Chatter-Box

The highlight of our morning is waking up and getting Avery ready for the day. She is full of things to say. She especially loves talking to her bear mobile above her changing pad! But, sometimes, she is ready to get up and chit-chat at 5:30 in the morning, and we're just not ready to get up yet! Enjoy this video grandmas!

Really Good Blackmail

SWITCH, PULL, PULL........Stretch your arms LONG and LEAN.

You'll get a kick out of our boys doing pilates. This will make excellent blackmail someday.

Avery Goes Swimming

We had a low-key Memorial Day weekend. We did go swimming on Monday & invited Mike's friend Mark over to swim and have dinner. He just moved here from Chicago. The boys LOVE Mark......

We got Avery all dressed up to swim, then this is what happened. She fell asleep. Look how cute those rolls are on her thighs, not to mention the belly! We call her our chunky monkey sometimes.
To our surprise, she woke up after a few minutes. Mike wanted to bring her in so bad. I was worried she would scream....the water is still quite cold. It takes me a few minutes to work up the nerve to get all the way in. But, she LOVED it. She didn't cry once. I was so surprised. Way to go Avery!
It was a challenge trying to keep her out of the sun. I stayed mostly in one shady spot in our pool & we didn't stay in very long.
Even though she is so little, I think she is the oldest Bryner baby to have her first swim. But, she gets the bravery award because she definately had the coldest water for her swimming debut. The boys both got July swim water, which feels much like the bathtub.

Just a cool shot of Logan. Doesn't that look like so much fun! Wish I could still do that!

Avery Bug

The newest pictures of Avery Bug.

This one looks like a mug shot but it is still cute.

The Energizer Bunny

The Energizer Bunny lives at our house. His name is Daven. He wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and keeps going....and going.....and GOING. At 8 p.m. he is still going strong. I am amazed at all his energy.

I think he got the early bird gene from my dad. I don't think my dad has every slept in a day in his whole life, always up with the sunrise. I think Daven got the energy gene from the Bryner side of the family. All good things, wish some of his energy would wear off on me.

We were amazed on Saturday because Daven woke up at 5 a.m. He was busy all day. We went to a baptism, played with friends, went swimming, then went to the stake fair. At 9 p.m. we thought he would show some signs of fatigue, but nope, he started running laps with his friend Nate at the fair. Amazes me!

I never thought I would say this, but I am getting ready to send him off to kindergarten. He needs somewhere to direct all of his energy. It is going to be so good for him. I always looked at this time and thought I would be too sad to send him off. I have always enjoyed having him around. I still enjoy having him around, it is just that he needs more. I've been trying to arrange lots of play dates for him & that helps tons. I am glad in some ways that school starts in July! I'm sure, though, that once he is in school I will be so excited to go pick him up when the day is over. Bitter sweet.

Swim Season Has Begun

Mike and I took the boys swimming in our pool on Saturday. Mike's been in a few times with them, but this was my first for the season. The water took my breath away for a second when I first got in. But, in a few weeks it is going to be perfect. We had so much fun.
Doesn't Avery look like she is having a great time? Actually, she was an angel for like 40 minutes while we swam. She sat in her bouncer and played with her hands and blankie in the shade. I just snapped this picture at the very end because she looked so cute all mad.

Jumping to Daddy is a favorite for both boys. They like jumping to me too, but I was trying not to get my hair wet...I know silly of me. But, we had somewhere to be right after. My hair kept getting wet w/ Daven's splashes, so I decided to let daddy have a few rounds of catching them.

Swimming to Daddy, Daven is starting to remember everything he learned last year.
Logan likes to sit on the side of the pool and fill up his dump truck with the watering can. He's perfectly content just playin' with all the water.

The Final Three

Daven's 1st Soccer season came to an end over mother's day weekend as well. Daven was so proud of his trophy. Mike has issues with everyone winning, and we've had many conversations about his. But for successfully hanging in there, we both thought the kids deserved trophies. It was fun to see how proud they were.
Here is coach Mike with the final three kiddos from the team. David, McKenzie, and Daven. By the 2nd game of the season, these three were all that were left. One player broke her elbow (not during a game), one didn't want to play when it was game-day, and so forth.  They got pretty tired since we didn't have any subs to use and it was SOO hot outside. They were troopers for playing the whole game. 

Way to go TIGERS!!

Aunt Erica and Uncle Nick

My sister and her new hubby, Nick came for a visit over Mother's Day weekend. It was so much fun! We are so glad that we have Nick as a new brother-in-law, he is so good to my sister and they make the cutest couple. We probably wore them out. They played and played with our kids. They boys wouldn't leave them alone. We were so sad to see them leave and miss them. It was so sweet of them to drive all the way down to see us. Nick even watched the boys for me so that Erica and I could go get a pedicure w/ a friend.

We kept hinting to them......see how wonderful having a baby is?? Our kids could use some cute cousins. These two are going to make adorable kids some day, that's for sure.

My Logan looks like he could be one of theirs.

Our Cheerful Cherry

Look at those chunky cheeks on our cheerful cherry. She weighed in at almost 12 pounds yesterday at the peds office. These are her cherry jammies. Daven loves them. I was taking some stuff to goodwill the other day and he's like, "mom are you not going to take Avery's cherry jammies?" He knows I get rid of stuff frequently & must really like these.

We had a family home evening about positive attitudes a few weeks ago. We talked about being a cheerful cherry, grateful grape, etc. A friend of mine made the packet. Anyways, I put these jammies on Avery the other day and the boys were like, "look mom, she's a cheerful cherry!!" I thought, she really is. They were actually listening.

Party Time!

Daven turned 5 years old last week. I can't believe I have a five-year old that will be starting kindergarten in July. The night before his birthday, we looked at all his baby photos. It was just a reminder that time goes by so fast. He still has the same personality he had as a little baby. I am so amazed that each child can have their own distinct personality traits that are noticeable from birth. (well, the womb, actually). He was a happy, energetic, silly, fun-loving, determined, very smart baby. That still describes him today. 

The night before the party, I did my usual preparation - decorate the birthday cake. We copied Daven's cousin who had a LEGO party a few years ago. The cake is supposed to be little legos. I have to say it looks so much better in this picture than it did in person. It was a truly flawed cake. I decided I had 2 good excuses this year. 1) I have a newborn baby and I wanted to be in bed by 10:30. I didn't frost the back of the little cakes. & 2) The boys coming to the party were only 4 and 5 years old & they wouldn't care.
When the party came, all the adorable little boys arrived. I kept wanting to eat them up. There were 8 little boys all SO excited about Legos the whole time. When they first came, they put together some creations using all of Daven's thousands of Legos. Can you tell he likes them? Perhaps a little too much!

Showing off their creations.

Next, we gathered around the table. Each little boy got to put together their own mini-Leog set. It was a small 4-wheeler. They were seriously so excited & so focused the whole time. This was the part of the party that I became somewhat useless, however. Glad Mike and my dad were able to help them put everything together.

Next we gathered round the kitchen table to eat pizza, cake and ice-cream. A little crazy with this many little boys. This is where I thought eating would take at least 20 minutes. Nope, they were done in like 5! Boys for ya! We had to think of some last-minute games to keep them occupied the rest of the time. Usually I plan way too much for the party and we run out of time. This time I planned too little. So, I felt bad they were kind of bored towards the end. I'll remember how fast they eat next year!

Opening presents....lots of LEGOS of course and a gift card to the Lego store. Pure excitement.

By 5 p.m. that day, Daven had successfully assembled each of his Lego sets. I have to say he is very smart, he uses the instructions and got them all put together.
And here is Papa holding little Avery. I love this picture because she is reaching for his mustache. Every time he held her she would smile and try to grab it!! Never seen one of those before :)