Preschool

Last week Sydney started preschool. It's 3 days a week for a few hours each day. She loves it. The teachers are awesome. The first week she learned to count to 100, count to 10 in Spanish, learned the days of the week, and not to chew food with her mouth open (which we teach at the dinner table, but since her teacher mentioned it to the whole class, it resonates more.) Jordyn is very UNHAPPY that Sydney goes to preschool and she doesn't.


Sydney had to make a "All About Me" poster. This is what we came up with. Sydney picked adjectives that describe who she is with each letter in her name S: snow-skiier, Y: young, D: dangerous, N: nice, E: energetic, Y: yellow skittles.


To celebrate the completion of her first week of preschool we had a movie night. Levi and Jordyn went to bed early and Sydney got to stay up late and watch "Emperor's New Groove" with me and Jeff. I don't recommend that movie for adults. It is a glorified cartoon. Jeff and I fell asleep half way during the movie while Sydney stayed up eating candy she bought from the "Concessions Stand."

6 months?!

Has it been 6 months already since I was in the hospital with the wonderful surprise that we had a baby boy? The excitement for a boy, the sweet moments when I held him for the first time and looked into his eyes and said, "I love you, LEVI." Where has the time gone? Our sweet little boy in 6 short months has accomplished so much.
-Rolling over
-Eating baby food
-Smiling, laughing, babbling
-Holding his head up
-Discovering his hands and feet
-Gaining 9 lbs
Levi's personality is very easy going. He is such a happy and content baby. He loves playing peek-a-boo, watching me sing itsy,bitsy spider, and pretending he has stinky feet. He loves to watch his sisters play together. The funniest thing (at least to me) is when the girls get too close in his personal space and he has learned that if he pulls on their hair with that strong baby grip, they will move away from him after they have screamed and gotten their hair back. Did I mention he's a smart little guy too? He loves food. In the morning I sit him in his chair. I put his baby food on the table, and he shakes with excitement. I'm starting to teach him sign language like I did with the girls. He's getting close to crawling. We're so thankful to have Levi as part of our family. He blesses our lives everyday as does Sydney and Jordyn.

Batting Cages

We set out for a hike last night and we ended up at the batting cages. However our version of the batting cages is a little different. It involved a river, rocks, and a sturdy stick/branch. We did go on a hike and enjoyed the new colors of fall. We came to Eagle River and started throwing rocks and then found a stick and started throwing up rocks and swinging at them. The girls continued to throw rocks while Jeff and I swung at rocks. Swinging rocks then evolved to making funny faces while we swing. Here are pictures of our hike and our time batting. We're dorks....just warning you...as if you didn't know

My sorry attempt at a mad face.
Excited face

I'm not sure what this face is....Pouty???
I absolutely love when one activity leads to another that was totally unplanned and ended up being full of laughter for everyone.

Other summer activities

There have been other fun things we have done this summer worth including.
#1 The air show at Elmendorf Airforce Base. We go on base quite often to visit friends and enjoy some things on base like swimming and playing at the indoor playground. We saw the air show including the Blue Angels on July 31st. The Blue Angels were awesome to watch. We walked on some planes and enjoyed the festivities.
The girls flying a FED EX plane.


My camera does not come close to doing the Blue Angels justice.

#2 I ran in my first 10K (6.2 miles) in Anchorage. I ran just under an hour. It isn't a time worth bragging about. But for me, I was just glad to cross the finish line and stop looking at the girl in front of me that had a lovely spare tire and a wedgie staring me in the face. She was wearing too short of a shirt and too short of shorts and sadly I couldn't get my eyes off her for the 20 minutes she was ahead of me.
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#3 Hiking. When we're not sure what to do....we hike. It's great to get outside, with bear spray in hand, and enjoy the beauties here in Alaska.
Thunderbird Falls

#4 Whittier, AK. On saturday we drove to Whittier. It's a small quaint town of about 400 people. The highlight is the 2.5 mile tunnel you go through to get to Whittier. We saw the huge cruise ship there and had some hot chocolate in a small cafe overlooking the bay. That's all there is to do especially when it is pouring down rain. As we left we saw Portage Glacier and went to a fish viewing. We saw hundreds of salmon swimming upstream in shallow water

thing 1.... thing 2

Thing 1: We are leaving for Maui for a family vacation shortly. I am extremely giddy over the matter. I kinda wish I could stay there during the winter. To educate the kids as to what Hawaii is, I made a poster board. For FHE (family home evening). We taught the girls where Maui is, what an island is, taught them the state bird, fish, tree, flag, and flower of Hawaii are. The poster board is teaching them to countdown. Sydney loves to change the number of days every day. After showing them the poster we watched Hula dancing on You Tube and tried our own version of it. We also taught them to say "Aloha" and the "hang loose" sign. I plan on packing nothing but bathing suits, shorts, flip flops, skirts, and shirts w/ short sleeves...something we won't be wearing again until next May or June. I'm also super excited that my parents will be meeting us in Seattle and joining us on the same flight to Maui and staying with us for the week. Sydney and Jordyn are just as excited as me. All of us just want to bask in the sun near the beach or pool and play with the kids.
Thing 2: Sydney got her ears pierced today. She got her ears pierced when she was 9 months but kept pulling the ear rings out and losing them when she hit 12 months so I took the ear rings out for good. She's been wanting ear rings again. She used all her piggy bank money to pay to get her ears pierced. We went to Claire's at the mall. She picked the color stone she wanted which just so happened to be her birth stone. Prior to going to the mall, we watched another You Tube video in which this 2 year old happily got her ears pierced with no flinch or anything. The You Tube video served to show Sydney the process of getting ears pierced and showed her that it hurts but nothing too serious. Sydney understood that getting one's ears pierced was like getting shots. Her are the pictures.
Before: Very excited

Before: Still happy while the lady marks her ears

After: a second after the shots she's not as happy. She wanted to cry I could tell, but was brave and didn't.

After: A couple minutes after. The pain has dwindled away and she's feeling great again. She grew a couple feet after today. She felt like such a big girl and has been walking on cloud 9 ever since.

Summer 2010

We had summer. It lasted all of about 2 weeks. It was the end of May. The sun was out. It was warm to the point of receiving some flip flop tan lines. Since then it's been nothing but cloudy, and mostly rain. I've witnessed a new record. We had 31 consecutive days of "measurable precipitation." The old record was 27 days in 1951. The last few weeks of the month-long rain period was spent putting together puzzles. At first we started with a 100 piece Toy Story and Tinkerbell puzzle. It took Sydney a good 30 minutes to put it together. By the end of the week she would put the puzzle together at least 3-4 times a day and it would take her about 5 minutes. Then we got a 750 piece Snow White puzzle. Wow. That was THE hardest puzzle I've ever done. It took our whole family working on it about a week long to finish.

I've also redecorated our main level. I've done some crafty things you can see here. I've painted....not the walls but furniture: a clock, lamp, and mirror.

for halloween of course.
This 's' is made out of cardboard that I bought at Joann's
I have crochet some hats for my kids. I started out crocheting and now think that looming is more up my alley. Looming is like crochet but for the lazy and impatient person. I wasn't happy with my crochet work and it took me a couple months to do one hat for Levi. I "loomed" a hat for Jordyn and it took me not even 2 hours to complete.

I've had "school" for the girls everyday. Teaching Sydney problem solving, easy addition, phonemic awareness, reading, and sequencing. She recited the first article of faith out of nowhere the other day. I've been teaching Jordyn counting, sorting colors, letters, and working on her articulation. They love "school" and usually ask for it more than once a day. The girls participated in a reading summer program thru the library. They both had to be read to for 1000 minutes. I read the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, James and the Giant Peach (which has the A-word. Major disappointment in that), Sydney had me read her several Mary Kate and Ashley books, and we're reading Charlotte's Web.
We haven't let the weather slow us down. We've done some really awesome things this summer. We're also looking forward to a family trip to Maui the end of September. Before I know winter will be here and the sun will be limited. Thankfully my life has meaning with Jeff, Sydney, Jordyn, and Levi around. I honestly couldn't live here without them brightening my life. I love my family so much!!!

it's our anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated our 8 year anniversary. I think it was my favorite anniversary to date. For starters, we actually celebrated on the day even though it was during the week, and secondly we went waterskiing, which many of you may know is probably my most favorite thing to do and most treasured past time memory I have. Jeff had a team building activity yesterday at one of his coworkers cabin who happens to live on a lake, Nancy Lake. It was beautiful...cold, rainy, cloudy day (pretty much summarizes the entire summer), but beautiful. A 1930 quaint, rustic cabin set on a hill with a tree house for kids, an outhouse, and an amazing view. A neighbor who has a ski boat let us borrow it to have some fun. We took some kids on the "hot dog" and Jeff and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to go waterskiing...even if that meant being exposed to cold water. His coworker had some wetsuits that we put on. I've never had to use a wetsuit before, I've always gone skiing when it was hot outside (in california, florida, arizona, and utah). Now I get to add Alaska of places I've been waterskiing. P.S. What is the point of a wet suit? you're still getting wet. Jeff and I also exchanged our traditional letters that we do on our anniversary as well. I look forward to that every year. It's fun to reflect on the past year and remember different details of certain events for the year. Oh, and last Saturday he took me to see Eclipse. Sshhhh, he said it was entertaining (which I will interpret to mean that he liked it.) I look forward to many more anniversaries to celebrate with my husband who is soooo good to me, the kids, and he's pretty hot too...lucky girl I am. *Warning put your sunglasses on. Our pasty, white skin my cause eye damage.
Jeff on trick skis

Before plunging into the cold, cold water.
woohoo. I love waterskiing. Side note: This experience made me realize that I don't want to create a "bucket list." Often times, I thought it would be cool to write things down that I want to do, but if I'm consumed trying to knock things off that list I may have missed such a cool experience as waterskiing in Alaska. I would've never thought to put that on my bucket list anyway because I didn't think people did such things. So NO bucket lists for me just random, impulsive fun opportunities that come my way to enjoy the best life has to offer.

missionary moments

For the past year Jeff has been called as the ward missionary and I have been on his committee. We've had the desire to do missionary work for some time. It is sometimes difficult because with Jeff's job he can't really talk "religion" and when he's not working he hangs out with us, so he doesn't have many guy friends he just hangs out with. Thus, he doesn't have much opportunity to share the gospel. I on the other hand have made lots of non member friends. Here in our neighborhood there are about 5-6 friends that also have young children. We have play group once a month and have girl's night out and see each other throughout the week on walks, the gym, preschool, and other activities.
1. Last week I went running with Jeanette Legenza. She lives just 2 houses south of us. We went on a 5 mile run. We ran into our Bishop; I said hi to him. Then I explained to jeanette on our run who the Bishop is and that he recently called me to give a talk at church on 7.15.10. She asked what the topic was and again I explained that it was on trials and how Christ dealt with trials. One question led to other questions and about 30 minutes of conversation was in regards to our church and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It felt good to enlighten someone else about my beliefs and what our church means. It was awkward and jeanette seemed to learn more than what she knew about our church. I plan on inviting to her to church when I give my talk next week. She once came to a ward activity last year.
2. Last night a salesman came to our door. I wasn't excited to have him come since they usually come at a bad time. Last night was no different. It was 8:30 and I was ready to put the kids to bed. I noticed he was wearing garments and asked if he was LDS. He confirmed that he was and asked if I had a book of mormon. He had just had a spiritual conversation with a women who lives up our street and she seemed interested in the church. I gave him Jordyn's BoM. Today I plan to go to her house to introduce myself and befriend her. I hope again that I can be an instrument in the Lord's hand. That I can help this woman who recently lost her husband to cancer. I pray that although I don't know the feeling of losing a spouse, that I can say words that will provide comfort and peace for her. I know that through the Holy Ghost I can say the words she needs to hear like the Ammon and King Lamoni. King Lamoni thinks Ammon is reading his thoughts, but I believe it is the Holy Ghost that allows Ammon to say the things that KIng Lamoni happened to be thinking about.

Katherine's Wedding

Last friday 7/30/10 Katherine married Chase. Let me fill you in.....This past February, the month before Levi was born Katherine visited us for a month. A week before she left she went with a friend from our ward to play games with some people her age, I'm sure she was excited to interact with people older than 4 and younger than 30. This is where she met Chase. The last week she was visiting us, they pretty much spent every waking moment together. You know how it is, or in my case was, when you meet and date someone new...the getting to know each other, the butterflies, does he like me, will he kiss me, will he kiss me a second time, all those questions that consume one's mind. Also that last week, we hooked her up to a friend of ours that needed someone to nanny her children for the summer. Katherine wanted a job and decided that she would come back in the summer to do this job. She left the beginning of March and I'm assuming her and Chase kept in contact because when she came back the end of June, they started hanging out again. At first things were going slowly, but then one day she told us the news and she threw a wedding together in like 3 weeks. Everything fell into place with the wedding plans. She booked the night at a country club for free of charge, found the wedding dress of her dreams for 99 dollars, free photographer, free cake, and hair and makeup. It was a beautiful setting and the chaplin that married them was awesome. Now Katherine and Chase are living with us until Wednesday. They are flying to Utah to live and attend school. We're happy to have Chase in the family and look forward to their new future together. Here are some pictures of the event.

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Sydney plays soccer

This summer Sydney was old enough to play soccer. We were all very excited. She played at Eagle River High School which is just a couple blocks from our house. Most of her neighborhood friends played with her. It was fun for us to watch Sydney and mingle with our friends who also were there watching their kids play. Sydney DID NOT like soccer. She played twice a week and every practice she would play for about 10 minutes and then either sit or wander off and be her monkey self on the football equipment. Time after time she said, "it's so boring; all you do is run." I can't blame her, that was my reasoning as a kid and so I never played....but later ran cross country in high school so go figure. We made her stick with it and at the last practice she said she liked soccer because she got a medal and they gave her cake and ice cream. I was a bit disappointed though. She never played a game. All they did was play shark and minnows, duck, duck, goose, and kick the ball a few times. Finally the last practice the older kids played a soccer game. She somehow snuck in the game w/o the coaches seeing and loved it. She was kicking the ball and keeping up with the bigger kids....until the coaches saw her and kicked her out. I'll probably give it one more try next year but with a different league that allows kids to actually play soccer. But she insists on gymnastics and deep down I think she would do well. I'm scared she will love it. I know gymnastics can be very time consuming and expensive.
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