Uncle Tim's treat

We just loved getting to see Uncle Tim when he came for all the Brousseau festivities. He always brings extra energy into our house and tons of smiles and laughs. Naki and I enjoyed a great evening just chatting with Tim, no food, video games, or anything! Just sitting and talking. It was really extraordinary the things he had to say. Afterwards he introduced me to the world of Dogfights. I love it! Anyone who knows Tim knows that when he has any money it literally burns a hole in his pocket. So we quickly made some plans to make it last just a bit longer. He decided he wanted to treat the girlies with something fun, so we headed over to Macey's for our favorite treat, ice cream cones and ice cream sandwiches. According to Tim it was pretty good, but Cold Stone still rates number one for him in the world of ice cream. Thanks Uncle Tim for all the good times!

A Shout out to my Momma..

We all know how much my mom has hated Mother's Day through the years, and so I decided to take a somewhat different approach this year. Thank you for passing to me all of your characteristics that I love having so much. Here's to you, Mom.

Happy Mother's Day Abby!

I am a very blessed man! I have the best wife in the world and I wanted to pay tribute to my wonderful wife on this Mother's Day! As I went back looking through old pictures to illustrate what my wife means to me and my family, I think it's no surprise that in most of the pictures all you see is a piece of Abby. I know this is because she would rather have her children be the focus NOT herself.











A true tribute to one of the REAL beauties of Motherhood...selflessness! I'm SOO GRATEFUL that my girls have someone as selfless as their mother to model for them all the wonderful attributes of motherhood. Abby give's her ALL to her girls and they know it! When they don't feel well...they would ALWAYS prefer Mom over Dad anyday!





I'm truly grateful to Abby for being the mother of my children, for giving me the most beautiful girls in the world. She goes everywhere with them and NEVER uses having so many little ones as an excuse for not attending events and (for the most part) my girls are very well behaved...ALL a tribute to their Mother...anyone who knows us knows that my girls get all their craziness from me and goodness from her.























Another thing about my wife that I love is the fact that she makes sure EVERY single one of the girlies know that they are special to her by spending special Mommy time with each of them!













Thanks Abby for all that you do as the Mother of my children. I hope you have the BEST day...because you definitely deserve it! Here's my lame attempt to pay tribute to the GREATNESS of my wife and Mother of my children through picture. Happy Mother's Day Abby!

Fancy Feet

I realized that I still have some pics from around Easter that I never blogged about. This year we did Easter toes instead of dresses! They each got a new color of toe nail polish, and we had great fun getting out the sandals to wear to church so that we could show our newly painted toenails. Can you tell who's feet are whose?

Easter fun with the Maile family

This year the Maile family decided that we would get together for our Easter festivities on Saturday. We were more than a little surprised when Kyra and Tiera walked in with two live little chicks!

Misty said that it's a good thing they're nocturnal, because those little chicks sure can chirp, or peep, or whatever it's called when they make their cute little noises. Grandma was great with keeping the girlies busy in the kitchen. Grandpa had recently returned from Florida and he'd brought back with him these gorgeous shells. Grandma was helping all the girls hot glue the shells onto brown ribbon to make their own chokers. I don't get her in many pictures, so I was thrilled to capture Grandma with some of the girls. I especially love these pictures, because of the similarities between her face compared to the girls' faces.


Grandpa cooked all of the food for us and it was so good! I don't get him in pictures very much either. Apparently these guys are camera shy. But here he is in the kitchen.

We had a lot of fun with the Easter egg hunt. It ended up being held inside the house since it was still raining that day. We split the kids up so that it was more fair for all. The big kids' eggs were hidden downstairs by all the uncles, and the big kids hid the little kids' eggs upstairs in the living room. At some point in the afternoon, someone got hold of my camera. Here is some of their work.



Thanks for a great Easter afternoon, everyone.

Wordless Wednesday, one day late

St. George, our last day, Sunday

It's hard to look at the whole weekend and pick a favorite part, but if hard pressed this would definitely be it for me. . . Sunday at church. It was quite the nostalgic experience for me, and on looking back, I think it was because it reminded me of growing up with the church in small wards and branches compared to the church that I experience now in Utah. Both are strong and vital to the church's growth, but there is something unique in the Sunday church meeting experience when you're meeting in the old buildings with small congregations, and yet hear the same message and the same doctrine that you would in modern buildings with overflowing congregations. I loved Sunday morning on our vacation. The weather at the cabin, because of the elevation, was always several degrees cooler than St. George, but on this particular morning we all could feel the warming spring in the air. We woke and got ready for church and then started packing up so that after Sacrament Meeting we would be able to pull out and hit the road. Naki had a fireside that he was singing in that evening back at home so we wanted to give ourselves enough time to get back. Naki got a couple pics of the outside of the cabin.

Church was a unique experience because the size of the "chapel" was about my kitchen and living room together.

It was hardwood floors and every sound seemed to be amplified. When we walked in you can imagine the stir we made. There was not a single other child in the room. Apparently the community doesn't sport many young babes. This is a picture of the town map. (The town map is the one on the left.)

Actually, when we walked up to the chapel we were given the option to let the kids run around in the overflow below or sit in the chapel above. I really wanted to have the chapel experience, but it really was no place for little babies. Any squeak they made seemed such an interruption to the meeting. So, after the sacrament, here's where the babies ended up.


Eva passed out too. All the big kids found her bundled up in this blanket taking a little nap.


Naki and Kolei while watching the little ones outside found this plaque and I just had to take a picture of it. I'm not sure if you can read it, or if you can make the picture bigger, but it tells some really neat things. One of which is that the wood from the yellow pine trees from Pine Valley were cut down and hauled all the way to Salt Lake for the organ pipes in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. We were just so amazed at all the history.

Before we took off we took some more pictures just for memory's sake. Notice the grass on the side of the sidewalk? That was the parking lot. We were parked in the grass!



The whole Sunday morning experience was the icing on the cake of a perfect getaway with our St. George Cousins. Thanks again you guys for making it so memorable. We love you!