Monday Fieldtrip: Temple Square 7.28.08

This was a really cool and different idea that my friend Chandelle had to take our kids to Temple Square. I'm really glad that we did. The sister missionaries gave us a simplified tour and we saw some of exhibits at the visitor's center, and then we had lunch at the Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. There was more that we wanted to do but two of the kids were starting to get sick (Jasmine being one of them). We will have to go back!

The Pony Party

It may come as no surprise that Jasmine has but two loves, princesses and ponies. So it was natural that her family party should be a Pony Party.
After the pony cake disaster of 2007, I wised up and just decorated with ponies on top! The ones on the right are candles.

She had plenty of help opening presents from her cousins that adore her. And the feeling is mutual.

It was mostly fitting because my sister has a neighbor in her circle that actual has horses. So Jasmine (in her new princess dress nonetheless) got to ride one. It was pure bliss, of course.

so sweet

So happy birthday my sweet daughter, I'm so glad that you were born!

The Princess Party

The princess turned 4 and it was her year to have a birthday party (they get a big "friends party" every other year).

Here are the invites:

Are they not the cutest thing? I bought them like a year ago because they looked just like Jasmine!

I had to kind of put it together at the last minute, but I think it turned out just fine. I stayed up the night before making the above, cute little wands for each girl.

The house was decked out in what else but pink and purple! I just bought a huge roll of pink tulle and went to town.

When the guests arrived, they got to take a picture on the special "princess throne". They each got to come all fancied up, of course. The day before the party we went to Toys R Us and she got to pick any princess dress. She chose Barbie as Island Princess or as she would call it "barbiesandislandprincess". Thank goodness they had one left.

Those are princess pictures that Jasmine and Shay colored on the frames.

They made fruit loop necklaces,

and played "Feed the Dragon" (bean bag toss) and also "Pass the Crown" (like hot potato),

where they got to pass around the Queen's crown (moi).


She loved all her presents.

One of my favorite things was stringing some tulle through the hats to make them more
"princess-like". They looked so cute on them.
And how easy is this, we had donuts with pink icing that I had pre-ordered at the bakery.
The only problem was that quite of a few girls didn't want to get sticky and messy (?). It was funny.

Hooray! The party is done and Jasmine had a blast!

Good thing it is easy to please a 4 year old!

Saturday Fun

Saturday we went to the ward's annual Pioneer Day Breakfast and they always have a children's parade where the kids decorate their bikes. This year the Fire Dept came and we actually got to ride in it! It was pretty cool, we had to wear these huge headphones so our ear drums wouldn't bust with the sirens. Shayden of course thought this was pretty neat.

Afterwards we took a picture with all of the cute Primary kids and then we ate yummy popsicles.

Later we went to the Tracy Aviary with my work.

Shayden took this awesome one of the Eagle:

Jasmine's Birthday Week

Jasmine has had an extended birthday week because we got home the night before her birthday and I wasn't ready. I did decorate her door before she woke up in the morning though (only because she likes to sleep in). She was so cute about it, "Mom, thank you for decorating my birthday!"
She was so excited all day, she didn't even ask for any presents all day, she just couldn't believe her day had finally come. After my birthday at the end of April, she has had to wait for EVERYONE in our family to have a birthday before hers. Finally her day was here and since she turned 4 she totally gets it.

That day we went with some friends to see Aladdin (because how perfect is that?) at the free movies and then we ate at Cafe Rio.

That night we took her to a concert at the Galivan Center and of course afterwards the fireworks were especially for her birthday ;)

I was going to throw her a friends party on Saturday but after getting home from our trip I was second guessing weather or not I could throw it together (I have bought and saved lot's of things but I had no idea about games, or anything else). In the end I decided it wasn't worth putting off and it would be more work later anyway, so I hurried and got out the invites on Wed!
It was fun to run around and buy all the supplies with her because she was so excited it made me more excited!

Anyway, the next day was a holiday (Pioneer Day) and we went to the birthday party of my friend Wendy's daughter, Jaya. That confused Jasmine a little, but it was still fun.

They were leaving the next day to go back home to California, so it was just a quick cupcakes and playing at the park.

Yum!

Our Nation's Capital

If you had noticed that I hadn't blogged for a while, you probably guessed it...we were on a trip!

We have been wanting to go on a trip to Washington D.C. since, well since Jonas and I met pretty much! That was 11 years ago. Jonas served his mission in the D.C./Maryland area and I lived in the D.C./Virginia area until I was 10. It took us a while to get there but we finally made it! It almost didn't happen, we had to cross several hurdles before the trip including me getting sick the night before (yuck!) but I am so glad that we went.
I made these little journals for the kids so that they could draw pictures of where we went. (Well Jasmine drew pictures of ponies, houses and footsteps instead.)

I flew with the handy back support pillow that Jonas bought me and it was a lifesaver (I used it in the car, everywhere!) but we left in the airport on the way home so I didn't have it coming home so that was a bummer.

Here are some highlights. We left on Friday morning, we got in after the red eye flight and went straight to the National Mall. We were seriously giddy with excitement! Driving by the Washington Monument for the first time brought back so many memories for both of us.

We parked at Union Station and walked across the street to the National Postal Museum which I had never been too.

It was cool and the kids got to make a postcard to send to anyone.
Then we walked up to Capital Hill and Jonas made friends with this guard (of course!) that got us tickets to tour where the house of representatives meet. That was very cool. We sat right under the logo for the state of Louisiana and Shayden recognized it from a report that he had done. There was so much symbolism in that building, in all of the murals, sculptures, etc.


Then we walked down in the deathly heat to the Air and Space Museum, but not before scarfing down a yummy hot dog from a hot dog stand.

This memory comes straight out of my childhood!

The Air and Space Museum was having a special "Mars Day" so they had extra activities. (It pays to research a vacation). The kids got to decorate a mars rover.

It's awesome because I have so many memories of coming here as a child. Amazingly, my parents used to let my brother and I (he was about 12 and I was 8) ride the Metro alone and go spend the day at the Mall. I can't believe we used to do that but we never had any problems, of course that was also a long time ago. It's funny how even the smell of a certain place can trigger nostalgia.

I read somewhere that at the cafe in the museum they had space related toys in the Mcdonalds kids meals, so we had the kids eat there so they could also have a souvenir.

After that Jonas and Shayden both hiked back to the car, and Jasmine and I stayed behind and visited the Botanical Gardens (Leah, you should be proud ;)

We headed to where we were staying which was at my cousin's home in the Virginia area.

That night we had a nice time visiting with her and my aunt and uncle, and had Chinese takeout.

Saturday we left way later than we intended to and we took the Metro in to the city. But there was some mechanical problem so the trip took like double the time. By the time we walked to the White house it was like 1pm!

The kids were not too thrilled about the White House, it could have had something to do with day 2 of walking in 100+ degree weather.

Next we walked over to the White House Visitor's Center. It was really like a museum for the White House, which was cool since we didn't get to tour it. This was another first for me.

Shayden did like taking a picture and talking to the Secret Service Agent outside the gate.

Good thing I have a husband who is not afraid to talk to anyone. The man gave them each a little SS pin.

Earlier we bought stuff for a picnic so we plopped down on the lawn and ate our lunch.

And we got a little visitor who wanted in on the action too.

I think he took advantage of us.

Our last tourist stop was the museum of Natural History but we were really short on time at that point so we didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked. But really, how much is enough time in a Museum that enormous? It was awesome because Shay is totally at an age where he could have literally looked at each exhibit and been happy there all day. I would have LOVED to just follow him around instead of us hurrying him, but oh well.

R, you are going to have to devote A LOT of time to these museums!

I can never get good pictures by the elephant. For some reason it didn't smell the same either, which was kind of a bummer.

We got to see the beautiful Hope Diamond. I can't believe it originally weighed 45 carats!

From there we were off to Maryland, to stay the night with a lady that Jonas baptized 13 years ago! Crazy. She was so welcoming it was wonderful. We met her at a park in Germantown where they were doing a summer concert in the park. Jasmine had fun dancing.

Btw, this is the most pictures that anyone will ever see of Jasmine in shorts and sneakers. She's all about dresses and skirts!

Here they are together, it was such a sweet reunion.

That day we went to church and just pretty much just hung out. We went to a single's ward with Victoria, the girl above, and that was pretty funny let me tell you! Later we did go get ice cream and walk along this pretty lake trail.

That night we drove back to my cousin Zaidy's house in Virginia. We tried to get a good glimpse of the temple but weren't able to see it that well. I wasn't able to get a good picture either.

The next day was our last one and we took off back to downtown, determined to make the most of it. But in turned out to be quite the adventure.

First of all, we get to the Arlington Cementary, and the first thing that happens is just as we are walking in is that Jasmine get's stung by a wasp! She was in so much pain it was so sad. So we went back inside and asked for a first aid kit and instead they called an ambulance! The paramedics came in, with the firefighters and the stretcher, ready to take her to the hospital if needed! I guess they felt like they needed to do this for liability purposes. And since she is so little and had never been stung before, they wanted to make sure she didn't have a reaction. Luckily we didn't have to pay for this since we live in this wonderful country. Jasmine was very shy but she let them do what they had to do, and she was very brave while they got the stinger out, she didn't even cry, the poor thing. She was pretty traumitized though, but that only lasted a few minutes. After that, we were able to enjoy the scene.

The coolest part of course was the changing of the guards ceremony and watching how serious they took this responsability.

Our next stop was the Lincoln Memorial, which Shayden had been very excited to see.

He learned a lot about Abraham Lincoln in Kindergarten and it stuck with him.

And we got to show him the place where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech:

The funniest thing though, by the time we got up there we were all so heat exhausted, I took some pictures of Shayden by the statue,

and then a few minutes later he fell asleep just like this:

poor guy, he was such a trooper, and even carried his backpack with him everywhere.

Once he was awake though, he was back to his normal, silly self.

And so was Jasmine,

After being pooped from walking in the heat, we gratefully landed on a patch of grass right by the Potomac River. You can see the Washington Bridge through the trees. It was beautiful.

This time we shared our picnic with some ducks.

After that we decided to go to the National Archives to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independance. We had to wait in line to get in the building and then to enter the exhibit, but it was pretty cool to see. Shayden said he thought that the real Constitution has been lost or thrown out to sea, so he was relieved to know it was safe and sound.

This was our very last stop of the day but when we left we were shocked to see that

our car was towed!!! The sign was really confusing and Jonas had accidentally parked in a tow zone! So that was not good. Jonas had to take a taxi to go get it, but it turned out to be pretty close and we didn't have to pay to take our car out, but now we have a lovely ticket.

There were a couple of good things that came out of that though.

The kids and I got to visit these pretty fountains.

The sign says "No Wading Allowed"

But this was the scene all around:

So I decided to let peer pressure rule, besides, it was a welcomed distraction. :)

And we also got to spend just a little more time in the Museum of Natural History, buy a couple more souvenirs, including the flattened pennies that I always get for the kids but had forgotten to.

Turns out my phone didn't have reception so Jonas was driving around looking for us forever once he got the car, but once we finally reunited we headed to my aunt and uncle's house for a barbeque.

Here is Zaidy with little baby Zoe, isn't she cute:

and my aunt and uncle:

We had some crazy adventures in flying on the way home, as our flight was delayed 4 hours! But we made it and we had a very fun time!

Monday Fieldtrips--Fat Cats Bowling

My Sister has a Birthday

This is my sister.

She is like 9 years older than me but you can't even tell. When I am like

60 and she is 69 I bet I will look older than her!

We had a little birthday party for her at our house on the 13th. We also celebrated the birthday of another good friend who has a close birthday but I didn't get any pictures of her for some reason. Sorry.

Happy Birthday Li!
I am so glad that you are my sister and that we get to live close and be close now.

Heritage Park with the Grandparents

Another one of those not-to-be-missed festivals in the summer (at least in my book) is the free day at Heritage Park. It's the little village that they recreated to be during pioneer times, and it has Brigham Young's house, etc.

This year they went all out, way more than last year. They even fed us free pizza and icecream!

My parents came with us which was fun, I love when my kids get to hang out with their grandparents.

They had train rides, tons of crafts for the kids to make, face painting, petting zoo, carnival games, cute little people houses, bouncy rides, you name it, they had it!

Playdate with friends

Oh Boy do I have some major blog CATCH UP to do!!!

On the 11th of July we went to this awesome splash park in Herriman with some good friends.

It was very fun and I will definately be back to that park, it was small enough that you could keep an eye out for the kids easier than others but still had all the fun stuff that kids love including water of course!

The other really cool thing about this day is that my kids each did something new that they couldn't do before.

Shayden did the monkey bars!

I am so bad because at the beginning of the summer we went to a park and he told me he wanted to learn and I watched him and part of me thought "he is never going to be able to do this" but out loud I was like "oh yeah, you are totally going to get it, you just need to practice!" like a good cheerleader would. And now, hello, he did! I don't know why but I guess I worry about my kids "getting things". Silly.

Anyway, Jasmine also proved her monkey self by hanging on the bars like this:

She is a bit reserved on playground equipment and I had never seen her even try to do this so I have no idea where it came from except for watching other kids I guess. But that makes it also pretty cool that she was able and willing to do it.

Hooray for trying new things and practicing until you get it!

Beautiful New England

We had a really nice time visiting family in Boston this last week. Jonas was going to come with us but decided not to because he would have basically only been there for one day before he had to turn around and come home. So I went by myself with the kids. My parents had already been there for a few days when we got there.
We saw so many scenic places this time! Here are a few pictures:
The first day was a bit cloudy and chilly, but not too bad. It kept looking like it was going to rain but it didn't. We went to a little Seaport town called Nantasket.

Shayden had been dying to play with his cousing Bri, they had so much fun together.

The next day was much better weather, so we went to the cutest little town ever, Newport

Rhode Island. I loved this place, I definately want to go there again. There was so much to do there, first we walked around all the cute little shops:

then we drove by all of these amazing mansions:

And then we went on this gorgeous cliff walk:

my studly big brother


these two became the best of friends, it was so cute to see because up until now, they have wanted little to do with each other.

which reminds me, here they are putting on a little show for us:

I think it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

at this one part the sand was red, (?)

there was something coming in from the water, it was wierd.

Last day we did some shopping, and there wasn't enough room for all of us on the boat but they did take Shayden and he had a blast.

My sister in law has started doing face painting and so she did all of the kids faces:

And then we went to the yummiest Guatemalan restaurant that night! I had rellenitos which are my favorite thing in the world, I should have taken a picture.

Fourth of July 2008

This year we had kind of a quiet celebration but it was nice.
We met my sister and her family at a park in the Avenues that was shady, had a nice view of the city, and best of all was completely empty. When we got there, a ward had just left and so we had the whole bowery and playground to ourselves. It was kind of overcast too, so it felt really good outside. We only had a window of about 2 hours to be together due to work schedules, so we just talked and ate lunch and of course the kids had a great time playing.

This is the first merry go around I have seen in years, I thought they took all of these out for liability reasons.

That is pretty much all that we did because I decided to leave that night instead of the next, for my trip to Boston and so we went home to pack and get the house cleaned up. It was still nice to relax and be together.

With so much turmoil going on in the world around me, I am so grateful that I live in a country where I enjoy so much freedom. I am grateful that my parents made the sacrifices needed for me to have such blessings in my life.