Shae has a calming energy about her since birth so she can tend to be in the background with louder personalities around her. It was really nice to be able to celebrate just her on her baptism day. At the beach we took pictures of her in her baptism day dress a week or two before.
Shae’s Brown grandparents came from California and her Uncle Darren & Aunt Maggie came from Savannah for the day.
On the day of the baptism Reagan performed the musical number she had been practicing with her voice teacher for a couple of months.
Her other sisters helped with different things and it was a really loving day.
Daddy baptized and confirmed her a member and we all just spent the day thinking about how special we have it to have a Shae in our lives.
Some friends from church gave her little gifts. Our friend Meg came with the most adorable candy gift. And grandparents far away sent things as well.
She had a wonderful day of dance classes, miniature golf, movies with her sisters, pizza, and a cookie skillet. When her and I were miniature golfing she was so hilariously silly. She really loves her family and being at home so it was a great day for her.
I have always wanted to do a space party for one of my girls so I was *SO* excited when Shae, who really does love space, asked for one. She wanted a bit more of a galaxy spin on it and chose the galaxy pattern to have involved in the planet decor. A woman who is a local artist would sometimes help me with party decor, this time she made the paper mache planets. I tried to make it dark, glowy, and solar system like in that front room. It turned out pretty cool!
Shae put together the gift bags:
We made solar system bracelets, made our own planets, learned facts about planets, and played games.
All of the helpers, her sisters and I even did the party with solar system tattoos!
One day we went hiking in a Bayou Nature Preserve with more muffuletta. Also hopped on a swamp airport tour where my fears of alligators increased ten fold. It is insane when they are more active and surface more and YOU SEE THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!
The graveyards in New Orleans are very artistic and feel like you are inside an old classic poem.
I took the family on a historic home tour, which I really should have done alone. HA! I think I need to remember that I don’t ALWAYS need to drag the girls to things.
On a whim I took the girls to a mall in the area to buy a fancy outfit. We usually are very low key with how we dress, where we eat, etc. But I felt like booking a really fancy restaurant and dressing up to fit it would be fun. Each of them at the mall tried on a few dresses and chose one they like. Then they bought shoes, jewelry, new makeup, and got their hair done.
I even got dressed up too!
For our last fancy night we got tickets to listen to jazz at Preservation Hall, went to eat at The Court of Two Sisters, and ate beignets one last time.
Perfect way to end the night, in beignet coma once again…
Comments Off on Spring Break 2019 New Orleans; Part 2 of 2
After Atlanta we made our way to New Orleans. Ty and I had gone a couple years earlier and couldn’t wait to do another trip with the girls. It is perhaps THE best city in the United States, okay fine maybe tied with NYC. But on many days I’d take New Orleans over NYC.
Our first night we did the most important things; find beignets, listen to live jazz and walk around downtown late at night.
beignet coma
One of the best things about New Orleans is you can have no plans and just wander into fun, energy, and good food. On the beginning of our first full day we did a food tour. We learned that is the way to go if you are foodies, take a nice tour in the beginning and then you know where to go the rest of your trip. In the French Quarter; jambalya, gumbo, poboys, red beans & rice, shrimp & grits, muffuletta & pralines. They also always take you down the most charming alleys and tell you different things about the town’s history.
The architecture, doors, patterns of colors, different floors and walkways. I could just wander around looking at that just for weeks!
Comments Off on Spring Break 2019 New Orleans; Part 1 of 2
ATLANTA! I feel like I have been jipped that I’ve only made it to Atlanta twice in my life. It is a really cool city! The culture, food, parks, museums, shops, etc. are incredible. However I would rather drive through just about any big city other than Atlanta.
While driving in we stopped and did the CNN Studio Tour which was quite interesting to see the behind the scenes at such a huge industry and channel. I want to say that Reagan and I enjoyed it the most, anyone that gets to be on a screen Reagan is interested in.
On our first day in town we loved being back in an international food scene, you can get just about anything there and people really pride themselves on their food. We also spend time walking in beautiful parks and preserves. Along high rises on elevated walks and up and down the town. Just walking around new cities is what Ty and I enjoy the most about getting to know a new city. The girls would NOT agree!
The next day we made it to sacrament in Atlanta and it was one of the most beautiful church services I’ve been to. It was also a big learning lesson as they had a very interesting talk given by someone with a lot of privilege and how the congregation responded opened my eyes. In their foyer they gave so much honor and respect to those that our history doesn’t given enough attention to. Beltline & Piedmont are incredibly stunning.
Afterwards we made it to Ponce Market which has to be my favorite foodie and shop market I’ve been to in the states. Even more than the large ones in NYC. We had so much fun spending hours here and even came back another day to get another fill. Gems were found that are still some of our favorite finds that we use or brands we continue to buy from.
Atlanta Aquarium was incredible! The dolphin show and whale shark make it worth is a thousand percent. We also on a whim went to the Cocoa Cola Factory. My girls love soda and we go through times where we limit it or ban it from the house for awhile. We had banned it from the house and wouldn’t let them get it when we went out to eat at this time. So when we were in the last part of the museum where you get to try dozens of different sodas they were in a sugar freenzied heaven.
Our family was also able to go to the Martin Luther King monument which ended up being one of the most influential moments in Ty and I’s life so far.
The place I was the most excited to go was the High Museum of Art, it turned out to be one of my favorite museums of all time. The interactive kid exhibits were wonderful and the art itself.
The pink popcorn trees outside were such fun to play around in.
We also went to Krog St Market, did a lot of walking, and met up with nieces and nephews that live nearby for pizza. Wish we could have seen them more, but we took what we could get!
Abby, Cameron and I played the Southern Girl part, dressed up in their dresses and saw a play in downtown Charleston. It was really fun, kind of an inappropriate play for kids, but I’m good at always doing that to them. Ha & Gah mixed into one.
Best part of living in the South, the beaches are so warm and heat up good enough to play in them in the early Spring!
I love the friendship of these two, so whenever they are just sitting and smiling together I love to grab a picture.
For Valentine’s Day we tried something new and did a poster for each girl. Everyone in the family decorated it with their favorite things about them. We also of course bought OURSELVES chocolates from See’s to enjoy.
Having the sister missionaries around during our first year of living in Mount Pleasant was a literal blessing. It was a hard ward and they always made us feel loved. We loved having them around, on one particularly hard day they even heart attacked us.
I went through this book for homeschool with each girl, I finished it up with Reagan during the spring. We had a lot of fun learning about different artists and doing art projects based off of them. Reagan also took a really fun online class with the Elephant & Piggie books.
Also just some cute pictures of Reagan getting out of piano 🙂
Shae & Reagan also chose to learn about insects. It was a really fun unit to do together!
Cameron is such a sweet person to have in my life, I love her smile and how her and I watch Buffy together.
Living so close to Savannah where Darren & Maggie live was such a treat. On this day we invited them to do a food tour with us around Savannah.
Abby & Cameron took a try at ukulele and would practice while they waited at ballet privates. Didn’t end up working out but they gave it a good go for a few months.
I bought some Heavenly Mother prints and found a good place for them in the place where we would see them each day.
There were a lot of days where we got to hang out with the best next door neighbors ever, this day we took them bowling.
The swamp and woods behind our house always had different finds in it. These blobs of slime everywhere with creates in them were salamander eggs!
Found our family’s favorite food spots to frequent. One was Betty’s Eatery where they had the best diner food and cool milkshakes. Other one was Rusty Rooter’s where the brisket mac and cheese we will think about forever!
Reagan finally fit into the dress I bought after a couple years of my infertility issues when I was feeling down. When each of them wore it for the first time it made me think of how thankful I am for each of them.
Lots of Chip cuddles!
EXPLORING! We went to so many beaches to find our favorite one. So many swamps and grasslands to walk around. The beauty of the South only gets old during hot stick summer bug season. Spring is perfect there!
Shae had a short stint at horseback riding. We had such bad luck finding a teacher while we lived here, she only had one for a couple months. Thankfully where we live now we found a really reliable lovely woman to help her learn.
It was also fun to explore different towns, this one was Spartanburg which is such a cute town!
I GOT TO SPEND ABBY’S BIRTHDAY WITH HER! She asked to go see the Angel Oak Tree, go candle making, sushi, and hang out with ME! One of my favorite days with my baby girl.
We also did our normal traditions; the four gifts, breakfast in bed, birthday flowers, etc. Took her shopping with her sisters, all the normal jazz!
Abby had her birthday in a place where she didn’t know too many people yet or not well enough to invite them over. So we were really grateful we had become such good friends with our next door neighbors and that Abby could spend the day with Claire. I took them to dinner, an arcade, mini golfing, and the movies.
Reagan started voice with Ms Danielle and they had a really special bond. She was with Ms Danielle as she got married, pregnant, and had her baby boy. She looked up to her so much and it was a really wonderful bond to witness. They had a spring voice concert in downtown Charleston at a historic theatre. Reagan memorized a few songs and performed on stage. WOW, THE BRAVERY! Here is a video of the whole recital but hopefully you can find Reagan’s songs in there, they are right in a row:
It is abnormal to see Reagan nervous so it made my heart just melt.
She switched to doing open mic nights instead of large recitals and even though these were later on in 2019 I thought I would put them here:
For Ty’s Christmas present we decided to take him to a NBA game in Charlotte, it was the first time of any of us going to game except for Ty. Charlotte is a COOL city! Perfect place to go if you are into sports, love a clean big city, and are missing shopping. Lots of sports bars, diners, cookie shops, and fun soda shops to eat at. When you live in Charleston there are no big stores so we hit up all our favorite. It was a nice treat to be in a city with malls, arenas, museums, etc.
The NBA game itself WAS A BLAST! The girls got really into it and there was minimal whining, which is always a sign of a good family activity.
love of local in Utah
