a family shoot...

we may be related...but i think they're a pretty cute family! see more of them HERE!

birthday wishes...

The cutest dad & husband ever is celebrating his 29th birthday today! Hope it's a good one!
Love you,

Brandy & Charly

all things halloween....

i was a really good mom this year for halloween...
a) i made my daughters adorable costume from scratch, no pattern
b) i threw a cute little halloween get together with some friends
c) i decorated with spider webs and all the garb
but then also i was a really bad mom this year for halloween...
a) i took no actual pictures on halloween day
b) we trick or treated to two houses + grandparents
c) charly didn't even like our ward activity...wouldn't let us put her down!
d) and no pictures of our cute pumpkins that we carved, now long gone at the dump!
okay... so here's what I did capture...

THE CUTE OWL

THE PARTY COMERS
(by the way...so cute)

little lamb leighton jo


the whole gang
leighton - charly - mack - nyasame as above
drivin' the helicopter
mack the monkey

thanks guys for coming! i wish i would have got them all in their costumes...but it just so happened to be 80 degrees that day. the kids got too hot and we had to take off their costumes!

CHARLY'S FIRST PUMPKIN CARVE
she liked it, but didn't really want to get her hands dirty...weird since she loves to play in the mud and sand! oh well, it only took about an hour to empty this cute little pumpkin out! then i carved a baby jack-o-lantern (no picture) and that was that! later i lit them and her lid shrunk and fell into the pumpkin only to burn to a crisp!

so here's to next year...i'm hoping i can be a fun AND on top of it mom for halloween!

another newbie...

twice in one week...how lucky am i?

want another peek...click HERE!

baby roman...

more sneak peek, here...

half way there...

oh my has this pregnancy seemed to fly by! i'm halfway to having another baby in our home...CRAZY! things are going great, baby is great and healthy, and i'm feeling quite good! nothing to report or complain about yet, so that is totally a bonus! here's the damage for being 20 weeks....

I swear i'm pregnant...promise!

So anyway, everything's good as I reported above! This little baby is a mover, just like Charly was! In the ultrasound yesterday i couldn't believe how fast those little legs were kicking and cruising all over the place! oh ya.....and did I mention it's a BOY! So now we'll have one of each! Yay, we're excited and now I'm just trying to prep for two little kids!

more of this cutie....

see even more HERE...

18 months...

Charly Monson
Weight: 23.4 lbs. - 40%
Heights: 33 1/4 in. - 90%

summer...

where has the summer gone? it's getting colder and obviously school is back in session, but i'm not saying summer is over yet! however, here is a recap of what i've captured so far...it's not much!

BEACH MOMENTS

NAT'S SHOWER

BOATING/SKIING

FIRSTS

cool new shades

swinging and enjoying it
piggy braids

tractor rides with grandpa

PLAYING WITH FRIENDS

cute kids!

bye bye binky...

friday night, corey and i decided it was time to adios the binky for real! i had planned on saying goodbye to binkies and bottles at 1...and no later. well the bottle went away but i didn't think charly was ready to give up her bink, or was it me who wasn't ready? it was me, because she did have a time when she didn't seem all that interested. soon after the non-interest turned into serious addiction. oh great! i was sure she'd be a five year old binky sucker...yuck that could not happen!
our plan: cut the binky tip off so that it lost its magic. and we'd do this saturday morning so she would have all day to adjust to no binky before bedtime.
day 1: corey snipped off the end, oh wait practically the whole bulb so that she really couldn't put it in her mouth anymore. she took a look at it and stared, tried to put it in her mouth, then stared some more. corey said, "it's broken, binky's broke". all day she would look at it and repeat, "broke, broke, broke". sometimes not even caring, other times completely sad. but at least she understood what had happened. that was the good part. nap #1 without binky was a complete failure. she didn't nap. she sat in her crib and bawled. later she fell asleep in the car and i'm counting that as a nap. night #1 she wouldn't go to sleep unless i was laying right beside her. awesome, now she has to go to sleep in my bed....wait she sleeps in my bed a lot in the morning after corey leaves for work! that night was rough, she woke up numerous times and wouldn't go back to sleep without me.
day 2: it was sunday and since she woke up early i thought we'd be able to squeeze in a nap before church so she could actually go! well, that also didn't happen! no nap, so we headed of to church. after sitting through sacrament i knew she wouldn't make it the whole block. so we brought her home to see if she'd take a nap. she fell asleep in the car on the way home....we live 1 minute away from the church. she was tired! her nap was short. darn that binky i thought! desperately wanting to give in and just give her a binky. too bad we didn't have a back up binky, actually not too bad, i couldn't give in! she seemed to handle the day well. only asking for her bink once. then she saw it and remembered it was broken. that night we got home late. she didn't fall asleep in the car and i thought for sure it would be another rough night. surprise, she went right to bed, didn't make a sound, dozed right off, slept until 10:00 am the next morning without waking once! what? after one night and she was cured? i could not believe it! this was easier than i thought! and now today (day four) it's like the binky never ever existed! how does this work? all i know is that for the next kid, we will not be so chicken about taking that binky away!

read the fine print...

hey, turn around!

that's right everyone, we are adding another kid to this family!
we're very excited, charly has no clue, but i know she'll be a very good big sister!

going private...

after playing the debate game, we have decided to make our blog private. we'd love to still have you visit so leave us a comment with your email. thanks friends!

behr's baby blessing....

stacie and carl blessed their cute baby behr on sunday! it was such a fun occasion that we could all be together at! congratulations to them on their super cute little boy! it was such a neat blessing and a great day with family and friends! of course i was in charge of taking all the photos so i have them all and they haven't seen them yet! there are too many pictures to explain it might take me all day....so use your imagination!