Life Imitates Art

One of our family's new year's resolutions this year was to become more cultured. Some members of the family took understanding art beyond "appreciation" to "imitation."

While You Were Out!

Well, it's been almost 2 months since I started this project and it's been mostly done for almost 2 months. But I finally got around to finishing the last few things and taking some pictures. So here they are!

By the way, I did this project while Brian was out of town for a week. It was a surprise like on the TV show "While You Were Out". Lucky for me, I have amazing friends who helped out or else it never would have happened. Andrea's husband was also out of town and she did a TON of work for me while Hayden and Wes played. Christie also pitched in and helped Andrea paint the dresser at the last minute which made a world of difference!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Y?

Because we like you!

Future BYU Cougars in our midst? Quite possibly!

(We just happened to have these shirts for them - both hand-me-downs, actually - so I thought we'd snap a picture before they grew out of them.)

'A Camping We Will Go...

Brian is officially finished with his first year of Business School - and has been since the end of April. He's still been going to campus in the mornings to work on a few things for the fall since he was recently hired as a T.A. and a career counselor.

We've been fitting in some fun things over the last couple of weeks to enjoy his time off. Here are a LOT of pictures of some things we've been up to...

PS: We still have about 2 more weeks to play before his internship starts!

First, but not necessarily fun... Our car was broken into a little over a week ago.

Thanks to our Mexican tint job, the glass stayed (mostly) in a large chunk.

The guys stole the face plate off our stereo (they couldn't get the actual stereo because Brian did such an amazing install job). By the time we noticed our car was hit (around 3:00pm) the Ann Arbor Police Department had already found the 3 guys that had done it. They'd hit a bunch of cars throughout the night in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Less than a week later, we had our face plate back! The only loss was replacing the window (still $175).








Wes likes to listen, and look for, "tractors" outside. This day it was actually a ride-on lawn mower.








Sydney's getting big! She's sitting up and crawling around all over the place. For some reason she always likes to sit with her toes like that.



One whole foot is pointed and then the other is mostly flexed with only her big toe pointed. She often sits like this. It's pretty funny to me.








Sydney's also trying to make her way around the house. She headed over to the stairs twice one morning, but she couldn't quite figure out how to get up them.

Wes has a great time playing in our backyard. He wanted Sydney to ride on his tricycle while he pushed our around and around.

He also like rolling his toys down the little hill into the bushes. I'm so glad he can play outside now!

On Friday night, we went camping near Benton Harbor on (the Michigan side of) Lake Michigan. It's about 2 1/2 hours from Ann Arbor and 2-ish hours from Chicago so Uncle Kevin met us there. (Naomi and Brooklyn were in Utah for Naomi's amazing triathlon!)

Even though the weather report said otherwise, it was raining - a lot - when we got there. That didn't stop Wes from having a great time! We ended up getting a cabin instead of pitching the tents we'd brought.

Brian and Sydney walking in the rain.

While we waited for Kevin, we took a trip to Lowes to get some supplies and we decided to stop by Dunkin' Doughnuts. Wes thought that was a great idea!

We were able to get a fire going despite the rain (we bought some beach umbrellas and tarps for cover) and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows!

Wes was a little scared of the fire (which I'm actually kind of glad about!) but enjoyed the experience.

In the morning the boys got the fire going again - mostly for warmth. It was a lot colder than we had anticipated.

Here's our cabin. Wes is keeping his distance while Brian and Kevin get the fire started.

Kevin, Brian, and Wes did a little horseshoe tossing.

Good toss Wes!

My little Jedi Master. :) Since it was colder than we had thought it would be, Wes was freezing in the morning. I put 2 of my shirts on him and they came to his ankles. With his hood on, he kind of looked like he had on a Jedi robe or something.

Wes and Brian in their Sunday best! This picture is a tradition in the Hanks family (we're only a month behind Wes' birthday). Brian has one with his dad every year from his childhood.

What a cute little guy!