Welcome to our World

While away, it was so tempting to want to move to be closer to Dan's family.  But we have a great life right where we are at.  We were reminded of this when Shawna brought over another bag of hand-me-downs the day after we got home.  Kaelah has been begging me to buy her high heels for an entire year now and she finally has a beautiful pair.  I don't think she could have loved Shawna more at that moment.  She made sure to wear them to Reese's (Shawna's daughter's) baptism and open house.  I took lots of mental notes from Shawna as to what I would like Kaelah's baptism to be like in 3 years.  Kaelah is already talking about how she wants to be baptized like how when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, so I'm assuming it is ok to begin thinking about such things already. Here's the before picture!  Kaelah loved her cousins' Addie and Ali's long hair so much last October when we were there to visit that she was determined to have long hair like th...

We finally made it out to visit Dan's family again!  We were all packed and ready to go at Christmas but illness struck and we had to stay home.  It has been an entire 9 months since we were there and Kaelah couldn't have been more excited.  She loves her cousins!  Here some of them are eating their ice cream cones at Thanksgiving Point. My children adore their cousin, Sloan.  Here K & D are holding her hand as we walk from the van to the Freedom Festival Parade.  In the van on the way there I had been listening to Stephanie Nielson's book, Heaven is Here, so I was surprised and delighted she was the grand marshall of the parade.  She looked great for just having had a baby a few months ago.  I would have never known! Watching fireworks with cousin Evie.  These 2 are born exactly 2 months apart.  Seeing them together makes me want to move closer to Dan's family.  It took us less than 9 hours to get there but almost ...

In June I went to buy 4th of July outfits for my children & couldn't resist these ladybug dresses as well. When I realized we all matched for church on Sunday, my husband was kind enough to set up the self-timing camera for us -- always a funny time trying to get a good family photo, right? One day my mom was kind enough to babysit while I was gone (at the dentist) for about 90 minutes.  When I came home I realized my mother was a little too nice.  Can you see her hand poking out by Kaelah's arm?  She let my children pile almost every object in the entire basement on top of her.  She figured no one else in the family would ever let them do that.  We spent HOURS cleaning it up.  My mother informed the children that was a once-in-a-lifetime event.  Thank goodness! We love the summer reading program at the local public library.  The prizes are great, and since we knew from the start we had to be reading 20-30 minutes a day, it wasn't st...

Go HHS!  I was more than happy to meet one of my best friends from high school, Melissa Schmidt, at the Aquarium when she was in Denver for the weekend.  This was the first time she got to meet all of my children in real life, but she said that thanks to Facebook, she felt like she already knew them & loved them before that day even came.  It was fun to see that some things, like talking with my friend, never change. Kaelah and Michelle were delighted to see "real" mermaids!  All the excitement of Disney World for a few minutes there.  Dan and I were quite impressed with the swimmers' ability to mouth words under water.  They looked so comfortable down there.  No wonder my girls were believers! After Melissa had to leave the Aquarium, Dan suggested we go to Casa Bonita before heading home.  I hadn't been there since high school and they had never been there, so I was game!  Although the kids liked the divers and Mexican foo...

Once again we traveled with our wonderful friends, the P. family to visit the Denver Zoo.  Even though we have been to the zoo a lot this year, we still got to experience neat, new things.  Above, we got to watch the new baby snow leopard climb down from the upper door to his mother and then play (chew) on her a bit.  Looked like a really big kitten & his house cat mother.  Here's a bit from the Denver Zoo newsletter, just a couple days before we went: June 19, 2012 DENVER ZOO WELCOMES BIRTH OF AMUR LEOPARD CUB Cub is First Birth in 16 Years Denver Zoo is celebrating the birth of a critically endangered, Amur (ah-Moor) leopard cub, which was born April 25. The young male, named Makar (Mah-car), is the first birth of his species at Denver Zoo since 1996. Until now, Makar has been behind-the-scenes with his mother. He just received a clean bill of health from zoo veterinarians and guests can see him now inside the zoo's Feline Building. Makar was born to m...

  Last year when we used the free passes the children earned from the summer reading program, Kaelah and Danny had such a blast they decided they wanted to come back for their birthdays the next summer.  So... we returned and had a wonderful time.  The children had talked about it so much they even convinced our neighbor, Darrell, to come with us.  It was a hot hot day but we still had a fantastic trip.  They rode the rides for 5 hours!  Happy 3rd birthday, Danny J!

I was so excited to hear my mission companion, Julia, was getting married!  I don't think I gave Dan the choice for us not to go, but he had never been to DC before, so he was more than willing to go with me... and foot the bill.  My parents watched our children while we went half way across the continent from Thursday to Sunday.  I felt like I was crazy being that far away from them, but all was well.  The trip couldn't have been better.  Example?  Wonderful weather... in DC... in June! This is the temple my parents were sealed in.  I hadn't been to here or to DC since 2001.  It was great to be back & to bring the love of my life along with me.  I love going places with him I've never been.  After watching the movie Tangled, I think my dream is to take my family as many places I can.   After a fantastic wedding ceremony and catching up with another mission friend, Sarah, we headed out to be tourists. ...