Family Pictures 2012

Tis the season for family pictures!  My sister Ali was kind enough to take ours for us again this year, and the girls were cooperative, at least as cooperative as you can expect a one-year-old and three-year-old to be.  Overall I'm happy with them, but how could I not be, I've got a pretty good looking little family here.

Farmstead Field trip

At the beginning of the month Lily's preschool class went on a field trip to the Farmstead.  Family was invited so Charlotte and I tagged along.  We started at the cow train.  Charlotte was not sure about it at all, 

but Lily ran up to a cow and climbed right in. 

 Charlotte liked it a lot better once the train started moving.

 Next we moved on to the pillow jumping pad, but the girls were not impressed so we went to another play area.  I love when they walk around holding hands.

 These little buildings were such fun for the girls and the jail was the favorite.

 This might be my new favorite picture of Charlotte, on her way up to the slide and being silly and cute along the way.

Lily's doesn't like strange slides but she was happy to wait at the bottom encouraging Charlotte to come on down.

Then there was the corn box, it was a lot of corn, I'm still finding kernels in my purse.

 The kids loved it though.

 It was hard to talk them out of there.

Finally we were off our own hayride to the pumpkin patch.  It was plenty warm but the girls refused to take off their jackets. 

 Lily wore this orange sweater for 3 days straight, all day, every day, even at night over her jammies.

 It didn't take long for both girls to find their pumpkins.

 Just the right size (so that mommy doesn't have to carry them)!

  Checking out the pumpkins of some of her classmates.

Miscellaneous Happenings

 Charlotte loves Franky, she LOVES him!  Sometimes a little bit too much.  She doesn't realize that he is much smaller than Oscar and while she can wrap her arms tight around Oscar's neck and sit on his back while she reads a book the same is not true for little Franky.


I was making great progress towards getting Lily to pedal the trike herself...it has all been thrown out the window since little sister thinks that it is so much fun to push her up and down the driveway.  Maybe next year...

 Lily likes stickers, and I had forgotten that I had left some stickers in her top drawer. One day during nap time she found a sheet of these little raised hearts and stuck them all over herself.  She was not happy with me when I told her that she had to remove them all before we could go to dance class.

Did you know that daucshunds like to burrow?  I didn't either, until we got Franky.  This guy burrows under pillows, blankets, and cushions when he wants a break.  This one made me laugh though, it looked like he was tucked in to bed.

Charlotte loves babies and thinks that she should get to held them all, even when they aren't much smaller than she is.

First Day of Dance Class

Wait, hold on a minute, we had another fun first today.  As if starting preschool wasn't enough for one day, this afternoon Lily started dance class.  It is the Creative 3's class at the Canyon Dance Academy and she has been so excited for this day to come, she has been talking about it for months!

 See this face, just eager to get out of the door and go to dance class.  I had to hide her dancing costume, as she calls it, after we bought it because she would beg and beg to wear it and if she found it she would slip it on, so it has been hidden for the last few weeks.  I pulled it out this afternoon and she was so excited!

 One of her little friends from playgroup is on her class with her and they were just ecstatic when they saw each other at the studio.  The other girls were shy and with their moms and our two girls were running around, jumping, and dancing in the hallway.

I'm pretty sure that Lily is going to just love this as well.  She struggled a bit with paying attention and following directions, mostly because she was so excited by the room and the whole experience, but I'm sure that she will settle into it soon.  

Lily's First Day of Preschool

Last week I received a phone call and the opportunity landed in our lap to enroll Lily in Preschool.  I hadn't planned on it, mostly because of the cost, but everything has worked itself out we enrolled Lily in Spelling Bees Preschool.

Today was Lily's first day and she was so excited.  When we drove up she ran right up to the door and then right into her classroom.  She didn't even look back.  This girl has grown up so much and I love seeing her develop and learn new things.  When we were driving home she asked if she could go back to preschool again so I think that she enjoyed it.

Meet Franky

This week we added to our family.  We've been talking about getting Oscar a little friend for a while, but we just hadn't found the right dog.  We didn't want another large dog because our house just isn't that big, but we didn't want an ankle biter either.  I went to the animal shelter with my mom on Thursday, just to look around and that is where I found Franky.  While all of the other dogs were standing at the front of their kennels barking, Frankly here was just laying on his blanket looking at whoever walked by.  I took him out, introduced hi to the girls, and called Tyson.  We decided to go for it and Friday night we brought Franky home with us.

 He's kinda little, even for a Dachsund.  We almost lost him in the tall grass.

 He and Oscar are getting along very well.  They aren't playing much yet, but they don't mind each other either.  It is funny to watch Franky walk right underneath Oscar.  I think that they will end up being good little friends.

 The girls love him!  He's very calm and docile and tolerates them really well.

Cousins are fun!

Summertime fun with most of the cousins.

Charlotte liked to take care of Grace.  Here she's pushing the dinosaur to give Grace a ride.

Then it was off to the splash pad to play together some more.

Caleb and Lily also played together in the water.

Grace is getting big!

Carolyn and Lily liked the little ring.

And dancing, always dancing.

Junior got in on the fun as well.

We made them all matching BSU shirts for the first game, but getting a picture of them all together didn't go well.