Their biggest advocate...

I have just become the biggest fan of this...I may not have any impressive credentials but I am a mother of 3 kids who have all braved RSV in the first few weeks of their lives and I can say that this nose sucker would have made things SO much better for all of them, maybe even kept the older two out of the hospital. I wish I could buy one for all of you! It's that awesome!

All Smiles

Blessing day

Today Brad blessed Olivia! She wore the same blessing dress Brylie wore and was very good during the blessing. Here is our family! And here is Olivia with her dad! We are so lucky to have this darling baby!

LIke mother, like daughter

Olivia weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces when she was born.
At 5 1/2 weeks old, she weighed 13 pounds.

Totally Hilarious!!

So I think Brad is hilarious but many of you don't see his humor as often as I do so I thought I'd share this little video. Brad grew this beard and kept it because it seemed to be easier and he and I liked it. But he decided to shave it and this was the fun we had when he did.

What we've been busy with...

Cassidy's Birthday!

Today is Cassidy's birthday! We love you Mom and hope you have a Wondermous Day! Time to party like it's 1989!

-Brad + Brylie + Goober + Peanut

Family of Five

Here are pictures of Brylie and Brody meeting their little sister Olivia as well as our first family of five photo!

Take THAT Uncle Sam!!!!

We will be taking THREE dependent child deductions on our income taxes for 2009!!! Thanks to Olivia Gunnell coming in at 3:12 PM on 12/29/09!



Olivia was 8 lbs, 12 ounces, and 21 inches long (at two weeks early no less!). She has slightly darker hair than her siblings and brown, BROWN eyes, but her face is a perfect blend of Brylie and Brody.

Mom is doing great, and just keeps saying, "This is such a RELIEF!!!!"

-Brad

Christmas Ornaments

Today we colored some ornaments we got from Grandma and Grandpa Allen. Every year we get an ornament with our name on the back and this year we got to color them. Here is the end result. Mom may have helped a little!

Merry Christmas!!

Pregnancy week 35....

I just thought I'd document what I look like at this stage in the game since I have never lived near my or Brad's parents during a pregnancy and I didn't take pictures like this with Brody. So here I am around 34 weeks. I think I'm HUGE! And it feels like the baby has barely any room in there to move, which she does often and I love it! Hopefully she makes her appearance no earlier than the 20th of this month as that would be too early for my liking but I'd appreciate it around the end of the month! Stay tuned!

What I've been working on...

Here is my latest project and I was so proud of it, I thought I'd share it. This is mostly for my mom who I would love to have done this at her house with her help but Oregon was too far to travel so this is the best I can do. Love you Mom! Also, a big thanks to Emily for letting me use her sewing machine after I broke mine in the process!

FHE Yahtzee

We played a few games after family home evening one night and now Brylie insists on FHE every night…she also loves to pick out a note from our song bag (I have a bunch of large wooden notes with a song written on each) and we have to do this before we read scriptures and go to bed every night. We are really good at the hokey-pokey! Anyway, this is a video of us playing yahtzee…more specifically, Brody. He is such a doll!!

King Noah in the house….

Tonight during family scripture “study,” Brad was going through the Book of Mormon picture book with the kids. We just open to a story and talk about the pictures and let the kids point and ask questions. At one point, Brad pointed to King Noah (the wicked king who kills Abinadi) and said “Look at King Noah….is he fat?” He is fat. He is obese.

Brylie looked at the picture, and said “yeah.” Then she said “Dad, he has a belly like you!” Brad has put on a bit of extra weight in law school eating so much good barbeque, but he is no King Noah….yet. While we tried to hold in the laughter and proceed with the scripture stories, Brylie began to stroke Brad’s beard, and we realized she had said “Dad, he has a BEARD like you.” Much better, but still a cautionary tale about eating too much Pop Walton's Barbeque.

Dark and Early

I hate Daylight Savings.

 

Whoever invented this stupid idea definitely didn’t have kids.

 

Good morning fellow mothers!

A little smile...

In all my pregnancies, I have only had ultrasounds around the 20 week mark so the babies have been easy to see but small. Well, this pregnancy, there were some things seen in our 20 week ultrasound that needed to be followed up on. We just recently had another ultrasound of our 28 week baby. There is quite a size difference! And I think the personality is a little more visible. If I could, I would have a constant look into the womb! The day we had our ultrasound, the tech told us she had already been flipped the bird. I was delighted to see that this is what our baby did for her! Isn't this just so miraculous?!


Smile for the camera!

Butt end of the deal

Parenting has a way of paying you back...sometimes, it's for the good things you do. Sometimes its for the things you need to improve on, and sometimes, you just get the "butt" end of the deal.

A whirlwind of a weekend!

I don't even know where to start...probably at the part where my Mary Poppins of a husband (practically perfect in every way) arranged a surprise visit from my sister, Paige on Thursday! He covered it by telling me that his friend from BYU was coming and because he had a late class on Thursday, I would have to pick this friend up. I was ok with this despite the fact that it would take 2 hours of driving with the kids only to pick up this friend and drive the 2 hours back hoping that there would be enough to talk about, not to mention that he's married but his wife wouldn't be there and Brad wouldn't be there and I don't know him that well so...I was just a little unsure of how I felt about the whole situation.

So I get to the airport and Brad only wrote down half of this guys phone number so I couldn't call to see where he was at the airport so we could arrange where to pick him up. Instead, Brad would call me and say, the flight had just arrived and to look for this friend's classmate who might be easier to spot, tall, blond haired girl. After driving through the airport passenger pick-up circle 5 times, I came around and got a call from Brad stating they were standing under the sign that said JetBlue, United Airlines and to look for them there. I was just approaching that sign and I could see the blond girl but for the life of me couldn't see Brad's friend. Then I saw someone who looked kind of like him but then he got into a car 2 lengths ahead of me. It was only the girl and so I was looking at her noticing she was looking at me and I was way confused, especially when she started waving at me and smiling! I still didn't get it! Then it all clicked that this was my sister and not the lame story I was so gullible to believe but a delightful surprise! We had more than enough to talk about and even ended up making a trip to the Round Rock Outlet stores!!

Needless to say, I have the best husband in the world and we had one great of a weekend because Paige was here! I can't say "thank you" enough!!!

We went to this family farm that is fairly close and then went to the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo which was so much fun! Here are some photos to document the awesome time!!

Thanks again, Brad and Paige!!!

Happy Halloween!!

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I may have copied you, Rachel...great idea!