TWO Months!

 Kassi had her two month appointment yesterday!  She is now 22 inches and 10 pounds!! (Apparently my home scale is a little off...)  She's put on almost 4 pounds in two months!  That puts her in the 30th percentile for both weight and height, which is higher on the curve than any of my kids have ever been!  She's perfectly healthy and doing great! 

Here's a few photos from the last couple of weeks:

Exhausted after a weekend of socializing at Daddy's work retreat:

We've had to move up a size in diapers because Kassi kept having blow-outs.  After this particular one, Kassi got her first shower in the kitchen sink!  She thought it was great!

The Coolest Polar Bear

I promised that girls that, before the summer ended, I would take them to see the new Polar Bear and Seal exhibits at the Hogle Zoo.  I made arrangements with my sister-in-law, Marcy, to meet them there last Saturday.  Grandma--Jeremy's mom--came too!  (In fact, if you look closely, you can see Grandma in the picture above--no, she's not the bear.)  I'm glad that we were able to go with cousins because I was really not in the mood for the zoo on Saturday or any day lately but I'm really glad we went!  The Polar Bear had to be the coolest thing I have ever seen at a zoo that didn't involve a trainer.  He was on a loop.  He would walk around in the sun for a bit, then dive into the water.  Once in the water, he would stand on a rock, dive down, come up by the glass, and then back float back to his rock.  He did this many times before climbing back onto dry land and walking around some more.  The kids just loved it!  The adults were pretty impressed too!

Check out this video!  The kids are so cute!  Oh, and the bear is impressive.

 Sadly, Kassi slept through the exhibit but we got proof that she was there!

Cousin MO

 Cousin Miles

 Double Trouble!

 Emmy liked the Polar Bear but the playful, wrestling Seals seemed to interest her more.

 And the Sea Lions

 Interesting fact: Most seal species spend about 70% of their time swimming upside down.  I noticed this particular sea lion doing it and so I looked it up.  I had never thought about it before, but I found it kind of odd.  It's not for sure why they do this, but one quote I found states, “The eyes of many seal species are oriented toward the top of their head. Unless they are diving very deep, swimming upside down gives them a better view of their surroundings.”  It was also pointed out that, at least in captivity, seals would need to see the bottom in order to eat the fish thrown in to feed them.  However, there have been confirmations that wild seals also do this.  Funny, huh?  Ok, well, this 30-year-old Mom is always excited for the opportunity to learn something new...

It was Kassi's first time at the zoo!!!

 She spent most of the time sleeping...or yawning and wanting her bink.

 I did take her out and show her the animals when she was alert, though.  She seemed very mildly amused.  :)

Smiles

 Two Months and Too Cute!!

Kassi has been shooting us a rare smile here and there since she was a few weeks old, but in the last couple of week, she has become a very smiley kid!  She grins and smiles constantly, even when she has no apparent reason for it.  In the last week, she has also started cooing and "talking" to us!  I love this stage!!  And I love her big crooked grin when she gets really happy!

A Day I Hope We Remember

Yesterday was such a good day!  We spent the morning getting some things done around the house, had lunch with Mary, Millie, Tommy, and Jeffery (just back from their long visit to Northern Idaho), and then Jeremy came home from work early and we went to the Brigham City Temple Open House!  Emmy has been asking for a year to go inside a temple and now she finally did!  I wasn't familiar with the history of Brigham City or the kind of town that it is.  I have to admit that I kind of fell in love with the place while we were there.  It reminded me a lot of the town I grew up in.  I want to go back someday and see some the other things it has to offer, such as The Golden Spike, where the East and West bound Railroads met, and what sounds like an impressive Bird Sanctuary.  I would also love to attend their Peach Festival sometime.  I guess they are famous for their peach orchards.  That sounds a lot more tasty to me than the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA.

 Anyway, we walked through their new temple and it was so beautiful!  I loved that I was able to show it to my girls and help them understand a little better why temples are so important to their parents.  They loved the Celestial Room and the Sealing Room.  We were also able to slip out of line and see the Bride's Room which my girls just adored.  It was so pretty with all of it's adorned mirrors and chandelier.  I love that the temple allows you to feel like a princess on your wedding day!  What I really thought was neat, though, is that when I asked each of the girls what their favorite part was, Ally said that she felt closer to Jesus in the temple.

After we were done with our tour, we went to a park.  Jeremy had to take a call for work, so he sat at a picnic table with his computer in front of him and his cell phone in hand and worked for about 45 minutes while the girls played and fed piggy-pooh.  Then we went to dinner at a restaurant that is rather famous in those parts, called Maddox.  Jeremy parents just love this place and I've been hearing about it for almost 11 years so it was fun to finally go.  The food was really good and filling.  Their rolls seriously melt in your mouth.  We even brought home a really yummy peach pie.  All in all, it was a good day.  I really hope it's one that at least the older girls will remember for a long time. 

Smiling and talking to Daddy at Maddox

Karaoke

As part of the pool party the other night, they had a Karaoke DJ.  Sami sang "You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan and then she and her friend, Bri, sang "Party in the USA."  Pretty cute stuff!

Getting By anyway

Yesterday was an...interesting day.  I spent the morning trying to get the house cleaned while allowing Ally to have a couple of friends over.  I didn't get a whole lot of cleaning done, but Ally had fun.  My piggy-pooh (Kassi) got fed to her heart's content.  And I finally figured out my carpools for the school year.  Then we did lunch and I put Emmy and Kassi down for a nap.  (Kassi still cat-naps throughout the mornings and evenings but she's started taking a long nap (1.5-3 hours) in the afternoon and sleeping 7 hours at night.  I am loving that!  Anyway, once Emmy and Kassi were out, I started a potato salad for a pool party and folded laundry.  Kassi took one of her shorter long naps and turned making potato salad into a three hour project.  I finally got my salad done--all it needed was some crumbled bacon on top.  5:15 came too fast and the pool party we were heading to started at 6.  I started cooking some bacon but I also had to get the girls ready to go and feed the piggy-pooh again.  I forgot about the bacon... Let's just say I'm lucky I didn't start the kitchen on fire.  The bacon was practically ashes by the time I got to it.  I took the smoking pan out to the deck and then I called Jeremy and told him to hurry home because he was in charge of cooking bacon before we left for the party.  Then I went back to getting everyone ready.  At 6 Jeremy still wasn't home so I attempted the bacon again.  Luckily Jeremy got home just in time to save that batch.  How did I get through 30 years of life and never learn the art of cooking bacon???  Okay, my four distractions didn't help either.  Anyway, we made it to the party about 20 minutes late with slightly overdone bacon on top of potato salad.  Our neighbors just finished their landscaping and pool area so they threw a neighborhood party.  The girls had so much fun!  There was a big water slide and pool with a hot tub and trampoline.  They have two cabanas (one with a bathroom, the other with an outdoor kitchen) and a big grill and bar area in between.  It is quite the set-up.  Jeremy decided he was not going swimming and didn't bother to put on his swimsuit.  I wore my swimsuit under my clothes but it is still pretty tight from having a baby two months ago, so I was hopeful not to have to use it.  One end of the pool was only a couple feet deep so I told Ally and Emmy to stay put there.  Of course, they didn't listen.  They are both too fearless with their floaties on.  Emmy even decided she wanted to take on the water slide.  The first time she went down, I was mentally preparing myself to jump in after her.  She did fine.  She bobbed out of the water with a huge grin on her face and slowly kicked her way to the side of the pool where I pulled her out.  The second time was uneventful as well.  Then Jeremy decided to get involved.  He was holding a sleeping Kassi in one arm but he grabbed Emmy at the bottom of the slide before she went in to the pool.  Emmy didn't like that--it took away half the fun.  So Jeremy tossed her into the pool toward the shallow end.  One of Emmy's arm floaties came off and she started flailing, lopsided in the deep water just a foot from the shallow part but not close enough to touch.  I started to prepare to jump in after her but I was on the other side of the slide from her.  Jeremy did some quick thinking and handed the baby to a wet ten-year-old boy standing by him, then leaned over the side of the pool and pulled Emmy to him by her pigtail.  In the moment, I was horrified.  But looking back, it was kind of funny.  After we were back home with kids safely tucked in bed, Jeremy and I had a chance to laugh at ourselves.  Me for a singed pan of bacon still sitting on the deck, and Jeremy for his crazy act of parenting at the pool.  Yes, the house isn't staying as clean as I like and sometimes I feel like the baby is just getting juggled around.  But we are doing what we have to do to get by around here.  The girls are happy, healthy, and safe.  That's all that matters.

Super Dad!

 We decided we needed a swing set in a spot in the yard where I could see the girls well from the house.  So we got them a new swing set as an early Christmas present.  Jeremy spent almost 20 HOURS putting it together for them!!  And the girls just LOVE it!  Jeremy gets the Best Dad of the Summer Award at our house!!

Weekend in Idaho

 Okay, it's been a couple weeks ago now...(I have been in such a funk lately and having a hard time figuring out how to do everything that needs to be done and still be a good mom.) but we took little Kassi to Idaho to meet Jeremy's family there!  She loved GG and GP!  She was full of smiles for them!  She also met Uncle Brent, Aunt Jill, and (below) Aunt Betty. 

Something funny about this visit: we always go to church with GG and GP before heading back home on the Sundays we are there.  This time, though, I forgot the girls' Sunday dresses.  I had them laid out but they didn't make it into the car.  So we had to borrow dresses from Jeremy's youngest cousin, Tanisha, who lives next door to his grandparents.  She had one for Sami (who is the same size as her) and some old ones for Ally and Emmy.  But she no longer had a size to fit Kassi.  For some reason, when I was packing, I had just thrown in the little outfit that Kassi is wearing in these pictures.  It's actually one that I wore when I was a baby.  It's not a dress but I figured it worked for an infant.  I didn't know why I was packing it at the time but it came in useful and I got so many compliments on how cute it was on her!

 While we were there, we went to their final day of the county fair.  The 4H was having their livestock auction.  I had never seen anything like it before in real life.  I may have grown up in an agricultural area, but I was a "small town city girl" and never even ventured into the that portion of our county fairs except to look at the rabbits once.  It was always the shopping booths and carnival rides for me.  Anyway, it was fun to watch a bit of the auction.  I love visiting the place where Jeremy spent his childhood and taking walks down his memory lane.  And I love that the girls get so into it, too.

The highlight of the weekend for Ally was hanging with the cats.  She spent every moment she could outside with a cat and a bunch of kittens.  Her favorite was one named Twilight who looks astonishing like my cat from my childhood, Mittens.  He kept disappearing, though, when we would try to get a picture.  So the above is Ally with Tanisha and Crystals, the kitten.

Happy Birthday Ally-Bally!!!

 Happy Birthday Ally!!!!!

Ally turned FIVE last week!! 

She's getting so grown up!  I can't believe she will be starting Kindergarten in just a few weeks...  Ally started off her day with presents and surprises.  She got her very own "American Girl Doll" (knock-off--to hold her over until she's old enough for the real thing) along with clothes, a night gown, and bunny slippers for the doll. She also got a new nightgown to wear to her party! 

This is a big birthday year for Ally (yes, I've decided if I make a huge deal out of every birthday every year, I'll go broke... so 1, 5, 8, & 10 are the big party years).  She wanted a slumber party but since we don't do sleepovers, we did a pajama party!  All the friends came in their jammies and brought along their sleeping buddies.  We did a pillow case race, danced and played musical pillows to Sandra Boynton's "Pajama Time," and played "sleep, sleep, snore" (duck-duck-goose) and sleep tag.  We also made night caps for our sleeping buddies and--as a small tribute to my childhood parties--we made individual pizzas and did a balloon toss with a bed sheet.  When I was little, I remember at almost every birthday party we would sit in the middle of a sheet and everyone would toss the balloons around us (like a parachute game).  First we put the sleeping buddies in and watched them bounce around with the balloons.  Then we let every kid have a turn in the middle. 

Birthday Girl in the middle!

Pillow Case Race!

Singing Happy Birthday!

Ally and Scarlet

All the friends

with their sleeping buddies, complete with new night caps!!

The invitation

The goody-bags

a little treat for the goody-bags

THE CAKE

Ally's and Sami's night caps up close

Taking a day off...

We've had a breakthrough!  My work-aholic husband has decided that he doesn't need to work on Saturdays anymore!!  Jeremy has always made a point of not working on Sundays but he has now decided that whatever work he has hanging over his head can be crammed in during the week and he will try really hard not to think too much about it on the weekends!!  Hurray!  We get Daddy all day on Saturdays!!

  He realized all this a week ago Saturday, while sitting on a park bench, watching our girls run through water... and it was all I could do not to cry with joy over his epiphany.  This was a good Saturday, too.  We started out the day getting things done around the house.  Then we went to the park for a picnic lunch, followed by playing at the splash pad, and then Slurpees.  We went home and got some more little chores done while the girls rode their bikes and played in the backyard.  Then we went out to dinner--and our girls were PERFECTLY BEHAVED!  The day was fabulous!!  I look forward to many more like it!

 

 GOT IT!  I finally got proof of the tippy-toes walk!!