The Best of Friends!

Oh how I LOVE my little family! Here we are at Temple Square one Sunday afternoon. It was JD's wonderful idea to spend the afternoon there, just to change things up a bit, and the girls and I loved it!

If anyone is wondering...Lydia is now 2 1/2 years old and Emree just turned 1. :)



Lydia loved seeing the beautiful Temple and kept on calling it the castle.

Lucky for me these two girlies are the best of friends now. Allowing us to stick  both of them in a one seat stroller. Emree gets a kick out of having Lydia's face so close to hers, she loves to poke and grab at it, giggling the whole time. Luckily Lydia thinks it's pretty funny too. 

We live about 2 minutes from Historic Wheeler Farm and have been going there alot lately. Lydia calls it the zoo. As of right now they have tons of ducks and geese waddling around the farm, Lydia absolutely loves to go feed them old moldy bread as well as see all the other animals.

 

Lydia is already 2 1/2 years old!! I can't believe how big she is getting and how much she is learning. I love how when things tip over or fall over etc... she says, "Oh dear!" Can you guess where she gets that? Here is another clue. She also loves to say, " Tut Tut looks like rain." Yes, her favorite movie is Winnie the Pooh!

She is doing so well, with saying her prayers and just loves going to nursery.

She has also become quite the dancer. She will ask me to turn on music and to put on a pretty dress every day if not multiple times a day. We went to a little danec/ storytime at the library the other time and she LOVED IT!  I cannot wait to put her in dance classes, because she will be in heaven! I am so proud of my little dancer.

She is doing alot better with sharing and being nice to emree. She shares all of her toys with emree, and always is there with a binky for her whenever she is crying. She adores her little sister and takes good care of her.

 



 

POTTY TRAINING!!!

I have to say that Jd new for quite awhile the Lydia was ready to be potty trained, yet being the one who would be cleaning up all the yucky messes...I was a little (ok maybe a lot) hesitant in starting the whole process.

So we started cold turkey with the panties and to my surprise SHE WAS AMAZING! She learned so fast and we all get so excited every time she goes. She lets out a piercing scream of joy each time and is doing SO WELL. She still wears diapers to bed...but is starting to get through nap times with her panties on.

I could not be more proud of my sweet girl! She is so smart!

On a side note, we were reading the scriptures last night and quizing Lydia on who was in the picutres. She knew and could tell us who Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus were, and who the apostles were, also.... drum role......she knew who Joseph Smith was without us saying a single word!! Me and JD just looked at each other in complete shock and joy!

We are so proud of how much lydia is learning and just love her to pieces!

 

I love finding these two playing together (nicely) in their room together. Here is Lydia being the wonderful big sister that she is, reading books to emree, who is really getting into reading and looking at books. She probably gets it from her older sister. I also like how my homemade cardboard box chair has lasted this long, all they had to do to make it a two seater was bend the  arms down. Wonderful! Works for me. 

 

Oh sweet Emree!

I can't believe you are already 1 years old!

I wish I had more pictures from her birthday party (they should be coming soon) we just couldn't find our camera that day...sadly...so we only have the ones we took with our phones. Anywho, her birthday was Owl themed and we held it at Grandma Hansen's house. My siblings and JD's family were there to celebrate with us.

 

Emree is starting to get her own little personality which is so fun to see. Her laugh is kind of like a cough laugh which I think is hilarious! She has 3 teeth so far, two on the bottom and one on top.

She is walking everywhere now and still does the little duck waddle to get around which I love. She loves bringing me her shoes to put on, so that we can go outside sooner. What a big helper she is.



 

She loves to press buttons! Either on the TV, Computer, Fan, phones...you name it, and she loves to press it. She'll push it and then turn and give you a sly little grin of "Look what I just did...what are you going to do about it now?..." Type of look.

She is starting to stand up for herself when it comes to Lydia taking toys or food. She'll just scream bloody murder, which sends lydia running for cover. She can usually get what she needs that way.

Oh and whenever she wants you to read her a book, she''ll come and plop down in your lap, with her book and a huge grin on her  face.

She is always so happy and brings so much joy into our lives and family. She loves Lydia to death and Lydia loves her just the same. It's been amazingto see how much she is learning and growing.

A Return to Dance

This past week was the World Folk Festival in Springville, UT.  Why they have it in Springville is beyond me, but McCall was fortunate enough to dance in it and it was a big success.  As you can see from the pictures below she performed the Charleston and was absolutely amazing in it.  McCall is naturally such a happy person, but when she gets involved in dancing, she is another person and her whole face radiates.  She had such a great time dancing the entire week and meeting people from Russia, Costa Rica, Columbia, Austria, Catalunya (wherever that is), etc.  

 She feels blessed to have such a great family who took after the girls so she could go dancing and I could still work.  I have to admit it was a very peaceful week for me as the girls were up in Springville, but nothing was so sweet to see Lydia get super excited to see me, stare up at me, and caress my face.
The Saturday show was simply amazing as we got to see fire dancers, Tahetian (spelling?) bum dancing, Columbian dancing that was mesmerizing (sorry to Mom and Dad who came Friday and saw one of the more boring nights), etc.

Also here are some pictures from the 24th of July.  We went up to our usual Hansen spot and did some hiking around.

 After hiking and a long nap, we went over to Butlerville Days in Sandy and it was a blast.  They had a Home Depot booth set up where they gave you all the supplies to make trucks, crafts, etc.  Here's Lydia taking a break from her hammering.  (It was actually quite humerous to see all the adults trying to put these wooden blocks together as the kids looked on in sheer boredom)

 Emree's favorite thing to do, climb the stroller.

 McCall and I did our first 'pie eating contest.'  Although it was very anti-dramatic since we both didn't want to get sick, so McCall just licked off a little whipped cream and I ate about 1/4th pie trying but not really.  We weren't too disappointed that we didn't win when we realized the top three winners received colorful pads of papering (sticky notes) for their efforts.

 Also there was all you could eat watermelon, and Lydia and Emree were in heaven!

 Lydia with her balloon dog.  She loved to gnaw at it, and I didn't stop her cuz it was priceless to see her reaction when it exploded on her.

Dental Graduation

So I finally got my graduation pictures from Dad's phone.  We forgot our camera that day... really? Yep.  Many thanks to Dad, Mom, and Kelsi for coming out the long ways to Louisville to cheer me on.  Here's me prior to being hooded, just a regular old dental student.

Flash-forward past the ceremony and here I am a Doctor with Mom.  I look so much wiser in this picture.

Here are all the LDS guys and their families, I think we started off school with 1.5 kids and now there are too many to count.

 Here's the crew, aren't they cute and supportive.

 Here's all the LDS guys from my class.  We look like star wars characters.

 And this was before graduation on a walk to our close by park.  There is a small character on Kelsi's shoulder that is grabbing my attention, alas I forgot his name.  Kelsi any help here?

 And my wonderful group manager and friend Dr. Baughman, she was my favorite and taught me so much.

 Family and diploma.

 This is the part where I was hooded.  There were a couple of tall people who actually just sat down Indian style to help out those who were hooding.  And there was also that Louisville basketball player who proposed to one of my classmates during the ceremony that kind of stole the spotlight from those graduating, kind of funny.

There you have it folks.  No more school for me.  And again thanks to Mom, Dad and Kelsi for coming to support me.  I think the most memorable thing for me about those couple of days was Mom's bacon sandwich, and if you don't know what I'm talking about ask her.

A la Beach!

We have been thoroughly enjoying the beautiful summer weather lately. Hitting up Seven Peaks, awesome parks, beautiful California beaches, movies under the stars and spending oodles of time with family and friends.

Here are just a few of our adventures lately..

JD and cute lydia pose for a picture as we take a break from Seven Peaks and eat lunch at a near by park...did I mention it was his birthday June 12th! Happy Birthday to the most amazing and good looking guy I know! ( I will blog more about that a little later..)

Emree getting ready to soak up some sun! I'm lucky in the fact that both my girls don't fight one bit about me putting sun screen on them, thank goodness to that. :)

We had the opportunity to take a last minute trip down to visit some of my family in California a few weeks ago. Lydia LOVED my youngest brother Jacy! Probably because he was the closest to her age out of everyone, and he would let her tackle him to the ground.

So much cuter when she's covered in sand...don't you think? :) Lydia loved the beach by the way! She loved playing in the sand with her uncles, and thought the huge holes we would dig for her to sit in were the greatest.

This is my younger brother Dusty...who is growing up so fast. He is the sweetest most tender hearted kid you'll find on this earth. He was always watching over my girls at all times and making sure they were safe and happy. He has the biggest heart and I love him to death! Did I mention he is incredibly talented and smart yet. Um ok then, HE IS! He thinks of, and builds the most complicated puzzle-box-things ever! I swear he is going to work for the FBI or NASA someday gees. It's pretty much incredible the things he comes up with. He is extremely gifted at playing the piano as well and has composed some pretty amazing pieces, as well as a dedicated student. I love him to death and it was so good to see him again. ( Did I mention he is also extremely good looking :)

Me and my little brothers, who aren't so little any more. Us after a fun day at the beach!

Oh Benson, thanks for always being the one to play with us in the ocean. These two became the best of friends! Benson was always so helpful with the girls and was always there to keep us company. He was always cracking jokes and making sure everyone was having a good time.

We rented a boat and got to circle Coronado Island which was super fun! Lydia even got to steer the boat!

Emree loved being on the water as well, having her life jacket on...um... not so much.

Handsome Man posing for the camera!

So lately these too goobers have been loving the stroller turned on it's side. For some reason it has provided them with countless hours of fun for the last week or so. Why did I never think of this sooner. Lydia sits in the little slots and says she is driving to the park. She sticks all sorts of toys and junk in the crevices of the stroller and then gets the baby or one of us to come sit on the back while she "drives". Emree loves climbing on it as well and they usually end up fighting over who gets the front seat.

As you can see below, with the mad camera skills that JD has, he was able to catch poor emree in motion as she plummeted to the ground after being pushed by lydia. This poor girl takes quite a beating from her older sister.

Crazy hair after bath time!