The past few weeks

We have been going to help my good friend Jayda out with her new twin boys Rowan and Luka every week, and have loved watching these boys get bigger and bigger! They are dolls. Sydney thinks they are anyways, and tries to hold them every chance she gets. Rory had a day off of school and got to come and play, too:

                                 Having a picnic with Rachel, the twins big sister and a good friend of Sydney.

                               We went to another puppet show in Balboa Park with Gene, Rory's best buddy.

                              All the kids with the star of the show, Benito Bunny:

                                Sydney, myself, and my sister and law Lynnette and niece Kaydence went to a ballet performance of Cinderella at the Poway Performing Arts Center. It was so fun! We got front row seats. We all got a little antsy after the first hour, since ballet isn't as exciting as a play, but it was still a fun girl's day:

                                             Sydney went to Mema's for the day, so Rory and I had a Mommy son day. He wanted to go tor Mormon Batallion, and he even got to dress up:

 He thought it was fun scrubbing clothes, but when he thought about it, it wouldn't be so fun to wash our whole family's clothes on this wash board. We are so grateful for a beautiful gas powered washer and dryer!

                                                       Joy school friends. We learned about imagination and creativity, so lots of dressing up was going on:

                                                                   The whole crew:

                                                      Making a collage:

                          

                                       Sydney and one of her closest friends Gage. Gage is one cool dude, and we love hanging out with him!

                                                  Rory at an assembly at school, he's in the blue sweater with the sour face. he doesn't look too happy.

 The whole school:

 Mrs. Lerner, the principal, who got a tidal wave of pineapple, coconut and silly string thrown on er, since the school read 400,000 pages during the read-a-thon.

                                       Sydney and Emily, who is another one of Sydney's closest friends. We have had a few movie nights with her, here they are cuddled up watching Alvin and the Chipmunks:

  Rory went to Legoland this past Saturday with Mema, so we had a fun day with Sydney going on a train ride, going to lunch at Prepkitchen in La Jolla, and riding bikes. She's pooped:

Silly Sydney

Here's Princess Sydney. She literally makes me laugh all the time. She is so enthusiastic about everything, thinks everything is "hilarious," and has a lust for life. I love her so much!! She truly is a bright shining star!

Weekend "getaway"

Micah and I decided to take a long weekend getaway, but decided to stay here in San Diego, so we went downtown and stayed at the W hotel. it was so great! We relaxed, ate at some nice restaurants, ate lots of yummy desserts, slept in every morning, and  took a nice bubble bath every night. It was one of the nicest weekends ever. It was a Thursday through Sunday, So it was just enough time to miss the kids! Thanks to Mema's and Grandpas for taking care of them.

Just had to share our huge room; It was one of the top floors, and full of windows and had a huge comfy bed. I would definitely stay here again.

 We checked out the USS Midway while we were downtown, and it was really interesting. A very cool tourist attraction. See those chains next to Micah? Each link weighs 150 pounds!

 The presidency the year I was born, 1982.

                                                  Yes, this was as relaxing as it looks!:

                                     We topped off the weekend with going to the movies, playing disc golf with friends, and going to the Mormon Battalion, too. Can't wait to do it again.

Joy School

This was taken a few months ago at one of the Joy School Mom's houses. We have a great group for Joy school. All of the kids are just wondeful, as are the Mom's! We are so blessed to be a part of it. Sydney loves going to "school," and especially loves seeing all of her friends. She gets so excited every Tuesday and Thursday to go. She gets to have lots of fun lessons, and I love asking her about it.

Christmas

Christmas Eve

We always spend Christmas Eve at my parents house witht he whole family, and the kids open gifts(like, a million!), and the adults do a white elephant gift exchange. It's always so much fun. here's always lots of yummy food, lts of laughter, and lots of love. It's one of my favorite parts o the year.

Kaylin, Sydney and Kaydence cuddling:

So my  Dad has this creepy santa statue, and of course Micah and my brothers thought it would be hilarious to make him look even crazier by putting sunglasses on him and a "cigarette" in his mouth. The kids didn't liek it for sure. But we got a good laugh from it!:

 White elephant exchange, we regifted a present we got a  few years back, a photo of my brother Kevin that he signed. It hung on the wall behind our bathroom door, but we decided it was time to share the joy, so we started a photo collage and added Micah to it(that;s him jumping by my brothers face in the photo):

                                                                      The whole family:

                                                                       The grandkids:

                                                    Well, hello!