Fun in January

Jonli's new favorite thing to do when she finds my phone is to take a picture or video, every once in a while we actually get one that has her in it like this. I love the cute expression on her face here. The movies are pretty funny too, because all you hear her say is "I see, I see" then you hear me coming in and taking the phone away. This usually results in either giggling or crying.

She also loves to help me cook in the kitchen and do the dishes, both of which result in a larger mess than I really wanted. Usually it is both Jonev and Jonli helping me out. She also loves her new skirt from Grandma, thank you!

Jonev loves to put stickers on his face, recently each of the boys got some stickers and this is what he did with them. He usually doesn't leave them on for too long though and I will find them ALL over the place.

Like most of the country we have had a very mild winter, I don't even think that I would really call it that. We have hardly worn our coats. We usually play after school for a little while either at the school playground or the community one close to our house. Here is a picture of the boys, Jongr looks a little grumpy for some unknown reason. We often get this look from him when he has to do something that wasn't his idea. He wanted to be in the picture, just didn't want to smile. LOL!

The two happy ones alone. Jonli was already in the stroller and thus is missing from the park pictures, but she and I have just as much fun as the boys going up and down the slides and all around.

Coming next week: Pinewood Derby cars, Jongr races on Wednesday and this year Jontu also made a car. It has been lots of fun to watch them come up with designs and then paint them. We will have to see how fast they turn out.

July - Summer Part 2 - Vacation

Finally getting the rest of these pictures posted, still have a couple of more posts to catch up the rest of the summer so that I can post the back to school pictures. It is hard to believe that it is already that time of year. Here are the rest of the pictures from summer vacation to Idaho/Utah, we had so much fun and are grateful to have been able to see so many of our friends and family while we were there.

Jonli playing in the cold irrigating water, almost all of the cousins that were there got in the water, even though it's cold you just can't resist.

Celebrating the 4th of July in Paris, ID.

Near Bloomington Lake, we had a snowball fight on the 4th of July, so much fun!

Jontu watching the parade with cousin Rohan too.

Pictures with my Grandpa and Grandma Stucki.

Jonli enjoying the porch swing, I've spent many hours on this very swing.

After the parade in Paris, we drove back up to Shelley so that we could go to the fireworks in Idaho Falls, here the kids are getting out some energy after the car ride.

Playing Uno with Uncle Daniel and some of the cousins while we wait for it to get dark for the big show.

We enjoyed another visit to the Tautphus Park Zoo.

Saying goodbye to cousins as we head back down to Utah before going home.

Enjoying a day at Bridal Veil falls with cousin Brinley, Aunt Kelly and our friends from Houston who are also on summer vacation. It was so much fun to enjoy some time in the water and the beautiful views.

The boys collected snail shells and didn't want to leave them so they lined them up for a picture. Then they could leave them.

Family Picture at Bridal Veil Park

Double rainbows on the morning we are departing for home.

This one is kind of out of order, here Jontu is sporting the beautiful bowtie that Aunt Jen made for all of the nephews for the 4th of July. They matched Grandpa too, so cute!

The boys on a hike near Bridal veil

Enjoying the ride home.

Spring Break

We had such a fun and busy Spring Break and it seems that we just haven't caught up with life since then. We started off with an X wing birthday cake for Elder Peterson, it was fun to make, I just wish that I would have had more time for the details.

We ended the week with a 2 day camping trip to Lake Texana with our cousins. Here are the 2 youngest girls playing together.

We enjoyed some extra special activities with Ranger Cindy, like this talk about being a nature explorer. We learned that armadillo's can jump straight up 3-4 feet in the air and that is why you see so many of them dead on the side of the road. (the boys loved this tidbit)

Thanks to my cousin Brandon we were able to enjoy lots of fishing, here we all posed with a fish that Jonev caught.

Here is Jonev with another one, he was so proud. I am not sure how many of these little guys that we caught between all of the boys, it sure was fun though. Reminded me of the time that my family went fishing at Twin Falls Lakes and caught so many blue gills.

Jongr decided that he was old enough to sleep in his own tent next to his cousins. He enjoyed it so much the first night, but the second one he decided after the ghost stories around the campfire that he wanted to sleep with all of us in our big family tent. It didn't stop him from getting up early with his cousins though.

Thanks Brandon and Melinda for such a fun time!

Jongr begged to carry Jonli in the backpack every time that we put her in it, so we finally let him try it for a while. It only lasted a couple of minutes, I guess he realized that she was heavier than he thought.

We also had our first experience with Geocaching while we were on our hike, it was so much fun. The boys loved it and I think that we found us something to do on our hikes to make it more fun.

The picture above shows the "cache" and the one below shows what they took out of it.

The boys and Jonpa were also able to enjoy a little bit of canoeing out on the lake. Jontu was hoping to see an alligator a little closer, but they didn't find one while they were out.

What a fun Spring Break we had this year, we also loved Lake Texana and being outside enjoying the beautiful weather for a couple of days.

Snapping Turtles

This summer when we have been feeding the turtles on our walks we have been seeing a snapping turtle. The boys really enjoy watching it and trying to feed it more than the other 30 or so turtles that we feed each day. It is pretty cool to watch how it eats compared to the other turtles, I am sure glad that there is about 8 ft between us and the turtles so that I don't have to worry about anyones fingers getting bitten.

Monday when we went to go feed the turtles there were 2 other snapping turtles hanging out with the others. The boys were so excited to see so many in one place and couldn't wait to tell dad when he came home from work.

Wednesday we decided to walk like we were going to school and not feed the turtles, however we did see another snapping turtle when we crossed the bridge on the way to school. We rarely see turtles there, but there is was a huge snapping turtle. What fun!

What did you do Wednesday

Besides our sunburns, we sure had a perfect day at the beach yesterday. It was really hard to leave even though we knew that the longer we stayed the longer it would take us to drive back home if we hit rush hour traffic. Thanks to our cousins for helping to make our day!

Jonev enjoying the water, he was giggling each time the waves crashed into him. It was so fun to watch him enjoy himself. He is such a happy guy and loves to laugh. This is the second time we have been swimming this week and he has just loved the water both times. In fact he was jumping into the pool by the end of the night on Monday. Yesterday I got him out of the car and before I could grab his bathing suit to get him dressed he already had his feet in the water and then Jongr tried to stop him and of course he sat down in it. He wasn't very happy when I pulled him out to change him and try to get some sunscreen on him.

Jontu, Jonev and cousin A playing in the sand. You can see that we were lucky enough to be able to find a beach that you can park right on so we didn't have to carry our stuff for miles. It was so nice!

Jonev enjoying the seaguls that were flying around the beach, he kept pointing to them when he saw them. What a cute boy!

Jongr spent most of his time either in the water with the boogie board courtesy of our cousins or collecting sea shells. He says the reason that he collects them is because they are so pretty. We collected a few special ones for Grandma Jones and some sand to send her too. She loves the beach in Ocean City, NJ and our day yesterday reminded us of all of the fun time that we have spent with her on the beach. We love you Grandma Jones!

The Emptier learns how to clean up

Jonev has always loved taking things out of baskets, bins, chairs, the bookcase, today he was playing outside with Jontu and found one of my pots that is half full of dirt and started emptying it also. That night he was having fun emptying the laundry basket of the folded socks, but after the basket was empty, he started putting them back in.  Then he did it again.  Later that night when we were cleaning up the lego's in the boys room, he started helping too.  The other skill that he is working on right now is walking.  He takes a few steps and walks between things or people, but doesn't go very far without having something to reach for or hold onto.  Before we know it he is going to be toddling everywhere instead of walking. It is amazing to watch him learn!  What fun! 
Jongr fell asleep on the floor after school, he laid down there and said his head hurt and then the next thing that I know he was sound asleep.  He ended up sleeping there for almost and hour while Jonev and Jontu played outside.  I just had to take a picture.  

Holiday Weekend Visitors

Valentines/President's Day weekend this year was quite busy and fun for us.  Grandma and Grandpa Butler and Uncle David came to visit with us and we were able to have lots of fun with them.  On Saturday we went out to Baytown and ate at one of Jonpa's favorite restaurants near his work, it was so good!  After lunch we met up with some of our Stucki cousin's at the Baytown Nature Center.

Too bad that it rained most of the time that we had there, thankfully it did clear up after a while and we were able to get out and see a few of the sights and the kids were able to get nice and wet and muddy before we got back into the car. Overall it was nice and I would like to go back to the Nature Center.

Since Saturday was also Uncle David's Birthday that night we came home and had pizza and wings and a yummy soccer ball cake.  We were happy to have Flat Grace and Flat Anne to share with too!  

A group picture with Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle David, Jonev was already in bed. 

This last one was taken Sunday after dinner with some more of our Stucki cousins, it was so nice to see them all again!  

Jontu and the bees

This week we learned that Jontu is NOT allergic to bees.  Unfortunately for Jontu he ended up with 12 bites in the process.  We were doing some community service at one of the local parks and Jontu disturbed some bees.  He got it the worst on his hands, his thumbs and forefingers were swollen.  The amazing thing is that he only cried for a few minutes. Once again he has showed us how tough he really is.  He always seems to run with the punches and this time was no different.  We made a quick run to the closest grocery store for some benedryl and some tylenol to help with the pain.  We gave him these and then came home and watched Episode 6 at his request.  We did place a call to the pediatrician just because there were so many stings.  Thankfully he did not develop any of the allergic reaction symptoms and he is fine now. We feel blessed.