Spring Break. Part One - Northern Utah

It didn't take us long to figure out what to do for our Spring Break this year.  Two of Kermit's nephews were engaged to be married one weekend apart with our week of Spring Break in between.  One wedding in Provo, UT the other in St. George, UT.  We booked our tickets immediately.   We were so excited for both of them and so excited that we could finally take our kids to see Northern Utah for the first time.

We flew into Salt Lake on Friday afternoon and had a few hours before we had to be down to Provo so we took the kids to see beautiful Temple Square.  We walked all around the grounds and told them all about the day we got married there almost 15 years ago. We went inside the old tabernacle and to the new conference center.  I hope that the girls will remember that day.  I wish we had more time to linger but we had to get to Provo for a dinner for cousin Elliot and his bride to be, Valerie.

 (Just enjoying the view of the most beautiful temple ever….)

 Elliot and Val were married in the Provo Temple.  Here are pictures from just after the wedding.

I think Elliot found himself a great gal!  I had a chance to visit with her a couple of times and I really like her.  Welcome to the family Valerie!

After the wedding and before the reception we had a few hours to spend.  We ended up going to BYU Museum of Art.  The special exhibit we saw was incredible!  It was called Sacred Gifts.  Amazing paintings of Christ from all over the world…some famous artists, some not. All just breathtaking.  I don't like to use the word "breathtaking" because I think it sounds silly but in this instance I cannot think of a more appropriate word.  I definitely felt the Spirit as I went through this exhibit and I think all of my family did too. You should go.  It is there until Memorial Day, so not much time.  Hop to it!

We also went to a favorite restaurant called Bombay House with the wedding party for lunch.  YUM!  A good time was had by all!

Then we got to see our very favorite Michele and Daniel! Hooray! Love these two.  We got to visit with them at their house in Provo.  Michele put together a cute little Easter Egg hunt for the girls.  We got to see their very cool house that they have remodeled.  They have great modern taste.  We also decided to take a drive up Provo Canyon to see a cute little park there so the kids could run around.  So much fun to see them. We wish they didn't have to live so far away.

 Finally was the reception that night!  (What a day!)  This is about all I got as far as pictures at the reception but all had a great time.  The food was all prepared by Elliot and Val and was fantastic!  The music was fun, the company great.  The kids played hide and seek and had themselves a blast among the crowds of Elliot and Valerie well wishers.   Below is cousin Emma with the girls.

At some point that day we also drove around BYU and let the kids play by a creek by the bell tower.  I think it was that morning before the wedding.  Yes, that was it.  Baby ducks and tulips everywhere.  What could be better.  I could not have dreamed up a more fun weekend and so glad we got to go!

Six Months!

by Alison with help from Annaliese, Adeline and Avrie

Here we are 6 months already!  Time is flying!  We graduated from her helmet (hooray)! She could use a few more weeks in it but she has outgrown it so that means we are done.  I love having her head free to snuggle and kiss.  Her hair is just fantastic! It sticks up in all directions.  We call her a dandelion or fuzz ball.  I love her blue eyes and long lashes.  Her gummy smile gets me every time.  She is one of the happiest babies I've ever seen.  

So she just had her six month check up.  She is in the 90th percentile for height.  50-75% for weight and 90% for her head circumference (not including her hair)! She checked out perfect!  We fed her just the other day her first taste of baby food.  Rice cereal.  She wasn't sure if she liked it too much.  She much prefers milk we think. (What a sourpuss says her big sisters!)

 

Look at that hair! It's all natural.  She has some really long hairs that we debate cutting to make it more uniform.  Probably not yet.

She has gotten really good at her tummy time though she still doesn't prefer it.  She can roll both ways from her tummy to back and back to tummy.  She just started to realize that she can roll to get to where she wants to go. She will almost always roll off tummy time as soon as I put her down on her tummy.

She has her two bottom teeth poking through.  Her sleeping still isn't the best but I think her teething has been painful for her.  I'm hoping we can get her sleeping through the night when we get back home. (Right now we are in St. George for part of our spring break.)

She is still a champion at nursing.  She is easily distracted though.  It cracks me up when she takes a couple of gulps then pulls away and arches her head and back to make goo goo eyes at me or her sisters.  She'll do that over and over. She'll get laughing so hard that we just have to stop feeding and find a dark quiet room to finish up her meal.  She just loves her family.

When Kermit takes her hand and has her touch his scratchy face she laughs so hard!  It's adorable!

Sitting…coming along.  She does it but I wouldn't leave her unassisted yet.

There we have it!

Annaliese is Ten!

It's official!  I'm a little late to post this but Annaliese is now double digits. We celebrated this year with just our family. Brownies, ice cream and plenty of Bryer Horses made this girls day.

Annaliese is such an amazing girl in every single way.  She is almost always in an up beat mood and goes with the flow so well.  She gets perfect report card quarter after quarter. She loves school and blew me away this year with her science fair project on the color specturm and Isaac Newton. She loves drawing pictures of animals and writing or telling stories to go with them.  She has an amazing imagination. She loves to read and goes through books faster than anybody I know.  She loves non fiction and fiction alike.  She has a broad set of interests.  She will pick up a book about anything and find it interesting and just read out of curiosity.  This year she has shown an interest in genetics.  She could spend hours making punnet squares for different horses and dogs to figure out what types of babies would be born to different parents.   She loves to look at catalogs and dream of decorating her own room someday. She joined her school chess club and has enjoyed learning to play.  She takes piano lessons weekly and has an excellent ear.  Best of all she is an awesome big sister.  She loves to teach Avrie and Adeline things that she has learned.  She is always willing to play with them.  She loves her baby sister and is such a great help to me in caring for her.

Happy Birthday Annaliese!   Olive Juice Forever!

Our girl can S-P-E-L-L

This month was an exciting one!  On March 4th, Annaliese was part of her school spelling team for a parochial school spelling contest here in town.  Her school had a spelling bee about a month ago where she came in 4th place.  That qualified her to be on the school team. 

To get ready to be on the school team she was given 8 pages of words to study.  Easy right?  Each page had at least 300 words on it!  That's a lot of words to study.  We did our best to get study them all but in the end we only made it through the first 6 pages.  Oh well.

The way the contest works is that there are 4 quarters lasting 15 minutes each.  Each school has 4 team members.  Each team member goes up for a quarter and competes against the other schools.  For every word that is spelled correctly the school gets a point.  If a word is misspelled then they are not out, just no point that round.

Annaliese was in the 3rd quarter.  As luck would have it the words she was given to spell were all from page 7.  Sigh.  Of course.  Not page 6 or 5 or 4, 3, 2 or 1 but 7.  BUT she did great!  She kept her cool and held her own.  I know she was nervous but nobody would have ever been able to see it.  The words from page 7 were the hardest of the entire night.  Fortunately all the words for all the spellers in her round were equally difficult. She scored enough points her round to keep her school tied for first.  After the final quarter it was still tied and our 8th grade star speller had to do a spell-off with the other school. Who knew a spelling bee could be so exciting?!  In the end our team won.  What a fun night it was. I'm so glad that Annaliese had this experience to be on the spelling team.  It was hard work to get through even just 6 pages of words but I think if she qualifies in the future she'll be motivated to push through all 8.  I couldn't be more proud of my girl!  Great job Annaliese!

5 Months

She couldn't be cuter or more loved! Little girl has won all of our hearts for sure!  She isn't sleeping through the night anymore but how can I be upset at that sweet face.  We'll figure it out before long.  She is rolling from her tummy to back by herself.  She can roll back to tummy with help.  She's working on her sitting.  She loves her bath time and splashes and smiles and laughs the whole time. She loves all the attention she gets from her big sisters. She loves being talked to and read to and played with. 

Just yesterday we were at the doctor for Adeline.  While we waited for the doctor we put Althea on the exam table and she was thrilled with the crinkling paper that she laid on. She kicked and flapped non stop and was just delighted hearing the paper crinkle all around her. She made Addie and I laugh, she was so in to it.

She likes to make noises when she breathes.  Just because she can.  Especially when I'm feeding her.  Also when I'm nursing her she will almost always grab my mouth.  Kind of funny.  So I kiss her fingers or nibble on them while she eats.  After she eats she will usually smack her lips for a few minutes just to hear the cool sound it makes.  She cracks me up!

When I go to change her clothes or diaper as soon as her pants come off her feet go into her mouth!  She loves chewing on those toes!

She is wearing a helmet these days.  She has (had) tortecolis and favored turning her head to the left when she would sleep.  As a result her head started going flat on that side.  (This is exactly what happened to Annaliese ten years ago!)  We knew the sooner we intervened the less time it would take to round out her head.  So she has physical therapy once a week to work on her neck muscles and she wears the darn helmet 23 hours a day.  She does great though.  If tolerates it very well and is an excellent sport about it.  She's had it about three weeks and I think she'll only need to wear it three more.  Just like that!

Love this girl!  I still can't believe that she is ours.  I am one lucky mom.

Come to Zion

We were able to escape from the frigid temperatures of Chi-town this winter with a trip to St. George.  It was just what we needed!  All week we had temperatures in the high 60s and sunshine. We soaked it up.  We stayed with my parents and Erin, Rommey, Miles and Magnus came up for the week as well. What a great time!  We hiked the hills behind my parents house.  We hiked Snow Canyon.  We hiked Zion (the trail that leads to the Narrows).  And how could I forget…the kids and Kermit got to swim (their highlight)! Lots of good food and fun visiting.  We popped in on Aunt Sheron and Uncle Richard.  We also stopped by to see Valrea's old house that Tanc has now and went to see our little plot of land out at Ivins.   We are headed back in April and can't wait.  Love you Family!!  Great to be able to spend the week with you.  We'll be back soon!

Sledding

This winter has been bad! As in awful! Terrible! I am so sick of it! The weather has been so cold that the kids have even missed 5 days of school due to extreme temperatures outside.  So when the day finally came where we got snow AND it was above 15 degrees outside we took advantage!  Lucky for us Erin was still here and we got to show Miles a good time too.  They had a ball!