Thanksgiving weekend

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... the girls and I spent the day after Thanksgiving decorating the house and tree for Christmas.  They love looking at all of the ornaments and trying to remember where they came from.  Then, Brielle spends the whole Christmas season pulling different ornaments down to play with.  She loves them.  As a family, we went down to Temple Square and looked at the lights.  It was so busy, I don't think we will go again over Thanksgiving weekend, but it's so hard to find time in December!  Brielle wanted to go into the Assembly Hall and listen to the choir singing. I think we sat there for about 20 minutes.  The music was beautiful and it was nice and warm!  Then, on the way home we stopped and got ice cream.  Somehow, ice cream always sounds good no matter what season it is!

Halloween

Halloween is not my favorite holiday as you can see by my lack in pictures.  This year Emma wanted to be a pirate, but she had a hard time explaining what she wanted to look like.  We tried to come up with several different pirate "looks" which she wasn't satisfied with so she finally settled on a poodle girl.  Brielle had her eye on this witch costume from the moment costumes came out in stores.  I think the second picture was her being a "mean, old witch with a hat?"  Anyway, the girls did their costume parade at school and went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood at night.

My Birthday + State Fair

My favorite activity to do around my birthday is to go to the State Fair.  The biggest event I have wanted to participate in was the "All You Can Eat Ice Cream" night.  We had tried to go one year and it rained.  This year we finally made it and it was definitely worth it.  It's like going through a ice cream buffet where you walk along and decide what kinds of ice cream you want in your basket.  There was a Aggie blue ice cream that was delicious and a snickerdoodle ice cream I went to get seconds on.  They also handed out Fat Boys and Creamies, so we got some to eat while we walked around!  We also went down the Giant Yellow Slide--a state fair tradition in our family!  And the girls went through the Little Hands on the Farm (not sure how much longer Emma will enjoy this activity but you do get a treat at the end!)  We saw lots of animals and it made my kids want a farm of their own!  I love the Fall!

Brigham City Temple Open House

I hope my girls remember all of these temple they have been able to go through.  As a youth, I went through the Mount Timpanogos and Bountiful temple and was so amazed by them, that I knew I wanted to be married in one of these two temples.  After the Brigham City Temple, my girls have gone through 3 temples!  I hope they realize how blessed we are to live so close to all of these temples and I also hope it impacts them in a way that they will make it a goal to be married in the temple.  The Brigham City Temple was just gorgeous! We went with my mom and brother and after we went to Maddox to eat dinner.  (You can't go to Brigham City without eating at Maddox! Yum!) It was a fun night!

First Day of School 2012

I hate how fast time goes by! I can't believe Emma is not in 3rd grade.  She was very excited to start this year because she had several friends in her class and she got the teacher she wanted.  Brielle was excited and nervous for Kindergarten.  Luckily, she knew one good friend from preschool in her class so she knew they could play together at recess.  The first week of school, Brielle came home singing songs her teacher taught the class to remember what the rules are.  It should be a great year!

Salt Lake Day Trip

We had not ridden the Frontrunner for a couple of years and thought it would be fun to go to Salt Lake before the summer ended.  We first went to the Clark Planetarium and watched a 3D IMAX movie about two people who saved endangered elephants and orangutans.  It was pretty fascinating and my kids loved it. We stayed in the planetarium for awhile after checking out all the interesting things they have (like walking on the moon!).  Then, we went to the Discovery Gateway.  I don't know how many pictures we have of the girls on their giant horse, but it is their favorite section!  They played for awhile and then we went to get dinner.  (I love that you can leave Discovery and come back later).  When we went back, the girls had their eyes on some stuffed snakes in the gift shop and they used all of the money they had saved to buy them each one.  It's always amazing to see what they get in their mind to buy.  Fun day!

More Summer Snippits

Summer always means fireworks and this year we found a new place to watch the Weber State fireworks.  It had a perfect view, wasn't too crowded and it was in the middle of the neighborhood so we could get to our car quickly.  We had season passes to Lagoon again and you would think with all the times we went there I would have more than one picture, but Brielle on the train is it!  I love any sleeping pictures!  It's so funny to me that Brielle zonked out in the middle of the day on her bean bag.  We played hard this summer!  My girls also won some fish at the Riverdale fun days.  I'm don't remember what the number four means that Emma is signing, but it was probably the amount of days our fish were going to last!  And if you want to know what to do with Jenga pieces besides playing Jenga, check out Brielle's cute letters.