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Monday, May 23, 2011

Ice Cream Cones, Sunshine & Gardening

We have been enjoying the sporadic sunshine around here. Last week the weather went like this: Monday-Fair, Tuesday-Snow & Rain, Wednesday-Sun, Thursday-Sun & Rain, Friday-Stormy & Rain, Saturday-Warm & Fair. Did you see the word SNOW in there?! Yes...It is now the middle of May and there was snow and frost. I really feel sorry for all of the farmers who will end up having really late crops. I mean we have already lost three flats of Marigolds (that is 24 plants!) and our other plants do look a bit sketchy, but we still planted them...I really hope we still get our pepper plants! We decided to take our chances and plant our garden on Saturday. As for the rest of the week...here are some pictures!


For Family Home Evening we had a lesson on temples and ice cream cones. This is Brooke's first ice cream cone! She thought it was pretty fun. I stopped taking pictures after a while and then she decided to attack the bottom of the cone. So she licked down to the cone and then ate the crunchy part of the cone. Oh and of course there are some lovely "cheese" pictures of Tori too.


On one of the sunny days the girls wore their play dresses outside. (Tori loves her rainbow dress and I LOVE this little blue and turquoise number Brooke is wearing. Livy, Tori and Brooke all wore this dress and it actually looked good on all 3 of them!) Tori always goes outside and finds herself a baton, you know for conducting music. She is still really into Little Einsteins. My favorite picture is definitely the one of them hugging. Tori is getting better with Brooke and sometimes comforts her when Brooke is sad by singing her songs. It's cute. The spontaneous hugs are my favorite.


CUTENESS...need I say more? Look at those blue eyes and curls!


Tori helped plant the garden on Saturday. I caught a few pictures. She hugged and kissed many of the seeds that went into the ground. She is a natural gardener and after a few examples, she planted two rows of onions and one row of bush peas. (And if you are wondering...yes, she does garden only in a shirt, underwear and her princess tennis shoes! :) )


And last but not least...these are pictures of my beautiful irises for my mom. She loves irises and I would probably bring you some in June like I did last year, but I am afraid that as I drive there solo they will just make a mess in the back of my car! :) Pictures last longer anyway!

Monday, May 16, 2011

MAYhem

Well, not too much to report. I have been keeping myself busy with snot galore! The girls had a cold that lasted 2 weeks and there is still residual snotty noses, but at least we were able to take them to church yesterday!
I saw WICKED! I went to see the play Wicked with a whole bunch of ladies from my ward. I really lucked out with the ticket (Candace moved to California just a few weeks before the play) and I got an amazing seat right in the center and got to sit next to my lovely friend Alli (Thanks again Candace!). I forgot my camera, but if you want to see a blog about it, click here...there is a picture of me demolishing a cheesecake with Alli.
I have also been working on Tori's baby book...I know...I am a little behind, but I am glad that I waited because Shutterfly now has a photo book where I can do the layout and add stickers and such. I have also been reading. I think I will add the Goodreads widgit to my blog and you can keep up with my reading.
I really need you all to vote on which name we are going to name our little girl (please see poll to the left)...I think that it will come down to either Sarah or Katelyn. Her middle name will be Amelia, no matter what, but I think it will take a nice good look at her beautiful face to actually know her name. It is kind of driving Jason crazy, because we pray for her saying just "baby"(all the other kids we used their names), but I just cannot commit this time. Next time I go to the doctors I will get pictures of the pretty girl again. I can't wait! As for the rest, we will let the pictures do the talking.

I love these pictures of Tori in her Sunday dress, barefoot and playing in the dirt! Ha ha ha! She loves to find herself some Roly-Poly bugs!


Feliz Cinco de Mayo! We celebrated by having a Cafe Rio lunch. Both of my girls LOVE black beans. Tori also loves Horchata. Jason actually took the whole day off and we got a lot of stuff done around the house. (That was one of my Mother's Day presents...a day with my whole family that was not a busy Saturday...MUCH needed!)


Tori received two birthday packages. One from Auntie Marie and one from Auntie Lora. Marie bought her the amazing Rapunzel dress and Lora bought the Rapunzel doll and Prince Eric. Tori was not a fan of the dress until she got her doll and realized that it was the exact same one as her Rapunzel toy, and then she was in it for most of the day! She danced, napped, watched Tangled, and played with Rapunzel ALL day long. Rapunzel has barely left her side since. One flaw, Rapunzel has 17" of hair...which really means it is one tangled(pun intended) mess all of the time! YIKES! Oh and Ariel called and she was jealous that Prince Eric was getting kisses from Princess Victoria and Rapunzel!


Playing with playdough. Meet Tori's family of worms. Mom, Dad, Grandma Frann, Grandpa Lee, Baby in Mommy's tummy (that is what she calls the baby within), Adam and Tiffany.


Brooke and her pigtails. Her hair gets curlier every day! gotta love the food messes she makes. The nasty ones is prune puree! Do you see her holding hands with Prince Eric! And I especially love the ones of her checking out her jelly shoes like..."Mom, I know they are shoes, but I can see right through them".


Here are some pictures from yesterday in their cute Sunday dresses Do you see that Brooke is already wearing Tori's Christmas dress?! Tori wore this dress just 5 months ago (click here)...mind you it was a little short, but really?! The dress Tori is wearing is her Birthday dress from Grandma Frann. I LOVE it and she looks so dang cute in it. Please refer to the bottom left picture. You may be wondering what that is? It is Tori hiding in the glass section of a TV stand. Ha ha ha.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Colored Eggs, the Zoo and the Duck Pond

This is part two of Grandma Frann & Grandpa Lee's visit. Monday night for Family Home Evening we colored eggs. It was Tori's first time, so she was pretty excited. Grandpa Lee was the head honcho in this "doing" and helped Tori manage not to dye her whole body strange colors!

Tori thought that this was an amazing endeavor. Her favorite part was plopping the egg in the dye and then reaching in to see what color it turned. She did use the little wire scoop a few times.


Brooke was just a spectator in this event. I didn't want her to get all dyed, but she loved playing with the eggs after they were all done. After egg dying Tori decided to place each egg in the carton with two kisses and a big squeeze. I have the cutest video of her little kissing antics. It is adorable! I love her Elmo and Abby eggs too (I bought these egg dying kits last year when they were only $.75 and we still have one for next year!)


Playing outside with Grandpa Lee. The girls loved running around the backyard with Grandpa Lee. Check out our beautiful tree in bloom! And did you see that I got a picture of Tori and Brooke hugging?! Miracle!


One day we went to the Zoo with Grandma Frann and Grandpa Lee. I was really excited to see a wallaby mama with a joey in her pouch! (you can see his little face and his hind leg hanging out of the pouch...the joey is 8 months old and the mama still carries him around...she would have been booted a long time ago!) Anyway, the exhibit is really cool because you get to go right in the yard with the wallabies in the open. They just jump around! The bird is a kookabura. We saw it and Tori immediately said "Mom, it's a kookabura like the Wiggles!" TENDER! I love the pictures of Tori and Grandpa Lee. Brooke also found her shadow!


We saw a lot of fun animals. Tori and Grandma and Grandpa fed the goats. The little red panda woke up from his nap to give us a little smile. Tori LOVES the prairie dogs. The tigers came right up to the window where Tori was at and she was beyond excited. The Sloth Bear was really animated too and looked at the camera. We even saw a turtle.


Look at the funny giraffe eating the grass off the ground! Tori thought that was hilarious! Brooke thought it was pretty fun to roam around and look at all the animals while my mom and I chased after her. She moves so fast! Brooke's interest in the animals lasted about a second and then it was off to the next thing. Her favorites were the monkies and the African Crane. We even saw goslings...adorable!


The giraffe slide...need I say more?! Tori would have stayed here all day if we had let her! Grandpa Lee even took Brooke down two times and, as you can see by the pictures, she LOVED it! Luckily there weren't too many people on the slide, so Tori went down it at least a half a dozen times!


My FAVORITE picture. Tori is actually looking at the camera and smiling! Mind you the second after she was screaming at the top of her lungs to get off of the elephant, but in the split second I took the picture...perfection!


All good things must come to an end...my parents did have to go home (although I did want to keep them here for longer...my dad helped us with our garden and mowed our massive lawn). So on the way to the airport we stopped at the duck pond and fed the ducks, geese and swan. There weren't too many ducks there and most of the females were on their nests, but we tossed bread all the same. We even met up with a family of geese. They hissed us away, but their goslings were just too dang cute! I love the picture of my parents walking with Brooke in the trees. Well, until next time...we were glad you could BOTH come and visit us! Come again soon Grandma Frann and Grandpa Lee! We will see you in Oregon in a month!