Summer 2013

Just a few snippets of summer 2013:

Isabelle and Vivienne attended a Princess Day which was a success and the girls continue to ask when they will have another one.  It was well worth the money!  They enjoyed getting their hair done, having "tea" and cookies, dancing with a princess, playing princess games and listening to stories.

We bought a new playset for our backyard and it has been worth the money and hours of putting it together.  It took us probably close to 10+ hours over several days for Chad and I to figure it out.  Once finished the kids loved playing on it all summer.

We also bought my sisters old trampoline since they were moving to Taiwan.  This has been an added bonus to our yard that occupies a lot of the kids' time.

Ty and Isabelle had swimming lessons again.  Isabelle LOVED it and couldn't wait for the next day to come so she could go.  She is our little fish!  Her poor eyes suffered redness and burning from swimming under the water constantly with them open.

Ty on the other hand dreaded it because he was very nervous to be in deep water.  He survived and continues to improve on his swimming... just don't ask him to go off the diving board!



Ty spent many hours this summer outside playing basketball with a neighbor friend.  They recorded themselves and Chad put together a Youtube video of some of their trick shots.

Oh Vivienne!

Vivienne has been our busy little monkey!  We frequently tell her that we need to drop her off at the zoo to live with the monkeys and she always worryingly says "No!"  There are frequent "messes" to clean up after this little one!

April Conference Time

We always enjoy General Conference in our home!  Hopefully it will be a tradition our kids will always remember.  They may not remember the speakers and what they said but I feel they will remember our family gathered together, the spirit present and eating yummy cinnamon twists and goodies.  One of the great things I love about Conference time is it never disappoints me or leaves me regretting the time I prepared for it!  The spiritual reward always outweighs the work I put into the prep and organizing, baking and keeping kids occupied while watching.

The life of a mother... Chad gets to sit uninterrupted and relaxed while watching meanwhile I am busy helping kids with activities, taking them to the bathroom, getting drinks, etc.  all while "listening" to the speakers.  So grateful the conference Ensign when it comes out!

Girls Spring Break 2013

We split up this year, in May, for Spring Break - I took the girls to St. George while the boys had their California  sports trip.

The girls were of course excited to go play with cousins, see Grandma and Grandpa and their dog Cruz.  We had a fun late Easter egg hunt and family get together with dinner.  We played at Aunt Ashley's house and roasted hot dogs, the girls danced and performed with Adyn and Piper with their new wands from Grandma, they painted, had a sleepover, watched movies and got spoiled!  It was a nice break!

Easter 2013

 

Easter Morning - the girls got a water table to share

Our cute kids! 

She is a cutie!

Beijing China to Lehi Utah

The beginning of February we had the opportunity to host 2 girls from Bejiing, China who were 8 and 11 years old.  They arrived on Saturday, February 9th and left Friday, February 15th.  This was out of my control comfort zone but I really wanted to push our family out of this "certain" comfort zone and experience new and different things and this was one of those great opportunities.  I assumed the girls would know good English but was shocked when they seemed to know very little.  We arrived at the kids' school and held up our sign of their names, Fan Yu and Zhang, waiting to have them find us as the flood of Chinese students filled the gym.  We enjoyed a night of performances, delicious Chinese food and some "light" interaction!  Surprisingly our kids communicated better with them.  Sometimes I would say stuff and they would look at me with a blank stare but when the kids said something they understood.

Fan Yu and Zhang's Sunday schedule was filled with Utah sites - Temple Square, Olympic Park and the Park City outlets but we did enjoy trying to communicate with them later on in the evening with the help of a translating app on the iPad!  The kids were loving all the gifts they gave to us which was very generous and kind of them.

We were also able to take them to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving point and ice cream which they thought was really cool.  One night they wanted us to take them to buy American made stuff to take back home for their family.  Little did I know this is very difficult to find and I am shocked how much stuff is not made here.  They were disappointed not finding anything!  I will be better prepared next time.  The kids one night had a nerf gun war which could have gone on and on if it wasn't way past everyone's school bedtime.  Both girls loved helping Ty make his valentine's for his class - each of them taking turns stapling and stuffing candy.  Both girls had lots of fun playing in our backyard in the snow - sledding down our stairs, digging in the snow with spoons and having snowball fights.

When the time came to take them back our kids were devastated and crying and I was even a little emotional.  We got attached to them in the short amount of time they were here.  We got contact information but still have yet to hear from them.  Chad and I knew that we would never see them again but Ty and Isabelle had a hard time realizing this.  They considered them their friends and looked forward to each morning so they could see them.  Vivi even had their names down and wanted to find them or know when they would be coming back home.

Learning about these girls lives back in China helped us gain a greater appreciation for what we have.  Zhang who is 8 is an only child who lives in a high rise apartment building with her parents and grandparents.  She was very smart and spoke the best English of the two.  Fan Yu who was 11 has one sibling but does not live with her family she lives at her school full time.  One of the teachers is like her mother.  She couldn't really tell us a whole lot about what her parents did for work other than they prefer her to live at the school.  Even though these girls have never heard about the gospel or don't even know who Jesus Christ is I felt a little hope for them as we all kneeled in family prayer together each night.  We are so grateful for the little time we spent with them and only wish the very best to each of these sweet, fun girls!

This experience has me hoping for another exchange student opportunity, foster kids or adoption.  We will see what the future holds!

Christmas 2012

I am determined to get our blog caught up before I get too busy with Summer activities.

We enjoyed a full month during December.

Our kids enjoy doing our advent activities... sadly I can't remember everything we did since I didn't take a picture of everything (the reason I need to stay on top of documenting these family times).

-Decorating our tree

-Opening different Christmas books

-Making a Gingerbread House

-Waking up to a new crazy Elf hiding place and trick

-Seeing the Reindeer

-Riding Frontrunner to Temple Square 

(along with all the other thousands of people who had the same idea)  Crazy!

-Making cone Christmas Trees

-Grinch night - watching Grinch and having Grinch floats

-Watching Isabelle in her Kindergarten Grinch performance - so cute!

-Enjoying Christmas Eve at the Taylor's - listening to musical performances (Ty played the piano), playing Minute to Win It games, playing with cousins and eating good food.

-Christmas morning we enjoyed time just the 5 of us in our new home!  Vivi got a Little Tikes car, Isabelle got another doll plus accessories and Ty got a Wii game plus lots of little fun stocking stuffers.  We had a great relaxed, quiet, fun Christmas day!

-We headed down to St. George a few days after Christmas to spend with my family.  The kids always enjoy lots and lots of cousin time with sleepovers and playing.  We opened more presents and played Minute to Win it games again.  Ty was devastated the first round at the Taylor's because he didn't win (his strong competitive side) so he was determined to win at least once which of course he did since my family isn't very competitive at all!

Having fun riding in Grandpa's El Camino