Today is your birthday....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

MOMMA!!!!
Hope you have a
great day!
We love you!!!

Finally updating!

I've had more than one person tell me I need to update my blog, so here it is! We're finally settled from our crazy summer and now officially into Joe's last semester of school!!!! I know I've complained a lot about sitting around here waiting for him to finish, but time really has flown by. We still don't know where we'll end up at the end of the year, but we're getting there. He just had one interview and is in the process of setting another one up. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I've been keeping myself busier this semester. I'm watching our friends little boy, McKay, everyday. His mom is a second grade teacher and his dad's a full time student, so I have him most of the day. He's a great kid and it's fun to have someone play with Kayla. I've also been working with Kayla a lot. I figured since I have my Early Childhood Education degree, I might as well use it. Plus, I've taught a class of 30 four-year-olds, why not my own daughter? It's going pretty good. Her latest accomplishment is drawing a picture of something that's actually recognizable. It may not seem like a big deal, but that's actually a very big developmental step. Plus, she said the picture was me, so I feel special. :-) Alyssa's growing up so fast too! Since McKay's been around she seems to be picking up more words. Right now we're trying to get her off of bottles, but it's not going so well. She screams at us when we try to take it from her. Well, that's what we've been up to. Things are starting to get more exciting for us though, so I'll try to keep our page update with news. Here are some recent pictures of the girls. Kayla's in her little leotard Grandma Churchill got her. She was dancing around saying, "I'm a princess ballerina!" The one of Aly is showing I can finally put her hair in little piggies, even if they do look like horns. The video pretty much explains itself.

Manassa

Here is a video of the train derailment. Joe dropped the camera at the end thinking he'd have to jump over to get Kayla. The joys of carnival rides!



The Pioneer Day parade is taken very seriously in Manassa. Here is the Shrek float that someone made.


Kayla playing 'Duck, Duck, Goose' with her cousins.


Kayla and Brayden playing soccer.


Kayla on the swing with Brayden. She spent most of the weekend on that thing.


On the Merry-Go-Round with mom.


On the Merry-Go-Round again, with dad.


All of the babies that were there this weekend. These are Grandma Sowards' Great-Grand babies. (These are only the ones born within the last year. Of course there are a lot more!)


Joe, Kayla, and Aly with Grandma Sowards. We didn't get to see Grandpa because he fell last week and broke his leg and was in the hospital in Denver.


Here are some pictures from our trip to Manassa Colorado. We had a pretty good time. We went to a parade and a carnival. Most the time we just hung out at Grandma Sowards house. Kayla and Aly had fun playing with all of their cousins, and there were a lot of them there to play with! Kayla had a blast at the carnival. She went on the merry-go-round twice, the airplane ride, a train (which got derailed while she was on it) and a flying fish ride. We also watched fireworks on Saturday night.

Another trip...

Kayla watched fireworks that Uncle Jared, Uncle David, and Grandpa Stradling did. She also got to play with sparklers.


Aly in her swim gear.


Aly playing with her cousin Naomi.

We just got back from another trip. My dad came and picked me and the girls up and took us up to Farmington. I helped my mom get some stuff done for my brother's wedding open house. We were there over the 4th of July and the girls had a blast swimming and playing with their cousins. Now we're home and settled until next week, when we leave to go to the Sowards family reunion in Manassa Colorado. We just can't sit still this summer!

Our Vacation & Alyssa's Birthday

We've had a very busy week! We went on vacation to Mesa (for Jeff's wedding) and Tucson. Even though it was a lot of driving, we had a good time. The wedding and the reception were very beautiful. Kayla had a blast at the reception, dancing and running around with her cousin Jaylee. Alyssa slept through half of it. In Tucson we went to the Zoo, to a movie (Meet The Robinsons, very cute! Alyssa slept through that too!), the mall, and swimming at the hotel. We also drove around A LOT!!!! We're looking into moving down there and we wanted to make sure that we liked it first. Today was Alyssa's 1st birthday. Unfortunately, we were in the car the whole day, but when we got home she got a cake and presents. She made a huge mess with the cake, as you can see in the pictures, but it was worth it. I can't believe she's already 1! Now it's back to the old routine, until next week anyway. The girls and I will be leaving to go up to Farmington for a while.

She's On The Move!!!

This is a really cute dress Aunt Deena sent to Alyssa when she was born. She can finally fit in it! She only kept the hat on for the picture though.


Here's Alyssa up on the coffee table with her Elmo book.

She did it! Alyssa is walking and she did it before her first birthday! She's not a pro yet, but she can go about 7-10 steps before she falls down. She's also learned to climb up on things. I was cooking dinner the other night and looked over and she was on our coffee table reading an Elmo book. I've really got my hands full now! :-) Her and Kayla are starting to play together a lot more. It's really cute. We're getting ready to take off to Arizona at the end of the week for Jeff's wedding and then to Tucson for a couple days so we should have a lot of fun pictures to post later!

Kayla is 3 !!!!!

Kayla had a fun birthday!!! When we were in Farmington a few weeks ago we had a party with her family and friends. Then, on Saturday we took her to see Shrek 3. She loved it! (All of us did. Even Aly watched the whole thing.) Yesterday we just went out to eat, let her open presents and had cake. I think she's a little confused about when her birthday actually is, but she sure enjoyed getting extra attention on all of those days!





The little cake mom made for our little family.













Trying out her new scooter that mom and dad gave her.











Opening presents at her party with the help of Ayden, Andrew, and Emryck.

















The new dress that Aunt Katie gave her.












I love the look on Kayla's face when she realizes that everyone is singing to her!

Here are more pictures from the last couple of months. The first one is Kayla in her favorite hiding place. She likes to hide in her toy box when she's supposed to be taking her nap. The next one was taken when we were in Farmington in February. She loves to ride the "up-and-down" with her Grampoo! Aly got her first taste of chocolate a little while ago. We gave her some Cocoa Puffs for a treat one night. Boy did she love them!!! I finally got some pictures of my girls together. They are becoming best buddies!

Here are some new pictures of the girls. We took these the week before Easter. It was so hard to get the girls to cooperate! These were the only ones that turned out after an hour of trying!

The Last Few Months

It's been a couple months since I've posted anything so I'll catch up.
Kayla got to play in the snow for the first time just before Christmas. She would have stayed outside all day if I would have let her. She had an exciting Christmas. Santa brought her a race car set and a vacuum that really works. (Mom loves that!) She got to go to Farmington and play with her cousins too. Now, we're attempting potty training again. So far, no luck, but we're not going to give up this time.
Aly's getting bigger everyday. She's already catching up to Kayla. (Only 9 lbs difference between the two.) She is finally sleeping through the night (usually), she's got her two bottom front teeth, and she's perfected the art of sitting. She's going to be crawling pretty soon too. She already manages to get herself across the room just by kicking her legs as hard as she can!
There's nothing new and exciting with me, except I cut my hair off. Whoopee!!!
Joe's starting school again next week. He's taking 17 credit hours and working 20 hours a week, so he'll be keeping himself pretty busy. He's starting his job hunt. Hopefully by the fall we can know where we're going to end up after he graduates.
That's us in a nutshell! Hope everyone is having a happy new year!

Halloween

Saturday we had our ward Halloween party. Kayla hopped around the parking lot during the parade. During trunk-or-treating she went around saying "trickery!" She also got to win a cake at the cake walk that she did with daddy. Aly slept through almost the entire party probably because she was all snuggly in her ducky outfit.

New Pictures

Here are some new pictures of my sweet little girls. They are both growing up so fast. Aly's laughing and cooing a lot now and Kayla is talking up a storm.

Our Trip

Here are some pictures from our trip. We had Aly's blessing on August 25th. Kayla had fun being with all of her cousins! Here are all of the Churchill cousins, until next month anyway. :-)