My Baby is TWO!

 I can't believe my baby turned TWO!  She is such a fun and happy baby.  She loves the water, so we celebrated at a splash park.  She had no fear...she would just run right through it - all smiles.

 It was a bit colder of a day, but that did not defer her one bit.

 Soaked and smiling - a happy two year old!

 Dallin and Brea got in on the fun as well - Dallin running right through and Brea barely sticking her hand in!

 Drying off and getting some warm sun.

 We brought along some fruit snacks - Alyssa's favorite, she ate three packages.

 The playground there was a lot of fun as well.  Brea climbed to the top of this jungle gym.

 Alyssa enjoyed spinning and spinning and spinning in this little saucer.  She never wanted to get off.  But when I finally did get her to stop she was so dizzy she couldn't walk strait.

 Alyssa got a card in the mail for her birthday, from Grandma & Grandpa Pirtle.  She was so excited to have her own mail, she worked hard at opening it and then pretended to read it - it was adorable.

 Grandma & Grandpa gave Alyssa a wild hose attachment so she could have her own "splash park" in her backyard, she loved it!

 We put the new wild hose next to the slip-n-slide, it made for a fun/wet slide down.

 My darling Two year old!

 Dallin helps get the slide even wetter. They put our plastic slide at the top of the slip-n-slide to give them a little extra speed!

 These three pictures capture Alyssa's personality great!  She is getting very independent.  She thinks she is big enough to do anything her older siblings do.  She would prefer to be outside, and screams when we make her come in.  She is getting a big vocabulary and tries to repeat what we say.  When you ask her how old she is she says "Toooo"  it is really cute.  She is a good sleeper and napper (even now without her pacy, which is lost and not going to be found).   She goes down at about 7pm and wakes up about 6:30am.  She is  usually the first one awake and wants a drink and cereal.  She likes to wear necklaces and let her sisters dress her up fancy.  She has a definite sweet tooth and wants to hold the bag herself whenever she is eating.  Her and Dallin get along very well, he can make her laugh so hard and she will wrestle and fight with him, which he enjoys.  Her favorite thing right now is BOOKS.  She reads about 10+ books a day.  She is constantly bringing books to me and says "book book" until I read it to her.  We all love our Alyssa and her fun personality.

Zoo fun

 I know I post about the zoo a lot, because we go there a lot.  It is a fun place to spend a day.

 The kids always want to play on the statues of animals.  They were hot this day - but they still climbed.

 Dallin brought his binoculars and asked me if he could stay behind a little bit (so it didn't look like he was with us).  I think he wanted to got exploring by himself.  He kept his distance, but I still kept my eye on him.

 Dallin caught a butterfly, and then let it go.  He is getting good at catching them.

 This year we decided to add the skyride to our yearly pass.  The kids really enjoy riding up, and it is a beautiful view from up there.  At the top they have this rock climbing wall.  It is pretty difficult because it is strait up.  Jackie and Dallin love to climb and do pretty well.

Temple Trip

 Our Primary did a special Temple tour for the children.  We all met at the visitors center where there is a big statue of Christ.  The children were all very reverent and respectful.  It was raining pretty hard as we pulled into the Temple parking lot, so the tour had to be indoors, instead of out like we had planned.  It still went well, and the children learned a lot.  Our kids were so excited to go to the temple and they all got dressed in their Sunday best bright and early on a Saturday morning.  Jeff made some neat colleges in photoshop with the temple as a background (that is the Denver temple in the evening, Jeffs Mom actually took that amazing photo).  We wanted the kids to have a picture of the temple in their rooms, and thought that adding a picture of them that day would help them remember the feelings and spirit of that sacred place.

Fathers Day & Birthday

 Jeff's birthday and Fathers Day end up close together, so he gets double celebrations this time of year.  This year we got him some Frisbee golf discs.  It is like golf and Frisbee put together.  They have courses around the nation, and they just so happen to have one right her in Widefield at a park.  It is actually a tough course because it crosses a little creek a couple of times.  Jeff and I played together and my disc fell into the creek twice.  Although we decided, that made it funner and more adventurous because we had to figure out how to get it out of the creek without getting wet!

 Jackie made her famous "Tims Chocolate Cake" for Dad.  It was delicious as always!

Bike Ride

 We decided to try a long family bike ride.  Jackie and Dallin are both great on their bikes, and love to ride them.  We have a chariot stroller that can attach to a bike (one of our best Craigslist finds ever) so that is where Brea and Alyssa rode.

 We rode for about 2 hours! I was amazed at how well the kids did - all four of them, but especially the two on bikes.  We were able to stay mainly on a trail, but a little bit on a road - and we ended up at a fun park.  It wasn't the park we were thought we were going to, but it was still fun.

 There was this fountain there and Jackie was so hot from riding....she kept asking me if she could just stick her head in!  I did let her get her hands wet and pour it over her hair - which she enjoyed.

 Alyssa loved the swings, luckily they were in the shade so we didn't mind pushing her there.

 Dallin is inside an actual "tree house"

 Dallin caught a butterfly at the park, he wanted to keep it, but I was able to persuade him into letting it go and be free in the wild where it belonged (plus we had no way of bringing it home).

This picture is far away but it is Jeff and Dallin coming in from our long and enjoyable bike ride.  We all decided that we wanted to do that again.

Summer is Here - we are camping

 We are a family that likes to camp.  Now that school is out, we are out to, out in the woods that is.  We found a great campground that is very private with rocks and trees all around.  The kids love going exploring and rock climbing and stay entertained all day.  I brought some bubbles for Alyssa and she had fun trying to blow them herself.
 Alyssa was a great camper and enjoyed being outside as well.  She even slept well all through the night, in fact all the kids did.

 Dallin in his rubber boots hanging out on the rocks.  He said on one of his papers at school that he wishes he could live in nature with the animals.  He is happiest outside and uses his great imagination to have lots of fun.

 Alyssa again, laughing at Dallin.

 They were making faces at each other across the rocks.  He is good at making people laugh, both young and old.

 Jeff brought his guns, not my idea, and shot a few rounds with Dallin.  I was impressed with how seriously Dallin took it.  He was very good around the guns and Dad even let him shoot the BB Gun a few times.

 Although I am not to hip on guns and shooting (especially for fun) it was something to see my six year old hold, aim, and shoot a real gun (granted it was just a BB gun, but it is still REAL).

 I hardly got any pictures of Brea, she is usually front a center in all the pictures, but she was having too much fun playing.

 We brought walkie talkies with us in case we went on a hike and got spaced out.  Well, Jackie took one of the walkie talkies and headed out by herself.  We didn't think she would go too far and we were talking over the walkie talkies.  It had been about 5 minutes since I talked to her so I tried calling and she did not answer.  I decided to go look for her and heard a faint cry, as it came closer we realized Jackie had fallen and scrapped herself up pretty bad.  Dallin shot into action and grabbed the first aid kid, and bandaged her right up.  She also happened to drop the walkie talkie into a crevice in the rock.  So I took Alyssa on my back and  Jackie as my guide, and Dallin as my helper, to find the walkie talkie.  We were looking all around were Jackie said she fell (it was a steep rock she had climbed up and then tried to climb down).  I boosted Dallin up and him and I were looking in all the crevice.  Right then Jeff called on the walkie talkie, we were so excited that he called right then, because that helped us find exactly where it was.  It was quite an adventure, and Jackie and Dallin made it very exciting and life threatening.

 This is the spot where she fell and dropped the walkie talkie, and were we famously found it!

 Jeff brought some rope and made this fun spider web for the kids to play on.  It helped keep them at camp and not wondering off.

 We took a day trip to the Fossil Beds National Park.  I had no idea these were so close to us.  They had petrified Redwood trees.  It is amazing to think that a Redwood forest used to be there.

 We walked a one mile loop to see many more of these Redwood petrified trees.  The kids got tired towards the end, but they all made it.

 On the way back to camp we stopped at a place where the kids could find their own fossils.  They were shale rock that could be split open to reveal fossils of leaves, bugs, animals, ect.  It was very fascinating to see what you would find.  We brought home fossils of leaves and bugs, and a rare feather.

Of course we enjoyed smores and campfire fun as well.  We ended up staying longer than we had planned because it was so nice being outside.  We decided it would be great to live in a house or cabin out in the woods.