coke bottles

after having the hill boys stay with you, you will have accumulated quite a few empty soda bottles.

bottles AND cans AND liters.

but the hippie in me cries out when it comes time to throw these beauties out.
so i start brainstorming...

& the ideas keep getting odder. (okay these are plastic coke bottles but kind of a unique gift wrapping idea.)

& odder. (i a little bit hate these.)

& odder.

so what should i do with all these bottles laying around my house?!

oh & have you heard the rumor that coke bottles are going square?

it reduces excess packaging & is definitely different looking...

but are we ready to let go of the classic coke bottle?

this week, i need to be. just go throw them in the recyclables dumpster already, kate!

quiet hippie! geez...

baby blessing

last sunday we went to the LG ward & blessed little cossette kelly. austin blessed her & logan bob, david, my dad, my cousin stevie, & both our youngest brothers were able to participate. it was on her actualy due date which seemed a bit early but with everyone in town, we couldn't pass it up.

we seriously never get to see steve but he was down from oregon & we got to play with him the whole time austin's brothers & stephanie were in town. plus michael & zach both received the melchizedek priesthood a matter of weeks before so this was their first chance to use that. i hope it was as memorable for them as it was for us. too fun!

cossette wore a dress made for her by my madre. with quite the time constraint & it turned out great. it was a beautiful lightweight cotton with tons of lace trim in scallops around the bottom. there's an open jacket, buttoned at the top & cascading down the front to show off the detail of the slip underneath. i loved that it was in a bright white.

                                               

what a talented gramvi! thank you!

us with our girls.

afterward we congregated at our house & partied hard! haha. i love her name new flag/sign & can't wait to pull it out for bdays, etc!

besides my beautiful cake being melted into a puddle of gooey-awfulness on the stovetop the night before, the food was great & the company pretty swell too.

this was a first for us & i kind of had an 'i'm an awful mom' moment but i guess most kids fall asleep in their high chair at one time or another... right? validation please??

it was the perfect day.

baby brothers

haha very funny. we're talking about our own baby brothers, not baby brothers for our kids.

aust's younger brothers zach & logan drove out from utah with my sis steph to stay with us for the week. they picked up my little brother to drive him out to college in utah on the way back. they are pretty awesome & we had a blast:

swimming, teaching logi diving, basketballing, horsing, boys afraid to let ellery under watering, bbqing...

beaching, skim boarding, breaking austin's knee'ing, sandcastling...

eating, blessing, air mattress surfing, bubble blowing, cuddling, joy riding, movie quoting, hot tubbing, six flagging, coke drinking...

& now missing.

family of four

wish i had some crazy exciting thing to tell you about but there's not much to write when you essentially haven't left the house in a month.

chief watching his class online with the girls. distracted?

we don't know what we're doing but we're sure having fun learning how to juggle it all. cossette still doesn't weigh what ellery did the day she was born. she is such a tiny peanut (by our standards) & ellery is unbelievably tender with her. the pic on the top right with austin is one of my all time faves.

 i love coco's head resting on big sister's shoulder :)

i'm pretty happy with my newfound agoraphoebia.

our newborn

if i could just bottle as much of this newborn-ness as possible

18 months

ellers is a year & a half old! (almost 19 months now)

she is one happy kid. wants to sing, read, be outside, play itsy bitsy, help me with chores, man handle her sister coco, & talk to her friend bobby (whoever that is) on the phone or her hand or a tupperware up to her ear. she can say a lot but we're still working on uncle. it would make a lot of ppl happy. haha. our jellybean is content to entertain herself & for the most part, us too.

...when she's not honing her new art of tantrums. it's nothing bad yet, more like stubborness here & there. she easing us into it but it's on the horizon.

this is how she smells flowers. you so much as mention the word flower & she blows her nose @ them & says, "mmmmm!" with a grin on her face. :)

notice the fat lip & the bit of snot running down her pretty little face. clearly her daddy & gpa took these pictures unchapperoned.

she sure loves her papa bear. they go on walks & tell each other stories & look for birds & planes & superman.

thanks gpa!