Trip to Idaho

Our good friends moved to Green Liver last summer.  We were so lucky on our way to Idaho to be able to stop and spend the night at their house.  These are the sweetest boys!  Hunter came to my preschool and Caleb was in Emery's primary class.  We miss them a lot!  I hope we get to do it again soon.  I'm bummed that Vicki and I didn't take a picture together.  I didn't think about it Thursday night, and we left pretty early Friday morning.  Next time!

We drove from Green River to Salt Lake City and took the kids to Temple Square.  They'd never been there before and it was a great experience for us all.

Clint and I had never been on top of the Conference Center before.  It was amazing.  You really couldn't tell that you were on top of a huge building.

Chani was fascinated when Clint told her that this was where he and I got engaged.  She asked all sorts of questions about it all afternoon.  So cute.

"Mom, take my picture."

Before and after our trip to the Stewart Family reunion, we got to spend some time with Clint's mom.  The kids love Grandma's toy/game closet.  They always get out fun things to play with.  Thanks Grandma!

We also did a bit of geocaching.  This one was a little tricky.  You can't tell from the picture, but Clint had to stand on the hood of our expedition to get the cache out of this tank.

On this trip we learned that Asher is an ice cream and cupcake fiend.  We loved our visit to Paisley Cakes!

A couple of videos

My kids are hams.

Emery:




Saya:

Asher turns 1!

Asher is one!  This year has gone so fast, and I'm a little heart-broken that my baby is moving into toddler-hood so quickly.  But, he's a funny little guy that makes us laugh and brings us joy every day!

Prepare for picture overload!
This pair of overalls is the same pair that Emery wore on his first birthday.  It's a different shirt (since it was November and Emery wore long sleeves with it then) but I'm loving the overalls just as much the second time around,.


Emery really wanted Asher to open this present first (Emery decorated the wrapping paper).  Asher started to, but after one rip, he took a side glance....

We had been shopping the day before, and in the pile of presents, he saw the one he wanted the most.

Any guesses?

How did you know it was a green Yoda ball?  It seriously was his favorite gift.  He didn't even want to open all the books he got (lots of board books, most of ours are trashed, and I'm a sucker for kid books).

The second most favorite gift? The green sippy cup.  Clint says green is his favorite color.
On to cake!

Since this one year old can't blow, we went with a sparkler (or sparker as my kids call them).  It was well received.
Asher knew just what to do, and dived right into that cake.  He even tried to share with mom, such a nice little guy.

One year ago

Stewart Family Reunion

We had a super fun time at the Stewart Family Reunion this year.  Cathrynn was in charge and a couple of years ago she and my parents booked the coolest place.  We went to the Albion Campus Retreat.  It was a state teaching college in the first part of the 20th century.  They closed it down in the 40's and the buildings have been sitting empty most of the years since then.  It was purchased by a family in 2007 and one building has been renovated into a great space for our big family.  We had so much space.  The building had a big kitchen with a great common room, 15 bedrooms, and a fun game room on the third floor.  Outside there were basketball courts, volleyball, horseshoe pits, a large above ground pool, and a hot tub.

If you've spent any time with the Stewart Family, you know we're all about the food, so to say we ate really well is an understatement.  My sister and I were in charge of the first meal, and we did chicken salad croissants and fruit salad. After lunch we spent most of the first day at a really fun park and swimming in the pool. My brother and sister made an amazing dinner of prime rib, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and cesaer salad.  For dessert we had root beer floats with a keg of rootbeer.  Yum!  The next morning after a delicious breakfast of fruit and yogurt parfaits and this amazing cinnamon toast, and then we went to The City of Rocks.  Several people did some climbing at Bath Rock (it was scary for me to watch).  We had a fun picnic of hoagie sandwiches, chips, and s'more mix.  That afternoon we rented a water bouncy house slide thing.  Everyone loved it and had a blast (except Saya, who I forced to do it once, she hated it)!  We ate ice cream that afternoon and then sausages and burgers for dinner.  Tours of the grounds and buildings were taken that night.  They went in two groups and the first group made plans to scare the second group (in the fall the buildings that haven't been renovated are used as haunted houses).  The screams coming from the final building could be heard across the lawn. The final morning we ate waffles for breakfast and checked out of the resort.  The we drove up Pomerelle canyon and ate pulled pork and chicken sandwiches for lunch.  None of the kids wanted to leave when it was time to go.  We really loved every second of it.

We had so much fun I only took one picture (when we were leaving) of Saya crying because she was so exhausted.  I asked her to calm down and she said, "No, I want to stay crying."

Hopefully my sister will blog about it soon with pictures, then I'll plug a link in here.

Why?

Clint and Saya were driving in the car today.  From the backseat, Saya said, "Why does Elsa tend to freeze her castle?"

Chani's Ballet Recital

Chani took ballet lessons from a girl from church.  It was pretty low key, which is just what we were looking for.  She had a great time, and I learned a lot about what I want/expect from kid lessons.

Thanks, Chelsea for getting the great video!  You're the best!


I traded tuition for spring classes for the skirts.  The younger class wore white traditional tutus (they danced to Snowman in Summer) and the older class danced to Let it Go, so they needed to be Elsa looking.  It took me a while to decide what I was doing, and I struggled matching the fabric to the leotards.  It was a much bigger project than I anticipated, and in true Jill form, I was working right up until that last minute.  I was really happy with how they turned out, though.  Super cute!

I'm not very good at buns in general, but with a lot of help from my sister (thanks, Shelly) I was able to pull off a cute bun.  It only had 20 bobby pins in it.

Saya says (church edition)...

On the way to church Saya said, "I don't want to go to *snackerment meeting."

During the Sacrament, when the bread came by, Saya whispered, "I took a naked one." I assume she meant without crust.

At one point I was telling her that we were in Jesus' house. She said, "Are we watching it for him?"

*we call our main worship meeting Sacrament Meeting