Alyssa's B-day celebration

Right after McKinley's blessing, we celebrated my birthday with my parents and my niece who stayed with us for a few days after the blessing. It was such a nice day! It actually makes 2 year in a row that we were able to celebrate Father's Day and my birthday together with my parents.

I woke up to streamers and balloons around the house thanks to my wonderful kiddos. My parents got me this beautiful painting that was quite fitting to represent me, Lexi and McKinley in our three white dresses (Lexi will be getting baptized in February).

One of the best parts of the day was when we went to White Fence Farms in Denver. We'd heard it was a neat place so went to check it out. There were lots of fun things to see and do there. In the barn/ store there was this display of the constitution and the patriotic family that we are had to get the photo opp :)

Tyler lovin' the tire swing

Those are the cutest farm animals I've ever seen...my kids and my niece Alyxe and my dad.

Pretty little water garden

This one cracks me up... mis padres.

It also had a petting zoo, complete with stinky pigs and all

Maybe my family was meant for farm life after all.............maybe not!

Anyway if you're in Colorado and you haven't been to White Fence Farms, you might want to give it a try. They have family style dining with good ol' home cookin' and they also have a 2- story slide in the silo and a great playground and lots of other stuff.

It was such a nice day - thanks everyone!

(Sorry I posted this picture again by mistake and can't delete it)

McKinley's Blessing

On Father's Day we had McKinley Madison blessed at church and we were lucky to have almost all of our family there. McKinley had on a gorgeous dress my mother got her, almost as gorgeous as McKinley herself...but not quite :)!

Getting a picture of our little family (although not as little anymore) proved pretty tricky, but we ateast have something for posterity.

Here are a few pics of the little lady on her big day with some family...

with Gramma Suzie

with Grandma Lincoln (after Kinners got changed)

with almost all of the Lincoln side of the fam from Utah and Oregon

with some of the Butler side of the family from Arizona

with handsome big brother Tyler

with adoring sister Lexi

with Colton who can't help but steal kisses constantly



We had a lot of fun with everyone here. Although it was near impossible to go and do a lot with so many people, we enjoyed our time just hanging out.

You could find Jedi s fighting (Tyler and his Cuz Jonah, with matching jammies - by coincidence)

You could always find all the little kids climbing all over my dad - he was like the pied piper with kids! They barely ever let him sit down, they'd always come within a couple minutes and start pulling him outside again, saying "C'mon, you're our playground!"

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of great pictures of our "idle time", but there was a lot of eating, lounging and playing outside or downstairs where it was cooler, playing Wii or other games on iPads (new toys a couple people had), watching movies, playing dress-up and other games etc.

It has kind of become a tradition when our family gathers for one of children's blessings, that we have a big picnic at the park the day before and order a 6 ft. sub (man, those things can go a long way) and the kids all play etc. We've played disc-golf or flown kites and this time Nate launched some rockets. Luckily, the weather has cooperated everytime (but I can't say as much for the day of the blessing - hence the crazy blizzard in April for Tyler's blessing when church was actually cancelled!)

A few days before the blessing, my brother Aaron's family came and we were able to do a few fun things before everyone showed up. We went to the zoo with them and had a great time. Again, we weren't able to get very good pictures our our lil' trip, but here's a few...

The kids got to go on the sky ride for the first time.

Colton saw a gorilla for the first time. There was a big silverback sitting, crammed in a corner with a fierce look on his face, and Tyler said "That gorilla's giving himself a timeout!"

These alligators seem to have a smile that says "You look like a tasty treat!"

Lovin' the giraffes.

The whole week was wonderful! We sure love when family comes to visit! (hint, hint)