Durango + Family = Fun!!

This past weekend we were able to go to Durango and spend time with my extended family to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday! What an incredible woman she is...


Aside from the big birthday party on Saturday, we just hung out, ate some good food, visited, and played a lot of games.










I love my family so much and am so grateful we were able to go and hang out with everyone. I'm also so grateful that we have had so many wonderful years with my amazing grandma. Happy 90th birthday granny!

On Saturday, Brad and I also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary... whoo hoo! We are hoping to be able to go out on a date soon, so I guess I'll have to post more about the anniversary after we get to really celebrate it! Love you Brad!

A Good Daddy

Just thought I'd say that Eden is one lucky girl to have such an awesome daddy!


Daddy coming home at the end of the day is always the best part of our day. We love you Brad!

The Newest Member of Our Family

This past Thursday we welcomed a new member into our family, her name is Ruby, and she's basically the cutest little puppy out there.


Ruby is a 9 week old Bichon Frise. She's just over 3 lbs and will be between 8 and 12 lbs when she is full grown. She definitely loves to be wherever we are and loves to be included in whatever we are doing. So far the house training has been a huge pain (which I knew it would be) because we have to get up in the night and take her out frequently during the day, but she hasn't gone in the house since the first day, and she also doesn't ever go in her kennel. So far so good.


Eden has a love/hate relationship with Ruby and it's quite entertaining to watch those two. The cutest part about it is that Ruby just trots along behind Eden wherever Eden goes. Eden loves to share her blankie and toys with Ruby. She will go to the toy cupboard and bring toys out just to show Ruby. Eden also likes to hold her, but only if Ruby is holding still, so it never lasts very long. Several times I've caught Eden trying to tell Ruby things by signing to her. However, when Eden's not in the mood she doesn't think it's so great when Ruby wants to play or follow her around right on her heels. Overall, Eden loves her though and always ask for her first thing when she wakes up in the morning or from her nap.

I think Ruby will end up being a great kid-friendly dog, which is definitely something that drew us to this breed. When we babysat the Pickett girls the other night she absolutely loved those girls too and followed them wherever they went. Ruby gets super shy when other adults come around, but bring any kids near her and she loves them.




It's definitely been work, but so far she has been worth it. Welcome to the family Ruby!

Photoshoot

A couple days ago Eden and I had a completely free morning schedule so I thought it might be fun to try out my new camera and hopefully get some cute pictures of Eden. Though she didn't want to cooperate long, I definitely think I succeeded in my mission to get some frame worthy shots without even having to do any editing...












I love my new camera and I especially love my little model!

Kissing this Frog didn't result in her Prince!

As much as I wouldn't prefer to be holding a toad, I don't want Eden to be afraid of them so when we saw one by my parents pond the other day I grabbed a hold of that thing and brought Eden over to take a look. At first she was very hesitant about it and only looked and laughed at it from a distance, all while signing "frog".



I kept saying, "come touch it Eden" and she wouldn't come, but all of a sudden she just walked up with determination, and before I knew what was happening, she was giving the toad a kiss!


Then, I guess once she decided kissing it wasn't so bad, she tried holding it. As soon as it moved a tiny bit though she very quickly threw it into the pond with a very nervous look on her face.


That poor toad got lots of love that day... not just from Eden! It provided quite a bit of entertainment for all involved.

The Ice Cream Man

Eden absolutely loves music so a couple months ago we were outside playing and she heard the music playing from the ice cream truck. She immediately starting siging "music" and "star" because I guess she thought it sounded like it was playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" which is one of her favorites. We explained to her that it was the ice cream truck, and Brad took her to look over the wall to see if they could see the truck go by, but it never actually came into our neighborhood. Many days since then as we have heard it outside she gets so excited and signs "star truck" and she always wants to go look over the wall for it. The problem is that she has become quite obsessed with it and is constantly wanting to go outside to hear the "star truck" and look for it even when it's not there. She kept asking where it was, so then we told her maybe he was home in bed. Now she signs "star truck" and then when we don't hear it she signs "bed".

So a couple days ago we were in the house and she was asking for the "star truck" so Brad took her outside to see if they could hear it. Well as luck would have it, they could hear it and it was actually inside our neighborhood just a street over. So they listened to it on their usual spot on the wall and when it got close Brad flagged them down. Eden quickly discovered that the "star truck" has absolutely nothing to do with stars but that it actually has ice cream and popsicles which she is somewhat a fan of. Despite discovering it was a van full of treats though, she still continues to ask for the "star truck" everyday when we go outside. :)

Tennessee Adventures

A couple weeks ago we were able to spend an awesome week in Tennessee with all of Brad's family. This was the first time the whole family has been together since our wedding almost 6 years ago so this "family reunion" was well overdue. The family has also grown quite a bit in 6 years so it was a large party! Brad's parents bought a beautiful house just down the road from Brad's sister's house so it was so convenient for everyone to have their own rooms, but close enough to hang out together each day.

While we were there we celebrated the 4th of July with some awesome fireworks! Brad and his brothers put on a pretty amazing show for the family which included tons of fireworks that are definitely illegal in NM. Brad now thinks it may be best to go to TN every year over the 4th so he can really celebrate. :)

We also had a family baseball tournament, complete with "Justice League" t-shirts. Everyone's baseball number was the year they were born.

It was so much fun, but unfortnately the game got cut a little short due to a lightning storm that was very quickly approaching. We had such a blast though. Everyone except for Eden that is. The poor girl got sunscreen in her eye right when we got there, so she was pretty miserable throughout the game.








That night Grandpa hosted an awards ceremony to present all the baseball players with a trophy. It was so cute to watch the kids go get their personalized trophies. They were so excited about it! Eden just kept giving her trophy kisses.





We also celebrated Grandpa's 70th birthday that week. He wasn't so thrilled, but we were excited to be there to celebrate for him!


Grandpa and Grandma's new house has a pretty good sized front yard, complete with the perfect slip-n-slide hill. Brad went out to Walmart and bought painters plastic and created quite a hit with all the kids. Grandpa wasn't quite as thrilled with the nice trails it was leaving in his grass, but he let the play continue!



There is a beautiful (and warm!) lake within a short drive of their houses, so several days were spent at the lake. Brad and I had to split our trips so one could stay home with Eden, so unfortunately we didn't have anyone get a picture of him out there, but here's one of me getting ready to wakeboard. It's amazing how quickly my muscles get sore doing this, but it is so fun and so worth it!


We walked around downtown McMinneville which has a fun, old fashioned, small town feel. It was so incredibly hot though that we probably spent the majority of our time inside the sweets shop eating our ice cream and enjoying the air conditioning.


We went to the State Park where they have hiking trails and beautiful waterfalls. Everyone had a blast out in the water. It was so beautiful there and so extremely green!









And in between all these fun adventures, we just had a blast hanging out, playing games, and enjoying spending time together. Eden absolutely LOVED being surrounded by her cousins all the time, as long as they weren't trying to pick her up. She especially grew fond of Ella and would only let Ella carry her around. Her cousins also loved to get Eden to show them her sign language. Everytime they were together, I always overheard them telling her to sign something, and she would always do it. It was pretty cute to watch.







Overall it was such a fun vacation! It was our first time to go to Tennessee and we definitley weren't disappointed! We were able to do so many fun things, and there's still so much to explore for future trips. Thanks Justice family for an awesome vacation and we look forward to our next one!