The Great Salt Lake

Ben and I were able to escape for a day because my sister and her husband were very generous! They watched the kids and we enjoyed a "staycation." We had both never been to the Great Salt Lake and so we decided to take a trip out to Antelope Island to check it out. Ben really wanted to go swimming in it as he had never floated in salt water before, but the weather did not cooperate with us, it was windy, rainy and a little chilly! 

Below is a view from Antelope Island look back toward the Layton area.  Look at those massive rain clouds!

We decided to get out and walk along this beach area. The sand was really cool to look at, it is not regular sand. It is called oolitic sand and looks like perfect round little balls.  I could not get the camera to take a close up of it, but it was super cool to look at. 

 

Visiting the wildlife...:)

As you can imagine, this island is a bird paradise, but unfortunately these lovely seagulls were all we saw. 

Looking out across the Great Salt Lake toward another island and the Promontory Mountains.

And of course...when we went to pick up our lovely kiddos, here is what we found...

Kiera was her mischievious, happy self!

And Jade had way too much fun getting all dressed up and having her hair done by Aunt Kae!



Look at that Hair!

Kiera has the absolute finest hair and we love how long it is getting.  This is what happens after jumping on the trampoline!

She loves riding her pony on the trampoline too.

Just hanging out...outside that is!

It's official, this little girl can finally ride her tricycle (or her bike as she calls it). She loves to ride all over the yard and loves the ramp in the front yard the best.  She will even race us around the block!

Kiera loves riding her bikes too and of course Jade has to ride the baby bikes right alongside her. It is so funny, but as soon as Kiera is having fun doing something and gets any attention, Jade jumps right over and takes the spotlight.  Oh...sisters!

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The girls absolutely love playing in the sandbox and would stay in there all day if we let them. Here is Jade showing Kiera what to do...

This was Kiera's first time in the sandbox.  She loved letting the sand run through her fingers, just look at that fascination!

Had to throw this one in, this is what Kiera likes to do in the pool, or shall we say out of the pool??

Jade I made a sandcastle one day...here it is 5 seconds before....she destroyed it!

Then we thought it would be fun to bury her in the sand. It was cute because she made me make her a little sand pillow to put her head on and then she would ask for her "blanket." So I would promptly cover her with sand.

She absolutely had a blast!!

Pie Anyone?

BEFORE

 As part of an incentive for the kids I teach online, we had a contest for one of our subjects.  If the students reached their goal, they got to watch me get a pie in my face during our monthly assembly.  Well...guess what...that was motivation enough I guess and so....you can see what happened!  My husband got to be the lucky one to throw the pie in my face since the only other ones at home with me are my little girls!  I think maybe he secretly enjoyed it, he says he didn't!  Jade was so worried, and when she saw the whip cream all over my face, she kept saying "Mama, you're a mess!"

AFTER

Our Little Scriptorian...

 One morning, while I was busy preparing breakfast and running around getting things ready for the day, I turn around to find this...

 It is times like these that make me stop and reflect. Little children are sent her to help us and today my Jade was my shining example. She had found a copy of a Book of Mormon and brings it to the table to eat almost every day.  We are not sure what the appeal is because there are no pictures but she is adamant and insists on "reading her scriptures."  She also has to have them in bed with her at night. 

 What a sweet reminder of what is right and good in this world.  I am thankful for my kids who teach me every day how to be a better mom!

Straw-ba-berries!

There is nothing sweeter than the first strawberries of the season, except this face!  Jade was so proud to harvest her first, as she calls them, "straw-ba-berries."  She would help Daddy or I pick the red ones and then promptly eat them before we could even taste them.  We had to get smart and pick them at night, if we wanted some!  They were good, super sweet, and nothing like you buy in the store!  Maybe next year we need a bigger plant, and someway to stop the bugs from eating them!

All Done!

 

Kiera officially knows 2 signs and can do them quite well.  These are some pics of me trying to catch her doing her sign for all done!  She knows how to use this one well and is very good at telling us she is done with something. In fact if we do not catch her signs right away and leave the food on her tray too long, she starts nicely chucking it on the floor!  

Funny Story:  When we went to Kiera's one year old check up, the Dr. was just doing his routine exam and listening to her heart/lungs in his stethoscope. Well Kiera decided she did not like that at all and immediately started doing her sign for all done, poor kid was pumping her arms up and down like crazy.  She does not like the Dr. for some odd reason and each time he touched her she would make the sign for all done.  The Dr. even recognized the sign and had quite a laugh too!

She does know the sign for "more" but I have yet to get pictures of that one...more to come!

Sleep & Eat

 I wanted to post some fun sleeping and eating pics that I have taken of the girls.  There is no sweeter time at night than walking into their rooms after they have gone to sleep.  They are peaceful and not destroying anything!  I love to just look at them.  In these 2 pictures of Jade, you can see the 3 things she cannot go to sleep without...her Minnie Mouse pillow, her pink princess blanket, and if you look really closely in the 2nd photo, you can see Woody! Woody usually sleeps at the bottom of her bed with the other stuffed animals, but tonight when I walked in, he was curled up next to Jade, all tucked in!  It was precious!

Jade has also entered the princess phase, everything she wears has to be a dress in someway and she loves anything with her princesses on it.

Eating is always quite the adventure at our house these days. Sometimes they devour everything and anything you put in front of them and sometimes they throw it all on the floor and refuse to eat. But we got some great pics of their first time eating a chicken drumstick.

 "It's good!"

We should have known Kiera would hang on to the fat end, duh! It's easier to hold!  But she had a great time sucking on the bone, poor girl! Cried like crazy though when we took it away.

Watermelon is another favorite summer food at our house....

Kiera enjoys eating hers through a strainer type thing, she can suck out all the juices and bite it into little pieces that are non-chokeable!

Kiera Bear loves her beans!

And she finally got her first taste of peanut butter.  

She thoroughly enjoyed it!

New food: Corn on the Cob...look at that face! She was so excited to get to hold her own piece. She was whining at us until we figured out she wanted some corn. Then she was happy as a clam!