Morning Rituals

This is something that Brock calls "our morning rituals". Every morning, after breakfast and while still in Pj's Brock and Kate go "water the tomoatos". When Kate hears daddy say "lets go water the tomoatos" she runs to the back door yelling "outside!". She loves helping dada but doesn't water anything except the patio and her watercan (you'll see in the video). It's so cute that the two of them do this. The video is actually really boring so bless you if you make it through it. I think it's cute only because I love the subject of it! My favorite part of the video is when Brock says "this is probably the best part of my day" referring to him and Kate "watering the tomato's". Oh Brock is very very very proud of his tomoto plants and shows them off to me daily. Oh I hate how I talk on video, I'm going to try and be less of a dork.

The Circle of Life

This ended up being a crazy week and my head is spinning a little from it still. On Sunday July 20th we found out a childhood friend of Brock's was killed. It is tragic that his life was cut so short. His name was Luke and he was only 27. We went to the funeral yesterday (Friday, July 25th). It was sad to be there are be reminded that his life was cut short, it just seemed like he had so much more life to live. It's hard to heal from the loss of a loved one, even with the knowledge of the Gospel, it's still hard to understand why we can't be with our loved ones a little longer on earth.

The same day as the funeral, Lark and Jacob (Lark is Brock's littlest sister) welcomed their first born into their family. Welcome Kara Afton we are so glad you are here! Born sometime around 5pm-ish, she was 3 weeks early due to some complications with preclampsia she weighed in at 7lbs exactly and 18" long.(I'm gonna try and get a picture) We can't wait to meet our new neice.

Life is good and bad, and hard and sometimes easy. The circle of life helps me appreciate everyone around me. I'm so thankful for my family, I try and not miss an opportunity to be with them and let them know how much I love them. You all think I'm blogging for you, but I'm really bloggin for me. It helps me remember lifes little moments with Kate and Brock I'm so thankful I have both of them.

My Mosaic

I got this fun little activity off of my friend Elizabeth's blog. A nice little activity to pass time when you can't sleep and it's 1am. Thank goodness for interent. What did we do in the olden days on sleepless nights...read a book perhaps.

Here's how you can create your own Mosaic:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Use only the first page of results, and pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

Onto the questions and my answers:

1. What is your first name? Sarah - I don't know what the arches have to do with my name but when I saw this picture it reminded me of my days in UT.

2. What is your favorite food? Mexican- I love anything Mexican. I love puppy's too kinda funny that this picture popped up but he was so cute I had to keep him.

3. What high school did you go to? Chancellor High School, this picture popped up 3 times on the front page it was almost like he was asking to be included on my mosiac. He does remind me of all the statues I saw on my couple of trips to Europe.

4. What is your favorite color? Red- But it changes to Blue sometimes and even Pink. The Red berries remind me of summer and the raspberries I just picked last week.

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Brad Pitt comes to mind although I don't really have a celebrity crush that I sit and day dream about. This kinda changes around for me too. I guess I've always have had a small weakness for Brad. A picture of a ton of rubber ducks came up and that reminded me of Kate and how she loves ducks especially in the pool.

6. What is your favorite drink? Diet Coke - especially at 9am! I'm down to 1 a day for the most part and sometimes even none. I'm trying to just drink water hence the picture. I do love water so I have no complaints.

7. What is your dream vacation? The Mediteranean - so I wouldn't exclude visiting many different countries, but I've always thought Greece would be an interesting place to visit and have heard wonderful things about the country. Just look at that picture and tell me you would't want to go there in person.

8. What is your favorite dessert? Gooey Brownies - Not to be confused with dry or cake-like brownies with a little ice cream.

9. What did you want to be when you grow up? Fashion Designer, don't laugh. What would I design? I guess sweat pants, jeans and Tshirts since that seems to be all I live in. It's hard to believe I told people I wanted to be this when I was a grown up. A peacock is better dressed then I am.

10. What do you love most in life? My family this includes everyone from my husband and daughter down to my all my inlaws. I have a huge family and I'm so thankful for them. Unfortunately the rose wasn't my first or second pick for pictures, those pictures didn't work in the mosaic for some reason so I went with my third pick the yellow rose. I love roses and it always reminds me of that song, "the yellow rose of TX". I lived in TX for 8 years as a kid and have many wonderful memories. (my first pick was a picture of a cute little monkey family kinda like my cute little monkey family)

11. What is one word that describes you? Friendly-I couldn't decide between this or Happy. I figure I'm not always Happy but try to be Friendly even when I'm not happy. So Friendly won. This picture seems to describe both 'happy friends'.

12. What is your nick name? Sariah - My parents started calling me this when I was in high school and when I married into my husband's family there was already a Sarah so we needed another name for me as to not confuse the young nieces and nephews who would stare blankly at me when I said "my name is Sarah just like Travis's wife is Sarah". This old picture is from someone's family history kinda reminds me that I should be doing family history.

Ok I showed you my mosaic, now show me yours....

I'm Sorry

"I'm sorry" has been one of the recent catch phrases from Kate. She will walk around saying "I'm sorry" for no apparent reason. So I've been saying back to her "Why are you sorry? What did you do?" This can occur up to 20 times a day it seems. Sometimes she will bump her head or another kid will accidentally bump her and she will say "I'm sorry" and I think it's so cute, but what is cuter is that in the last week she now will say "I'm sorry, what did you do" randomly. Kids are so cute!

I truly am sorry for the lack of updates on my part. So this is my shameless attempt of filling you in.

For the 4th we went to our ward's pancake breakfast, then straight over to the town parade. Kate was looking very patriotic that day and had such a good time watching all the different displays. Then we headed home for a nap and at one point thought we might be rained out for the fireworks. Luckily around 8pm it looked like clear skies so we headed down to the town park to get a good seat. Kate loved the fireworks as long as her ears were covered and she was snuggled safe and close to her mama. It was a fun day.





Up next, Kate and her prayers. You have to check out the way Kate folds her arms when we say a pray. Even her nursery leaders at church comment on it. She's always folded her arms like this to pray ever since we taught her how to pray. The funny thing is she knows how to really fold her arms, we've seen her do it but as soon as it's time to say a prayer she goes back into this strange folding mode. Another cute thing is when we sit down at the table to eat dinner she immediately folds her arms and starts balking at us to sit and pray. She sometimes babbles along with us as if she is praying other times she is perfectly quiet like she knows it's time to be reverent.

FYI: This was sorta a fake prayer to get her to fold her arms and get it on video



Next: Kate and her Crew. I've been meaning to show you all this for awhile now. Kate sleeps with a load of stuffed animals. I finally caught some of it on film during a recent nap. Mr. BearHugs or "Beargs" as Kate calls him is the ringleader, he's the big brown bear you see. Everyone else changes from day to day. In this picture there is also a cat and a puppy (probably the 2nd in command) somewhere in the mix. She also has a baby, another bear, and a lamb that sometimes appear. She loves her crew very much and can't sleep without them. Every morning she gathers whomever she can fit into her arms and carries them around. It's quite a sight to see.






Next: Kate and Dora. We went to Allie's 3rd birthday party on Saturday. Allie is the Daycare provider's daughter. It was a lot of fun and Kate had a great time playing in the baby pool with the other kids. I thought the cake turned out so cute.



Next: Kate and her Yogurt face. This caught me by surprise because Kate is a fairly good eater, by good eater I mean messy-free. (We are still working on broadening her spectrum of foods but that is a different story) So I was surprised when I came into the dining room this afternoon to find this:



Lastly(because I know your dying to know): The poison ivy finally decided to give me a break and has cleared up for the most part. My left leg is pretty chewed up though and it looks like I might have some scars to remember it all by. My arms look good and I just have dry patches of skin that itch but not like the poison ivy. I have a fear of my backyard now and haven't been out there since. We still haven't sprayed for it, that's partly because we are lazy and partly because we need a rain-free day and under 90 degrees. So far it hasn't happened. We've been getting tons of rain and it's been HOT.

Campin Out!

I mentioned in an earlier post about us campin out, that's not entirely true. Brock was the only one who went campin, he met up with his dad and brothers for the annual Father/Son campout. Kate and I went along but the only campin we did was at my mom's AC house. The next day we met up with Brock at the lake and he grilled us some burgers. It was nice to spend the weekend with family and Kate got to play a lot with her cousins. Brock and his dad have a funny story about being 'pulled over' by the Lake Anna police. They were out in Brock's dad's small fishing boat and got stopped by the lake patrol to make sure they had their fishing license, which they did and to make sure the boat was registered to Brock's dad, which is was. They seemed pretty determined to make a bust and had them stopped for sometime while all the info was being radioed back and forth. Here are a few pictures from the weekend trip.

Keepin cool on the back deck of Grandma's

I love the closeupness of this shot

The girl loves some chips n dip

Hangin out at the food table

Kate and her buddy

Mommy stealing a baby kiss

Here's a side note, I got poison ivy, I still have it and it's been 3 weeks. It's been miserable I've been on prednisone to help with the swelling. I'm starting to get better but it's still very itchy. the picture doesn't do it justice. I have it on my arms, legs and a little on my face. The point of contact....my backyard.

I had to include this picture of baby Van, he is just so cute

All American Toddler

Kate is THE All American Toddler. At 20 months she can do it all. She doesn't need mommy or daddy's help. She can say lots of words, and sing lots of song, including humming along to Beethoven's 5th. She loves to hold the leash when we walk the dog. She loves baby dolls and stuffed animals. She loves play dough, coloring and stickers. If she is being quite we usually find her playing in the dog food. She loves to play outside, and doesn't mind getting a little dirty. She loves to read books, her favorite is 'Good Night Gorilla'. She loves breakfast, likes lunch and could care less for dinner. She loves jumping on mom and dad's bed and if you are lucky can catch a quick cuddle before she moves on to the next toddler adventure. We love our All American Toddler.


Tilly and Kate the two are inseparable


This is such a sweet picture of Van I had to include it

Baking Cookies

I was looking through some old photos (you know the ones that you leave on your camera and then every 5 months upload) and I came across these. For FHE one night we all pitched in and baked cookies, daddy took pictures. It was so cute watching Kate help in the kitchen. She was almost 18 months then (she just turn 20 months) it's amazing how much they grow in just 2 months, she looks little to me in these pictures.

Kate helping put eggs in the bowl.

Didn't quite make it, try again

Best part about baking cookies...licking the beaters, I know raw egg, gross, you only live once!

Just a cute smily picture of Kate