Saturday, February 21, 2009
Jocelyn's 1st Talk
Last Sunday Jocelyn gave her first talk. She had been assigned it the week before and I had good intentions of practicing it with her all week long but by the time Thursday rolled around there was still no talk. Jocelyn kept asking me about it so we finally hunkered down and put one together. We had a busy weekend so we didn't get to spend as much time on it as we would have like. I feared that it was going to be a disaster come Sunday. I imagined we would have a giggling Jocelyn who didn't know her talk. Sunday came and her talk was supposed to be at the beginning of Primary. Dad was gathering some things for me at the library so I had Kelsey. Right before it was her turn Jocelyn announces, "I have to go the potty." I tried to convince her to wait but she started yelling, "I need to go potty." I knew the talk would be a real disaster if we didn't go so we bolted. We returned shortly and Sister Urling was kind enough to have the kids sing a song while they waited for her return. Jocelyn marched herself up to the podium, now with her father in tow. She did a really good job and she spoke really loud and didn't giggle at all. I was really impressed with how much she knew of it on her own. Here is the recap of the talk, given in her pajamas in the living room.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Look who is walking!!!
At 14 1/2 months Kelsey is finally walking. Although she still prefers to crawl, she has the ability to walk. I know this opens a whole new door of trouble but it will be so nice not to have her crawling on every dirty floor in America. So here is a little video of our gal.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bloggect
Bloggect- the neglect of updating a blog for long periods of time to the point that people don't check your blog anymore or forget that you have a blog.
I am guilty as charged. However in my defense, I have spent a better part of the last two months on the road and have plenty of pictures to prove it. To summarize my last month, starting from Christmas, it went a little something like this:
Christmas morning was spent at my parents, followed by a lovely breakfast at my sister, Lisa's. We had dinner at my mom's that night. The next day we went sledding with Lisa's family but not before we took a little spin on the snow mobile with grandpa. On the 27th we celebrated Jocelyn's 3rd birthday with her cousins by painting nails and doing hair. Jackson wasn't too keen on this so dad just cut his nails. Later that night, we went to a Black family party and a get-together with John-David's friends. On the 29th I got to go out to lunch with just my high school friends, but we all brought our families together that night for a party. It was so much fun!
We left the next day to start our trek back across the nation, stopping the first night in Sidney, NE. Adding excitement to the Wyoming and Nebraska landscape was our lovely daughter's illness- Kelsey was having a hard time keeping things down... and when she finally did keep them down we had a hard time confining them to just her diaper! Nothing like crossing the plains of Wyoming while your daughter is throwing up in a bowl and having blow-outs. Oh the memories. Despite the illness we pushed on to Iowa City, IA where we stayed for two nights. Because we were there on the New Year's Day a lot of the things we were interested in seeing were closed. It was a little disappointing but not a whole lot we could do. After our stay there we headed down to Nauvoo, where we took a wagon ride through the city (which we decided is definitely the best way to see it when you have kids). We didn't have a lot of time so we checked out a few more things before we hit the road for Springfield, IL. John-David had an interview there so the kids and I spent the day exploring the city....well, actually it turned out to be exploring the shopping scene there. My kids aren't so much into american history sites quite yet. They really didn't care about seeing the Lincoln library after they found out there wasn't a play area. After the interview we headed home arriving at 2:00 A.M. That ended the long trek west.
After a few days rest John-David was back on the interview trail hitting a local program here in town and then one in Kansas followed by one in Pennsylvania. John-David's brother Richard and his family had just moved there and he was able to spend a few days with them. After a few more days of rest, the family packed the minivan again and headed to Morgantown, WV for another interview. Kelsey grew her teeth in just such a perfect way so she could really fit in with the natives. Check the pictures out to see what I am talking about. This trip was a short one and we returned the next day. We hit the Ikea in Pittsburgh on the way home- which is always a highlight. Unfortunately we had to skip Cabela's this trip.
In our downtime, we have started up classes at the rec center which include "movin and groovin," "sporties for shorties," and gymnastics. Jackson is delighted to play some sports again and Jocelyn seems to be a natural for gymnastics. She giggles the entire time it's her turn to tumble and her galloping run just seems to fit in there. Jackson started preschool again, and he is getting better at writing. He can sort of write his name now. We had a princess party for Jocelyn and her friends, which was so cute. We had 4 Cinderellas, 1 Sleeping Beauty, Buzz Lightyear, a fireman and Spencer. It was a riot to watch them do the activities. Jocelyn loved it and I had a fun time reliving my youth by making her a doll cake like the ones I grew up with. After the party I asked Jocelyn what her favorite part was and she replied, "Playing with my friends." I am sad that we will be apart from her friends all too soon.
Since it had been a whole 5 days since we had last gone on a road trip we were just itching to get on the road again. We left for a second look at programs/interview/visit family trip. That one lasted about 9 days. We went to Erie, PA first, then across the state to Bethlehem. From there we went down to Philadelphia to visit Richard's family and my cousin, Marsh's family. After a few days of bonding time we went to Hershey to take our kids to the chocolate factory. I think the picture of Kelsey says it all. Those of you who remember Goonies might recognize the similarity between Kelsey and Sloth (it made us think of the line, "Sloth love chunk!"). Watch the movie if you don't. From the happiest place for chocolate lovers we headed to Paw Paw, WV to see where our ancient roll top desk John-David's parent gave us came from. It was actually somewhat on our way back to West Virginia, where we were headed for the last interview. We spent the night in Cumberland, MD before we headed to Huntington, WV. I am grateful for every interview John-David got but was I ever GRATEFUL they were done. If I had to spend one more day in a city I didn't know with three small kids, while my husband was off galavanting without us I was going to scream. We really did have a fun time traveling the U.S. these past two months but I was so done and so were the kids. Jocelyn kept asking if this was the day we were going to go home. The only problem was we had to hear that for about 5 days before we could.
That about sums it up for the past month. Stay tuned because I will be posting more stuff more frequently here in the near future. Until then you have this post to read again and again.
I am guilty as charged. However in my defense, I have spent a better part of the last two months on the road and have plenty of pictures to prove it. To summarize my last month, starting from Christmas, it went a little something like this:
Christmas morning was spent at my parents, followed by a lovely breakfast at my sister, Lisa's. We had dinner at my mom's that night. The next day we went sledding with Lisa's family but not before we took a little spin on the snow mobile with grandpa. On the 27th we celebrated Jocelyn's 3rd birthday with her cousins by painting nails and doing hair. Jackson wasn't too keen on this so dad just cut his nails. Later that night, we went to a Black family party and a get-together with John-David's friends. On the 29th I got to go out to lunch with just my high school friends, but we all brought our families together that night for a party. It was so much fun!
We left the next day to start our trek back across the nation, stopping the first night in Sidney, NE. Adding excitement to the Wyoming and Nebraska landscape was our lovely daughter's illness- Kelsey was having a hard time keeping things down... and when she finally did keep them down we had a hard time confining them to just her diaper! Nothing like crossing the plains of Wyoming while your daughter is throwing up in a bowl and having blow-outs. Oh the memories. Despite the illness we pushed on to Iowa City, IA where we stayed for two nights. Because we were there on the New Year's Day a lot of the things we were interested in seeing were closed. It was a little disappointing but not a whole lot we could do. After our stay there we headed down to Nauvoo, where we took a wagon ride through the city (which we decided is definitely the best way to see it when you have kids). We didn't have a lot of time so we checked out a few more things before we hit the road for Springfield, IL. John-David had an interview there so the kids and I spent the day exploring the city....well, actually it turned out to be exploring the shopping scene there. My kids aren't so much into american history sites quite yet. They really didn't care about seeing the Lincoln library after they found out there wasn't a play area. After the interview we headed home arriving at 2:00 A.M. That ended the long trek west.
After a few days rest John-David was back on the interview trail hitting a local program here in town and then one in Kansas followed by one in Pennsylvania. John-David's brother Richard and his family had just moved there and he was able to spend a few days with them. After a few more days of rest, the family packed the minivan again and headed to Morgantown, WV for another interview. Kelsey grew her teeth in just such a perfect way so she could really fit in with the natives. Check the pictures out to see what I am talking about. This trip was a short one and we returned the next day. We hit the Ikea in Pittsburgh on the way home- which is always a highlight. Unfortunately we had to skip Cabela's this trip.
In our downtime, we have started up classes at the rec center which include "movin and groovin," "sporties for shorties," and gymnastics. Jackson is delighted to play some sports again and Jocelyn seems to be a natural for gymnastics. She giggles the entire time it's her turn to tumble and her galloping run just seems to fit in there. Jackson started preschool again, and he is getting better at writing. He can sort of write his name now. We had a princess party for Jocelyn and her friends, which was so cute. We had 4 Cinderellas, 1 Sleeping Beauty, Buzz Lightyear, a fireman and Spencer. It was a riot to watch them do the activities. Jocelyn loved it and I had a fun time reliving my youth by making her a doll cake like the ones I grew up with. After the party I asked Jocelyn what her favorite part was and she replied, "Playing with my friends." I am sad that we will be apart from her friends all too soon.
Since it had been a whole 5 days since we had last gone on a road trip we were just itching to get on the road again. We left for a second look at programs/interview/visit family trip. That one lasted about 9 days. We went to Erie, PA first, then across the state to Bethlehem. From there we went down to Philadelphia to visit Richard's family and my cousin, Marsh's family. After a few days of bonding time we went to Hershey to take our kids to the chocolate factory. I think the picture of Kelsey says it all. Those of you who remember Goonies might recognize the similarity between Kelsey and Sloth (it made us think of the line, "Sloth love chunk!"). Watch the movie if you don't. From the happiest place for chocolate lovers we headed to Paw Paw, WV to see where our ancient roll top desk John-David's parent gave us came from. It was actually somewhat on our way back to West Virginia, where we were headed for the last interview. We spent the night in Cumberland, MD before we headed to Huntington, WV. I am grateful for every interview John-David got but was I ever GRATEFUL they were done. If I had to spend one more day in a city I didn't know with three small kids, while my husband was off galavanting without us I was going to scream. We really did have a fun time traveling the U.S. these past two months but I was so done and so were the kids. Jocelyn kept asking if this was the day we were going to go home. The only problem was we had to hear that for about 5 days before we could.
That about sums it up for the past month. Stay tuned because I will be posting more stuff more frequently here in the near future. Until then you have this post to read again and again.
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