Nauvoo

The first weekend in August ( I know, this is overdue) we drove to Nauvoo, Illinois to meet up with Bryce's oldest sister and her family from Oregon. His sister, her husband, and six kids were taking the Amtrak across the United States stopping in various places (sounds crazy if you ask me :), but we LOVED seeing them!)

Brycen has improved tons with him sitting willingly in his carseat, however, his limit is usually 15 minutes and needless to say, I was a bit concerned about our 5 hour drive each way. One of my friend's suggested to buy a few toys at the local Dollartree and not show Brycen until needed on the trip. New toys work wonders! As soon as Brycen was getting restless, I introduced the new toys one at a time. Each new toy kept his attention for about 45 minutes (16x longer than older toys) and then he was done; which worked out perfect since the toy was usually broken by then :) (gotta love those $1 toys!) After making a brief stop for gas and lunch, Brycen then napped for the rest of the trip--yay!!

Our first stop was Cathage, where Joseph and Hyrum were killed.

Yes, I am apparently rather skilled in the blinking category....

Outside the jail

So...I experimented with my hair just days before we left and long story short, it turned out red. We were the "cute, redheaded family".

Even though I have been before, it was so awesome going with Bryce and Brycen who haven't; especially Bryce. I loved watching him take it all in and then discussing it afterward. It is definitely a special place and has a wonderful spirit to it. After Cathage, we then took the very scenic drive along the Mississippi River to Nauvoo (Side note: We saw the biggest mansion along the way! So big, right on the river---gorgeous!)

The only times I have been to Nauvoo was during Pageant month (July) when it is HOT and so CROWDED and needless to say, I was expecting the worse. However, what a surprise! Nauvoo was empty-we had the place to ourselves and the weather was gorgeous (70s, not too hot, not too humid). And since Bryce's sister was camping, they really lucked out (no thunderstorms, tornadoes...)

We had a wonderful time, saw awesome shows, the BYU folk dance group was even in town, and Bryce and I got to attend the temple TOGETHER. What a concept. :) Our nieces and nephews LOVED having Brycen around and luckily, it was mutual. They fought over who got to hold his hand and since his sister's youngest child is about a year older than Brycen, she loved having someone younger to take care of. Brycen didn't even miss us while we were gone (amazing, really)! Bryce and I even had the opportunity to be the witness couple at the gorgeous Nauvoo temple and it was really, quite a treat. What a magical, spiritual experience.

Waiting for a show to start

This is our idea of entertaining seven kids while Bryce's sister and her husband attended the temple...thank goodness the hotel had one :)

So...one of the pixels on my camera burned out...can you tell? If you don't get anything else out of these pictures, you can try guessing which pictures are from my camera by finding the black smudge :)

At the Blacksmith Shop, they gave out nail rings to everyone--Brycen's looked adorable...too cute to not get a picture (since as soon as it comes off, it most likely will never go back on)! But since this was on the last day...Brycen was crabby and did NOT want us to photograph his cute ring on his cute finger.

Somewhat of a success...

Can you say, grumpy? So not like Brycen...we had to take a picture. haha.

Brycen and his apples....we tried to take away his apple after we thought for sure he was asleep. Without opening his eyes....he snatched the apple back from Daddy's hands and kept it close. I don't think I will ever get over how cute he is when he is asleep...

We touched the Mississippi!

Just Beautiful!

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm sure you all have heard about the mosquito infested swamp called Nauvoo, well, when we say, we loved having the Oregon family with us, we mean it quite literally. They apparently have very sweet blood...and we don't in comparison. Even though they put on insect repellant 12x times a day...they were still eaten alive. However, in our case, sitting right next to them and only putting on repellant once (for the whole 3 days) when watching them do so reminded us that we probably should, scrapped away with close to none! I got my first two right after we said goodbye on the last day and we walked alone to our car to leave for Indiana. Having family there worked out quite wonderfully, if we do say ourself :).

Since we wanted to spend every last minute with our Oregon family, we left much later than planned to head back to Indiana (9pm). The nice thing though, Brycen fell asleep 30 minutes into the trip and slept for the rest!

The Best of Friends

Brycen has several wonderful friends that he loves to hang out with. Luckily, I get along with their moms just as well so it's a ton of fun. We, moms, like to help each other out and will often babysit swap as one or the other needs to do errands or go on dates with the hubbies, etc. It works like a charm and at least for me (can't really speak for the others) it is a win-win situation. Having another child to watch actually makes my job easier because Brycen has a playmate and I get a break from having to constantly entertain him.

Moira is 3 months younger than Brycen and a whole head shorter. Brycen seems to realize how little she is and usually treats her with care. He is very overprotective and loves to follow her around. She also takes a binkie pretty well so if she is upset, Brycen will immediately find her binkie and place it in her mouth for her. A few days ago, we were watching her and when she wasn't using her binkie because she was eating or something, Moira would usually just let her binkie fall to the ground, but Brycen insisted on picking it up and holding on to it until she needed it again, offering it to her every few minutes. He loves her and is going to be a great older brother some day (some day, no announcement here :)). Moira is kind of crazy though and loves to give hugs and kisses (pretty much attacks Brycen with her mouth wide open) and this usually sends Brycen running in the opposite direction or he will try to put up his arm to stop her...haha...that's our boy! :)Brycen also can't stand it if I pick up Moira without picking up him as well, so I usually end up holding one in each arm and he loves it! He loves having company as he uses Mommy Taxi Service and it definitely gives Mommy her work out.

Double Decker Stroller. I don't own a double stroller and Brycen is going through an anti-stroller phase anyways so he won't sit in it. But sitting on top--completely different thing and it makes going to the community center to play possible! I simply use Brycen as the steering wheel to push the stroller and keep him on. We get STRANGE looks but I know they're just jealous that they didn't think of it first; it works wonderfully :)!

Brycen likes Moira alot!

But who can blame him? She's adorable!

Madden is 5 months older than Brycen and about the same size so it changes things. Brycen pretty much tries to mimic everything Madden does and Madden tries to mimic everything Brycen does so as you may imagine, it can get rather interesting. They carry on quite a few conversations by just saying, "hi" back and forth as well as giggling. Once one giggles, the other starts and it can go back and forth...well, until they get distracted. Even though they are friends, they usually forget that when it comes to sharing toys. Madden is a little better than Brycen and understands "sharing" a tiny bit more, but they are both way overprotective of their own toys and have no problem ripping it out of each other's hands if one is playing with another's and it causes hurt feelings. Luckily though, our community has a community center with a playroom in there with lots of neutral toys (ones that don't belong to either Brycen or Madden) and so Brycen and Madden then can play really well together.

So apparently, Brycen was shredding a stick while we were walking and dropping it on Madden. Madden never complained and it sure explains why Brycen was so quiet on the trip!

They were actually shoving the table back and forth to each other, what boys!

Cali is our cat and Brycen's current wrestling partner and 24/7 friend. Brycen has learned (from Nursery) that it's best to pick on people your own size and in our house, that would be our cat. He has also learned that Cali is fast and won't just sit still for Brycen to come and play with her SO...Brycen has resorted to tackling her instead. He tackles her and then does whatever it was he wanted to do: brush her, pet her, give her a hug. When he's done, he will get off, help her to her feet, and then give her a little push to let her know it's okay to run away. haha. It's gone from a love-hate relationship to a love-tolerate relationship and sometimes I actually believe she doesn't mind the attention. Occasionally, Brycen pushes it too far and she will let him know, but besides that, she doesn't even meow in protest anymore. He LOVES having her around :)

Step 1: Tackle

Step 2: Pinned!

Step 3: Hold still!

Step 4: Brushed!

Step 5: All done! Isn't she so pretty?

Lastly, Caden is 8 months younger and is definitely the littlest of them all. Yesterday, we watched Caden while his mom worked and it was quite a learning experience for Brycen. Caden isn't quite crawling yet and instead, rolls and sluggs his way around--something Brycen is completely foreign too since he kinda skipped that phase all together. Brycen wasn't sure how to exactly interact with Caden since Caden spent much of the time lying on his belly or back. So after attempting to sit on him, roll him, and steal all his toys (not much fun, Caden never minded, never put up a fight), Brycen found it indeed fascinating how much this new friend was so different from his others. Not only could Brycen do anything to Caden without him objecting (Only Mommy objecting, Caden is SO easy going:) but Caden needed help eating and Brycen loved this. Since Brycen already loves to feed Mommy and Daddy almost any chance he gets, he loved that he was able to feed someone else. At first, Brycen sat on Mommy's lap and directed her arm as she would scoop up some banana with a spoon and then place it in Caden's mouth, then it progressed to Brycen putting graham cracker pieces into Caden's mouth, then when he realized that Caden could finger feed himself, Brycen would place the pieces in Caden's hands, and lastly, Brycen insisted on holding the bottle for Caden when it came time for milk. Brycen was a great helper and loved that Caden was so dependent on him! Brycen started fetching Caden's binkie for him, his toys, etc. However, one thing still remained, if Caden was either on Mommy's lap or in Mommy's arms, Brycen had to be as well. No baby was going to steal his Mommy and he made sure of it. I LOVE that Brycen still wants to be held :)

We could never get Brycen to sit willingly in his infant car seat but he sure loved Caden's!

Brycen has started to HATE having his picture taken. "Hey, Mom! The baby is that way...take pictures of him!"

Like my mis-matched feet? Haha!

Caden LOVED getting his picture taken! He is SO cute! And quite tan! Shows you how white Brycen is--true redhead!

Mommy, is sneaky, and stole another picture of Brycen! I still can't get over how cute he is! We love him!