Pre-Halloween Fun

Halloween is such a fun time of year! I feel like it's turning into a season and not just a one-day holiday. My calling in our ward is to plan a "Mother's Group" activity once a month. This past week we met at the church and decorated pumpkin sugar cookies, made trick-or-treat bags, played a game, and trick-or-treated in the halls of the church. I think we had the highest attendance of any of the other activities we've done so far, hopefully our friendship salad for our Thanksgiving activity will be just as successful! These pictures are of Maggie and Josie at that activity; Maggie with two of her friends-- Reagen and Annie, who are such cute, sweet friends. There are also a couple pictures of the kids at the Halloween carnival our ward had last week. Just in case you couldn't tell, Johnny is going to be Anakin Skywalker for all you Star Wars fans out there who know who that is, and Maggie is a beautiful princess with the tiara she wore for my sister Jessica's wedding that tops it all off! And Josie is just hanging in there and I'm sure next year she'll be a cute something, but this year she's just happy to hang out and watch! One of my favorite things about Halloween is making pumpkin shaped sugar cookies and decorating them with candy corns (that are only ever good on pumpkin shaped, orange frosted sugar cookies) and plain m&m's. I realized this year that as I ate lots of those cookies they are so closely tied to all the memories I have of all the Halloweens that my Mom made them growing up. So as I sit and eat them, I taste sitting in my Mom's kitchen with a million cookies around shaped, frosted, and decorated the same every year to eat for a week! So happy Halloween to all of you, we'll be sure we update next week with our pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating pictures.

Child Creativity

October 25, 2006

This is what happens when you get grounded from the Gamecube, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. John was at Young Men's on Wednesday night and Johnny and Maggie were looking for something to do and they came up with the idea to make battle jackets out of shopping bags. Johnny got some scissors and made arm and head holes for them both and they stayed quite entertained for the rest of the night! Johnny got his Gamecube taken away because he's been having a hard time with swimming lessons. I've discovered that whenever he's asked to do anything hard at home, swimming, and school he decides to take a potty break to get out of the situation. When he went to swimming lessons on Tuesday he decided to go to the bathroom when his teacher wanted to help him float on his stomach after he knew not to, so his Gamecube was taken away for 2 days. Yesterday was the last day of swimming lessons and Johnny decided not to finish and made the choice to earn the money to pay me back for the lessons and have his Gamecube taken away for 5 days. Very disappointing that he quit in a hard situation, so needless to say I'm grateful that the weather is still nice because I think we're going to have to spend some more time in the pool. But, congratulations to Maggie who graduated from level one to level two and is turning into quite the little fish! She did just great and we're so proud of her for overcoming her fear of the water enough to learn to hold her breath under water, float on her back and stomach, turn from her back to her stomach and also to dive under the water. Bummer that Johnny will have to start in level one while she advances to level two, but so it goes!

Josie at Disneyland

Disneyland 2006
We could not have made this trip without knowing that Josie would be okay. What a sweet baby we have! She sat in her stroller for about 13 hours the two days we went to Disneyland. She was happy to sleep there, eat there, and just hang out. I think that for some of the rides her Grandpa was happy to get to take care of her as a good excuse to not have to wait in any of the lines and to take a break. We're also glad we had her so that we could use her stroller as our pack mule. It was great to be able to pile on the sweatshirts, bags, food, water, and whatever else it would hold. When she wasn't sitting there we had to take things off it because it was piled so high and heavy that it would tip over! She was just as pleasant as she could be and we're glad that her Grandma and Grandpa got to see her and spend some time with her before she grows too big! And she loved the attention she got from her aunt Tyra who loved holding her and carrying her and helping to take good care of her. We'll just have to make sure that we go back again soon and often so that she'll be able to enjoy it and remember it!

Disneyland for Johnny

Disneyland 2006

Johnny's experience of Disneyland was different than Maggie's. He rode all the rides he possible could and was sad when he wasn't big enough to do more. He braved all the roller coasters, wild river runs, and Indiana Jones. His favorites included Soaring (flying over California), and the Grizzly Wild River Run from California Adventures, and Star Tours and Pirates of the Caribbean from Disneyland. He loved all the roller coasters and all the scary rides, but he didn't love the characters all dressed up-- he wanted absolutely nothing to do with them, while Maggie was just the opposite. His favorite part of the trip was that Disneyland was doing a Jedi Training Academy in the middle of Tomorrowland where they gave Jedi training with light sabers and it was a surprise when Darth Vader and Darth Maul showed up with their Storm Troopers! We got some great video and pictures, he was a very happy boy. He also loved getting to hang out with Tyra and Grandpa and Grandma Peterson and can't wait to visit their house for Christmas. His favorite store was the Lego store where he'd been saving all his money to buy Star Wars legos, so he was happy to accomplish that. We loved the fireworks, parades, and the Fantasmic show. All the money we spent was worth it when at the end of the day before he climbed into bed he said, "This was the greatest day ever!"

Disneyland from Maggie's eyes

Disneyland 2006
Whoever said that Disneyland is the "happiest place on Earth" was right! We had the best time. I read in an article once that people who spend their money on "things" aren't as happy as people that spend their money on making memories together as in using it to take vacations. I have to say that our trip was worth every penny spent. These pictures are of Maggie mostly, I think all her dreams of Disneyland came true being able to meet Sleeping Beauty (and Pocahontas, Cinderella, Minnie Mouse, & Mulan). More pictures will have to follow. She got to ride all the rides she was interested in, spend lots of time clinging to and holding her Grandma Peterson, and buy the Minnie Mouse doll she'd been saving all her money for. She was a trooper! All the kids were, we wore them out as you can see from Maggie's picture, but we made great memories and had so much fun!

Catching up!

October 4, 2006

Yesterday was Josie's 8 month birthday, how the time flies! John is sure that she is behind now because she can't crawl yet. There are a lot of things she can't do, but I think it's probably my fault because I just can't grasp that she's getting older and isn't 3 months old anymore. So, we need to work on rolling over, drinking from a sippy cup, sitting, and crawling. Maybe by the time she's two she'll have it all figured out! She is just getting over infections in both ears and was so happy yesterday and today. She is so well mannered even when she doesn't feel good that I forget how happy she can be when she is pain free! The kids started swimming lessons again yesterday. Only in Tucson will you find swimming lessons starting October 3rd on a 99 degree day! We're sure that when it cools down to 75 degrees we're going to be wanting our winter coats! Our trip to Disneyland is coming up in a few days and we're so excited that it's finally here. We'll take lots of pictures with the new camera that we're going to go buy tomorrow and we'll post them soon.