Happy Birthday Nate

So Nate turned the big 3, 0! or 30 on Monday. Since he was going to be out of town we had a party for him on the Thursday before at my parents house with mostly family and some friends.
I wanted to take pictures of the girls together. This was Bristol's response. A tantrum.

Then Nate convinced her to participate if they sat on his lap. This was the only picture I was able to get. I told her to smile pretty.Kali loves the water. She desperately wanted to get into the pool.Bristol thought she would join Kali in getting Daddy wet.Thank goodness for Grandma. Grandma went in the pool with all of the grandkids. It just wasn't warm enough that evening to brave the water. I have become a big wuss in my old age.This is Nate's b'day cake I made. It took a little while but it was worth it.I didn't have 30 candles so I just put 15 in thinking that each candle could count for two.

Where in the World is...

Nate today? Well since Saturday Nate has been in Chicago. He is enjoying it so far and tries to check out the area so we may know of good places we could possibly live. Thank goodness for technology because we are able to use web cameras and talk to Nate online. I think it has helped Bristol not miss him as much. That is, when technology doesn't fail. When Nate was in Ohio his hard drive on his laptop just fried and he lost everything on his computer. It was not the best timing and we spent a lot of the time while he was home for a week trying to fix his computer and see if we could pull anything off of it. The answer was, no! It was gone.

Well the rest of us are trying to keep busy while he is away. I decided to start a project of refinishing our kitchen cabinets. I have taken all of the upper cabinet doors off and have cleaned them and have sanded a few. This project is going to take a while but our cabinets need a little tlc.

The girls are crazy as usual. Bristol has not been wanting to pray recently, so we have been talking about how Heavenly Father can hear us when we pray and he likes to hear our prayers. So the other morning Bristol came into my bed and she starts singing "I Love to See the Temple". She ends the song by saying to me, "Heavenly Father can hear me sing?" I of course told her that he could and he enjoys hearing her sing pretty songs. Then she tells me how we can talk to Heavenly Father and Jesus and they can hear us. I of course told her that she was correct. Then shouting she says, "Hey, Jesus, I need some candy!". I lost it at this point and just started laughing. I thought it was pretty funny.

Fourth of July

So I know it has taken me forever to get this post out, but it has been a little crazy around here. We went to Donner Lake for the Fourth and Nate left the 5th of July to Ohio for two weeks. So I have been playing the role of single mother for about a week and a half. I am not enjoying it too much. It has been better than I anticipated it to be, but I am getting tired of it. The bad thing too is that he will only be home for a week and then he is off to Chicago for two weeks, home again for two weeks and then off to Colorado for four weeks. I think I may go insane. So if the posts are far and few between you will know why.

Back to our vacation. My family all got together at my Aunt and Uncles cabin at Donner. On Saturday Nate's brother and his family came from Reno to spend the day with us. It was a lot of fun and just what we needed.

Hanging out on the porch in the hammock.

Bristol reading to Kali. She would get upset if Kali touched the book.
Oh the blue frosted cupcakes. It is a little scary to think of how much food coloring was in that frosting.Waiting to walk down to the lake to see the fireworks.Waiting for the fireworks.The show was worth the wait. Bristol had me hold my hands over her ears the entire 20 minute show.Kayaking with Daddy the next day. She was not too sure about it at first, I think.
Kali hanging out on the beach.

Kali & Bristol at Grandma's

Here is some video of Bristol & Kali swimming. As you can see Kali loves the water. She even loves the bath. If you walk by the bathroom, while holding her, she gets all excited but then when you walk away she starts to cry. She thinks anytime you go into the bathroom it is bath time. Now we just got to break her of the habit of trying to suck up the water with her mouth.

Our Trip to Utah

So we headed to Utah on Wednesday this last week and got home on Sunday. Nate's family was having a family reunion in Zion's and so we were fortunate that it was the one weekend this year that Nate had available. The drive out was long. We had to leave at 7:oopm Wednesday night and only made it a little more than half way and had to get a hotel because it was getting too late. We partied hard while we were there and deprived our kids of some sleep and then had the treacherous ride home, which ended up taking us 17 hours instead of 13. Yes about an hour of the time was stopping for dinner, but regardless it took way too long and we didn't get home until 2:30am Monday morning. It was a long drive and our kids were more than ready to get out of the car. Needless to say we have not gone anywhere for these last two days.Grandma and Grandpa J. Nate's grandparents that are 88 and 87 years old. They are great and it was great to see them.

This is Bristol with her cousin Hannah, who is a little less than a year younger than her. However, she is about the same size.

Bristol with her cousin Brenden on the way to Zions National Park for some hiking. Which we barely did any because it took us forever to find parking and then it was like five million degrees outside. We opted to go back to the resort we were staying at and go to the pool.

Kali zonked out while we were having dinner. She had only gotten a few short naps and was way tired. This was worth the documentation because she never falls asleep just anywhere. She has to be in her bed, especially with like 50 plus people around.

The ride home. Bristol got her nap in while we were stuck in traffic because a Semi rolled over off the freeway.
Kali on the other hand did not want to sleep and was so ready to get out of the car. I had to think of everything to entertain her.

Kali's First Swim

So this is Kali's first time swimming in a big swimming pool. It had been super hot and so we went down a few days early to my mom and dad's for Father's Day. Unfortunately the weather cooled down the day we were there to swim, but the girls still had a fun time. Kali loves to swim and likes to try to suck up the water. Oh and the funny thing is the swimming suit the Kali is wearing is the one Bristol wore just last year. Kali is going to catch up to Bristol in no time at the rate she is growing.

We were trying all sorts of things for Bristol so she could swim by herself in the water. She didn't trust any sort of flotation device we got and then out right refused to try anything else on.

What we have been up to lately

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because we have been pretty busy. Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to lately. Nothing real amazing.
This is what Bristol wanted to do when she woke up from her nap one day. It sounded good to me because she is usually so crabby when she first wakes up.

Of course we have had some baths. Bristol loves it when we give her cool hairdos in the tub.
We made some cupcakes for some friends that moved into our neighborhood. Of course Bristol needed to test the batter. I was so busy making dinner and cupcakes at the same time I didn't look at her face until we sat down for dinner and I just started laughing.
Bristol enjoying some freeze dried strawberries that Grandma and Grandpa G brought back from their "cation" as Bristol like to say. Bristol really missed them because they were gone for three weeks to the east coast.They also brought her back some princess undies. We have a chart for Bristol for when she uses the toilet and when she fills it all up she gets to have some princess undies she saw at the store. Well Grandma and Grandpa surprised her with some they found on their vacation. She loves to take them out and look at them and dream of the day she will get to wear them. She is only seven stars away! We are almost there.