Peeping:

Remember how almost every post is about this pretty girl?
Well that's because she is our pride and joy.
And of course she is just so darn cute and always does the funniest things.
See below for the latest.

This is what we find when she wakes up from her naps.
Yep she opens the door and peeps her little head out.
So adorable.

Great Grandpa Brooks

Olivia has 4 amazing great grandfathers.
3 here, and one in heaven.
Last weekend, she got to meet her Great Grandpa Brooks.
He is quite the incredible person and we feel so blessed to know him.

Butterflies:

I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see this on my phone.
Don't worry they're the good kind of butterflies.
The I'm so madly in love kind.
Oh how I love my boy.

She's 11 1/2 months!

This pretty girl is 11 1/2 months now.

Craziness.
I'm in the process of planning her first birthday.
That's why the blog has been a bit neglected.
And I'm not going to lie, it's going to be a pretty cute one.
But there will be pictures of that later.
So now it's time to talk about this sweetie.
Like I do most of the time.
Boy, is she our little bundle of joy.
She is learning so much everyday and is constantly making us laugh with her her little spunky personality.
Here are a few things about her:
She loves food. Any kind of food as long as it is "adult" food. The second she sees someone with food she will literally book it (in her cute little crawl) straight for you and start pulling herself up on your legs. And start making grunting sounds with her nose scrunch face.
I'm telling you the way to this little girl's heart is through food.
Some of her favorite foods are: cottage cheese, yogurt, bananas, fruit snacks, baby cheeto puffs, cheese sticks,banana bread and any type of treat or drink. Especially Mountain Dew and milk.
She plays peek-a-boo. She holds a little blanket over her face until you say, "Where's Olivia?" and then she will pull it down and go, "Baa."
She still loves pat-a-cake. And is quite good at it. She can do the roll it and roll it and the mark it now.
She says the word bird all the time. And she knows right where it is. (My sister has one.) If you ask her where the bird is she gets all excited and will point up the stairs or in the general direction the bird is in.
She loves music and dancing. Especially the upbeat songs. (Michael's music.) She immediately starts flapping her arms up and down when it comes on.
She loves giving kisses to everyone. Her kisses are the cutest thing ever. She will open her mouth up really wide and then put it on your cheek and stick her little tongue out.
It's definitely a wet kiss. But I could get those kisses all day.
She loves to read. The second I put her down on the ground she crawls right over to her little book shelf and pulls off all the books and then sits there and looks at them.
She lets out a high shrill scream when she is being bugged or when someone takes something away from her.
She loves to bite toes so never leave your feet dangling when she's on the ground.
She has 7 teeth now. And they're sharp little ones.
When she gets excited she does her little nose scrunch and starts breathing really really hard and flapping her arms.
Feeding her any meal is quite the process because she will not just eat one thing. She likes to have like 6 different things. So say we start with cottage cheese, she will eat that for a minute and then will purse her lips and bat it away. So I will give her a banana and so on.
She loves to be outside.
She gives high 5s.
She loves loves to be the center of attention and loves to do her little tricks so that people will praise her. For example, she has recently started being able to stand by herself for about 20 seconds. So when she does she will get this big smile on her face and start flapping her arms so that everyone will say, "Yay Olivia!!"
She is very opinionated and knows exactly what she wants when she wants it. If she doesn't get it, her little eyebrows go down and she gets seriously ticked.
So we generally try not to mess with her.
Well at least I do.
Michael doesn't because he likes to get a rise out of her.
She follows me around everywhere I go.
She can open doors. Well only the one in her bedroom. We close the door when we put her down to sleep and when she wakes up we will peek around the corner and see her little head poking out the door haha. (One side of her crib is right by the door).
She can already open drawers and cupboards. Pretty sure I'm in for it.
Well I could go on.
But she's definitely the cutest little handful ever.
And I love every second of being her mom.

Sleeping Olivia:

It really doesn't get any cuter than a sleeping baby.
Especially when they stick their little bums straight up.
I love that.
One of Michael and I's favorite things to do is to check on Olivia periodically through the night.
(If you were a fly on our wall, every night, you would hear one of us say, "lets go get her up." and then the other will say, "you want to?" But of course we don't actually wake her up because we know one of the cardinal rules of parenthood is never wake a sleeping baby. Especially a little fireball like Olivia.)
However, we do go in to just look at her.
She's always in the cutest little positions.

It's impossible to look at our little Olivia without feeling like the luckiest parents in the world.
And feel so blessed that she is ours.
Ours forever.

Dropping Winston off at the MTC:

September 7, 2011
I can't believe that this day has come and gone so very quickly.
At times it seemed as if it would never come.
I think part of me didn't want it to ever come.
Obviously because I didn't want Winston to be gone for 2 whole years.
But of course a bigger part of me did because it's what he is supposed to be doing.
And I know that there is nothing better for him to do now than to serve the Lord these next 2 years.
Here's how our day went.
Oh gosh, this might be hard to write, but I am sure I will look back and want to remember every detail.
So if you don't want to cry I suggest you skip this post!
We woke up, it was a long night for some in the family.
My poor mom slept on the ground right next to his bed.
I don't think she slept much.
We were supposed to drop him off at the MTC at 12:55 pm.
So we finished up last minute packing and just talked.
We said a family prayer before leaving.
Which I don't remember at all because the tears were flowing at this point.
We stopped at Wal-mart so he could grab a few last minute things and then headed to McDonalds to grab a quick lunch.
Haha our last lunch was at Mcdonalds.
But it was close and quick.
Plus those smoothies are pretty good.
The whole family was squished into the excursion minus Michael who was at school.
I think everyone took turns having their moments of tears.
And we spent a lot of time talking to Winston about how he was feeling.
Obviously he didn't quite know what to think.
A lot of excitement and of course nervousness.
I'm sure he could hardly believe this day had come.
We drove to the Provo temple and got out to take a few last photos.
Again, we all had our moments.
For me it was a constant battle to hold back the thousands and thousands of tears that just wanted to come out.
It was nearly impossible to even look at him with out crying.
One of the hard things for me was to see him with Olivia and know that for 2 years she would have no idea who he was.
And I want her to know who he is because since the second she was born he has loved her more that I thought he would. (I honestly didn't think a 18 year old boy would take such an interest in a baby girl.)
Oh the emotions of me.
I've gotta get control.
I'm not going to lie, it might be a while.
So every one of course wanted their last minute pictures with him.
And then the time came.
Most of the family decided to not say goodbye yet and wait for the quick drop off.
We figured ripping the bandaid off quickly would be better than slowly pulling it off.
We pulled into the MTC and were guided to the curb side where we quickly all got out.
We were greeted by a "veteran" (fellow missionary who had probably been in a week haha,
who helped us take out his luggage.
We all stood in a circle as Winston went around giving everyone a quick hug.
Everyone was bawling.
Except Winston and Michael.
You could tell he was holding back tears and trying to be so strong.
I think this made it a tad bit easier on my parents.
And then he walked off.
We all sat there watching him walk all the way up the sidewalk and into the doors.
Okay is this torture or what.
Seriously there is no sugar coating this.
It was awful.
Especially when he would turn and look back along the way.
Oh my gosh it was horrible.
Now to the positive.
Hmmm.
I'm sure we'd be bawling harder if he wasn't going!
There ya go.
Deep down somewhere I am so very happy for Winston and would not have it any other way.
He will be so amazing and I can't wait watch him grow and see how other people's lives are blessed because of this sacrifice.
Let the countdown begin!

We're off to the MTC!

Stopping at the Provo temple to take a few last pictures.

Dad and Winston.
He's already bawling.
But we all were and had been for days.

The boys.

Elder Farr.

The girls.

The last family photo for the next 3 1/2 years.
Not going to lie, a depressing thought.

Dad, Winston, Mom.

Winston and Olivia.

Emerson and Winston.

Me and Winston.

Hanging around waiting for the dreadful 12:55pm.
I swear we all had the biggest pits in our stomachs.

The famous MTC curb.

Saying goodbyes

Oh my poor mother.

There he goes...

I love you so much Winston and am so very proud of you!

The day Winston became an official missionary!

Here is our handsome Winston right before he was set apart.
I cannot even explain to you how wonderful this night was.
(Unless you've you've been to one before. Then you have an idea.)
As we walked into the Stake President's office the spirit was SO strong that all 10 of us were brought to tears.
Tears of joy, and pure love for eachother, especially for Winston.
But most of all tears of gratefulness to our Heavenly Father and Savior for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and our knowledge and testimonies that we have of missionary work.
And that for the next to years our Winston's responsibility was to serve the Lord with all his heart and in return not only would he be blessed but we would also.
Winston has been preparing for this day for so long and we could feel his love and devotion to Heavenly Father and that he was worthy and ready to serve.
And we couldn't be prouder.
Our Stake President, President Carpenter, is a dear friend of the family who has known Winston for a long time.
He talked to us for a while giving lots of good advice. (He's sent out 5 missionaries)
He just sent out his 5th, Caleb, whom we all pretty much consider a brother.
He told us how hard it was to have Caleb leave and how he broke down that night and has just started to recover. (He's been out 3 weeks)
We were like, "Oh really." When does Caleb land in Trinidad?"
He looks up at the clock and says, "In about 5 minutes."
We just all busted up and were like sounds like you're doing better!
Anyway had to share that. (Probably only funny if you were there.)
Winston's blessing was one of the most incredible blessings I think I've ever heard.
He was blessed with health and safety and assurance that his family would be fine back home.
He was told how proud his Heavenly Father is of him and how much He loves him.
He was blessed to have a very good relationship with his mission president who was already preparing him to come. That he knew Winston and already loved him very much. And was already praying about where to assign him and whom his companion should be.
The part that stood out the most I think was when the stake president's voice got really loud as he said that Winston's testimony would be so powerful that the people who saw him bear it would see a fire in eyes and that they would not be able to deny of its truthfulness.
What an incredible blessing for Winston and for our family to hear.
We know Winston has so much to offer the people in Atlanta and can't wait for him to share his experiences with us.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true.
And he knows that with every fiber in his being or he wouldn't be doing this.
And let's face it, we wouldn't be letting him do it either.

The family with Elder Winston Farr!
(In case your are wondering where our cute Olivia is. She home snug in her crib being babysat by my best friend's mom.)

As you can see we left the packing until the very last minute. Literally.
So this is the family trying to get him all organized. And friends saying their goodbyes.

For those of you who know Winston, know that he loves Mountain Dew.
(He's tried to go off it the past month. And he's done well.)
But I made apple dumplings for dessert that have the special ingredient of Mountain Dew!

Texas Roadhouse:

Thursday September 1, 2011
Just the 4 older kids, Me, Sophia, Winston, and Emerson went to Texas Roadhouse.
It is becoming a family favorite mostly because Sophia works there.
And cause if we go with her we get a 30% discount.
Which is just great.
So we went and filled up on their amazing rolls before we even had the chance to order.
It was our waitress's first day and she really struggled.
I really had no clue what was going on.
The loud country music playing and the thought that this would be the last time the 4 of us ate out together like this for at least 3 1/2 years was a bit distracting.
So when the waiter came to take my order, I order applesauce as one of my sides and got laughed at because they have a lot of other better choices such as salads, potatoes, and vegetables. And then to top it off. I requested that my steak be medium well-done. And got the weirdest look from the waiter and a lot of laughs from the siblings.
I really had no business being there haha.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun just the 4 of us.

Winston's farewell:

August 28, 2011
I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since this happy occasion and I am just barely posting about it.
It's been crazy around here.
Crazy busy and crazy emotional. (I'll get to that in another post).
But for now the good stuff.
The long awaited day of Winston's farewell was finally here.

Preparations for this day had been going on the entire week.

Probably even longer.

No joke.

Banners, blog invites, centerpieces, food, and lots of cupcakes (we're talking 120) were made.

And by 9:00 am Sunday morning we were sitting at church looking up at our handsome future missionary on the stand.

His talk was from Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk from April's general conference entitled, "As many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten."

It was a bit emotional to say the least.

I mean here is this incredible boy who has tried so hard to live his life worthily to be where he was.

And he did it.

And we couldn't be more proud.

He couldn't be more ready to serve the Lord.

And if you heard his talk, and felt the overall spirit that was at that meeting, you would know that.

The other wonderful part of the day was to see all the love and support for Winston from family and close friends.

I'm sure it was a day that will never be forgotten.

I made that Called to Serve sign.
Gotta love the Cricut!

Me and Winston.

The 4 oldest kids.

Olivia sharing Gatorade with uncle Emerson.
She loves really any type of drink.
Her tongue goes all crazy when there is any sign of one!

Playing with cousins inside.
It was dang hot outside.

We were so glad uncle Stephen was able to be there.

Playing with uncle Winston.
Cause that's what they did.

Me and my baby girl.

Winston and Olivia.

The typical "Ohhhh" face I make when she cries!
And the typical boy face...laughing!

Me, Olivia, Winston.

The whole gang.

So very tired.
Long day with lots and lots of people.

Little Winston completely wiped out after being the center of attention.
I don't blame him.