Brayden is ONE!!!

Our baby is ONE already...can you believe it? We have loved every moment that we've had him in our family. {Some moments have been a LOT more challenging than others, but we've still loved having him!!}. He says and does the cutest things...He says the common things like Momma, Dadda, ball...the cutest though is when he says BOO!!! He signs "food", "please", "more", "thank you", "hat", "ball", "wash hands" and his favorite is "doggy". He also blows kisses...and if you say "it's hot, blow on it" he does - blow on it. It's so cute! He loves the dog, Baby Signing Time, Grizzly {our dog}, Paige, balls, he also CLIMBS on EVERYTHING...this kid has no fear and is determined to give his mommy a heart attack. He's been walking for a few weeks now, and is so proud of him self. He has his one year well baby check up on Friday...so I'll give you the stats then. Until then here are some wonderful pictures of my growing boy!!! We are having his birthday party tomorrow so I won't have any messy -covered in cake -baby face pictures for you until after tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Baby BOY....We love you, having you in our family has truely been a "BALL"!

Labor Day weekend....

We spent Labor Day weekend in VERNAL - I know of all places "Vernal", but there was actually a lot of fun things to do there. There are 2 different, really GREAT lakes there....so of course we did some boating.
Paige drove the boat...

Brayden napped on the boat.
This is Brian and Paige swimming like Michael Phelps or as Paige calls him Michael Phillips.

Paige LOVED swimming in the lake, she just had to know for sure that there weren't any sharks in it.
I got up on one ski the first try - Brian was surprised, and to be honest so was I...it's been a couple years since I've skiied - with being pregnant last summer and all.
Brian got up too....which was fun to see. He made and on going joke about how his life jacket must have shrunk - we all laughed and then had to think the same thing when we tried ours on.
And this is how Brian would get into the boat....graceful don't ya think?!!?
We went on a 3 1/2 mile hike to see some petroglyphs...it was actually really neat to see.

Paige had lots of help from her walking stick...notice how great her hiking shoes were {ya, mine were the same}...but we still did just fine.
We found a fun park to play at.

Lastly we swam at the hotel pool...we sort of froze our butts off, but it was still fun.
OH and it wouldn't be a complete trip without this picture of Paige and the HUGE pink dinosaur.

It was quite the weekend...I'm still paying for it. I unfortunately got hurt while tubing behind the boat and I'm still in an enormous amount of pain. It looks like I'll be heading into the physical therapists office or the chiropractors this week....I can hardly do anything. So sorry about the slacking on the blog...I'm doing good just to keep the kids alive these days. It was still fun to get away....but of course always nice to be home. We hope you all had a great extended weekend as well...{hopefully pain free}.

Everyone has a date that they measure time by....for me this is the day. It's the day that I think "did that happen before or after we lost Rocky?"

It's the day I lost my best friend, my buddy, the one other person who knew all about my childhood memories and could reminisce with me, the one person who could get under my skin faster than anybody, the one person who could/would cheer up the room just by walking into it....It's the day I lost my baby brother! UGH!!!!!!!!!!! This day 5 years ago was the worst day of my life! I can't believe it's been 5 years already, it's still a tough day, it still hurts, I still miss him, and I still cry!!! I know I will get to see him again someday {trust me it's the thing that gets me through it}...and I can't wait for the day!!! Life's just not the same, I miss you ROLA....I'll see you in heaven!!! I Love you!

To see pictures of his kids go my link titled Amber, Madelyn and Colton, they are adorable and look just like him!

{I have a million other things to post, I'm way behind on blogging...but I didn't have it in me to blog about those things today when this weighs so heavily on my heart. But I will catch you up soon - I promise.}