Devin's Graduation

The party doesn't end quickly in the Macfarlane family...

...the day after Kyle came home from Brazil, my youngest brother Devin graduated from Timpanogos High School!

We're so proud of him.

Getting his diploma.

 Dev and his adorable girlfriend Lisa before their graduation ceremony.

Me, Kyle, Devin, Larry

The four of us.

I LOVE these pictures of my brothers and me that we've been taking this week.  Words can't express how much I love all three of those guys.  And it's SO great to be together again!

Family. <3

Kyle is Home!

My little brother Kyle returned home from Sao Paulo, Brazil yesterday after giving two years of missionary service to our Savior.

It was such a happy day for me and my family.

Here are Larz and Andrew the night before...making "Welcome Home" posters in anticipation for our Elder's arrival.

My cousin Madison helping her super crafty mom and sisters decorate the outside of my parents' house before Kyle arrived.  (Megan, you're amazing!)

The decorating team at work

Here's our first glimpse of Kyle after two years...on the escalator at the SLC airport, with my parents and brother Devin--who were lucky enough to go to Sao Paulo to get Kyle and spend a few days with him before returning to the states!

Taylor at the SLC airport.  He was pretty happy to see his grandpa.

Larz is our family comedian.  It only took seconds after Ky's arrival to get him to laugh (at the funny poster he made for him on Sunday night).

Kyle and Grandma Mercer

Cousins Brittany and Bobby with Kyle, holding the fun poster Brit made for Kyle.

Kyle meeting my littlest guy for the first time--ever.  Russell was born only a few days before Kyle left home.

Siblings reunited!  Kyle, Larz, me, Devin.

Cousin love. Allen, Bobby, Larz, Brittany, me, Devin, Aaron, and Kyle

Russell insisting on helping Papa carry his suitcase out to his car.  Cute kid.  Sore grandpa.  Adorable pair.

Dad, Kyle and Mom at home.

We stayed up until midnight talking about Brazil, reminiscing, and just soaking-up every second of having Kyle here again.


I'm telling you, this guy is really great.  We've really missed him and are so proud of his great work and example.

Birthday Central

My baby is 2.

TWO!

That's amazing to me!  

For me, it seems like he got to two quicker than his older brother did.  Crazy how quickly these kids grow.

Russell and Taylor's birthdays are only ten days apart, so we plan to have a combined "buddy" celebration in June for both of them-- similarly to how we partied last year. 

When I greeted by boys yesterday morning with a "Good morning!" and "Happy Birthday, Russell!", I reminded Taylor of their party coming in the near future, in hopes that he wouldn't completly spaz over the absence of cake and ice cream that day. 


Okay, well, Taylor still had a cow.  But I'll give him a little credit--because his defensive reaction had nothing to do with cake.  He was trying to protect his brother.  Taylor made a clear argument that not having any celebrations for Russell on his birthday was definitely not an okay thing.

It was a good point.  Way to stand up for your little brother, Tay.

So we made plans.  After Russ's annual check-up with the pediatrician,

we would bake cookies so we could sing "Happy Birthday" to Russell and enjoy a special birthday treat together after dinner.

It was perfect, and Russell loved it...a lot.

We had to sing twice. 

It was a crazy time two years ago when I was in the hospital with just hours-old baby Russell.  Dare I admit?  In that moment, I had actually forgotten that it was Andrew's birthday!

Thankfully, I had a lot of help that year (thanks again to Donna, Andrew's mom, and my mom especially).  But hopefully that's as crazy it will ever get in our family of back-to-back-to-back birthdays.  I don't want to forget any of these three special guys in my life...even if it is just for a moment!

So here we are, two years later...and as I mentioned earlier, I am not pregnant or having a baby, so the Andrew Par-tay has been in full swing.

For starters, last weekend Andrew and I had a birthday dinner/movie date with two other couples in our ward (wish I had taken pics of that), and had a lot of fun.

Today, at Andrew's request, I managed to turn our favorite strawberry lemonade cupcakes 

into a delicious two-layer round cake in his honor.  It was just as tasty as the mini version.

And of course, we didn't forget gifts. :-)

I totally dig this guy! 

(and the little guy behind him, and the littler guy in his lap...)

I'll say for me, one good thing's for sure about having everyone's birthdays together: I am reminded about how blessed I am.  It can't get much better than this! 

I'm Alive

This blog has been on my mind for months now.  

Nagging me at the back of my mind, me knowing that I want to record my family's memories but somehow not being able to get myself to sit down for an hour and just post something....

...I realized that my neglect was getting really bad when MariLouise (who lives in Texas) called me just over a week ago to ask me if I was pregnant.  Our conversation went something like this:

ML: "I noticed that you hadn't been posting on your blog, hadn't been posting on Facebook, so I thought, it must be because Tiffany is sick and pregnant again!"

I laughed.  "Oh my.  No.  NO....I'm just a SLACKER!"

And after a very overdue, very uplifting conversation with my good friend, I hung-up the phone and began having visions of myself being back in the blogging world...

So, my dear friend ML, and all others who have been wondering if I've been morning sick or slowly dying (which would pretty much the same thing in my world), or something else rough-and-tough, here's proof that I am alive and kicking (and currently not expecting).  

Stay tuned...