Photo session

I know that my photography skills don't even come close to most of my blogging friends, but we had a little mini photo session today just for the fun of it. It is VERY hard to try to get a two year old to hold still for a picture, but this was the best I could do.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to my best friend Jennifer Hessenthaler on the birth of her new baby girl! She was born this morning and weighed 7 lbs. They named her Jenna. I got to see a picture of her by text and she looks so beautiful, she has such dainty features. I wish I could have been there!

The two sides of Callie

This is how Callie looks when she is being good....













This is how Callie looks when she is being not so good... ;)






Well I thought that Callie had gotten into almost everything at least once by now. But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized there was one thing she had managed not to get into yet (until yesterday that is).... my makeup. Didn't she do such a good job with the mascara? I couldn't stop laughing when I turned the corner. It really isn't funny, but she looked like a racoon and so I couldn't stop giggling. I'm just glad she didn't get any in her eyes. I don't know how she didn't, because she managed to get it all around them.

Things that I loved about BYU-Idaho

Today I was just reminiscing on my college years at BYU-Idaho, and I was thinking about how much I miss that place. I just wanted to share a few of the great things that I love about Rexburg and BYU-Idaho.


1. I remember visiting the campus once several years before I went there (on a visit to my grandparents house), Mark and I both felt a strong impression that this would be a great place for us to come to college. It just has an awesome spirit on campus. It is clean, the students dress well, and the behavior of the students is dramatically different than other colleges.

2. I loved the fact that each class would begin with a prayer. It always invited the Spirit into the room, and not only did it help me to learn better, but the atmosphere was one that was peaceful and unifying. There was also a feeling of trust between the students and the teachers. If you told your teacher that something happened and that is why you didn't complete your assignment, then they believed you. It was as simple as that, they just trusted that you were honest.

3. Every week they had what was called Devotional. This is where all the students would come together at the same time (preferably in Sunday dress). We would have a speaker and learn and read from the scriptures. It was really awesome to be surrounded by so many people my age that lived and believed the same things that I did. These meetings were always so spiritual and seemed to be just the boost I needed to make it through the week.
At first I wasn't sure how I felt about devotional, because they shut down almost all offices, eating halls, bookstore, etc. during that time. Occasionally, I would try to skip out of devotional, only to be rejected by any place that I tried to escape too. They would say "Sorry, were closed for devotional." This frustrated me at first, especially if I wanted to study, but with time I learned to love this about the school. It was because I learned that sometimes it might not be convenient for me to do what has been asked of me, but it helped to build my character and helped me to learn to be obedient.

4. I love that Rexburg is so clean. I don't just mean physically clean (which it was), but I mean clean as in there were no bars and places to buy alcohol, there was no smoking in public hardly ever, there was minimal crime, and it just seemed like there were so many kind people all around you. It is really something that has to be experienced to be completley understood. But it is something that I miss. I felt like I could leave my windows down on my car, or walk in an unkown neighborhood, or be at my apartment alone. I just don't ever remember feeling afraid in Rexburg.

5. Rexburg is such a family town. There are children everywhere. I would venture to say that 80 percent of the population is under 12. Ha Ha, okay I'm only kidding. But seriously I love how kid friendly that place was. It was a perfect place for me to move being a single mom. Because there was such a strong support system of other young mothers around and children for Kayla to play with. That brings me to #6.

6. I loved the parks in Rexburg and all the little shops and places to eat. The park was a place of refuge for Kayla and I. I would take her there a lot when I first moved there. Partly because there were so many kids every where. There was always something fun going on at the park. Also because there were a lot of college kids that hung out, played tennis, basketball, and just lounged around. It was a fun place to be. I still remember one day when I was swinging Kayla on the swingset, and I saw Brad pull over his truck at the park. He had noticed us from the street. I had just met him only a couple of times and I was super stoked to see him walking my way. I looked around sure that he was there to meet up with someone else. When I realized that he was there to play with Kayla and I, my heart melted. Watching him play with Kayla, I remember just looking at him thinking "I would love to have a dad like that for her." Little did I know he would become her dad later. ;)

7. I could go on and on about all the things that I love about Rexburg, but what I want to mention the most is that that is where I met my husband, got my degree, and found a whole new beginning with my life.

Go BYU-Idaho!

Well not a lot has been happening around our house this week since we ended up having the stomach flu ALL weekend! My poor babies were both sick with it. Callie had it Friday and Kayla had it Saturday and Sunday. Brad and I haven't gotten it yet, knock on wood. I cleaned really good on Saturday, so hopefully it stays that way. Other than that, we haven't been up to a whole lot. I'm just looking forward to this weekend because it's girls night and the TWILIGHT movie!
I'm really excited. Anyways here is a couple of random pictures to make this post a little more entertaining ;)

This is the view of our backyard. I wasn't sure if I included one of those yet.
These are just some pics of me trying to steal a kiss from Callie, but she wasn't giving me any.

Dancing videos

Dancing...again

Okay, so in case you haven't noticed yet. We do a lot of dancing around our house. What can I say? We have a house full of girls. Poor Brad really needs another guy around here :)

Sleepover

This past weekend Kayla was really excited because she got to have her best friend from Wynne (the town we used to live in) come and spend the weekend with us. It was a lot of fun.... though I must admit I was a little worn out by the end of the weekend. Not from her friend, but from my own child ;) I don't know if anyone else has the same problem as me, but it seems like if we are in public or if we have company over, my children think they can get away with things that they wouldn't get away with normally. Anyway, they were really good for the most part. We went to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday, so I thought I'd post some pictures of it. Callie is so funny at Chuck E. Cheese because she will be so excited to get on a ride or game and the second you turn it on she either cries or isn't interested. Oh well, I'm not going to complain, because it's a whole lot cheaper not having to buy tokens for her too.

Tea Party

Just thought these pictures were cute and wanted to share them!

Oh no...

Last night Brad and I went to parent teacher conference together. I was relatively unstressed about going because things felt like they had been going pretty smoothly for Kayla this year. Well the whole evening ended up being an interesting experience. The first thing I found kind of interesting was that it seemed like everyone knew we were Kayla's parents before we could even introduce ourselves, and also the fact that EVERYONE knew Kayla. I was wondering... hmmm... this could either be a good thing or a bad thing ;)
Well her teachers had really great things to say about her. They both said what a leader she was, how beautiful she was, and how well she was doing in the classroom. There was even some interest in putting her in the gifted and talented program because she scored so high on the creativity and intelligence tests (she just has to pull up her math grade). One of her teachers said, "I have never seen any child like Kayla. It is very rare for a new child to come into a school and to become as popular as she is so quickly." She said "She has a following of about eight little girls and some boys as well."
Now I was starting to get a bit uncomfortable. I wasn't sure I liked the word "followers". Then the other teacher chimed in: " I wasn't sure if you were aware, but Kayla is attending counseling on Mondays and Wednesdays." Now I was really curious. Counseling, really? I was thinking ...maybe she is having issues with the divorce I went through, or being adopted, or...

I think it was Brad who finally asked what she was in couseling for. Then the teachers started giggling before one of them said "Well, it's because she's part of the Diva club." The diva what? I looked at her startled and said "They call themselves that?" Then her teacher said "No, that's what we call them." I'm thinking... oh great, even worse. The teachers on the playground have a name for them.
Well it ended up not being that big of a deal. Just a group of girls with more drama than they need (at eight years old), and the teachers were sending them to counseling to teach them some life skills to help solve some of their "problems" they were having at recess. I guess I can live with that, I just don't know what I'm going to do when she's actually a teenager. Seeing how Kayla and her friends acted like I did when I was in eighth grade, not eight years old! Geesh.