Ode to my 20's

I saw a friend of mine do this on her blog and I thought it was cute, so I am copying the idea. As I celebrated my 30th birthday yesterday, I thought back on the big events in my life over the last decade.

20 - Graduated from Ricks and started at BYU-Provo.

21 - Went on a mission to the Brazil, Campinas mission.

22 - Worked hard as a missionary and returned home just before the end of the year.

23 - Met my wonderful husband and got married.

24 - Followed my husband to Kansas City so that he could do an internship for the summer.

25 - Both of us Graduated from BYU, went on our first cruise, moved to Des Moines for his first job, and then had our first baby on Christmas day. This was a big year for us.

26 - Bought our first home and our first dog.

27 - Joined a book club and found a new love for books/reading.

28 - Had another little girl at the beginning of the year and moved to the St. Louis area at the end of the year.

29 - Sold our first home, thankfully, and started getting into the best shape I've ever been in.

My 20's were really great. The happiest moments of my life have happpened in the last decade of my life. I look forward to whatever the next ten years of my life will bring.

Here are some shots from my very low key birthday. Unfortunately, Danny and I were both sick and spent a good part of the day laying on the couch. We did get up to open presents...

and enjoy the ice cream cake that I requested. It was peanut butter cup, my favorite, and very good.

I appreciate all of the calls, gifts, cards, and facebook birthday wishes that I recieved. Thank you to everyone who remembered me on my birthday.

Like Big Sister, Like Little Sister

The other day while I was doing dishes, Alyssa says "Mommy, come take a picture! Ashley is lining up the crayons." Sure enough, I go look and see this.
Anyone remember this picture from last May?
Do all kids do this? I don't know. But both of our girls do.

Swim Lessons

I know that the pictures are all really dark so I hope that you can still see what is going on in them. Alyssa started the "Learn to Swim" program at our local rec center this month. She has four other kids in her class and she loves going to swim. In this picture they are playing the monkeys teasing Mr. Alligator game.
Her favorite game that they play is the Easter egg hunt in the shallow end. She is in the "Turtle" level so each of the eggs have a little turtle in them.

They got to go down the slide for the first time in her lesson this week and she loved it.

Shortly after swim finishes, she will start soccer which she is also excited for. We hope to fit in the next level of swim classes after that and before swim season starts for the summer. It is making for some busy months ahead.

Happy Valentines Day

This is the first time that we've done this and Alyssa had lots of fun. I've never been a big fan of Valentines Day, even with the wonderful Valentine that I have every year, but I found some cookie cutters and sprinkles at the dollar spot at Target, so I thought it would be fun to make some cookies with Alyssa. I let her start rolling the dough out.

And then I stepped in to help out a little. We both cut the cookies out.

I frosted the cookies and Alyssa put the sprinkles on. She loved doing that and as a result some of the cookies had more sprinkles on them then frosting.

Here is the finished product. I just wish we could think of more people to give them away to.

Happy Birthday Danny

Danny's birthday was on Wednesday and we nearly had to postpone our birthday celebrations due to a stomach flu that Ashley must have picked up at church. Fortunately it only lasted 24 hours and she was back to normal on Wednesday morning. Even more fortunate that none of the rest of us got it. Danny came home a little bit early from work that night and we watched him open his presents.

After presents, we took the girls over to our friends house so that the two of us could enjoy a night out together. We tried a new BBQ place and the food was delicious. We were suprised to find out when we got there that it was mostly a carry out place, but we took advantage of one of the three little tables in the place and ate there. After dinner, we went and walked around the mall. We went back to our friends house to enjoy cake and ice cream.
Later in the week, Danny got what was probably his favorite gift (and one that I couldn't pick out for him). I think he is looking forward to trying it out sometime in the near future.

Weekend Visitors

Uncle Bobby and his girlfriend, Sarah, came to visit us this past weekend. We enjoyed having visitors and meeting Sarah. Sadly, we didn't pull the camera out enough. Here are the only pictures we got with them. We took them to see the St. Louis Arch.
It was really cold out, so we spent some time below the arch in the museum in order to warm up. Here are the two brothers together.

We spent most of our time relaxing at the house, playing games, and eating. We were glad that they were able to come and visit us. The girls enjoyed having new people to play with.

Princess Party

Alyssa got invited to her first non-parent birthday party last week (non-parent meaning without either of us because the parents of the birthday girl were there). It was a princess party and this was the outfit she chose to wear.

I don't know why she insisted on the pink shoes and the purple dress because she has a pink princess dress AND purple shoes, but this had to be what she wore. She had a lot of fun at the party and loved picking out the gift.

Daddy's Little Girls

The other night when Danny came home, the girls were so excited to see him. They usually are excited to see him, but he hasn't been home as much as normal this week, so I think they were even more excited. They were watching "Dora", so he sat down with them. Alyssa was cold becaus they had just gotten out of the bath, so she wanted them to use her new blanket.

I just thought it was so sweet to see them sitting together under Alyssa's blanket. They stayed like this for quite awhile, which is very rare with our daughters. They usually don't stop moving for anything. Those little girls have this Daddy wrapped around their little fingers and one of my favorite things to see is the three of them playing together.