So long, farewell...

My babiest brother Jeffrey is finally off to the MTC, then to Mexico City for his 2 year mission. Sound familiar? It's probably because I was just rambling on about my other brother (bryan) getting home from his mexican mission only 5 short months ago. I can't believe Jeff's time has already come, and no one was more excited about it than he was.

We pretty much had a 2 week long send off, which was kicked off by a visit from my awesome uncle Kenny (let me make a sidenote here that Uncle Kenny is THE MAN: the type of uncle that randomly sends you cash when you are single in college and just about to starve. Every last one of us love this guy)...
Here are the fellas after hearing Jeff talk in church, a couple of future missionaries...

Jeffrey spent as much time at our place as he could before he took off. It mostly involved playing games and eating Blue Bell ice cream, but there was the occasional tea party too... And the occasional ingrown toenail surgery performed by yours truly (now that's love)...

But finally it was time for him to fly out, and of course his flight left at the crack of dawn. We all trecked up to the airport bright and early for our final goodbyes. Carver's really don't do mornings OR goodbyes, so instead of the typical somber tone of a missionary send off, it was more of a sleepy "see ya later" type of feel. It was a little easier to avoid the emotional stuff too since my mom was already in Utah waiting for Jeff.

Check it out, here he is all ready - complete with a missionary haircut (the mohawk just wasn't gonna cut it anymore)...

This guy is definitely a fan favorite among the grandkids...I'm hoping Ryan won't be coming home from basketball quite as beat up as usual with Jeff gone. Brothas...Too early for makeup...

So, like I said, everyone was holding it together pretty well (myself included) until I snapped the pic below. I caught them just at the moment they were closing their eyes and smiling...

And I'm not gonna lie, it made me tear up a little bit. These two are the babies of the fam and things won't quite be the same when they're both gone for good. I'm just a little irritated that they have to grow up like everybody else...can't their be an exception to that whole rule? Just imagine how I'll be when it's my kid in the suit...

Anyway, I was thinking about how quickly Bryan's mission seemed to fly, and how quickly my kids and my own little family grew in the process. All of this thinking made me snap one last pic of each of my kids so I could remember exactly how they were right in the moment (all of my kids except for Carver of course who wouldn't let me near him with a camera)...
Who knows what changes might take place for us in the next 2 years. But for Jeffrey, ELDER CARVER, I know those changes will all be great ones.

From Baby to Big Boy

My little man was in need of a new man cave, so this was our main project when Ryan was off from work. It's still a work in progress but we're pretty happy with it so far. Here are the "before"s:Our transformation began with this old pine entertainment center that my parents were getting rid of. I wish I had a before picture of it, but here's a mental picture for you - it was light wood with gold hardware and it screamed 1992! Ryan is not much of a wood worker, but he used this thing as his guinea pig...he took the track for the doors off and gave it new hinges, took the TV stand out and added a shelf, ripped off some torn up trim and put some new trim on, and added a solid wood piece to the back. It was my job to paint it. After a spray paint job that I wasn't too happy with, I experimented with some caramel colored glaze. I did some extra sanding, added more glaze, and came up with an antique look. So voila...the "after"s:
We were so happy with the way the finish turned out that we decided to do the same thing to our hand-me-down bed from Grandma. We stripped off the old stain, gave it a good sanding, a fresh coat of paint, more sanding, and finally glaze...
Next we headed to Ikea to find a little desk. I couldn't resist the cutest little red chairs I have ever seen, and instead of a desk, we stained a shelf and Ryan anchored it to the wall for a whole counter for Carver to color and play on...Then to Hobby Lobby for some baseball accents and scrapbook paper that I used to mod podge his old letters. You can't tell from the picture, but the red and blue letters have little stars of them, and the R is covered in paper that looks like dirt. It looks cooler in person...So now Carv is the King of the Castle. I snuck in while he was sleeping the other night and snapped this pic. I think he's pretty cozy in his new room, but I'll let you decide...

An All-American Weekend

With the 4th being on a Sunday this year, we ended up celebrating all weekend long. It started out at our church breakfast, which was almost sabotaged by the rain. Luckily the sun came out just in time for a little parade. Kaydree was so excited to help decorate the wagon and stroller...

I couldn't find any mini flags for the kids to wave, so we came up with these little star sparklers instead. Even Elsie and Ava had fun waving them (when they weren't trying to eat them)...

That night, we celebrated by watching america's favorite past time (and ours)...baseball. My dad got all the adults in the fam tickets to the Rangers game. We got free all-you-can-eat hamburgers and hotdogs at the picnic pavillion, and it was free hat night to boot...

Cheesin' it...

To top it all off my cousin Aaron, who's in Dallas for the summer selling pest control, came and hung out too. When Jeffrey and Aaron are together, it's a guaranteed laugh... Sunday morning, we were all decked out for church. We're so lucky to have 2 shopaholic Grandmas that provide festive outfits for every occasion. I love it!
This one's a little blurry but at least everyone is looking in the same direction...

Our fun filled 4th weekend was followed up by a week of vacation time for Ryan, so I have plenty more pics to come.

Oh yes we did!

The Eclipse Midnight Premiere

Yes, we bought our tickets the day before. Yes, we hauled our kids to the mall to buy Edward t-shirts. Yes, we sat in our seats for an hour and a half before the movie started. Yes, we were completely surrounded by teenagers and felt extemely old. Yes, we didn't get home until 3:30am. And yes, it was totally WORTH IT!