Fun Pics from 2012

(Note: As you look at these pictures, see if you can figure out who the "ham" is in our family.) :)

This summer, SkyWest had a party for employees. They had lots of fun games, activities, and food. One of the activities was dressing up in SkyWest flight attire and taking pictures. Kinda fun.

In October, the girls and I went to a BYU Women's Soccer game. We had a lot of fun, but we did take a break from the game to get these cute pictures:

I went to see Green Smoothie Girl with Denise in September. I was brave enough to ask for a picture with her, but I wasn't smart enough to have a camera with me. Denise came through with her camera phone. Not the best picture, but still a picture. :)

Sledding

November 9 brought the first real snowstorm of this winter (and actually the only snowstorm as of today - Dec. 7). The girls got all bundled up and we took advantage of the chance to do some sledding.

Brynne thinks fresh snow = time to eat. :)

Melissa wasn't too interested in the snow, but she absolutely loved the mittens! She kept holding her hands up and waving at herself and laughing. She thought it was so funny and cool that she could move her hands and watch the pink material on her hand move. So cute!

Picture Day at School

Today was picture day at school. We sure do have beautiful girls!

 Our smallest beautiful girl has been sick with a fever all day. She spent all morning sleeping on the couch with Daddy. (He was willing to take one for the team!) So while I've been working on all these blogs, Melissa has been getting some serious Daddy Time!

Discovery Gateway in SLC

We've been to the Discovery Gateway museum in Salt Lake City several times over the years, but never before with a tiny toddler. (Oh my goodness...did I just call my baby a toddler?) It was lots of fun watching Melissa play and have fun!

The first stop was to play with the balls. We could have stayed there all day if I hadn't felt like making sure Melissa tried all the exhibits.

 Melissa discovered (get it, "discovered," ha ha!) that it's a lot of fun to climb in the ball bin!

 I definitely think we've got a future race car driver on our hands! And if she looks at all the other drivers with those big beautiful eyes of hers, they are bound to pull over and let her pass. :)

 Playing with water is always lots of fun, although Melissa wasn't interested in staying with the water for too long. By the time we got there she had picked up on the fact that there was lots and lots of fun things to do and play all around her.

 Morgan and Brynne mostly went around and did their own things. Last time we went I stuck with Brynne, and Morgan went off on her own a bit. Kind of weird to let them both go off on their own and have a baby to stay with...

Brynne did come play with Melissa in the farm area for a short while. Brynne got a sheep outfit for Melissa and a cow outfit for herself to dress up in. I don't think I'd mind being a farmer if my farm animals were always this cute:

 Brynne spent a lot of her time creating cartoon illustrations and creating short videos. She also went to see the helicopter, did the weather news, and a few other fun things. I sneaked a picture of her playing music on the huge xylophone:

 Morgan spent most of her time playing balls and building things.

Today I am really grateful for free passes to places where kids can learn while having a really fun time!

2012 Summer Trip - Friends in Idaho

 The first three weeks of July were spent away from home. This was the year of Lee's big family reunion (held every four years) on the Washington coast. I decided that if we were going to drive all the way up there, I wanted to stop and see a few people. First stop -- Jerome, Idaho to see my friend Andy Prescott and his great family!

While in Jerome we discovered that Melissa has a thing for cowboys! :) Andy's son Porter got down to play with Melissa, and it didn't take her long to steal his hat. Porter loved it - he's the one who grabbed my camera and got a great picture of Melissa in his hat. :)

 We started the 4th of July at Andy's where he and his wife, Janet, were nice enough to invite us to join them at the lake. It was the first time my kids had ever been boating and they loved it!

Brynne loved being the flag girl anytime we had someone skiing. I'm thinking her arm may have gotten a little tired when it was my turn to ski. :) (For the record - I got up the first time I tried regular water skiing 18 years ago, but I struggled a little more with the slalom ski on this trip.)

 The girls got to ride on an inner tube. They loved it until Andy decided to have a little fun. As Brynne puts it, "Their dad was a crazy driver!" Brynne and Porter ended up in the water at one point, which Brynne was pretty upset about; but no worries - she just went back to her duties as flag girl!

 In the pictures above and below, are two of Andy's kids - Liz and Porter. Morgan and Liz had a wonderful time together! Liz loves horses and goes riding most mornings, so she and Morgan had lots to talk about.

 One of us had a tough time staying awake with all the excitement. :)

 This was just after I got done trying to ski. Melissa was not too happy with me that I left her with strangers and jumped in off the back of the boat.

 The second half of our 4th of July was spent in Caldwell, Idaho with our friends the Christensens. I went to Ricks College with Lee and Dee Christensen and have remained friends with their family. (Ricks is also where I met Andy Prescott!) We joined the Christensens for potluck and fireworks before heading to bed after such a long, but fun, day.

The next morning Morgan and Brynne got a chance to ride horses. They had ridden for a little bit at Andy's house but we super excited for the chance to ride more.

 As if riding horses wasn't enough, Morgan learned to drive a "gear motorcycle." We tried to tell Morgan it's called a 4-wheeler, so now she calls it a "gear 4-wheeler." Can you tell someone is excited about the gears? :) Morgan took Brynne out for a ride. I was quite nervous but was thrilled to actually have a picture of my girls doing something together with genuine smiles on their faces!!

When we left Idaho, we drove to Portland to stay with Aleisha Calabrese Harr, a friend of ours from Seattle. We didn't have much time there, but it was so nice to visit with her!

A fun fact: Andy has a daughter who is one day older than Melissa, and Aleisha has a daughter who is one day younger than Melissa. It was lots of fun to watch Melissa with her new friends. :)

A Few Fun Pics

Oops...

While Lee was home recently, I asked him to help give Morgan a bath/shower. When he asked what soap he should use, I told him to just use my body wash. He told me he couldn't find it, so I went and got it for him. I was slightly (but only slightly) annoyed because it was right there where I told him it would be. He pointed out to me that my body wash actually said "Foam Bath" on it, not body wash.

Here's the thing: I had noticed that my body wash didn't look like the kind my mom had, even though she's the one who had given me mine. I just thought maybe mine was packaged in an older bottle or something. I pulled out another body wash, which it turns out is actually called "Shower Gel," to confirm that, yes, indeed, I had been showering with foam bath! (To the left is the foam bath, the right is shower gel.) Oops...
This reminds me of a similar experience I recently had at my sister Ashley's house. The story begins when I was visiting her in Laramie, WY last summer. I took a shower and couldn't find any lotion. I finally found some under her sink, but it was strange lotion. I had to work really hard to get it to rub in. I decided it must just be old.

Fast forward to when I visited Ashley in California last September. Once again, I showered and then went in search of the lotion. As luck would have it, I found the same lotion I had used in Laramie -- only this time the lotion was actually on the side in the bath and not under the sink. I decided the bathtub is a strange place to keep lotion, but oh well. Once again, the stuff was a little hard to work into my skin. But you can't be picky when you're at someone else's house, right? About the time I was putting the darn stuff back into the tub, I noticed that it said "Body Wash" on it. Oops...

Next thing you know, I'm going to find out that the stuff I've been putting on my eyes is really lip gloss! Oh wait, that's what my girls did on Mother's Day (when we thought they were playing nicely in their room). I wish you could tell better in this picture, but they had colorful eyes and hair -- all from lip gloss. Oops...
I guess given my recent personal mix-ups with products, that rather than assume the girls were being defiant, I should consider that perhaps they too just got a little mixed up? (Not!!!) :)

Daddy's Airplane

Over the weekend, the girls and I drove to Rawlins to see Lee. While there Lee took us to see the airplane he flies. In true Wyoming fashion, it was super cold and VERY windy. Lee let us climb in the airplane, which is something the girls used to love to do. This is a picture of Morgan and Brynne sitting in the cockpit of the airplane. I wish you could tell from the picture how windy and cold it was. You can see that the blanket that is normally wrapped around the engine is instead flapping around. While we were in the airplane trying to stay warm (above), Lee was working to secure the engine blankets. The whole back of this airplane is one huge long tube where they store UPS packages for flights. The only seats in the plane are the two in the cockpit and one extra just behind. It's kinda cool.
Here's a little closer shot of Lee and the girls by the plane. We affectionately refer to it as "Daddy's plane". Although it actually belongs to Key Lime Air, it sits in Rawlins and Lee is basically the only one to fly it, so we call it his. For the small price of only $20/person, we'll let you sit in the cockpit and take a picture! :)
In other news, we stopped at Lee's sister Ruth's house, and stayed with her one night. Brynne slept on the top bunk of a bunkbed. I, knowing that she tends to turn sideways in her sleep, prayed that Brynne would turn the direction that her feet would be hanging off the bed so that she wouldn't fall out. When I woke up in the morning, I saw my prayer had been answered:
I've been blessed with two kids who both love to snuggle. Brynne was kind enough to share the love with Aunt Ruth:

Sledding Fun

Today we got lots of fresh, powdery snow. The kind I'm sure skiers and snowboarders love. It finally stopped snowing about 3:30, so we went outside for an hour of shoveling snow off the driveway. The thing that stinks is that the snow will all blow back onto the driveway while we're sleeping. :( Anyway, about the time I was finishing shoveling, I realized this would be a perfect time to go sledding, which we haven't done in more than a year. I called the girls over (they were across the street climbing trees and playing in the snow), and after a few housekeeping items (going potty) we were off. The first picture is right when we got there before the first run.

You can tell it was getting dark quickly, 'cause this next one is a bit darker. There's a huge hill at one of the nearby elementary schools, so the girls went down a good 12-15 times (usually on their own sleds by themselves).

The girls let me go down with them all together the first time, but then they always wanted to go by themselves. I asked each of them on several occasions if I could go down with them. Brynne said, "Well, no thanks. I'm being brave going by myself." And Morgan said something very similar. I decided I've moved onto the next stage of life -- the fun part about sledding these days is supposed to be watching your kids.

Imagine my excitement when, just before it was time to go, the girls decided they wanted a few minutes to play on the playground equipment. Yes!! How many times can Hilary go sledding in 5 minutes? LOTS! :)