my husband is famous

When Nate was on his mission, some guy from the church came out to take some photo's of missionary work. As it turns out, some of those photo's have been featured in several church material!

You may recognize the first photo as it has been featured in: The New Era (missionary edition), the Joseph Smith manual, several church video's, on the church website, etc. We were shocked when someone called us and said "Hey, have you seen the New Era? I think Nate's in it!".

This picture is only in 1 video we have seen but is all over the internet.

He is in this video twice but I can't seem to find the second picture of him ANYWHERE! It is my absolute favorite! Watch the video, because it is great, but Nate is at the very beginning and at 1:56.

Nate loved his mission and absolutely loves Africa so it is fun to see these pictures every once in a while. I wish I could somehow get a copy of them!!

photog attempts with sun flare and lyla - fail

I know it seems like I post a lot of adorable pictures of Ruby, because let's face it, she is so darn cute. But I think that everyone should know that I really think that Lyla is also such a cutie and has such a gorgeous face. The trouble is getting that gorgeous face to present itself at its best on camera. Which is why I haven't posted many cute pictures of her.

So, today the light was good and I decided to go out in my backyard to practice getting photo's with "sun flare" (by the way, I suck at this technique!). So, I dressed both my girls up, but with the intention of getting a really cute one of Lyla and if we have time, try to get a sister photo. So, I tell Lyla to stand and smile to get my first shots to see what adjustments I need to make and this is what I got from her...

(Doesn't this picture above remind you of the guy from Bloodsport when he gets chalk powder (or whatever it was) thrown into his eyes? GREAT movie!)

and then...

and my favorite...

A couple of these things come to mind for the above picture:

1. Voldemort (with hair) throwing the killing curse at someone he's got issues with. Or maybe Bellatrix (sp?)
2. "Psycho Killer.... fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better" Haha! I love her!

Either way, this girl is here to INTIMIDATE! Be scared.

Anyhoo, after a couple of these photo's I realized 1) they look horrible (lighting and such) and 2) my daughter can be lethal ;)

So I tried to get her to sit down and do a new angle and after telling her she could watch a show if she just smiled and looked cute for the camera, this was the best I got...

And then I told her I was going to come tickle her and got the first genuine smile out of her...

After another failed attempt to get a decent picture of Lyla (and good sun flare), I decided to try out Ruby and got this cute pic...

I really do like this picture but as Nate said, you can't really tell that it's supposed to be "sun flare" so it just looks like her hair is on fire, haha! What can I say? I'm learning :)

Duke Basketball Campout!

So, every year Duke holds a camp out that students must attend if they want to be eligible for season tickets. It starts on a Friday at 7pm and ends Sunday at 7am. During those 30 hours, they sound a siren at any given hour (even at several points in the middle of the night) where all the students book it to check-in at the designated booth. If they miss I think more than 1 check-in (maybe 2), they are no longer eligible for tickets. Then if you are picked, you get the privilege to pay $200 for tickets. Nate was one of the lucky winners (#695 out of 730ish), along with 4 other guys, and now the group all gets to split the tickets :)

The guys: Eric, Russ, Carl, Jon, Chris, Josh, Nate, Tyrus, and Tyler... all the LDS MBA students (minus Joel who couldn't be there).

The setup: You can either sleep in tents, UHauls or RV's. Nate's group chose to rent two UHauls. It also happened to drop 20º from the day before and rain, so they set up a tarp b/w the two UHauls and another canopy. They even had a grill, a table for all their food, and a TV that they could stream football games to.
All the wives decided to join the guys for dinner Saturday evening and it was so much fun seeing all the madness. We definitely stood out with all our kiddo's running around since almost everyone else around was pretty much wasted, blasting 80's music while singing and dancing along, while wearing wigs, masks, crazy clothing etc.

Some of the LDS med students (They are pictured below) decided to move their tents right next to our UHauls since the area they were in was pretty rowdy and they could hardly sleep! Plus, our spot was right next to the check-in spot.

Ruby was definitely excited to see her daddy!

All the kids were so excited about the Bags set up!

I tried to get pics of all the families. Unfortunately I didn't get everyone but this will have to do...

Carl, looking pretty manly.

The Alder's

The Garner's. Funny story... when we moved here, Nate and Josh discovered that Josh was roommates with Joe (Nate's brother) their freshman year of college! We had been in contact with the Garner's for a while so it was funny that it didn't get discovered until then. Small world, huh?

The Oakes Family. I may or may not be completely envious of Haley and Izzy's beautiful brown skin. I think I should avoid taking pictures with Haley for this reason. She might make me look ghostly :)

Lyla and Annabelle spent probably at least 30 minutes tracing each other. It was hilarious to watch them be so patient with the other tracing and balancing on them!

Pettersen Family.

Campbell Family

Russ and Vhari got all flirty with each other. I LOVE this picture with their cute little girl witnessing the love!

MacBeth Family

And then there is us. I love Ruby's "Why are you squished up against me?" face. And please excuse my hair... rain + humidity = nothingicandoaboutit.

Anyhoo, Nate had a really great time, but was SOOO tired when he got home. It doesn't help that he is just SWAMPED with school stuff so catching up on his sleep does not seem to be likely any time soon. Oh well, it's all about the experience. Go Blue Devils!!!

LDSSA BBQ Kick-off!

The LDSSA had a BBQ to start off the new school year and for us all to "officially" meet! And since it ended up being my birthday that day, a couple of the girls made me cupcakes... sweet, huh? Anyway, I didn't get that many pictures but here is what I have...

Rachel, Emily, and Haley. Each of these girls are so awesome! They don't know it yet but I just love them! And they all look so pretty!

And Vhari... she is just plain wonderful and she makes me smile! Seriously.

And so is Kathy. And Kathy is extremely crafty, which I love! Can I please be as talented as you Kathy?

And Stacy just amazes me with her Staciness (btw, "Staciness" is a GOOD thing!) and she is the leader of the pack for Fuqua Families. You go girl!

We're missing a couple of the girls in these photo's but I seriously love all of them. Every. Single. One! They are all just so, SO great!

Some of the guys chattin' away.

We have been having so much fun with this group so far and the fun is just going to go on and on!

Ruby - 1 in 1

Ruby will be 1 in one month. Where did the time go? Did the year seriously go that quickly?

I thought I'd do a little post on her because 1) she's cute, 2) I have tons of cute/funny pics of her lately, and 3) Her babyhood is almost over! Bah!!

Ruby is pretty much the person glued to my hip. She's the baby who watches my every move whenever I am in eyesight and when I leave a room, she watches that last spot she saw me very intently until I return. And anytime I am in the kitchen, she goes straight to me and hangs onto my legs just because that's where she feels like she should be.

Another funny thing about her is that if I am feeding her and she runs out of food, she makes this sound that can only be compared to revving an engine until she is fed some more, and the process goes on until she is full. She is also a human vacuum, which tells me how bad of a job I do at keeping our floors clean. I don't even want to know how much she has eaten off the floor as a result of my failure to sweep up after each and every one of her meals! Even if I think they are clean, she always manages to find SOMETHING!

I'm pretty sure Lyla gave her an Oreo.

Another cute/funny thing about Ruby is her hair. She has awesome hair and I am totally jealous of it because mine is not so awesome. It is also a little intimidating because I don't know how to do anything but pony tails, pigtails, and half-up (all things I can do with Lyla's hair). I know I won't need it now but I don't even know how to french braid!!

She woke up from a nap with some crazy bed-head!

Her first pigtails.

After we took them out.

And a few other last things...

• Rub is just a good and easy baby. Anyone who babysits her or spends some time with her has all said those same two things. She's just so chill!
• She LOVES to snuggle and burrow her face into us or a soft blanket or whatever. Nate and I are eating that side up as much as we can!
• She loves to give big open mouth kisses.
• She thinks it's hilarious to be mischievous. Our carbon monoxide detector is in the middle of the hallway upstairs and she crawls straight for it every time we put her down and tries to push the button, laughing the entire time. If she goes deaf, I blame the detector!
• She still doesn't have any teeth.
• She can stand on her own but quickly grabs me or sits down when she realizes it.
• She adores Lyla. ADORES!
• Loves the marshmallows in Lucky Charms cereal.
• Only throws a fit when she's hungry or really, really tired.
• Makes noises similar to the Aflac duck.
• LOVES to play in the water. I have to be extremely careful with her in the pool. I know you're thinking, "well duh!" but even when I have her in a little baby float thing, she tries her darndest to put her face in that water to drink and dive into it. That's all she wants to do, dive in and it takes almost all my energy to keep her from doing so! And in the bathtub, she goes crazy splashing with her hands and crawling all around, even over Lyla... it drives Lyla nuts! But all Rub wants to do in the water is play, play, play!
• Recently learned to clap. All I have to do is say "YAY" in this high-pitched singsong voice and she just starts clapping! It's the CUTEST thing!

I took this one of her as she was crawling on me trying to attack :)

We love our Ruby Cube!

Scott's wedding, California, my mom, and other adventures...

Okay, I know I have been in bloggy overload but I am trying to catch up!!

In early August I headed out to NV to go to my brother's wedding and then afterward I drove down to California with my family and spent some time with them! It seriously was a super successful trip and I got to see a gagillion people! Seriously. It rocked. Unfortunately, though, Nate wasn't able to make it since the wedding was during his first week of school. He was there in spirit.

My brother Scott found this awesome, amazing and babe-a-licious girl and convinced her to be his wife. I seriously am so happy for these two! They make a great couple and they both deserve so much happiness, it's not even funny! (Well, we all do, but especially these two!) Scott lost his beautiful wife, Heather, a couple of years ago to cancer and it has been really hard not having her here. So, I am so grateful for Shannon that she said yes to my brother and that she is making him and their family oh so happy!

I was lucky enough to stand behind their photographer and snag a couple of cute shots of them. I think the first is my favorite!

Shannon and Scott

I'm pretty sure I am in love with her dress. AND her shoes. AND her!

Love bugs...

Uncle Jeff is such a good uncle. And Ruby wasn't even afraid of his beard! (It can be a little intimidating) :)

Me and Ly

We were also able to go have dinner at my grandma's house. I used to eat there EVERY Sunday and I loved ALL of her food. Except the day she made fish with the fish heads (plus eyes) still attached! But seriously, is a FABULOUS cook and I still call her asking her for recipes or cooking advice!

We named Ruby (Ruby Louise) after my grandma (Louise). So I love getting pictures of these two together!

After my grandma's, we went to go visit my mom.

Lyla stole Grandma Dana's flowers.

Honestly, it was such a weird feeling being there. I hadn't been to her grave since the day we buried her. It was just so strange to have her so close, yet not there at all. I think for the most part I have been doing ok with the whole thing. But it all comes in waves and I have been hit by several "waves" the past couple of week's or so. I don't know why. Maybe it was because it was my birthday. Maybe it's because we live in this new place. Maybe it's because I have had some crazy mommy moments and I don't know if they are normal or not. But the other night when everyone was asleep and I was cleaning the kitchen, I was listening to MoTab and two songs came on that Rik and I listened to while driving to my mom's funeral, and I just lost it. They're from the album "Consider the Lilies", "For the Beauty of the Earth" and "O Holy Jesus". My mom LOVED that album and so do I and those two songs already made me emotional. But now that they are tied to such an emotional part of my life I lose it every time. But I listen to it when I miss her and I get sad every time I listen to those songs but in a weird way it makes me feel better. I feel closer to her, somehow. I guess what I am trying to say is that I miss her like crazy and it's been hitting me hard the past couple of weeks. So much to say to her and I just can't. I love her!

Anyhoo... after my mom died, Rik decided to really get into gardening and he has done a FABULOUS job!
Do you see that sunflower behind him? I think that day we measured it at 9ft 4in! HUGE!!! It probably grew 1-2 more inches but then it got so big it just started to droop over. They ended up making awesome sunflower seeds! Rik is also holding a huge radish from his garden.

Lyla also got to hang out with some of her cousins. She LOVED hanging out with Ryann and Zoey and playing on their i-Touch.

I also got to visit one of my life-long friends Brittany. She had baby Holly just days before!

We also got to see Papa Brian's new shop. Here he is with Ruby. She loves her Papa Brian and was pretty much eating his face trying to give him kisses. It was awesome!

We also stayed a couple of night's at Papa Brian's. Here he is watching Barney with Lyla. What a good grandpa!

Papa Brian with Ruby.

My dad, Christie (his gf) and the girls.

By the pool...

My good friend Tanne got married. Here we are at her reception. She is GORGEOUS and she just looked so happy! I am so happy for her and just wish we could live closer together!

Tan and her new hubby Trevor.

I also got to visit with my cousin Val and her son Ben. It had been so long since we had seen each other!

We also got to hang out with Scott and Shannon the night before we left. It was so good being able to get to know my new sister-in-law!

Shannon about to clean Lyla off from her big mess :)

Look, Rik shaved!! Doesn't he look so handsome?!

I'm sad I wasn't able to get pictures of EVERYTHING I did or of everyone, but I got to spend so much quality time with family and friends, it was amazing! The girls and I were always on the go and we just had a blast! Thanks to everyone for such an awesome time and thanks to Scott and Shannon for getting married so I could have an excuse to come visit!