Our family is complete!!!!!

OUR FAMILY IS COMPLETE! My twin brothers are home and all of us siblings are together!!!!  They came home yesterday from Bolivia and Colombia.  They both served a two year mission for our church.  It feels soooooo GREAT to have them home! We have already had late night chats, dog piles, and we have heard some amazing mission stories.  WE LOVE THESE BOYS!!!!!!!!

Jason and Michael enjoying their first real taste of sugar in America. 

 YEAH ELDERS!

 Ellie, Tayden, and Avery taking a ride on a blanket. 

DOG PILE! 

The boys brought us all matching soccer jerseys from their countries, thus all of the yellow from Colombia and green from Bolivia. 

Tayden and cousin Ellie serenading us. 

Life is so great right now :)

TLt

Family Reunion in Breckenridge, Colorado

We spent last week hanging out with some of the greatest people because it was Tyler's Sutherland Family Reunion.  We drove all the way to Colorado from Seattle (20 hours in 2 days= never again).  Tayden was amazing except for a 'food-loss' incident by Price, UT.  Our week was filled with amazing adventures like white water rafting, ATV-ing, and zip-lining.  They were all sooooo much fun! It was even better to get to know the Sutherlands a bit more and to watch Tayden absolutely LOVE his cousins.  I was nervous at first having him surrounded by so many strangers, but he warmed up to them so fast and loved every single one of them (even the crazy ones ;).  To sum up the week I threw a bunch of pictures on here, so ENJOY!

  

 Tayden playing with Johnny, one of his new favorite cousins! Johnny is 5 but they had a blast rough housing and playing together!

 

 We went to an outdoor dinner theater and had a great time.  Tayden really enjoyed the entertainment, but he also enjoyed the sticks and rocks.  We had a great time. 

 We went to a 'Fun Park' and our favorite thing was riding the gondolas.  Tayden loved it. 

We played with cousin Elanore.  She liked Tayden most of the time, but sometimes he was a little too much 'boy' for her.  That's when it was nice to have Johnny around.

 But they both loved the playground.  

Tayden had awesome cousin Olivia,

 and Axel. 

Tayden and Great Grandpa and Grandma Sutherland. 

Tummy time with Wesley. 

 Here are a few pictures of us ATV-ing.  It was so much fun!

It was raining during zip-lining so we had to wear these stylish yellow raincoats.  Mine had a giant hole in the armpit, but they helped out so much! Zip-lining was really fun.

 We went white water rafting, and I have better pictures but I can't get to them, so maybe another time. 

Well, hope that sums up our fantastic week! 

TLt

ONE MONTH!

Wow...life just rocks right now! We have been in our house for a full month and we can't believe it! We have a huge 'to do' list and we wanted to get a lot of that done, but we have slowed down a little so we don't get too burnt out.  We have mainly attacked the yard.  We have pulled up/cut off of the fence/torn down ivy, which is our main enemy.  We have gotten rid of almost all of the weeds in the yard and in the process of getting rid of the moss.  Being from Idaho, I had no idea that moss could grow in your grass or on the roof, but we ARE in Seattle so I should have known better.  It actually hardly rains here in the summer and everyone grass dies, which means we are fitting in really well because we didn't start watering in time and some of it is quite dead.  The back is still green which is where we actually want nice grass.  Everyone's grass turns extremely green in the fall when it's starts raining again.

Tayden is absolutely LOVING having a house!!!! He was still fighting bedtime in our last place, but in less than a week after we moved in he stopped crying and fighting it COMPLETELY! One day he asked us to keep the door open, so we left if open and he lied down and started singing himself to sleep :) He just hates being stuck or trapped in things so his door always stays open and he always stays happy!  He loves running around everywhere: behind the couch, around the loop in the kitchen and the front room, and up and down the hallways! You always know where he is because he is usually not very quiet about it :)

The cool molding throughout the entire house :)

 Our pool was actually looking better but we decided to wait until next year.  

Here are our kitchen cabinets...you don't get to see a full picture of the kitchen until it's a little more put together.

We swept moss off of the roof...didn't know that was a normal thing.  So weird.

Our front room.  There was a nail in the wall when we moved in and the one thing that seemed most appropriate to be on the wall was a clock.  So we are planning on putting other pictures and things up, just not yet.

Another view, with the kitchen.

This is where our beautiful piano will go one day.  It is currently in the garage waiting to be sanded and painted.

Getting rid of the ivy.  There is an oil drum in the picture below that was buried in the ivy.

We have found some weird stuff under that ivy.

  

Before and a little bit better.  I have filled over four trash cans full of weeds. 

So in writing this post I realize I need much better pictures of our home but I'm kind of embarrassed because it's a little unfinished.  We are leaving tomorrow on an adventure to Colorado and Idaho for a few weeks. But when we come back I promise I will get some great pictures so you can get the whole picture.  Hope everyone has a great August!

TLt