Temple Tuesdays: Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

 You can't tell by their faces, but my girls loved sitting on top of the sign in front of the temple.

After the temple, we went to a park in Herriman with a splash pad, but Evie wanted to play on the dry playground.

 The first time she went down this slide, she bumped her head twice on both sides of the curve. After crying for a bit, she went right back. The second time down, Evie had figured out how to avoid bonking her head.  I can't remember if Anna was helping her go down the slide or pushing her down in this photo.

 Anna and her friend Will, with Evie tagging along.

While Will's mom, Dawn, and I chatted, Anna and Will thought it was fun to play in the hot car. I think it's because they were eating all of Dawn's gum.

Temple Tuesdays: Draper, Utah Temple

July 12, 2011

 Anna and Evie, but especially Evie, always loved the flowers at the different temples.

 Trying to catch a glimpse of Moroni

 Evie wasn't too interested in sitting on the bench.

Temple Tuesdays: Jordan River Temple

June 28, 2011

Evie just wanted to splash in the fountain instead of walk around and take photos.

Evie really didn't want to sit still for this photo, so Anna tried to help me, but this is still the best picture I got.

Temple Tuesdays: Mount Timpanogos Temple

This summer my friend organized an activity she called Temple Tuesdays. Every other Tuesday we would meet at a different temple. Someone would share some information about that temple and then we took some time to walk around the temple grounds. Afterwards we'd usually go eat lunch at a nearby park. 

June 14, 2011

Evie is holding a picture of our family in front of the Mount Timpanogos Temple.

Lunch time!

Anna has taught Evie to take her sandwiches apart before eating them.

Ho-kay

One of my favorite things to hear Evie say is okay. I just love the way she says it, like ho-kay. I also think it’s cute how she usually says “yup” instead of “yes.” Even her “nope” is cute, although I don’t like her “no” as much. She likes to drag it out into a moan that sounds like a cat in heat.

We’ve noticed recently that Evie seems to be pretty understanding when we explain stuff to her. As long as we tell her what’s going on, she seems to do ok. The other day both Anna and Evie asked for gum. I like them to chew it outside so that it’s less likely to end up in their hair or on their clothes or in my carpet. I told them they could have some when they got to the park, but Anna wanted to hold her piece until we got there. I’m sure to Evie it looked like she was getting short changed on the gum situation, and she kept saying, “want gum.” Each time I told her, “you can have some gum as soon as we get to the park, okay?” And each time she’d respond with a sweet little, “hokay.” She asked several times on our way to the park, but she never threw a fit.

Of course it doesn’t always work and I’m not always good at explaining things to her. She never really likes the idea that it’s Anna’s turn with a toy. Yesterday we went to go pick up Lauren from her horseback riding class. I wanted to get there a little early because I know that Evie loves horses--she says “Ssss!” as loud as she can whenever she sees a horse—but as usual we were running late, so we only had time to look at the horses for a few minutes before it was time to get back in the car. Evie threw a pretty big fit when I tried to put her back in her car seat, but looking back, I don’t think I did much to help her understand why we had to go. I’m not sure she would have cared that we needed to get home to eat dinner, but maybe next time I’ll try her.

Preschool

Last Tuesday (Sept. 13) was Anna's first day of preschool. We are in a group with five other moms and kids and we all take turns teaching the kids. I don't get my first turn to teach until October. Anna gets to go to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for about two hours and she's really enjoying it. Of course we had to take a picture on the first day, but we forgot to include the obligatory backpack in our photo. 

Anna's first worksheet

While Anna is at school, Evie and I get some one-on-one time together. I try to get Evie to play with me, but she often just goes off and plays by herself. I think she's just thrilled to be able to play without being tackled or having toys ripped out of her hands. I tried to do a little activity with Evie last Thursday to help her with her fine motor skills. I drew dots on a piece of paper and then I gave her cheerios to put on the dots, but she just wanted to eat the cheerios. I can't say I blame her. Then I let her scribble with the markers, which she also loved since she only gets to draw with markers when I can keep an eye on her in order to protect the furniture and to prevent too much body art.

Bridal Veil Falls

Back in June (the 16th to be exact), my friend Melissa and I took our kids to Bridal Veil Falls for a picnic lunch. I'm not sure my kids ate much lunch, but they had a good time running around and exploring.

Evie, Anna, Avery, and Avery's cousin

I try to teach my kids that we don't pick wild flowers, but I make an exception for Dandelions.

Evie clutching her cookie as she "slides" down the hill.

still working on that cookie

Snacks and Singing

Recently Evie figured out how to cross her fingers. Often I'll see her walking around the house, with her finger's crossed, and on tip toe. That's something else she's also started doing. She usually only does it when she's got bare feet, but it's cute to see her tip toeing across the house, with her finger's crossed. It seems like maybe she's trying to get away with something.

Whenever I change her diaper, she also likes to ask me if there's poop. And being my little tape recorder, now when I tell her "just wet." She'll say it back to me. It's cute, but I guess I'm biased.

Today we had stake conference and we were only ten minutes into the meeting when the kids were bored with all the activities I had brought. A kid in front of us was eating fruit snacks. Evie looked at his bag and started saying, "snack." And she kept saying it louder and louder until I got the point and pulled out some fruit snacks for her, which I don't usually bring, but I had purchased especially for stake conference. But things didn't actually get better once I pulled a bag out for her. Instead she squealed with glee and then yelled "snack" even louder. She quieted down when I finally got the bag open. I took that opening as a chance to listen to the talks until Evie started yelling at me again. I don't remember what exactly she said because I didn't understand her, but I know now that she wanted me to know that she had fruit snack drool all down her dress. I watched her stuff several in her mouth and even wiped some red drool off her chin, but when I wasn't paying attention she decided to just spit the rest out down her dress.

On our way home from my parents house tonight, the girls were happily entertaining themselves in the back seat. Evie was making random noises and Anna was singing random songs like, "tiger mother, tiger mother, oh tiger mooootheeer!" There was also, "My dad, different ladies at my house, different kind of ladies at my house, different kind of ladies at my house, two kinds of tiger mothers. My house is dirty, dirty, dirty!"

Translation: I've been reading The Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, but I'm not sure what the different kind of ladies refers to (maybe visiting teachers), or why she's saying that my house is dirty. Oh yeah, maybe because it was tonight. She had some other interesting themes in there, but I can't remember them now unfortunately.

Snapshots in June

Anna looking cute in her Cinderella dress and Mom's shoes.

Dan had to go out of town for a night on Wednesday, June 8, so I decided that we should celebrate the warmer weather with a picnic at the park. We got a pizza at Little Caesars, some grapes, cookies, and donut holes at Wal-mart, and went to our favorite park.

Yum! Donut Holes

Dressing up and dancing with our friend Avery

Our library has these activity kits that come with a book or two and an activity. My kids mostly just love the fact that they come in backpacks. Anna was so excited about hers that she wanted to wear it while eating breakfast.

On Friday, June 10 we met Heather, Tamara, and Pam and her daughters at the park. Tamara brought the girls this awesome chair set and it has been a huge hit this summer.

Evie got tired of always watching Anna ride her bike and decided to hitch a ride. Anna was a great sport about sharing, and if I remember right, Evie didn't ever fall off. She convinced me to get her her own trike and a helmet.

June 28