SEDONA

a few photos from our day in sedona.  we drove up from the valley to visit jerome, the town where my grandma grew up, and then we kept on going till we hit the red rocks for a little mini hike. 

CAN YOU GET OVER THAT RED ROCK!

huck + theo are the best little duo. their temperaments are so well-matched, they don't wrestle over toys too much, they seem to move about the same pace and like all the same things. they had such a blast playing together, it broke my heart to split them up. brandon's been telling "huck + theo" stories at bed time all week, it's huck's favorite thing. they always start with theo meeting huck at the airport in arizona and usually end up involving lizards somehow. i have a ton of photos just like these from when we were at the native american crafts market. the boys found themselves a table to crawl under and then passed this ice cream cone back and forth, taking turns having a bite, laughing hysterically the whole time like they had just invented the funniest thing anyone could do. it was so adorable i sort of had to roll my eyes. huck is really into talking about what makes something funny these days. he's always doing goofy things around the house and then saying, "mom, that's a pretty funny thing to do, right?" 

related: the other night huck was holding a few bananagram tiles and needed to free up a hand, so he stuck the tile in his left hand between his chin and his shoulder, like you would with a phone. brandon and i started to laugh, and henry stopped what he was doing and looked up at us in slow motion from one side of his face, trying not to let the tile slip out, with this ridiculous look on his face. we started laughing harder, and he got it, he knew it was funny, but he didn't want to let the tile drop, so he'd laugh with us and then clamp his neck shut and then we'd all laugh even harder. i mean, i guess you had to be there? anyway, huck. 

thirty minutes in this spot trying to nail a decent family photo. did we get one? nnnnnope.*** so, yes, there were t-shirts involved with this reunion. each of the original siblings picked a color for their families to wear, and three of them chose slightly different shades of red. we're the ones in the brown-red, you see. maroon. oxblood! you should have seen us at the haunted hamburger in jerome. we took over, all these silly t-shirts and the waitress standing there in the middle of us with her hair falling in her face and this crazy stressed look in her eyes. brandon, patron saint of waiters, made sure she got a good tip. (brandon worked as a waiter through college, so tipping well and being kind to waiters is his superpower.)

amanda did the whole hike with a fat baby strapped to her chest. super woman! (she's got him in a beco for those who are curious.)

knew those old cowboy boots i found at the thrift store in idaho six years ago would come in handy one day :).

and thus concludes the 2014 lovin reunion posts.  

***update. we did get one! here it is, thanks sandy!