Salt Lake Temple

Last week my mom and I went to Temple Square in Salt Lake to visit my Aunt Karen and Uncle Roger. They are serving a mission for our church in the Church History Center. My Aunt was able to find my Great Grandmother's jouranl in the archives and she is planning to write it up for our family. It was really neat to see what they do and feel the strong spirit that is present on temple square and even in the lunchroom where the missionaries eat. On our way back to the car we took the opportunity to take some pictures. Jessica is just over 3 years old and Kelsi is 14 1/2 months.

This is a beautiful mural in the lobby of the church office building.

For perspective, you can see Jessica in the bottom right corner. This is the Salt Lake Temple where we were married.

Grandma and Kelsi

The flowers on Temple Square are gorgeous! We had a good time taking pictures.

Preschool!

This week was Jessica's first week of preschool. We are doing a co-op preschool in our court. There are 8 moms involved and 9 kids (1 set of twins). We meet twice a week and the moms have teamed up to take a week- so you teach 1 week out of 4. So far its been a little crazy, but good. The kids seem to really enjoy it. Here is Jessica's "First day of Preschool" picture. She told DJ that she went to "Pre-swork"

We were excited that the weather has cooled off and we got to try out a few of the new clothes my sister found for the girls. We are a huge fan of Kid to Kid at our house and my sister Brittany scored on tights! I obviously need to make some more bows for Kelsi, though. :)

This is from a few weeks ago, but I'll still post it here. I went down to hang out with Brittany, my sister, before school started for her. Her boys decided to have a lemonade stand the day I got there. They charged 25 cents for a small and 50 cents for a large and each ended up making $5 after helping to pay for supplies. The lemonade was SO good since Britt had bought a block of ice to go in it. The girls enjoyed their fair share.

Here they are with a customer. They had a lot of fun.

Dance Class

As many know, Jessica is a very active little girl. This fall, a dance class started in our community that was a reasonable price and within close walking distance so we decided to try it out. Tonight was Jessica's second class and here are some highlights. The little girl in the pictures with her is her friend Noel.

She had a delightful time and I had great fun watching her.

Hair do's

I have been having fun with Jessica's hair. She goes in waves where she will let me do her hair, and then for a few weeks she won't let me TOUCH it to wash it or comb it or anything. I still wash it of course, but she is not a happy camper about it. My sister came over and braided her hair and got her to hold still by telling her wild stories. I remember her making up stories when we were younger and I LOVED them. Anyway, It re-inspired me and several stories later... This is what you do if you have 1:00 church and have hours to keep her occupied before it starts. My mom made the girls matching dresses and then I made bows and bracelets to match. Didn't she do a great job? Some of these ideas have come off of a couple hair blogs including this one I've mention before and a blog about short hair.

And here is the back...

This was an inside-out braid. This story involved her favorites- Jack and the Beanstalk and the Giant and Kyler and Casen and Pyper and Jessica and Kelsi and Matt and Josh and Ben... Sometimes we add in Julia and Blake and Luke and Rachel and Ellie...

This hair do is a standard. I can use 6 different colors of elastics and it matches everything. I usually leave it in for an extra day or so. This particular day it had even survived swimming. She has 3 more elastics on the other side. This has been GREAT for growing out her bangs.

We're still working on Kelsi's hair...

And I thought Jessica was bald. This is Jessica just over one year old.

And this is Jessica at just over 14 months. Look at all that hair! I guess good things come to those who wait. :)

We still love our bald beauty, though. She is such a delight. I really want to catch her mischievous grin and camera, though... I thought her lip was cute in this picture. And she is definetly starting to get more hair.

Birthdays!

The Month from June 30-July 31st is crazy in my family for birthdays. It starts with Kelsi on the 30th, Matt and Jen and Chad on the 2nd of July, then Casen on the 12th, Luke somewhere around then, Jessica on the 29th and Pyper on July 31st, and I am sure I missed someone else. Here are some pictures from Jessica's and Pyper's Birthdays. That doesn't even include August with Julia and both of my Grandmas.

On Jessica's Birthday I decided the thing Jessica would love the very most would be to go to Grandma Nettie's house and go swimming. Not only that, but Grandma made her a cake that Jessica got to help decorate! She turned 3, but if you ask her how old she is, she says that she is 2 and turns 3 in July. She is in denial. I thought that didn't start until you were older.

Grandma Nettie gave the girls a dollhouse. It looks like they are sharing so nicely in the picture. We'll let you think that. :) It came in the mail hence the packing peanuts all over the floor.

Here we are are Liberty park for Jessica's and Pyper's birthday opening presents. That is Kyler looking on. Jessica adores her cousins. Kyler and Casen can do no wrong.

My mom (Grandma Bear) made the girls fabulous tutus.

They proceeded to turn everyone into animals. Here Grandpa was just turned into a monkey

As you can see from the top picture, the girls are the best of friends.

Bricks and Wolves

Jessica has a fixation with wolves. She both loves them and is afraid of them. She loves all nursery rhyme stories that include wolves and made-up wolf stories, especially ones about Jessica wolves and Kelsi wolves. Tonight as she was going to bed she said that she was scared of the fish, tigers and wolves. I explained to her how lucky we are that we live in a brick house- she has a cinderblock wall in her room. Cinderblocks come in handy sometimes. :) Tonight as she said her prayers she said "thank you that my wall is made of bricks" and again "thank you that our house is made of bricks." She was really sweet as she was going to bed.

Me

So my Aunt pointed out to me that there are no pictures of me on my blog so she could not point me out to her husband. Here are a few random pictures of me.

This first picture is with my lovely nieces Pyper, Jessica (okay- my daughter), and Julia on the 4th of July.

The next weekend we went up to Rexburg, ID for a family reunion and my Great-Uncle Melvin took us on a 3 hour horse ride through the sand dunes. You can kind of see them in the background. The ride was awesome and a perfect length.

While Jen was visiting (DJ's sister) we went to Seven Peaks and had a blast. We borrowed that floatie thing from Jen for Jessica and it was SOOOOO nice.

Here is a picture of me with Kelsi at the Hogle zoo. We live within minutes and have a membership which is a lot of fun and a lifesaver in the winter.

Happy 4th of July

Most of these pictures ae pretty self explanatory. I love her expression of delight.

Jessica and Pyper with DJ

Not all went well all of the time

Watching the fireworks in front of the house. From the left cousins Blake, Casen, Kyler, Julia, Jessica and Pyper.

Kelsi looking festive

Imagination

A couple of days ago Jessica decided that she wanted to hop like a bunny. I tucked a washcloth in her pants and cut paper ears and attached them with a barrette. That night I was walking home from watering our garden and someone was moving and had just put a bunch of toys and books beside the dumpster. I picked out some books and found these ears! Today she decided to be a bunny again. She makes a cute bunny, huh.

Just before the bunny episode, I asked what she wanted for lunch and she said "Flowers with worms in it." Who knows where she got that from, but I decided to do it just for the fun of it. She actually ate a pretty healthy lunch. The worms were a couple of pieced of spaghetti mixed in with a few monster cookie crumbs. The "leaves and stems" were lettuce and green beans that we had just picked out of our garden. Apparently she likes raw green beans. She ate them all the way home. (We are in an apartment complex and they have garden plots, but you have to walk to them). The "flowers" were apples and ham with a bit of pepperoni with a grape and cheese for centers.

We just got back from a family reunion in Rexburg, ID where my Great Uncle Melvin has a ranch with lots of horses on it. If you have ever seen the Americanas in a parade (black horses, american flags, Roman riders), he trains them. Jes has loved horses since she could talk, but she was always too afraid to get on one. This is her first time and she hasn't stopped talking about it since.