Cameron turns 7!

Cameron celebrated his 7th bday on Sunday! It was fun to be in Pittsburgh with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents to celebrate--that hasn't happened since he turned one!  Cameron is a great kid--here's what we love about him:

1. He's our little science guy--he can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about animals and science stuff.  He's learning about fungus right now at school--today he wanted to do an experiment to grow mold on a piece of bread. Is that FUN or what?!

2. He loves books--he asked Santa for science books last year. 

3. He can make friends with anyone.

4. He says his prayers and reads scriptures every night all on his own. 

5. The force is strong with this one--young Jedi Cameron. 

6. He loves hanging out with his Dad. He still hugs me when I drop him off at school. He is a great brother to his sisters (most of the time). 

Cam--Happy Birthday! We love you so much. 

Weekend in Pittsburgh

We are just 4 short hours away from Blaine's brother Phil and his family! We went there last weekend to celebrate the birthdays of Grandpa Bell, Emma, and Cameron (on the 18, 19, & 21) and to see our sweet neice Emma be baptized. Our sweet Dad Blaine was left at home once again because he had to be at a mandatory class over the weekend and it was so sad that he wasn't there with us and his whole family! Emma's baptism was wonderful! She set a great example for all her cousins. Then we headed to Chucky Cheese for more celebration--our kids LOVE that place. Great times! AND--we saw our dear friends the Westovers who just moved to Pittsburgh which was wonderful! I forgot to take any pictures but they are doing great!

Hanging out downtown with Grandma

We spent the afternoon hanging out downtown with Grandma Bell on a beautiful day! I love this city! We went to the National Aquarium which wasn't spectacular--but it kept the kids entertained. Then we just strolled past the White House and had a great time. We LIVE here!! So fun! 

Wearing Mommy's "Slippers"

So Ellie loves to wear my high heels---she calls them her "slippers". Every little girl needs a pictures in their mom's high heels right? 

Moving on!

It's taken me awhile to post since our move here to Fairfax, VA! It took awhile to get our internet up and going, and its just been busy getting settled in! But we are here and settled in to our place here. (Pictures of our place will come soon). I'm really liking our place here--its a townhome with three levels in a real quiet cul-de-sac. The basement is by far the greatest thing--we have all the toys downstairs and its been GREAT to just send the kids downstairs to play! So, its starting to sink in that we really LIVE here now! Cameron started 1st grade.His school is just down the street so he loves that we walk to school everyday. Blaine started his LLM program at George Washington University, and life is going good. I am less than 2 miles from my dear friend Natalie and that has been so fun to see her just like our Lexington days. Our ward is really nice---there are A LOT of attorneys in our ward. Senator Hatch is in our ward--he was there on Sunday. It was really hard to leave Lexington. It has been home for the last 5 years and really hard to leave such a great place, and even harder to leave all or our incredible friends there. Y'all better come for a visit! We miss you so much. Thank you for being our "family" in Kentucky.

We are also excited for Baby Blood #4 that is on the way (if you didn't know already)! I am about 12 weeks now and I'm due in March! We (unlike the Westovers!) are just having ONE baby. I was going to do some cute post to "announce" in a more exciting way--but we better just finally let everyone know! It's gonna be an exciting year!



Cam our 1st grader!



We went to the Nat'l Air and Space Museum Annex--which is a huge hangar of full sized famous planes. Here we are by the SR-71-the world's fastest plane, Blaine in front of the Enterprise--a full sized space shuttle (really cool) and my Dad in front of the "Enola Gay"--the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. So many cool things to do here!

Ellie turns TWO!

Ellie and her bday cake!

Enjoying her cake and presents!

Our little chatter box and copy cat Ellie Jane turned two on August 18th! She was thrilled with the cake, the presents, the attention! Here's some of our favorite things about Ellie:
1. Those dimples and blond curls just make her cute no matter what she's doing.
2. Her talking--she is quite the talker. She has quite the vocabulary these days. One of our favorite thing she says is when we ask her what she's doing she replies, "nothsing". She loves to tell everyone what to do, 'Cameron don't do that" or " Guys, stop it!"
3. Her dance moves.
4. She loves dresses and when we put them on she twirls around singing, "ahhh ahh ahhh" like Ariel.
5. Her kisses come with a big "MMMAAA".
6. This shouldn't be funny but it is--she loves to tattle on us. She comes up when she's sad about something and says (while pointing at the person) "Cameron did it" or "Daddy did it".

Thanks to Brian and Liz for celebrating with us! We love you Ellie!!

On to Kirtland, OH from Michigan

We went to Kirtland, OH on our way home from Michigan. That has been on our "to do list" since we moved to Kentucky 5 years ago and we wanted to make sure we got there since we are so close!
We had a great visit. The Church has a beautiful visitors center there and we saw the N.K. Whitney store and home, the Kirtland Temple, the Isaac Morley farm (who is my 3rd great grandfather), and the John Johnson farm. Every site was really special. We stayed in a hotel--the kids love that. My sister Aleta and some of her family came with us from Michigan--which made it all the better!!


Our family at the Kirtland Visitors Center

Sitting in the room where the "School of the Prophets" was held.

In front of the Newell K. Whitney store

At the Isaac Morley farm. Notice how much "fun" Ellie is having--this documents the mood
she was in for the majority of our time in Kirtland.


In front of the Kirtland Temple.