Our Summer & Happenings

Life just gets busy at times and priorities change. All the time. This Summer and Fall and Winter...my mind and time has been elsewhere from blogging. So here's the update of some things. I don't have the best memory, so pictures do help, and I'll go off them:

These are all in VERY random order. I don't want to change them all around. Our Summer was eventful, although sadly, I don't have the best memory. I know that we were busy with the new home buying/packing/unpacking/messes/new item shoping...like a lawn mower, kind of busy. By the way, that still has not changed, I am working on organizing and figuring out where the best place for things are to go.


Here's a way to sit on the couch:

We've been having fun playing and visiting friends and also making new friends. Elise has 2 very close friends, Adel-they have known eachother since like 6 months?? And Anthony,below, since oh, probably 10 months?? Anyhow...less than a year old. These three are too adorable when they all get together. She has others from the Orchard ward, but not as close as these two. In our new ward, I am surprised that there are quite a few her age, as well as Ayla's. Which makes any parent happy to know that they will have friends. There have been about 12 moms that split into 2 groups for a preschool co-op that I have been participating in. Elise loves it. It's been wonderful.

They liked to ride the vacuum. Note the LIKED. We stopped letting them...we still wanted our vacuum to work. But I can guarantee that they would still be riding it if we let them! Especially Ayla, she has always liked the vacuum or any loud noise. It's like she is attracted to it, and HAS to find out what it is and gets closer to whatever is loud. I know babies that are around the same age as her and they do it too. They just are so curious about noises...which I think is weird! We spent a lot of time outside and visiting parks. Luckily we have our own little "park" right outside our front yard (it's to catch all the water), and also another park that has a slide and things in the subdivision that connects ours that we can walk to. Not a big one, but something we can do if we don't want to drive.

Laying in "our" park

At home.

At "our" park again. :) This one was too funny...my hair looks like it's Ayla's just sticking straight out. Haha.

These two can be so fun and cute together. They were bouncing on Ayla's mattress.

Elise actually did this on her own. She wasn't praying, but she looks like it. I wonder if she was just practicing to close her eyes, bow her head, and fold her arms. But is was super cute!

Love the tippie toes!

We had to battle and still battling Eczema and allergies. During the summer, she would not let it alone. We actually would catch her asleep and itching as well as asleep sitting up in her bed trying to itch. Poor girl. To not have it get worse, which was it was really bad at this time, we would wrap her feet and ankles...for about a month!! 1 week we also had to do her wrists. She seams to be allergic to soy and milk...so I'm not sure if the eczema stems from that or not. But a lot of homemade cooking and substituting from.

This was in our apartment, and I had caught her in a mess with the sugar. Come to find out...It makes total sense now. Ever since this last Halloween, she will literally beg for candy all the time!! I had to hide it and she still begs for it. Such a sweet tooth!!

We did some cherry picking and then brought it home and did some canning. It felt so fulfilling to can different items this year.

Cute way to fall asleep.

We had really neat thunder and lightening storms. Curtis caught this one.

I love how babies just sit like this.

They love just looking outside the window. Especially when the birds are visiting our backyard or when there are airplanes flying by.

One of elise's fist attempts at making a person. adorable. Just out of her head. no picture or thought to copy, this is how she imagined and then drew away.

They always have fun playing in boxes like this.

Ayla's new toy for her birthday in June from Grandma & Grandpa Guest.

Playing & working outside. The bottom pictures are of Elise and her cousins and Daddy made a volcano, then it turned into a mud pool. This is a spot in our yard where they filled it up with dirt cause it used to be a ground level trampoline.

Planes fly over our house on the way to land at the airport. We love it cause they are the cute little airplanes that fly by. This was during the air show that happens every year, and warthogs were flying by and in cool formations. Then stunt planes would do cool tricks and para-gliders, ect. These were warthogs. Can you get any closer??? This is our house. I did use a zoom lens, but these guys must have been showing off, cause literally so close REALLY shake your house close!! They would circle and come back around, and seamed like each time get closer. the top left one was unbelievable! Maybe he saw me and I'm sure he knew I was taking pictures. We loved it!

Playing. This is when she didn't really know how to steer or move the cart and get stuck.We love meeting Daddy for lunch at work.

Love living out by fields. So gorgeous. During each growth season, harvest, sunsets...and I am excited to see what captivating view it will be to see fields of untouched white snow for miles!!! And the bottom left made me smile. You may not tell, Elise took this, and there are three tracktors total. 2 on the round one in front of the other. and one doing some work in the field. I'm sure if there was a 360 view there may have been more. :) This view is on the other side of the road from our subdivision.

This evening we went to Payette and swam at the public pool with family celebrating Elise's (or Ayla's) birthday-need to find out the dates of the pictures! So much fun. As we drove in, we had saw that the circus was in town. So after swimming, we made a quick trip to just see the animals that were outside. To our amazement, we timed it perfectly and they were letting the people out of the tent to ride the elephants and camels and see the other animals. We had just enough time to let Curtis and Elise ride a camel. Maybe next time we can catch the elephants before they get too tired.

I just recently bought a wall hanging that says "Dance Yourself Silly". Fits perfectly!! Both the girls love to dance. Ayla may possibly have more of the drive in her. She always has found a beat to ANYTHING, and she sticks with it.

Temple trips...We enjoy these!! We had found a fossil imprint on the grounds in the cement, and I still know where it is. I challenge anyone who wants some fun to go find it!! Haha.

Just to remember: Summer: fun playing, swimming, learning, friends, family, played in dirt, praying mantises, pet stores for fun, loved seeing and meeting all the dogs we live by, cats, the runaway bunny and the baby bird that fell out of it's nest. Roaring Springs-Elise went on the race slide and loved it...she is so brave and courageous...well I guess the word would be confident, cause she really didn't think twice about going. Nature center, parks, boating, bike riding, wahooz--we took the girls there on our anniversary, date activity days/nights as a family and our own hot dates as a couple and all other great summer activities that we typically do each year.

Oh...have to document this. Since we have been in our new ward. EVERY Fast and testimony meeting, Elise wants to go up and give her testimony. It is the sweetest thing. She has not missed one! We were gone for one, but other than that, she hasn't missed. She does it all on her own. We have not pushed or encouraged her to do it, she is such a social gal, that she absolutely LOVES to go up there and speak. Some Sundays she asks if she can have a turn after the speaker speaks...and we try and explain that they are called and asked and someday they will call her when she is older...but she wants to still go up!! It's great though because she is motivation for me to go up and bear mine. Such a teaching moment...maybe she is listening so much to the spirit that she is needing to teach me a lesson. Curtis taught her some tricks if she gets stuck up there bearing her testimony...and it helps in keeping her confidence as she is up there...so she still has a great experience. Surprisingly, she says different things each time and it amazes me what comes out of her mouth. She does not pray about some of the things she says and it is really heart felt. And the last one she said something like she was thankful for the spirit. She is 3 and I don't expound on what this means or is, it's hard for me to explain that the spirit is. I talk about it and pray about it but this is also not something that she says or talks about. This testifies to me that the Gospel is true and little ones are truly close to the spirit.

Fall: Grandpa & Grandma & families(except Rochelle's) came down for Rebecca's Baptism. BSU game season, Pumpkin Patch & Farmstead, Elise's preschool & field trips. Last one was fun to the Pizza place and to see how pizza's are made and made her own and enjoyed eating them, church orchard work and visits with the girls & my sister and her daughter, Katlin, Right now I cannot wait to go the St. Anthony over Thanksgiving week and weekend in a Lodge with Curtis' family. Also to visit Rexburg and BYU-Idaho again. It will be interesting to see how much it has changed...and definitely visit the new Rexburg temple!!!