Sleeping babes

When I was a kid my dad always took pictures of us kids when we were sleeping and I never understood it until I had a child. As anyone with children can attest to, one of the most precious things is to view your sleeping child.
Tori and Abby both love to read as I have mentioned before. When I went to get Tori up from her nap so we could leave for church, I found her with a book in hand fast asleep. One of those moments too precious to pass up.

The kids museum

Today we met up with my friend Jenny and her son Alex at the Kids Museum (as Abby calls it) for a little adventure.
Every time we go the girls find new and exciting things to do. Today Tori was a fireman...
Abby and Alex found a dress up dance studio...
Tori twirled in her Queen attire.
Tori made me a little dinner at the store/kitchen upstairs.
and Abby shopped for the food to make a meal.
We all had a fun time and the kids were really worn out and we all had fun.

New member of the family

Today we we went to see our newest Niece. On the way to go see her Abby and I had a conversation that went as follows:

Abby: My new cousins name is Pollen

Me: No her name is Hailey

Abby: But I want to call her Pollen

Me: If we call her 2 names, don't you think that will confuse her?

Abby after a moment: Oh yea I guess that would, then lets just call her Pollen.

The girls each got a chance to hold her, it is hard to belief that the girls were once so small.

Surprise!!

Chris planned a surprise for my birthday. I tried to guess what it would be. Needless to say I didn't guess the surprise. It was a 12 mile hike in Estes Park. It turned out that we only did 5 miles which proved to be good enough for both of us. It was beautiful and good weather. Chris taught me some interesting things he has learned through his scouting experience. The girls and dog stayed with Grandma and Grandpa so we could get a early start. They all had fun too so it was a good experience for everyone.

Goodnight Cassie

Tori and Abby both love playing with the dog. Tori decided that she needed to tuck Cassie in. Cassie is so patient with the girls and takes a lot of "love" from them.

Ninja pose

Abby's day care lady always does very fun things for them and us. I need to post some of those things, but today she brought home this really fancy hat that Trish made for her. She made one for Tori too, but she doesn't wear it as much as Abby does. To night she had her hat on and was doing some Ninja moves

Go Maple Leafs

Chris is so proud!

Visits from the farth north, eh...

We had a wonderful chance to visit with Uncle Claude, Chris' Uncle from home. Can you see the resemblance. He was doing some training here and so we were able to take the girls out to meet him.
The girls were really excited to visit with him. Abby told everyone at day care about 10 times that we were going to Uncle Claude for dinner. They were very excited to meet see him and didn't waste anytime telling him everything about anything.

Not a good sign

Tonight when I got home I tried to get the door to open to the garage and to no avail. Just so you know if you see your coil and it looks like this, it means a call into the garage door repair company is in order.

I called and was able to talk them into coming in first thing in the morning, so I won't be too late to work.

Temple Tour

Today, was our temple tour. Even though I was released I still invited myself along. This was one stop along our tour. This is a copy of the Christis and he stands about 7 feet high. The original is in Denmark any is 55 feet high.
This is in the back of the temple. Abby and some other girls are sitting on one of the brides benches. When the temple was announced the primary children wanted to help with something, so they began raising money for these brides benches. The district back then was Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. The primary children raised $10,000 dollars which was used to purchase these beautiful benches. They are often used for photographs. Also in the back were 2 blue spruce trees. President Hinkley loved trees and so as a gift to him, he was given these two trees which he turned around and gave back and asked that they be planted at the temple for everyone to enjoy.

Tori, Spencer and Molly were inspecting this bench, I think they decided it was okay.
When the temple was being built, there was so much money coming in from the members that many things were upgraded. This temple was built after the model of the Seattle temple, however because of all the extra funds there are many things that the Seattle temple does not have. For example, there is gold stenciling inside the temple in many places, the brides benches, I mentioned before, the fountain was supposed to be smaller, but the 8ft by 8ft is what was placed in front of the temple.

I also learned that the angle Moroni's are refurbished. They have a warehouse in Utah at which they take old ones that are in need of repair and bring them there to fix up and repaint with gold leaf. Then when one is ready to come they just swap them out and the new looking one is placed on the temple and the old one goes in for repair and on to another temple. The angle Moroni had been hit by lightening several times so this is a new one, with a better lightening rod to help protect him.

I learn each time I go for a tour, new and interesting facts, it is so much fun.

This was the end of the tour, the kids were super good.

Here is our eternal family!! Definitely more flowers than on our wedding day.
When I asked Abby over dinner what her favorite thing was today, she said going to the temple.

Abby's photo gallery

Some fun pictures from our little photgrapher...
Chris and man's best friend
Tori playing with her new favorit thing, her blocks I brought back from Iowa.

Chris took this one, Abby with her Cassie.

Avoidance..the best policy

I loved all the comments on my release, thanks! Ganelle how right you are about your comment!!
I managed to avoid the RS one more week, as I was called to substitute in Junior Primary. It was a little weird not be up running the show or doing anything other than sit with my class. The new presidency seemed a little lost, but I wasn't about to jump in to help them.
I would have been annoyed if someone had done it to me, so I think it is best to let them figure out what works for them.
Until next week...

More from Saturday

I forgot to add these to my recent blog, so here are a couple more fun pictures from today.
Tori, with her sunglasses propped for sleeping.
Tori 10 minutes after the prior pictureAbby also was tired after all her work (squirt guns) this afternoon.

Saturday's activities

Last night I asked Abby if we could go shopping tomorrow and she said "no, can we go to the zoo instead?" So the zoo it was, this morning. I always ask Abby what she wants to see before we get there so we can have a plan for what we want to see instead of wondering around for hours. Today it was the monkeys that took the first spot. So we headed down that direction. We stopped at monkey island and then to the primates. Abby was trying to figure out how the monkeys don't get out of the trees into the zoo. My only guess is that there is just enough water to stop them.

The girls stopping for a picture.

A couple of times ago, I let them ride the carousel and train and now everytime we must make a stop at these 2 attractions. First was the Train. Tori loves this slow, easy ride.

Abby wanted to sit all by herself today, and I told her she could as long as she kept her arms inside the train.

Next was the carousel. In case you are wondering what is the difference between a carousel and a merry go round (as I am sure you are) I learned this today so let me share. Carousel's go around in a counter clockwise circle and merry go rounds go in a clockwise direction.
Abby loves the animals that go up and down, giggling and smiling the whole time.

Tori doesn't enjoy it as much, I learned today that if I sit her the the chair it is more like the car and she doesn't get near as anxious as she has been in the past on this ride.

Then this afternoon we went to my cousins house. They had squirt guns out back for the kids and dad's to play with. This was a big hit for all involved, it kept them cool on this 90+ day and kept them occupied.
Here Chris is reloading his gun for the next round. You can't see Abby, but she is holding off some of the people trying to squirt him.

Here they are mid fight!
Lastly my youngest sister Theresa, she is leaving very soon to go back to college (to get smart as Abby says) and will be missed!!