Post 5: One Day Vacation

Jon and I LOVE Salt Lake City. I know it is an almost unreachable dream, but I would love to move back and live here someday. We took a day off and went to explore Temple Square.

Claire couldn't have been Happier. She could go almost wherever she wanted and she enjoyed every minute of it.

Well until something like this would happen. She would get so mad when Marcella tried to make her go where she wanted, but .....

Claire would have none of that. When she saw her chance she would take it...

And run her little heart out.

We decided to take a tour of the Conference Center first. It is beautiful and amazing.

Both girls liked the top the best. I think they liked it mainly because they could just run around and climb up on things. I loved the view. All the wildflowers were in bloom. It smelt like heaven up there.

Then we headed over to have lunch at the Lion House. It was the perfect place to eat. We sat outside and when the girls were done eating they just played on the steps and the grass while Jon and I got to enjoy our meal. It was fabulous.

Next stop: Temple Square. Marcella loved this fountain.

and this one...

mainly because she was splashing her Daddy.

She loved this one too.

Claire was still in her "running around mode" so I couldn't get her to hold still by Marcella next to the Christus. I love being able to go and see this statue. It is so calming to just sit and look at it.

Next stop was Gateway to let the girls play in the water. I will let you decide who had more fun.

This will go down as one of my favorite days. It was so nice to spend time together and for the most part it was all free. I can't wait until we can do it again.

Post 4: Summer days Driftin' away....

Marcella Bella has been having a lot of fun this summer. We have spent days outside running through the sprinklers or playing in our kiddie pool, although this week has been the first time it's been warm enough that you can actually sit in the kiddie pool and not feel like you stepped in the water at the north pool. Marcella and I are loving it. (Claire not so much. We usually go out while she is taking a nap, maybe next year she will enjoy it more.)

Post 3: The Cabin

We headed up to Yellowstone this trip and had a lot of fun checking out all the animals. Here are the girls trying to stay warm while we were looking at the Bison.

These three waited I think their whole LIVES for this. Or in other words it took FOREVER for Old Faithful to finally go off.

While this little one was pretty content just hanging out with her new best friend Uncle Spencer.

This would be the one who decided that going to to cabin without Jon and taking the two girls would be a fabulous idea. For the most part it was, but there were other times I was wondering what I was thinking.... for instance...

Take this sweet innocent little Claire... Almost 2 (and I am wondering what wonderful things I am going to learn in her terrible 2's stage that I am not learning right now.) She looks so sweet, but don't let that fool you. I had just spent the last 20 minutes trying to get her to keep her shoes on. After pure exhaustion on my part I gave up and ....

I gave her a stick and I ran for the marshmallows. I was in desperate need of a perfect s'more.... well you know what happens when you become a mother. The things you want are no longer first priority and when I looked over at this little one signing PLEASE like crazy I just gave in and gave it to her.

Yummy--that was good. Just as I finished roasting one for myself, I looked over and I saw this...

How could you not give it to her. Look at those eyes. It is like she is saying, "Momma are you really going to eat that?" So on to number 2.

And Three....

Four..
Right after number five I noticed Claire was just chilling. She looked like if she had one more she would have popped! So instead I asked for a smile and got this...

and I got to finally eat my s'more. YUMMY!!

Here is Claire in her Marshmallow coma. (Side note - this cabin trip was pretty cold. It ended up being pretty raining and it even snowed on us. Mom had to do some finishing work on the windows of the room we were staying in so we kept the heater blowing on the windows almost the whole time to help them dry out. boy did it make our little room nice and toasty warm. it was great!)

Thanks so much to everyone who helped me out on this trip. you guys are the best! I am going to be really sad that we won't be able to take trips up here as often as we would like.

Post 2: A little more

Marcella had her Sweet Pea (that's the name of her class) graduation for preschool. They sang some cute songs. She has had a blast this year and LOVES learning and going to school.

She was super suprised to see Grandma, Grandpa and Nathan there. Thanks for coming, guys.

We now have another nephew to add to the clan. David and Rosalee had a little boy and named him Henry. He is so sweet and tiny. We sure love him.


We did it. The first of many pictures of Claire smiling that are actually in focus. Love it!


Now for a little teaser. What do you think we did for Memorial Weekend.... Let's just say there were a lot of little cow girls running around.

What have we been up to lately (Post 1)

Well I sure haven't posted in a while. So here is the first of hopefully many updates in the next couple of days. The end of April we moved down the street to basically house sit for some friends. After we got that all settled and most of our stuff in storage we started doing some fun things.


I ran in the Race for the Cure with my friend from high school Sandy Jo! It was so good to see her even though I wouldn't say it was a "race" I am still loving the fact that I like to run now. Hopefully this will last long enough that I might even get better at it.

Then this little one....


and all her cross-eyed cuteness went in for surgery on May 12. After being told by one eye doctor that "we should only do surgery to fix her strabismus around 1st grade or so...we should really wait to see if she is even 'high-functioning' before we do surgery," I decided that I needed another opinion. After talking with the second doctorwe decided that it would be better to fix her eyes now. He reasoned that good vision would give her a chance to develop to the best of her ability. We heartily agree.

This is the only picture I got right after the surgery, and I am a little sad I didn't get a better one. The poor girl had a huge black eye and looked completely miserable. The worst part about her recovery was when I found out I have the Dougal fainting genes. I could barely even hold her because I felt so sick seeing her like that. It was awful. By the next day though she was up and running around.

By Sunday (May 15)....

She decided it would be fun to take a walk by herself. We were all in Caroline's backyard just playing and I looked around and looked at Jon and said, "Where's Claire?" We went into panic mode, running around to the front of the house hoping that she wasn't in the road. Jon looked around and saw her six houses down, holding Jeff's neighbor's hand, walking back towards us. Relieved that she wasn't hurt or playing in the road, it was pretty funny she was 6 houses away just cruisin' on the sidewalk.
What a little stinker!


Even though she still looks a little miserable in this picture, she was having the time of her life. She would be happy if we just let her go wherever she desires. Take sacrament meeting, for example. She's miserable on the bench, but completely happy just running around the gym. She doesn't have to have toys, books, or food - she just wants to walk and run and be free.



This was our entertainment that night. It was fantastic. They sang us a couple of songs as we roasted marshmallows on Caroline's fire pit. It was amazing.

I love that these two love playing together. It is so fun to hear there conversations and watch them play. They are so cute.



Jon and I took a little trip to Indiana to find a place to live this fall when Jon starts at Purdue (Nauvoo Temple above). We had so much fun. Thank you so much to the Grandmothers who took the girls for us. You are the best.

We had some awesome luck looking for houses and we were able to close on this one just last week.



Jon and I both agree that, while it's not our dream house (I want an old small brick house that has lots of character and he wants to be surrounded by land and a forest), it will be more than fabulous for us now. Going from a 725 sq. foot apartment to something with a garage and more than one tiny bathroom will be amazing. We can't wait to come and move in!! To BE Continued....

I'm Dreaming...

Yes, I know I shouldn't be saying this, but I really am dreaming of "a white Christmas". I was looking through some pictures and I stumbled upon this one. I would love to snuggle up in a blanket right now with that delicious looking cup of hot chocolate and watch the snow come down. (I know I will be regretting this post the middle of this week when it is really snowing...) Happy Dreaming!

one down...

I must admit I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I have enjoyed Anne of Green Gables. I love the whole series, but for some reason the first one has always been my least favorite. I have never been able to get past the first 30 pages and so I listened to it once and moved on to my favorites.

While reading, I kept going back to many forgotten day dreams. I used to think about how nice it would be to live in the 1900's. To live in a simpler time. Granted I would miss being able to flip a switch and have light, flushing a toilet, or flying in an airplane, but when I think about that time period I can't help but imagine it was more unique and magnificent in so many ways.

I love that Anne is so descriptive. For the few days of reading I have been transported and "lived" the life I would have loved to. I love that Anne has red hair. It makes my connection with her feel that much stronger.

I love that you can read a book and gain insight into what you can do to make your life better. When I came across this passage, for example, it just hit me.

"It's really wonderful, Marilla, what you can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain person."

What a simple thought that has power in it's meaning. Hopefully you along with me can take this small morsel and change the way we think or feel about someone in our life. How great the world would be if we put all efforts in trying to please one person we know.

I urge all to read or reread this book. It is delightful. If you are anything like me and would love to live back when, you will see yourself in Avonlea walking right alongside Anne. Enjoy.

"UP"

"UP" is what you will hear Claire say after you get her off Marcella's table. She has started to climb and thinks it's sooooo funny. I will usually hear a conversation that goes something like this:

"Claire.. oh, no. Claire! Mom! Mom! it's a emergency, emergency. Claire, that's so dangerous. You need to be safe Claire."

I will go into their room and find something similar to this. Except yesterday she thought it would be funny to stand up on the table. What a silly goose! Hope you all have a fabulous day!