Bon Iver

Happy early birthday to me! We took a quick trip to Mesa to see Bon Iver and Megafaun (at Mesa Arts Center) yesterday. We had an amazing time, and this marked the first time we've ever been to a concert where people carried wine glasses around and we were seated by an usher. It was quite an experience. :)

This place is beautiful! I had to take pictures outside while we waited for the show.

Bon Iver

This was the final song (before encore). They asked everyone to sing along and my video doesn't come close to showing how loud and incredible it was. It was just awesome!

"Did you give your sister a cheeto?.."

"...just a tiny one, Mom."

It's no wonder why Britt is Marnie's favorite person. A few days ago he gave her an Oreo. His excuse? "She looked like she needed one." What can I say?... he spoils her. :)

New Tricks

The kids have been perfecting a few new skills lately. :)

Marnie is ALMOST crawling. She decided a few days ago that it's more fun to get on your toes than it is to get on your knees.
{wow! I just noticed how huge her cheeks look at this angle!}
...and Yes, those are braids in her hair :)

Britt talked me into getting him some "safety scissors" (it's never just 'scissors,' ALWAYS 'safety scissors').
...and it's been a blast picking up all the microscopic pieces of paper :)

when life gives you grapes...

We've lived in our house for 4 and a half years now, and every fall we say, "we really should have gotten the grapes off the vines before the birds ate them all...maybe next year." So this year we actually did it. Over the last month I've been watching every few days to see if the grapes were being thieved by the flocks of birds living in our neighbors' trees. When I checked on Tuesday I decided it was time to harvest. I really didn't think the grapes had reached their full maturity yet, but I figured it's better to have slightly sour juice than no juice at all. It was actually VERY fun to harvest the grapes. Even more fun than pulling carrots from a garden or picking apples from a tree. I loved pulling leaves back to find hidden clusters of plump, purple grapes! Justin's grandma used to have a small vineyard and she had all the equipment we needed to turn our grapes into grape juice. Which is good, because we wouldn't have known what to do with them otherwise.
We all enjoyed "the harvest."






What MJ was doing while we picked grapes...

This is what was going on outside while we were "juicing."


The juice starting to flow..

The fruits of our labor! (actually, the 'juice' of our labor) I've never seen prettier juice.


All in all, it was a really fun thing to learn. I can promise that if we live in this house next September, we will definitely do it again. :)
Interesting side note: The grape vines at our house were planted {roughly} 40 years ago, by Justin's Great-Aunt Hazel and Great-Uncle Darrell. They came from a transplant of grape vines that Hazel got from Great-Grandpa Bryant... SO, the vines in our yard actually grew at Justin's Great-Grandpa's house almost a half century ago! It's cool to think that we're the 4th (and 5th) generation of Brimhalls/Bryants to harvest from these vines.

fun with Flickr

a boy and his fish...
Originally uploaded by jus&bri

lookin for trouble
Originally uploaded by jus&bri

that devilish grin...
Originally uploaded by jus&bri

rub-a-dub-dub
Originally uploaded by jus&bri

I'm having WAY too much fun with the cool photo editing tools on Flickr. :)

rub-a-dub-dub!

Have I mentioned how much i LOVE this boy's hair! He gets it wet and ten seconds later it looks like this. It was well worth the year and a half of baldness to get this end result. :)


Bath time has been a total blast since Marnie learned sit on her own. It's everyone's favorite time of the day. I could watch them splash and play together for hours!