, we finished a few.

Project #1

We decided Lucy's boring black book shelf had to go. Here it is before Trey took it completely apart...

Then Trey took his sander to it and it looked like this...oh and I tested out the paint on the bottom shelf, hence why it is blue.

3 coats later it looked like this...

And then we covered the back cardboard piece with pretty fabric.

And it is finito!

It's definitely not perfect but I'm so pleased with the way it turned out. It looks super cute in Lu's room with her books on it.

Project #2

Trey made himself a wallet out of a circuit board he took out of our old computer keyboard and some electrical tape.

Isn't it awesome? You know you want one!

Trey always finds cool ideas for projects on this website.

i heart kite

2011-06-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

A few days before Trey took Step 1 we decided to go buy some awesome $5 kites from our favorite store (Christmas Tree Shops) and try them out.

Trey went with the monster crayon kite of awesomeness. It was large and in charge.

And up it went! We had such a fun time! Trey and I felt like giddy little kids again. That's one aspect of being a parent that I really love. You get to re-live fun parts of your childhood.

Lucy loved running around and chasing the kite.

Good times were had by all.

Luce helped with the string that broke. She was trying to fly it like the kite. It was funny to watch.

Later mustachio...

2011-06-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

For your viewing pleasure, the stages of the mustache shaving...

And it's gone!!! Hooray! I do not miss Tom at all, but I must say that it was strange for like a day. Trey totally looked like a 15-year-old boy. It's nice to be able to kiss my husband and like it again. :) And most importantly, this means that Step 1 is finished!!! We've been partying like it's 1999 for the past week since that's all Trey gets off for a vacation this year. More on that later.

30 things...

2011-06-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post all about Miss Lucy in lieu of her turning 2, hey that rhymed! I'm so awesome. :) Here are some fun things about our 2-year-old Lucy:

She is a shy little thing. Once she warms up to someone she's totally fine and will start hamming it up big time.

She is my shadow. Ever since she could walk we've been calling her my shadow because she literally follows me around all of the time, except when she's playing with her friends on the playground(thank heavens!)

She is cautious. She's not one of those kids that goes diving right into the unknown place or activity. It takes her a while to make sure she wants to proceed.

She loves to sing. At night after we say a family prayer Trey or I will put her to bed and sing her a song or two before we lay her down in her crib (we're totally fine with keeping her in a crib until she figures out how to climb out :)). The other night I sang "I Love To See The Temple" and she sang the whole song with me. It was adorable. It's things like that just melt my heart and I realize how much I love being a mother.

She loves Nursery. She gets so excited during sacrament meeting and once the closing prayer has ended she immediately yells out "Nursh-reeeeee!" Her teachers have dubbed her the Nursery Queen because she's always so excited to do all the activities and always knows what's coming next.

She is an outdoorsy girl through and through.

She loves bugs. Seems silly that I'm more afraid of them than my 2-year-old. She likes to tickle them, give them bones and high-fives, and unfortunately a lot of times she ends of loving them to death.

Speaking of bones, sometimes I will find her giving random things bones like her bowl of mac & cheese, her hair elastics, and a rock.

She loves to draw and color. If I had to pick toy that gets the most use around here I would definitely go with her Doodle Pro. Blocks would be #2.

She loves to build towers and tunnels with her blocks.

She loves to throw rocks into a pond.

She's starting to string 2 and 3 words together. Some of my favorite things she says these days are: "Ah nuts!" "Chase you!" "Come on Daddy!" "Alright!" If she hears a baby/child crying she always squishes up her nose and says, "Sad!" My favorite thing she'll do lately is wiggle her hands really quick and say "Excited!" when she's excited about something.

She still has to sleep with all her "babies" aka stuffed animal friends.

She will randomly burst into song, usually one from Yo Gabba Gabba

Her favorite shows are Yo Gabba Gabba & Pocoyo. Her movie of choice is Toy Story 3, but she likes 1 & 2 also. She also likes Despicable Me.

Her eating habits are strange, she likes one thing one day and despises it the next. A few staples are pasta, grapefruit, pita chips, yogurt, and Popsicles. Oh and she's still a big fan of milk, which is nice.

She loves to wrestle with her dad. She gets this high pitched squeal that only Daddy can get out of her. They are so cute together.

Speaking of, she is a lot like her dad, in looks and personality and food preferences.

She loves playing with her friends.

She loves animals, especially dogs.

She is a good helper and likes to help me make cookies.

She no longer will ride in a shopping cart. She prefers to help me push the cart and then I hand her things to put in the cart (the unbreakable stuff of course). Sometimes she tries to sneak random stuff in but I always catch her.

She still loves her stickers.

She knows her numbers, letters, and colors.

She loves to watch videos of herself and then giggle and say, "I funny!"

She always reminds us when we need to say a prayer, especially when we're out at restaurants. So very sweet.

She loves to do things by herself. When she does something, she'll yell, "I did it!" so proudly and dance around the house with a big grin on her face.

She loves puddle jumping.

She loves to collect rocks, sticks, wild flowers aka weeds, and pine cones. Whenever she's outside she more than likely has one or more of the above in her hand. I can't tell you how many times I find these things laying around the house.

She makes us laugh every day.

One of my favorite Lucy stories happened recently when she was being a stinker. She was mad about something Trey told her she couldn't do and she started throwing her toys on the floor. Trey turned to her and very sternly asked, "Are you being destructive?" She then looked him straight in the eye and without breaking eye contact picked up a toy and threw it. Trey tried so hard to keep a straight face as he put her in time out. Once he came back he burst out laughing. That's one of the many times I wish I had a video camera rolling so I could go back and watch it a million times.

She is now 34 inches tall (75%) and 27.3 lbs. (55%). It was funny, the doctor pointed out that she's always been tall for her age but her weight has really fluctuated. It's so funny to look back at pictures of when she went through her chubby phase, she looked so different. Here is one to refresh your memory...

Tee he he! Look at those chins!

Lastly, I just wanted to post this cute video of Luce and a caterpillar she found the other day. She was enthralled!

Love her.

Our Week In Somerset, PA

2011-06-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a photo dump...just warning ya.

This past week we(just Luce and I since Trey was studying for boards) visited the missionaries(my parents) in Somerset, Pennsylvania. It was really fun for me to get a taste of what they do. It makes me excited to go on a mission when Trey & I are old farts. :)

My parents came out on Lucy's birthday(Sunday) and then stayed overnight. On Monday, we went to the Hershey Memorial Day Parade which was fun. Then we packed up and headed west. It surprises me how much stuff you have to pack when you take a kid anywhere!

We just relaxed the rest of the day on Monday, since it was a holiday and a p-day for the parentals.

On Tuesday we went to the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was a great zoo that had some animals that I've never seen in real life before(like a Komodo dragon, that thing was a monster!). It was a HOT and super sticky day and you could tell the animals were feeling it to. A lot of them were sleeping. Can you imagine having a coat of fur in the kind of heat we've been having? Icky sticky!

We saw some classic zoo animals such as tigers...

flamingos...

giraffes...

polar bears...

and monkeys of course! This monkey was cracking everyone up. Check it out.

Next we made our way to the huge aquarium which was my favorite part. I love fishies! Lucy does too.

I'm pretty sure some of those fish could have eaten Lucy.

They had penguins, jelly fish, tons of tropical fish, an octopus, turtles, and sting rays that you could pet.

We couldn't stand much more of the heat so we headed out to lunch and look what we found on our way out...a giant praying mantis! Hello awesome! I thought Lucy would be excited about it because she is obsessed with bugs but I guess just the tiny ones tickle her fancy.

After the zoo, we went to Olive Garden and then to a missionary transfer meeting. It was interesting to see what goes on. Luce found the Nursery at the church we were at so it worked out nicely. She loved having all the toys to herself.

We got home in the evening and my dad decided it was time to mow the lawn. You could tell he was enjoying himself on the riding lawn mower.

Wednesday morning was district meeting at my parents house so the 6 elders in their district came over for the meeting and lunch. Luce got bored really quickly so we wandered over to the neighbors and played with their dogs.

That evening we went to the church for a Book of Mormon study session that my parents' branch has weekly. Luce and I once again found the nursery to stay occupied. As long as there are toys around, the girl is good to go.

Thursday morning we played at the neighbors house again. They were so nice to let us come over whenever we wanted. Lucy loved their fluffy pomeranians.

The white one, Dixie, loved to play fetch. That super poofy one was so sweet and old, she just cuddled right up to me. I can't wait until we can get some dogs.

Lucy had too much fun with her dog friends

Thursday afternoon we headed 20 minutes out of town to the Flight 93 Memorial. I was a little bummed that we couldn't get closer to where the plane crashed but you could see a flag pointing out where it was. It was quite a sobering experience to relive all of the September 11th tragedies. It made it more real to me to actually see the place and read in detail about everything that happened.

The plane went down just beyond those new trees that have been planted.

They were so lucky to have gone down in a field where there were no houses.

This temporary memorial constructed until they get the first phase done of the permanent memorial. It will be really neat. That phase should be done by September 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary. By 2014, all the phases will be complete and it will really be a site to behold. I hope we can make it back when it's all finished.

Inside there were little posters explaining all that happened on September 11 and in detail what happened with Flight 93. I'm so amazed at the courage those passengers had to fight back. I read that the al-qaeda that were flying the plane actually turned it upside-down in those last few moments before it crashed! How terrifying those last few moments of life must have been for all those brave people. I can't even imagine.

God Bless the USA.

As we were leaving, the "Pinto Stampede" was arriving. It was a group of about 30 Pintos that drove in. Can we say random? But of course I had to get a picture of it.

Lucy being too cool for school.

That evening we went to a local baseball championship and the team we were cheering for won! Wahoo! Lucy entertained herself by dropping rocks through a grate into a puddle of water. Once again, whatever works.

On Friday, we went to Laurel Highlands State Park and it was awesome!!! They have a beautiful lake, so much nice white sand, and a little play area for kiddos. I closed my eyes and dreamed I was on the beach.

It was a perfect day.

We didn't have any sand toys with us so we had to improvise with Grandma's measuring cup. It worked great! Lucy loved getting her feet wet and digging in the mud.

We had a picnic and my mom and I totally got burned. I lathered Lucy up with sunscreen and totally forgot about myself. That's motherhood for ya.

Checking out her shadow.

Apparently we wore her out because she crashed in the car. I love this picture of her holding her little flag right up even though she was fast asleep.

Friday evening we went out for ice cream and then visited a lady that owns a bed and breakfast that my parents stayed in the first 2 weeks of their mission. She had a bunch of goats out back and Lucy was giddy with excitement. This girl loves her animals. And she's not afraid of them either.

My dad fed the goats my leftover ice cream cone, they were going crazy over it!

Sitting by Grandma Ma with rocks in her hands, of course. She is a silly one. My parents have a gravel driveway and everytime we would go outside to get into the car or get out of the car to go back inside the first thing she would do was run out to the driveway and grab 2 handfuls of rocks. We were finding rocks everywhere around the house and in the car. She also likes to collect pinecones and sticks.

On Saturday morning, my mom and I did some garage saling and found some fun treasures. I think I got my love of garage sales from her. Later that day we went to the local farmers market, a cute little Amish store, and a pet store. We found these awesome rocking chairs at the Amish store. They rock and spin, genius!

That evening we went on a lovely little walk and took Lucy to Lake Somerset to throw rocks in the lake and feed the ducks.

The problem was we couldn't find any ducks so we had to settle for feeding the cranky old geese. We had to keep our distance because there were lots of baby geese around so the parents were super protective. My dad was enjoying himself. He's like a 67-year-old kid sometimes, I love it.

On Sunday we went to church and then packed up and headed back home. I took these on the ride back. She was sucking on her big toe and thinking she was pretty funny. She kept doing it and then would crack up and say "I funny!" She's such a cheeseball.

And that was our trip. Whew! We had a fabulous time but we're happy to be back home.

The Birthday

2011-06-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, May 29th Lucy officially turned 2!

The Brobee shirt & Doodle Pro & Tangled blanket were a big hit.

Right after she opened the shirt she insisted that she put it on.

Then I let her take a few pictures, she thought it was hilarious. Here is a sample of her skills...

Then she helped me make cupcakes for the med student friends.

This is how they turned out, a bunch of happy little Brobees.

That evening my parents and all of Trey's med student friends came and took a break from studying for the ominous board exam.

Lucy put the candles on her cupcake herself and we sang to her a 2nd time.

I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of all our guests, we had a bunch come.

Then the missionaries stopped by. Elder Lindley was getting transferred on Tuesday so he had to come say bye and get a sticker from Lucy. She gives all the Elders stickers before they leave. She's always liked Elder Lindley. Oh and he had to say goodbye to Tom. He was a big fan of Trey's nasty mustache.

Trey fits nicely into Elder L's armpit, how cute.

After everyone left Luce dug into her cupcake. Grandpa Dean gave her some good tips.

She started by just scraping off little bits of frosting

And happliy licking it off her finger, savoring each little bit

And then this happened...

How can you not love this little girl?

The Party

2011-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, May 28th we had a big birthday bash for the little missy. We had a lot of people over and it was crazy but we had a great time. Here are a bunch of pictures from the partay.

Can you guess the theme?

Look who drove all the way from Baltimore...the Niehoffs!

Here are the kids dancing to some Yo Gabba Gabba.

Luce didn't know what to think all of it. She seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by the crowd, which I totally understood. I was a little overwhelmed myself. :)

The next bunch of pictures are of most of the whole gang.

These kiddos are Lucy's older kid friends

Quinlynn, Ian, Katelyn, Mckenna, and Abigail

Stockton & Andrea are our Hershey park buddies. Lucy loves to hold Stocky's hand. And right next to them is Lucy's other friend Nathan and his older sister Audrey.

Cute Nancy & Anne

Our awesome neighbors the Bordons

Chrissy & sweet little Zachary

Here are a few of the present opening...(this girl was spoiled!)

It was so funny, when she opened this first present from her friend Sawyer she said, "Alright!" She was totally stoked.

Miles, Alan, and Christian eagerly watching the present opening

As the present unwrapping went on she got less and less into it. Poor girly was done with opening presents by now, she started to cry.

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to..." :)

My girl friends Andrea & Joanna

Sheri, Chrissy & children

And Trey with good old Tom. I will say I have gotten used to Tom being around but I am eagerly awaiting his departure. 1 more week!!!

Lucy got so much cool stuff! Trey & I are still having fun playing with her stuff, especially the stacking robots she got from her friend Q.

Thanks so much to everyone who came! Lucy is really enjoying all of the fun presents she received.

As for me, I'm worn out. I think next year we'll do something a little more low-key. :)

I can't wait...

2011-05-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

...to give this to Lucy!

Our girl LOOOVES her Yo Gabba Gabba.

3 more days until I have a 2-year-old!

When it hasn't been raining...

2011-05-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe the amount of rain we are receiving this year! I feel robbed of the beautiful spring weather that I so thoroughly enjoyed last year because of the monsoon that decided to settle over Hershey for the past 3 months. It's also been weird to be in a place where we get tornado warnings. Um, no thank you Mother Nature.
We have had a good week or two of nice weather so we tried to live it up as much as possible. Here are some things we've been doing the past few weeks while Trey has been studying for boards.
We painted our toenails! I was so happy that Lucy wanted to participate in this girly ritual with me. And she was so good to hold still while they were drying. I sure love those little feet!

Love this little ragamuff too. She is so fun.

All the 4th year med students graduated a week and a half ago and have moved on to the next step, residency! It was fun to celebrate with all of them but we were so sad to see them go.
We said goodbye to our neighbors that we love so much, the Hulls. I'm still in denial that they have moved. We miss them a lot and it hasn't even been a week since they left. Boo. Here are a few pictures from the night before they left.

Here is Jett and Reese playing with Lucy's crazy singing duck. They always manage to find him any time they come over.

Jett was especially enjoying him.

This was the morning they left. Nate left the day before so this isn't quite the whole fam. Our little neighbor Miles decided to jump in too, haha.

Oh I just love those kiddos.

Twinners! These two look so much alike! Love those cheeks. Trey nicknamed Jett "Fat Tony" because of his olive skin (he thought he looked like an Italian, and he was a chubby baby).

Chase is my little buddy. He calls me "se-shell".

I was doing good at keeping my emotions in check until those little munchkins gave me big goodbye hugs. Then the tears came.

Okay this is totally making me tear up so we need to move on to something else quick before I start crying all over the keyboard...

Lucy and I have already been to Hershey Park twice and we looove it! I'm so happy we decided to get season passes this year. A lot of our friends have passes too so I'm sure there will always be someone to go with. I'm excited for the water park to open in June. I'll be tempted to go there daily by the end of July when it gets so roasty toasty.

My friend Andrea (whose husband is also studying for boards right now) and I took the childrens this past Saturday. It was a good day. We started our morning with some garage saling fun. It's kind of fun being poor. I'm pretty sure when we're not poor anymore that I'll still enjoy going to garage sales. I must get it from my mom. :)

After we found some good treasures, we came back home and had some snacks and then headed out to Hershey Park. It was packed! Luckily we mainly rode just kiddy rides so the lines weren't too bad.

I was so proud of Lucy and Stockton for going on most of the rides by themselves. Here they are on the cute little train ride...

They gave Mr. Reeses man hugs and high fives. I love that Lucy is totally leaning away from him. Don't touch me creepy chocolate man.

They both loved the dinosaurs. Can't say the same for the little girl in front of them.

They both were giggling on this one with the balloons. Lucy puts her hand over her mouth when she giggles, as you can see in this picture.

So happy. I'm so pleased she likes rides because Trey and I love them.

Ladybug ride.

Stocky and Andrea on the ladybugs.

She started putting her hands up on this ride, it made me laugh.

Waiting for the carousel. They are both little chickens on this one, neither of them dare to ride a horse so we always have to race to the sleigh to make sure no one else gets it.

On the sleigh. Mother, please note that Lucy did not ride like this. We took this before the ride started.

Um, awkward arm placement there. Sometimes my long limbs just don't know what to do with themselves.

We took the kids on a water ride where you ride on a little boat and get a little wet at the end. It's a ride for all ages so I didn't think it would be too scary. It actually took us up pretty high and then there was a big drop at the end where you get splashed. I was surprised at how big of a drop it was. I was laughing and Lucy didn't quite know what to think. She was like kind of crying but kind of laughing. It was one of those rides that takes a picture when you're going down. It was priceless! The look on the kids faces was pure terror and Andrea and I were both laughing. Ha ha! We'll see if Lucy will want to go on it next time.
We also went to Chocolate World with some friends. They love to hold hands, isn't that so adorable? Ha ha, I love it.

Lucy and Stocky hand-in-hand, awww.

Playing outside around the poles

We also go on walks in the morning with some friends and stop by the duck pond to play. Lucy could throw rocks into the pond for hours. She is always so sad when we leave.

That's just a little of what we've been doing with our time as of late. A lot of it has been spent indoors thanks to all the rain we've been getting. This week I've got a pack meeting to help out with and I've been planning and getting everything ready for Lucy's birthday party! And then we're off to Somerset for a week to visit my parent's neck of the woods while Trey is still studying away. Only 23 days left! Woohoo!

And I'm out. Goodnight friends!

~Meesh

The Step 1 'Stache

2011-05-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Trey's 2nd year of med school is over! And there was much rejoicing...yay!
Which also means the dreaded studying for Step 1 has begun, which leads me to introduce you to Trey's new friend Tom (as in Tom Selleck).

He will be with us for the next month while Trey is studying for boards.

Wow.

Trey keeps trying to convince me how awesome Tom is, but I'm still not so sure about him. Tom too closely resembles Mr. Morgan Spurlock's mustache, don't you agree?

On June 15th we will lay our dear Tom to rest.

31 days to go! Not that I'm counting or anything. :)

Banbury Easter Weekend O'Fun

2011-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

The parents stayed. We had fun. We did some stuff. It rained a lot.

Lucy loved having Gma Ma & Gpa Dean over. They brought lots of candy and other yummy treats (I'm still trying to recover from all the crap I ate). They also brought balloons!

She's got the David Bowie look going on.

Gpa Dean & Luce are best buds. I never can tell who is enjoying themselves more when they play.

We had a little friend sneak into our house, he could probably smell all the sweet stuff in our house and wanted a taste. Isn't that bee huge??!! I was flipping out, I am NOT a fan of bees.

We dyed eggs! An Easter tradition in the Banbury household. I'm pretty sure we'll still do it when all our kids are grown and moved out. We're cool like that. :)

Luce found the stickers!!

Once again I was attacked by stickers!

Gpa wanted to get in on the fun

Lucy showed Gpa & Gma her sweet dance moves (in her tutu of course)

My mom just had to make her bunny cake. That's a tradition that she's grown up with. Lu loved to put the jelly beans in the faux grass.

Her mindset was, "One for the bunny, five for me. A few more for the bunny, a handfull for me!"

On Easter morning she found her basket full of goodies from the Easter bunny. Then she emptied out her bucket and put all the eggs we colored in it and carried it around the house. She loved looking at all the colorful eggs and telling us the colors.

After church and a HUUUGE meltdown in the car, we made it to our friends, the Benruds, house for an Easter feast and an egg hunt for the kiddies. We had a delicious feast and had an egg hunt in the house since it was raining, surprise surprise! :) Can you tell I'm sick of all the rain we've been getting?

Here are the kids scrambling to pick up all the eggs. Every shot I got seemed to have Trey's arm in front as he was pointing out eggs to Lucy.

Enjoying their spoils...

My hot husband sporting Lucy's bunny glasses

Trey trying to get Luce to blow her whistle & Ian - Don't you love that curly red hair?!

On Monday morning my mom made some deviled eggs -- mmm delicious! Lucy helped her peel the eggs. Apparently it's very serious business.

Time always flies when the parentals come for a visit so we didn't get to go on any outings. But we had fun just relaxing and spending time with family and good friends. I love holidays.

P.S. If any of you are wondering about Crayola colored bubbles, stay away from them!!! They are gross looking and stain your skin, clothes, and basically anything they touch!

Cutie Petutie

2011-04-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

My parents stayed with us over the Easter weekend and we had a jolly good time. I helped them take some pictures off of their phone and I found this little treasure...

It's hard to remember her being this small!

This was during her drooling stage and she wore a bib to soak up the extra drool. :)

sleepy owl

2011-04-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

i made this little friend just for fun...

...and now I think I want to make more!

Bodyslam!

2011-04-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

I think Trey might have a few bruised ribs. :)

Look what we can do!

2011-04-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well this first one was mostly Trey's project but I helped. :) When we were at IKEA (my 2nd favorite place to shop...Target is my numero uno) I was admiring their awesome fabric and I had the idea that we could get some fabric and hang it up on a wall just to add some color to the house. We bought 2 yards thinking we would do either 2 wall hangings or one wall hanging and some matching pillows. When we got home and did some brainstorming as to what we could do, Trey came up with the genius idea of building a frame and stretching the fabric on it like canvas. My handy dandy huzbee got to work this past weekend and check out the end result!! We love it!

Here is the cool bird fabric and the frame that Trey built. We just bought pretty much the cheapest wood we could find at Home Depot. It's really light but it worked great for this project.

He used screws to bind the wood together, no glue needed.

Trey used clamps to hold the fabric while he went crazy with the staple gun.

Here is the final product! We made 2, one for the living room and one for the dining area.

A few weeks ago I mod podged our magnet board so it went from boring black to a fun yellow pattern.

I love warm colors! It makes things feel so much more cozy.

And here is our one shelf we also purchased on our IKEA trip. We love the randomness of it because it represents the Banburys quite well. :)

They had some fun basic photo wire at IKEA and we decided that we could copy it for a lot less, just by attaching some simple hooks and photo hanging wire to the bottom of our shelf. And yes, those are bow clips we are temporarily using until we can find something better. We bought some unfinished mirrors from IKEA and painted them some fun colors.

I finally finished my owl painting! Woohoo! Now I just need to figure out where I want to put it.

I got a fun idea from this blog today. Wire words are so fun to make, and addicting! I just found some wire in the craft room and went to town. Good times.

I don't really know what to do with them. Right now they're hanging from the photo wire and I'm kind of liking the way they look. We'll see where they end up. :) Now time to plan out what the next projects will be. I have so many ideas, but here are a few that are first in line: I'm contemplating buying a thin sheet of wood and making a huuuge "B" to hang on the wall. And get ready for more owls soon! I hope my vision turns out the way I see it in my head. :)

My tummy is so happy right now...

2011-04-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

Oh good golly miss molly! Dinner tonight was sooo good, if I do say so myself. :) It was just me and Luce since Trey went out on a man date before the Priesthood Session. I decided to make my most favorite soup in the world, Creamy Chicken & Gnocchi Soup. This is my mother-in-law's recipe and it is DELICIOUS. I hope she doesn't mind that I'm sharing it with my blog peeps. I just have to because it is THE BOMB! I want everyone to try it, and love it. So here it is:

Creamy Chicken Gnocchi Soup

2 T olive oil

1 diced onion

1/2 package matchstick carrots

1 package gnocchi

rotisserie chicken, meat removed from bone

shredded or diced, whatever you prefer

baby spinach (stems removed)

40 oz chicken stock

1 1/2 c half and half

herbs de provence or italian seasoning

crushed red pepper flakes

Saute onions and carrots in oil with a teaspoon of herbs de provence until soft (about 4 min). Add chicken stock and crushed red pepper flakes (to taste). Bring to boil. Add gnocchi and cook until they float to the top. Add chicken, spinach (as much as you want), and more herbs. Simmer until spinach is just wilted, and remove from heat. Add half and half and slowly bring to simmer.

The last time I had this was right after I had Luce. Robin made a big pot of this when she was staying with us and I ate it for lunch every day for that next week. It was heaven sent.

For dessert we devoured some yummy heapsbrick oven cookies that our awesome neighbor Tamara brought us. Visit her food blog and you can find her recipe for them, they are divine! It was the perfect ending to a perfect dinner.

I am so happy right now. It's funny how food can affect my mood so much. And maybe just a little sad. :)

Her many faces...

2011-03-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a bunch of pics from the past 2 months.

Happy Valentine's Lu! We got her some heart sunglasses and a cute little plate with woodland creatures on it. (thank you Target dollar bins!)

Oh sheesh, ha ha, I forgot about this outfit. This one tops the last one I posted about earlier. Wow Luce. She is wearing some of my workout shorts over her floody sweats, which kind of act like a fanny pack.

Blue Steel right there. I think my favorite part is the basket hat.

A few months ago our friends Aaron and Beth went to NYC for the weekend and we watched their dog Murphy. Lucy was in HEAVEN. They had so much fun together. Lucy liked sneaking him chips and following him around the house.

They're totally buds.

Murph is definitely eyeing that chip.

Too cute. We need a dog. :)

Her tallest tower yet. Don't mind the half nakedness. :)

Admiring her work.

This is her "say cheese" face. She's going to be like her mama, a smile squinter.

Watching cartoons with Dadoo.

Lucy's dirty look, I can't believe she has already mastered this! Little stinker.

I told her "don't be a stinker!" and this was her reaction. Doesn't she look like she's plotting something?

She can't hold the stinker face for too long without cracking a smile.

Toothy Loothy. I love that she raises her eyebrows when she smiles sometimes.

And we're back to the scowl. Hahaha! Whenever she gives this look it just makes me giggle. Sorry honey, I can't take you seriously yet.

Huh?

Give us a smile Luce! There's the cheese.

We love the playground right outside our door, even when it's chilly. This was our family night activity.

She is such an outdoorsy girl. Check out that grin. Pure joy right there.

Speaking of that, I can't wait until it gets warmer so we can try Pennsylvania camping again.

Daddy pushes her so high and she looooves it. She just giggles away.

Getting herself all dizzy, one of her favorite things to do lately. It's so fun to be able to do Lucy's hair in piggies now. She won't let me put clips, bows, or headbands on her but at least she sits still for me to put in elastics.

Playing with her best bud Sweetie.

More towers and cuteness.

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post!

Now here's an update on us:

We just finished our first Pinewood Derby tonight and it was pretty crazy but I think the boys had fun. We even had a round at the end where everyone brought their own bananas and could put them on their cars and race them. After we had banana splits with everyone's bananas. Now that the Blue & Gold Banquet and Pinewood Derby are done I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief. Those are the 2 big events each year so it feels good to have those accomplished. It's crazy how much work and planning goes into these events.
Trey has 5 weeks left of school! Holy guacamole! He will then have a solid month of studying 24/7 (I kid you not) for boards, which will be held on June 15. Trey talked about sending me and Lucy back to Utah for that month but we'll see how it plays out. He is currently learning about Dermatology and thinks it's kind of gross, ha ha. I can't wait to see what specialty will spark his interest. I will die if he chooses OB/GYN, just because that's something we've always joked about since the beginning of all this. That and Proctology. :)
I stay busy chasing the little monkey around and keeping the house semi-clean. I need to pick some more fun hobbies, any ideas? I'm counting down the days until Hershey Park opens. Trey & I got ourselves season passes for Christmas this year because our friends the Hulls told us about how much fun it is. I can't wait to get me some roller coaster action! It's been waaay too long. And Luce and I will have fun at the water park while Trey is studying his bum off.
Lu babe is 22 months old!! How did this happen?? I know people say that kids grow up fast but man! That went by so quickly. I feel like we were just celebrating her 1st birthday. Now I have to think of a good theme. Maybe Yo Gabba Gabba because that is Lucy's favorite. She loves to sing along to the theme, I'll try to get it in video one of these days. It's time for me to brush up on my cake decorating skills!
We've been working on spicing up the house a bit with some color. Once we get our little projects done and hung up I will post some pictures.

And that's all folks!

Soocy

2011-03-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand, here is Miss Lucy at her finest. I think Grandpa Chuckles and Grandma Robby and will get a kick out of this since we haven't seen them in a while, and all the Utah/Hawaii/Wyoming/Arizona/New York folk for that matter. This can give you an idea of the personality of the little monkey parading around our house all the time.

Video #1 - She loves to hide and scare us. She found a really good hiding spot this time.

Video #2 - She loves to dance to music. She got this singing dog from one of her east coast grandmas and she likes to push the button over and over and over. She grabbed all her "babies" and started dancing with them so we had to bust out the camera.

Video #3 - Miss Luce sure loves twirling in circles, and she surprisingly doesn't get that dizzy.

Video #4 - She's into building towers lately so I think that's where she got the idea to balance her zhu zhu on the water bottle. I just love hearing that cute little voice.

Video #5 - Building a tower and saying her shapes

Oh and just in case you're wondering, Lucy calls herself "Soocy"(hence the title) because she hasn't learned how to say her L's yet. Trey and I find ourselves calling her Soocy a lot so it might just stick.

D.C. done right

2011-03-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

I guess 2nd time is a charm for us, at least as far as D.C. goes. :)

Trey had the past week off for spring break. Who knew we would still be having a "spring break" in our old age, ha ha. We had a simply loverly and leisurely weekend after his test. After-test weekends are the best!!! They always go by so quickly though so Luce and I were delighted to have Trey for the whole week after. We did a little spring cleaning, had the missionaries over for dinner, went to Chipotle, and did a little thrifting with our cheery friend Beth.

On Tuesday morning we headed down to Kensington, Maryland to the LDS temple! It was the perfect way to start our mini vacay. Trey & I traded off watching Luce and went through individually. I met some sweet sister missionaries and one was from Logan! I think her name was Sister Gordon. She was cute as a button. She gave Luce this little "Junior Missionary" sticker and she slapped it right on her nose.

She looked so cute in her little spring outfit. And she knew it too. :)

We set the timer and put the camera on top of the car and this is what came out, not too shabby.

Then we went and checked into our hotel, that was slightly ghetto but clean, and went to Silver Springs for some good old Chick-fil-a and Cold Stone. We just stayed in the rest of the night and Lucy was wired, probably because she ate half of my cup of ice cream. Yeah, that was definitely the cause. I forgot how good Cold Stone is! It's been awhile.

The next day we got a slow start but headed out to D.C. and hit our first must-go-to place, Good Stuff Eatery. Their burgers and fries are AMAZING! I hear the shakes are pretty awesome too. But first, I must acknowledge the awesomeness of the Metro. We are big fans. On our first attempt at visiting D.C., we tried driving into the city and finding parking(on a Saturday). How silly of us! I'm all for public transit and I was impressed at how clean it was. The seats remind me of the awesome colored seats at the Spectrum. (Go AGGIES!)

Luce loved the "train". She loved looking out of the window and climbing on the seat, something she doesn't get to do in the car. Sure beats being strapped into a car seat!

I just love this little face.

Here she is callin' all her peeps

Here we are at Good Stuff...mmm

If you go, get the Sunnyside burg! It's our fave.

Then we took a nice little walk(to burn off our lunch) to the Capitol building. As we were walking, we ran into some protesters and this lady asked us as we were walking by, "Are you ready to fight the British Empire the way the Irish do?" What the what?! We just kept walking and laughing to ourselves.

It was a chilly day but thankfully it didn't rain on us.

Lucy was enthralled with the seagulls, while I was doing my Cub scout salute

We stumbled upon a cute little park with a bunch of crazy art and such and we found this gnarly tree--it's made of stainless steel and concrete! It looks like they took a tree and dipped it in metal.

We made it to our main destination: the National Museum of Natural History. It did not disappoint. Lucy was in heaven!

As you enter the lobby, you are greeted by this huuuge elephant. We saw everything there was to see in there. I loved the dinosaur bones and all the crazy underwater creatures. Lucy loved the big whale hanging from the ceiling.

After the museum our legs were pretty tired. We walked down to the Washington Monument to see if we could get tickets to ride to the top but they were all sold out, I guess you have to get there early. We were all bushed and Lucy was ready for a nap so we decided to head back to the Metro.

Luce was fascinated by the tunnel and the fast "trains" that came zooming by every few minutes.

After we made it back to our car, we hit the road and headed to our next destination, the Niehoff residence in Forest Hill, Maryland. Our GPS is a little wonky sometimes and takes us on some "scenic" routes and in this case, it took us right through downtown Baltimore. It's actually a really cool city. I can't wait to go back there and see the Aquarium and eat some crab! Mmmm...

2 hours later we made it to Forest Hill and Lucy slept the whole time, that blessed child! Trey & I were entertained during the car ride because we were listening to Harry Potter 7. Yes we are nerds like that. Jim Dale is the man.

We love the Niehoffs. We feel so at home when we stay at their house. They really are our east coast family. We had a nice spaghetti and meatball dinner prepared by Mike and just chatted and relaxed. That night it started pouring and didn't stop all day. The streets were starting to flood in some areas which made for some pretty interesting driving conditions. We ventured out to Miss Bev's house and then to IKEA to pick up a few things to spice up our house. We are in need of some pizazz. Then we went to the mall and had our selves a time with Miss Betsy. Then we dropped Bets off and hit the road for home.

I'd say it was a successful trip. We had fun, ate some good food, and hung out with great people. What more could you ask for on your spring break? :)

Attacked by cats!

2011-02-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, I wasn't attacked by real cats (can you imagine?). This was Lucy's handiwork.

I think I've mentioned before how much Lucy is into stickers, especially sticking them on her face. Well yesterday she thought it would be fun to put them on my face. Her favorite place to put them was on my mouth. She even put one right over both of my lips, which had to be relocated so I could talk. Do you think she was trying to tell me something? :)

Hello kitty face!

Then we moved them over to Lucy's face. She was being all shy for the camera at first but I finally got her to give me some good cheesers.

We've all been sick for the past week. I always forget how much I hate being sick until it happens. It really makes me so much more grateful for good health. It also gives me motivation to workout and eat better so I can stay healthy. We'll see how long that lasts. :)

Even though we were feeling lousy, we successfully pulled the Blue and Gold Banquet together on Wednesday night and it turned out great, thanks to our awesome committee! Hopefully all the boys and their families enjoyed it. We had a medieval theme and served rotisserie chicken, grapes, baby carrots, and rolls (thank you Costco)with no silverware, just a little mini plastic sword. The cub scouts each had a place card where we named them "Sir (insert name here)" and we borrowed some of the soft cushy chairs from the high council room so they each had a "throne". They also were given special goblets with blue and gold jewels on them and a crown to wear. When they were presented with their awards, they were "knighted" with a plastic sword. After dinner and awards, all the cub scouts had to make their way through an obstacle course to get to the end and "slay the dragon", which was a pinata that somewhat resembled a dragon. It actually turned out pretty cute, once it was all finished. As Jen & I were making it I kept laughing because it looked like a fish.

It feels really nice to have that all finished, although next month is another big one because we have the pinewood derby. We were thinking of doing a banana race for one of the rounds where the boys have to rubber band a banana to the top of their car. And then after we'll use the bananas and make banana splits for refreshments. I saw it on a blog and thought it was a clever idea.

And guess what next weekend is...................................Spring Break! Wooo hoooo! The plan is go to Washington D.C. and stay for a few nights and go see the sites. Now we just need to shake our nasty cold bugs so we can enjoy ourselves.

~Meesh

Her best outfit yet...

2011-02-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

What she's wearing:

Shoes: One red flat and one turquoise flat - Mom's closet

Dress: Neon green "Beat the Bookstore" shirt (on backwards) - Mom's drawer

Necklace: Red tank top - Mom's drawer

Hat: Striped pajama pants - Lucy's drawer

I'm a little scared for when she's old enough to dress herself. :)

~Meesh