Phone Pictures!

I recently found these pictures in my email that my friend sent me last summer from her phone. 

Drew, Shayla, Katelee in the boat at the pool!

 Elyssa and Blake going for a little float.

I don't have a phone with a nice camera.  My old-school phone has a very basic and low quality camera on it.  Still, when I find myself without my camera and want to snap a picture, I use it.  So I decided to take all the pictures on my phone and blog them here.  If they are sideways, I can't figure out how to turn them, and they are less focused, but still memories I want to remember!

Katelee recently had to have a tooth pulled at the dentist.  She was scared, but she did so well, which shows how brave she is!  I was proud of her!!

 Our dentist loves BYU football.  Blake loves trying on his BYU football helmets every time we visit.

 This little fireman was tired out after a long day of playing!

Autumn is my favorite season!  We recently visited the Thanksgiving Point Gardens with the kiddos, and had an absolute BALL playing in all the fall leaves!

 

 "Peek-a-Boo!  Come fine me, mom!!"

 

 He was having so much fun lying in the leaves, despite the look on his face in this picture!  Ha ha!

 

Interior Decorating

Blake loves to rearrange my home decor lately, or add his own personal touches.  Usually he just pulls things down, which I find mildly annoying.  But I had to laugh to myself when I found these four little pebbles strategically placed.  I admit I left them there for a few weeks; it was such a cute little touch and so thoughtfully done I couldn't bring myself to take them away.

Temples and Rain

Last month we had a really special opportunity.

Regular church was cancelled for the day, and all temple recommend holders were invited to attend the Ogden Temple (re)Dedication.

It was especially special and tender for us, as 8-year-olds and up were invited to attend.  Katelee received her very first temple recommend and had a special meeting with mom and dad.  It was a very special day, and a memory I will never forget.

The dedication had three different sessions throughout the day, and you could choose which to attend.  We went to the 10 a.m. dedication session.  Later that afternoon, then, we had the fun opportunity to watch cousins Elijah and Alice so that Geoff and Bonnie could attend a session.

It was a rainy afternoon, and soon the rain was pounding down so hard that we opened the door to see it better.  Elijah and Blake sat down on the step to watch.  They are the cutest of cousins and best of friends.  I love to watch them interact.  I grabbed my camera and sat down behind them to try to capture the moment.

This was the first time we had the privilege of babysitting sweet new baby Alice, and we loved it!  Katelee was especially good at getting her to smile and coo.  So sweet!

Lovely days like this just remind me of how much our Heavenly Father loves us and blesses us.

We are truly so blessed.

Pajama Head

 

This boy cracks me up!

It's always fun to put pajama pants on your head and pretend it's a hat!

In other news, see that giant colorful ball in front of him?  Katelee made so many chains of loom bands that when she hooked them all together they stretched down our street and around our block.  I began at one end helping her gather them up and started rolling them into a ball, and they made this big ball of loom bands!  She is very proud of her creation!

 

I love my silly kids!

Egg DROP

Each year, all the third graders in Katelee's school have to prepare an egg for the annual egg drop.

The students are assigned to prepare some sort of container/contraption into which they place a raw egg.  Then, the principal drops each egg off the top of the school!

The goal, of course, is for your egg to survive.

The assignment is wide open in terms of what you can do.  Many students tried parachutes to varying success.  There were also lots of eggs placed in jars of peanut butter, or bubble wrapped.  

When brainstorming with Katelee, she decided that she wanted to put her egg in Jell-O!  We thought that was a great idea, and very unique!  We prepared some Jell-O in this container, and once it was solid enough, put the egg on top and added more Jell-O all around it and refrigerated it once again until all the Jell-O was jelled.

But then we decided that this container wasn't big enough.  There wasn't enough Jell-O surrounding the egg.  We should have gone with something bigger, but instead, we just wrapped the entire Jell-O-and-egg-filled-Play-Doh container in some soft fabric in a bucket.

 

And taped the lid shut.

The morning of the egg drop the students and parents all gathered outside the front of the school.  The principal was on the roof, ready to drop some eggs!  The kids were so excited!  Katelee was super excited to see Blake and me standing behind her.  ;)

But once the eggs started dropping, the kids couldn't take their eyes off the sight!  There were a few grand explosions and crash endings, and lots of excitement!

Even Blake was thrilled to watch!

I don't know why I do this sometimes, but I turned my camera to the side and then began to video!  Whoops!  This video is a (sideways) clip of Katelee's bucket being dropped off the school!

The end verdict? The egg was still intact!Yep, Katelee's egg survived the drop off the school and came home still whole and happy.  :)

Joy School!

This sweet little guy was always sad when sister left for school.

So, this year I organized a little joy school with a few other neighborhood kids his age.

He loves joy school!  We have it once a week, and take turns 'teaching,'  Blake is always so THRILLED when it's school day!

 

Blake made this fishy at his very first day of school!

Blake loves his friends at school, he loves music time, stories, snacks, crafting, and playtime.

But most of all, he LOVES his new backpack!!

Here is Blake showing off his great work from the 2nd week of school!

Blake finds so much joy in life and brings so much joy to us!

General Conference

Twice a year, we have General Conference meetings broadcast from our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  These two weekends are some of our favorite of the whole year!  It's almost as exciting as Christmas!  We had a delicious breakfast this morning of chocolate waffles with berry toppings, followed by a spiritual 'feast' of talks given by leaders of our church.  I love the spirit, direction and peace that comes into our lives as we listen to the talks of the prophets.

Join us! You can also listen to all the talks that were given today, and the talks that will be given tomorrow at www.lds.org.

Don't Be Jealous...

Don't be jealous...

but I got to spend the day running errands with this charming fireman!  

You better believe that he caught the eye of girls every where we went - the library, the grocery store, the bank, the park...  But I was the lucky one who had the privilege of his company.  ;)

Baby Blue Eyes

Oh, I love this kid.

Enough said.

Third Grade!

The day before school started, I was outside when I saw Katelee's school principal, assistant principal, and office staff walking down the street with a large box.  They stopped to say hello, meet and talk to the kids about the first day of school, and pass out cupcakes.  How cute was that?!  My kids were so thrilled!

 The next day, August 19, 2014, Katelee started the 3rd grade!

She was so excited about her new pencil holder and her water bottle.  :)

Her teacher is Ms. Bawden, and Katelee thinks she is nice.  :)  Katelee is thrilled to be in the same class as many of her friends.  She also was excited to meet a new friend named Ruby.

After school, Katelee came home to find her usual first-day-of-school surprise:

THE GIANT COOKIE!

 

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is getting so grown up!  I sure love and adore this sweet, spunky, smart, kind, thoughtful, helpful, funny little lady!