Spring Break

We flew out to see my sister in Virginia for Spring Break. We had such a great time. We loved it. The first day we got there we just hung out and enjoyed being with family. My sister's house has the following historical marker.
On our drive home from the airport we saw the following sign outside a church parking lot. I thought it was funny!
The next day we spent the morning walking the grounds of Mount Vernon. It was so great! It was fun to walk around where George Washington did. Then home to watch conference.
On Sunday morning we went and saw the Washington DC temple and went to the visitor center. Then back to my sister's to watch conference and have the yummy annual conference rolls.
On Monday we went to the Air and Space Museum and then walked around and saw most of the memorials. I am proud of all the kids (Claire and my sister's kids...Mia just got to ride in the stroller) because we walked over 5 miles that day. Here we are at the Lincoln Memorial. I couldn't believe how big it was.
On Monday, we also went to the Washington Monument, Vietnam wall, Korean war memorial, the World War II memorial and we saw the Capital.
On Tuesday we went and saw the Natural History Museum, the Museum of American History (I loved this one...we got to see the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner) and the Holocaust Museum. That night my sister watched the kids and my brother-in-law took Bryan and I to see the The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. Once again I was amazed at the size of this memorial.
My brother-in-law also took us by the White House. Here we are with the back side of the White House in the background. Once again it was awesome to see these things that I have read and learned about.
Then on Wednesday we went and saw the Marine Memorial (Iwo Jima statue). We went and saw Arlington National Cemetery (we got to see JFK's grave, the tomb of the unknown soldier...we got to see the changing of the guards.) and then Bryan and I got dropped off at the Pentagon. My brother-in-law is in the Air Force and he had arranged for us to be able to go in the Pentagon with him. He got to learn about the building and see some of it. We ended our time there seeing the September 11th Pentagon Memorial. That night we went to a park for a picnic dinner and got to watch airplanes take off right over our heads. It was another fabulous day!
On our last day we went to the Washington DC National Zoo. Once again it was so fun and the kids had a blast seeing the elephants, butterflies, orangutans, Panda Bear, Red Pandas, and so many other fun animals.
We had a great time at the zoo! We loved spending time in our Nation's Capital and of course spending time with family. Claire and Mia are going through with-drawls...I am too!!!
This picture just sums up how we all felt when we got home (although this picture was taken in Virginia). Thanks Zach, Ginet, Wyatt, Bode, Summer and Addie for such an amazing Spring Break!!

Fun Times!!

I have been wanting to post these pictures in a while, but never have. For Christmas Claire got a camera. She absolutely loves it (even Mia enjoys it). Here are some of the pictures she has taken with her camera. The camera lens rotates so she can take pictures of herself. She can also add fun things to the pictures; which is one of her favorite things to do. She had added piggie tails to her hair.
In this pictures she added a binkie to Mia. Which is so funny cause I think Mia had a binkie in her mouth when Claire took the picture.
Here is our big lipped big smiles girl. This is one of her favorites to add on to the photos. We do get a lot of blurry and and random photos too. She loves taking pictures of her feet for some reason.
I can't believe this is happening already!! Mia has started to try and climb out of her crib. Luckily this is as far as she has gotten. I hope and pray she doesn't learn how to climb all the way out of it. I am not sure I am ready for her to be in a big girl bed.
We were able to go support Bryan's sister Terin in her role as Joy (a stepsister) in Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. The girls both had so much fun. We were able to get a picture taken with both stepsisters, Cinderella and the Prince. Claire of course was her silly self as always!
Our last big news is...Claire can now ride a two wheeler. She is no longer in need of training wheels. She is so proud of herself. Now to get her a bike she fits. This one is a bit too small for her.

Our Past Month

This post will not be in order of what happened in February, but at least it is an idea. This picture is one I love because it just shows what a great big sister Claire is.
One of Bryan's mission companions and his family came to visit us. They have a daughter a month younger than Mia. It was great. Mia and Liberty had so much fun together.
They also have a son a few months older than Claire. Hunter and Claire were quite the pair. They played so hard they were just exhausted by the end of the night. It was a great few nights of sleep at our house!
We let Claire try Pop Rocks for the first time. She wasn't so sure at first, but by the end she loved them!
The girls had so much fun taking Buddy to the groomer with me. It isn't the best picture since I was in the front seat driving and it was taken (quickly) at a stop sign.
Mia had a medical set back this past month. She was diagnosed with RSV. We lucked out with her and she never had to go to the hospital. We were able to treat her at home. She loves her fishy mask!
Claire discovered the Rock Band instruments. As a family we have had so much fun playing the game together. Bryan and I are grateful to Claire for always wanting us to play Rock Band as a family. What a great way to spend time together.
Mia even joined in on the vocals for our "family band". It was so cute to hear her try and sing.
Bryan was assigned to get the girls their Valentine's Day gifts. I think he did a great job (since we didn't really want too much candy in the house and they have plenty of toys), he got the girls pajamas and they love them!! Here is Mia in her cupcakes.
Claire was so excited for her Hello Kitty pajamas. She is even more excited that she has figured out how to make a heart with her hands. She loves to show you that she can do it.

Career Choice?

First off, Claire is really proud of herself that she let Aunt Janelle wash her hair at the salon... usually Claire makes her just wet her hair with a spray bottle. I can't believe she is growing up so fast!!
For her birthday Aunt LeeAnn, Uncle John and Katelynn gave her a bag with hair necessities in it (it had a blow dryer, straightener, curling iron, a curler, a brush and a bottle to use as pretend hair spray...later Claire added her fake scissors from her doctors kit to her hair bag). Claire then created her own salon in our basement. She had taken a chair and put it in front of her kitchen sink. She had Katelynn sit in that chair and lean back; she even put a"towel" (apron) under Katelynn's neck to make her more comfortable. Next, she put the doctors lab coat on Katelynn as if it was the smock Janelle uses at the salon. Finally she began to "wash" Katelynn's hair.
Of course after your hair is washed, the next step is to get your hair cut...which is exactly what Claire proceeded to do for Katelynn.
After the hair cut, Claire then used the blow dryer and dried Katelynn's hair and styled it.
Not sure if this is Claire's way of saying this is what she wants as a career or if it says she has spent too much time in a salon....not matter what it means, it was so cute to watch!!

Five Already!!!

Well this ice cream cake says it all!!! We are now the parents of a five-year-old. Claire informed us that she didn't want a cake for her birthday...just ice cream. We thought we were crazy when we asked her if she wanted an ice cream cake. She didn't believe us that there was such a thing.
She loved this ice cream cake. If you look closely she is trying to blow out the candles in the cake.
Since her party was at Chuck E. Cheese's (thanks Grandma Lois)...everyone got to enjoy the tokens and play some games. Thanks Aunt Terin for helping Mia enjoy the games as well!
Mia also wanted her turn with the birthday crown! This picture is one I just couldn't resist posting!
With Claire's birthday party she was able to go into the ticket blaster. Since she was so young they allowed me to get in with her and help her get tickets...this seemed like it would be easier than it was. You can't see anything with the glasses up what is in front of your face. It was a great time though and we had a lot of laughs.
Here we are after the ticket blaster showing off the tickets we got. Claire scored a 1050+ tickets in the ticket blaster (it helped that one of the tickets we got was worth 1000 tickets). She was so proud!
This isn't all the party kids, but most of them...some were a bit shy of posing with Chuck E Cheese. Claire had a great birthday party and we still can't believe she is FIVE!!! Where did the time go?

Happy Birthday to our oldest princess!!!

Snow Days

Since it snowed the other day, I decided to take the girls out to play. Mia had a great time. If you look closely you can see her tongue out trying to catch the snowflakes.

Claire loves being in the snow...doesn't that smile just say it all?

The first snow fall we had was really powdery so it wasn't the greatest to make a snowman out of, but Claire wanted one. We decided to have the snowman do snow angels with the girls.

After the powder snow hit we got freezing rain...yuck! However, it does make the sledding hill a lot of fun...Bryan took a longer lunch to help me take the girls sledding. Mia only went a few times down the hill and then she just wanted to watch.

This was really the first year Claire just would grab the sled and go for it all on her own (well except for climbing back up the hill and then she wanted help). She had so much fun!!!

Mia had a great time just sitting on a sled and watching Claire and Bryan go down the hill. She would clap and cheer for them.

Bryan had a blast too. Here he showing off his amazing sledding skills!!

Christmas

This post will be full of pictures. We had a great Christmas and New Years. It has been six years since I spent the holidays with my family in Utah. We decided it was about time we did it. I am so grateful to Bryan for being willing to do this. Here we all are on Christmas Eve in our new PJs.
Both of my girls love seeing Christmas lights so we decided what a better place to show them lights than to go to Temple Square...it was cold, but a lot of fun!
Christmas morning was so much fun. Both girls loved seeing what they got and it was fun to see them love each and every thing. Mia's favorite part was ripping open the presents. She just wanted to rip the paper off...she didn't care what she got at all as long as she had paper to rip!!
Claire asked Santa for Scooby Doo characters. She was thrilled to see she had been a good enough girl to get what she asked for!!!
Also in Claire's letter to Santa she asked for a baby doll for her little sister...Mia loves her new baby doll.
I think Claire's favorite gift of all though was the camera Grandma Lois and Papa Don gave her. She has had so much fun taking pictures of just about everything in sight...including turning the lens to get pictures of herself. What a fun gift for Claire!!!
This is the first or second time in our marriage that I was able to surprise Bryan with a gift (thanks to our friend Ben's help)...Bryan loves riding his bike with Ben for exercise, but he doesn't have a road bike just a mountain bike. I want to encourage him to do the things he loves (especially when it is exercise) so I decided to spoil him. Here he is after he realized what his surprise was!! (I think he was still in shock when I took the picture)
This is the best picture I got of the girls in their Christmas dresses. I made the skirts out of t-shirts. I think they turned out great. The girls looked so cute in them.
Santa gave Claire, Mia, Grandma Nancy and Papa Chuck, Rudolph noses in their stockings...who could resist this Kodak moment?
We were able to spend time with Uncle Brett and Aunt BethAnn. Uncle Brett showed our girls how to use Nerf Guns. They had a great time shooting them and trying to get the darts to stick on the window. I love the look of concentration on Mia's face as she even tries to aim the gun.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. My mom as a picture of my niece Summer trying to open the door of the Salt Lake Temple. I have always loved it so I decided it was time to get my girls doing the same (thanks for the idea Ginet). I have tried a few times to do this, but the temple was always closed off, but this time it wasn't. I love how Claire can easily get the handle and is ready to go in, but I love even more seeing Mia on her tip toes trying to hard to reach the handle! Our wish is some day our girls will be worthy to enter and will enter the doors of the temple!!
One of our other adventures was to see the UP house. This is a house built in Utah for the parade of homes this year. It looks exactly like the house in the movie UP. The inside is also decorated similar to the inside of the house on the movie too. It was so much fun to see. Thanks for Kenley (one of my nieces) for showing it to us.
We finished off our trip by celebrating the New Years with my parents. We let Claire stay up late to bang pots and pans to welcome the new year...we had a great time celebrating with the Owen family too; well sort off...we celebrated the the New Years on Eastern Standard time (my sister and her family live in Virginia)...so we say we celebrated with them.
This is what we saw as we headed home to Washington. I think that our girls had a lot of fun, because they sure slept good on the long drive home!
We wanted to thank everyone who helped us have a great holiday. We loved having friends and family come and see us. We enjoyed playing board games, playing just dance, laughing with each other, eating good food and of course making great memories with people we love.