24 on the 21st

On July 21st I turned 24!!! I can't believe I'm almost 30! (j/k Bobby) To celebrate, my family and some of our friends got together for a BBQ and had LOTS of fun!

Playing croquet



My good friend Lora and her baby Niev


My sister Alisa and Tyler watching us play


My friends Melinda and Jaime talking to my mom about scrapbooking!


Dad, Skyler (Alisa's husband), and Ty playing football


Adam helping Janie playing croquet


Alisa and Tyler...again



Melinda, Lora and me...the BEST BEST BEST roommates and friends EVER


My Awesome family


Silly picture


Alena and Tyler



Grandma and Tyler

Here comes the bride...All dressed in white...

On July 20 my little sister's best friend (and long time VERY good family friend) got married! We (my family) spent Wed., Thur. and Fri. preparing for the reception and it was a blast!!!

Getting ready to go


Tyler (of course drooling everywhere!)


Our happy family


My brother and sister (Ty and Alena)


He loves to give kisses


The cake


Nicely feeding the cake



The bride and a picture of her brother who just left to serve a mission


Line dancing




Bouquet toss


Bouquet catch (caught by her aunt who is not YET married)


Momma gettin' down doing the chicken dance


Ty bustin' it out


Me, Amanda and Alena (missed you Alisa!!)


Us, plus TY


Bride and her bridesmaids (my sister is the 2nd one to the left of the bride)


Me and my buds Josh(the bride's brother)and Drew(who left on his mission to Tonga today) ...(they are also great family friends and DJ'd my wedding)

Do blondes really have more fun?!

Well, I guess I'm going to find out! Last week I finally worked up the courage to go DARK! I've been blonde (real and fake) for the last 23 years of my life and decided it was time for a real change. Bobby has been trying to get me to do it since before we got married, but I was never ready to take the plunge into the brunette world. I've always prided myself on being blonde haired and blue eyed, and in a way it's sort of been my... "trademark" if you will. What gave me the "umph" to dive into my new dark world you ask...I guess I've started to realize that life's just too darn short to not take some chances and too darn long not to make some changes. I've also learned that you can take the girl out of the blonde , but you can never take the blonde out of the girl! (Don't worry Stac, I'm still your blonde cheerleader forever!)

To sleep or not to sleep...

Since Tyler has been waking up between 8:30 and 9:00 am every morning for awhile now, we decided to bump his bed time back by a half hour to give us a little more time at night together. After we laid him down we didn't hear any noise coming from his room and just couldn't believe our luck. About 15 min. after we'd laid him down I went to check on him to make sure everything was ok, just to find out he was not even the littlest bit sleepy at all! I walked in to see him starring right back up at me!

Yummy Yummy in my Tummy

About a week and a 1/2 ago (I know it's been a long time since I posted... a LOT has been going on here at the Bricker home) we started giving Tyler solids! We started him off with carrots (don't worry Stacie...they WERE baby food carrots-I only needed to make that mistake once!), and he seemed to take quite a liking to them. This tape is of the very FIRST time Tyler tried solids, both him (AND I) have improved in the feeding process since then!



The next night we went out and bought a high chair and that has made things MUCH easier!

Before we started


After we're finished

Spiderman!

On our way to Luna for the family reunion we stopped at a Big Lots b/c I forgot something at home and while we were walking around the store we found the cutest baby superman couch! They had a chair that he fit perfectly in, but it was $15 and the couch was only $10 more so we figured we'd spend the extra money b/c he'll still be able to use it when he gets a little bigger AND it pulls out into a bed...how awesome is that! Now he has his own little bed to take with us when we go down to St. George! We're pretty sure he loves it!



Practicing the moves...




Well...maybe he doesn't always love it

Gross!!!

The other night we had put Tyler in his play thingy (does anybody know what these are called?!) so we could both eat dinner at the same time (usually we take turns eating while one of us holds him...we can't wait till he can sit up on his own!)and all of a sudden we hear this horrid noise coming from his rear end. I went to pick him up to change his diaper and he kept going so I decided to leave him in there till I was sure he was all finished with his business. Well he continued to sparatically "toot" for 3 or 4 more minutes and the next thing we see is liquidy poo running down his leg, fast! We were laughing so hard that neither one of us got up to get him and before we knew it there was a pool of it gathered on the bottom of his toy and he was stomping his feet in it like it was a puddle. So gross!!! Of course my first thought was...where's the camera?!

Bricker Family Reunion 2007

This past weekend we made a spur of the moment decision to go to Bobby's family reunion in Luna, NM (located right on the AZ, NM border). We made the decision to leave Fri. morning and headed out around 5:00 that afternoon (yes, we have known about the reunion for 6 months!). As we were walking out the door we realized we had forgot to print directions, just to discover that what we thought was going to be a 9 hour drive is really an 11 1/2 hour drive(one way) and does not go through St. George, UT (where we were going to stay the night with my parents), but instead goes through the 4 corners (UT, CO, AZ, & NM). We decided to make the trek anyway and I LOVE Bobby's family so it was worth the screaming baby for 90% of the roadtrip, the $150 we spent on hotel rooms (when did the price of the Super 8 Motel go up?!), the $200 we spent on gas, the 7 hours we spent every day for 4 days(we drove there on Fri. and Sat. and back on Sun. and Mon.) in the car (with a crying baby-whom by the end of the trip I was willing to sell...don't worry, he would have been expensive :)- ), the bug bites, the sunburn, being dirty (I am NOT an outdoorsy person and the reunion was at a campsite), and being freezing at night (why didn't somebody tell me it's cold at night when you're camping...I'm from TX where it's ALWAYS hot and at girl's camp we slept in cabins with fans!!!). But overall we had an AWESOME time and it really was so good to see all of Bobby's immediate and extended family-except Rebekah whom I REALLY REALLY missed (and Nathan of course :)). On Mon. on the way home we drove through Moab and decided to stop at Arches National Park to give the baby (and us) a break. It was beautiful there and Bobby and I would really like to go back some time to hike to some of the arches that are not so close to the road. (Feel like babysitting anyone?!) Anyway here are some pictures from our little adventure. (I know a lot of you won't care about some of these pics, so they're mainly for Rebekah and Nathan who didn't get to come:( )



A random pic we took while driving


Me and the Bobster


Grandpa and the beanie he won for Tyler at the auction (it's a good thing too b/c it's the only thing that kept him warm that night!)


Tyler and Bobby's brother Mark (Tyler looks even more bald next to Mark!)




It started raining around 6:30 and was sooo cold...poor Tyler




My nephew tied to a tree by his dad (Aaron)


Me, my niece Shanda, and her daughter Tessa




My adorable great niece Tessa (is it "great" if it's my niece's daughter???)


The tent I did most definately NOT stay in


The trailer I most definately DID stay in


Bobby and his brothers; Scott, David, Aaron and Mark, and his dad (would you ever guess they're from Missouri?!:)-)


Aaron and his wife Diane and they're kids (Corey and Cody-14, Jared-6, Anna-4 1/2). The boy on the far left is a friend that came with them.


Aunt Kathy and her daughters


Tyler putting Tessa in her place :)



Now here starts our trip home. First we drove into the city of Luna b/c there is a lot of the Bricker family history in that very, very small town and we wanted to check out some of the places his great grandparents grew up.

The post office in Luna (isn't it cute)


The Pine Cone Cafe, a Cafe that was owned by Bobby's great grandparents


A craft store owned by someone in his family


Tyler driving us home


Pretty picture of the sunset


There was a time where traffic was at a standstill due to road construction and it was brought down to 1 lane that both north and south traffic had to share. While we were waiting for all the traffic going south to come through, I guess this little boy had to go potty and couldn't wait!


Right outside of Moab, UT they have this attraction called "hole n' the rock". It's a place where this guy and his wife took a stick of dynamite and blew a hole in the rock. It started out as a diner, but they later blew out more rock and turned it into their house (5,000 sq. feet), it was so cool! They also had some cool art sculptures and a petting zoo outside.








Can you guess why we took this picture?! Bobby couldn't stop laughing!


Arches National Park
We drove around through most of it, but decided to get out and hike to one that looked pretty close. Little did we know it was a 1/2 hour trip both ways, which wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't wearing jeans, a black shirt and flip flops!






Balanced Rock



So there's our trip! Thanks for sticking through all the pictures!