Sunday, August 31, 2014

Dentist, Mountain Man Rendezvous, Geaux Tigers!

8/25/14: Today was the twins' 4th dental check-up and they still freak out. Jared had to get in the chair with each of them and hold them down just to let the dentist look in their mouths for a few seconds. Dr. Swenson is so patient, though.

They cheered up when they got a prize from the treasure chest, though, and when we went to The Slurp afterwards for an ice cream sandwich and brownie sundae! And they had fun dancing there, too.

Avery's turn
Makenna not happy about getting her dental check-up. I'm sure she'll eventually come to love Dr. Swenson just as much as we do.
Makenna dancing with Daddy after having an ice cream sandwich and brownie sundae following the dental check-up

Avery dancing at The Slurp
8/27/14: We saw a huge caterpillar when we went out to pick stuff from the garden. Makenna kept petting it but Avery only touched it for a millisecond.

Also, I think I'm allergic to squash and zucchini plants. I always itch really bad after I pick from them.

 
 
8/28/14: My sister, Kiki, watched the girls tonight so I could play Bunco. Apparently, I'm raising little divas. One of them told (not asked) my BIL, "I'll take some apples and grapes in a bowl" (to bring downstairs and watch a movie). During the movie, Avery asked Kiki for a "fresh blanket". What, ha ha! On the way home, Makenna told me that she helped Judson (my 14yo nephew) with his homework. Yeah, I bet she helped, hee hee! They are little rascals!

8/30/14: We drove to Grandma's house Friday night and stayed there, then left the next morning (with Grandma) and drove to Fort Bridger for the Mountain Man Rendezvous. Think Renaissance Fair but with Mountain Men, Indians, bag pipers, and lots of different furs.  
At the entrance
Indian Dancers
The girls were mostly interested in picking all the flowers they saw
 
Candy Canon! They shot candy out of the canons for the kids. It was kind of crazy. The girls each only got one piece of candy because they weren't about to run too far into the frenzy and fight over candy.
The musicians were really cool!
Makenna loved all the furs. She had to "pet" nearly every one we walked past.
Avery was so grumpy toward the end! She cried for her blankey, which was in the car, for what seemed like an hour. Jared carried her around for a while draped across his shoulders. Even getting a rabbit fur purse didn't' cheer her up.
Checking out the museum
Yeehaw! In the museum
Grumpy Gus Avery wasn't in the mood to ride the horsey or wear a hat
We really enjoyed the bag pipers.
The girls actually enjoyed watching a lady (a relative of Jared's, actually) make yarn out of alpaca fur using a spinning machine.
Avery perked up a little bit once she started collecting sticks, ha ha!
Modeling Grandma's furs and their rabbit fur purses.
Avery filled her rabbit fur purse with sticks, rocks, a pine cone, and flowers. Funny girl!
Avery pursed full of stuff
Makenna filled her purse with lots of sticks, rocks, a pine cone, and flowers, too. :)

The girls fell asleep really quickly on our drive from Fort Bridger to Grandma's house but they woke up when we stopped there to drop her off.  Avery cried for the first 20 min. or so.  We fed them a quick dinner and put them to bed as soon as we could.  They were pretty grumpy at church today, especially Avery, and Makenna actually asked to take a nap when we got home.  She got up to eat a little bit of dinner, then wanted to go back to bed.  When I gave her a kiss goodnight, I realized she had a slight fever.  Hopefully, she won't get sick!

We got home just in time last night for me to make the girls a quick dinner, then watch the first LSU game of the season.  We are #13 and beat #14 Wisconsin 28-24.  The first half was really bad for LSU but they came alive somewhere around the middle of the 3rd quarter, thankfully.  At one point, we were down 24-7 but then we went on a 21-0 scoring spree.  Our QB, his first year starting, was really scary at first but seemed to hit his stride in the second half, especially in the 4th quarter.  Our defense seemed to finally figure out what they were doing, too--they made 2 key interceptions in the second half.  One of the issues was the fact that LSU lost 9 players (the most of any team, tying the record we set last year) to the NFL draft, so we are playing with quite a few guys who hadn't started before.  Hopefully, they'll really figure everything out before we start playing SEC teams in 3 weeks!  The Tigers extended the nation's longest regular-season non-conference winning streak to 46 games!  GEAUX TIGERS! :)

Monday, August 25, 2014

Visit from Maw-maw & Paw-paw & Kiki's 40th Fiesta!

8/18: I'll have to post the awesome video I got of this but, for now, here is a photo of what the girls did when they were supposed to be napping:

Every single pillow, blanket, stuffed animal, toy, book, etc., they could get their hands on was piled into Avery's bed!  The video is pretty funny, as I caught Makenna in the act and she knew she was in trouble! :)

8/19: I walked into the room just in time to see Avery give Makenna a hug and say, "I love you, Kenna!" Makenna replied, "I love you, too!" It is sweet moments like this that keep them alive nowadays, ha ha!

My parents drove from Louisiana to be here for Kiki's 40th fiesta and they stayed with us.  They got here Tues. night, 8/19 and I kept the girls up late to see them.  Jared got home from a trip the next afternoon. Here are some of the things we did the rest of the visit:

8/20: A picnic in Canyon Glen Park in Provo Canyon:
A short walk on the trail after eating our lunch in the park
 
Provo River
Throwing rocks in the river
Then, some wading
 
 
 
 
Sitting in the river--right before we left, of course!
 

8/21: a visit to The Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point and a steak dinner at Kiki's house (and Mom and I stayed up until 1:30am cooking for Kiki's birthday party):
They did not like the wind machine!
But they loved playing in the water!
 
 
 
And they like playing
 
We all walked the several rope bridges
 
Makenna likes the rope bridges so much she got way ahead of us and we had to yell at her to come back and wait for us--she was two bridges ahead of us at one point!
Avery did like the bridges as much
Checking out insects
 
 Dinner at Kiki's:
Drawing with chalk on Kiki's porch while waiting for the steak to cook
Poor Makenna went to wash her hands right before dinner and turned the water on really hot. She was fine just a short while later but she milked it for a little while.

8/22: Kiki's 40th fiesta at my house--spent all day preparing for it.  We had tacos (hard and soft), Mexican rice, homemade salsa, homemade horchata and limeade, guacamole, etc.
These are the photo booth props I made. We had planned on doing the party in our backyard but the weather ended up being pretty bad, so we had to do it inside. So the photo booth ended up not being what I had envisioned--the lighting would have been so much better outside at dusk! It was still fun, though.
The foyer entrance to the front room with the banner and some of the rosettes I made.
The wall in the foyer, where we hung a blanket from Mexico.
The foyer entrance to the living room, with the Feliz Cumpleanos banner and tissue paper flowers I made.
I made this sign but wasn't able to keep it hanging on the front door because of the wind and rain.
The other side of the foyer entrance to the living room.
Balloon piñatas hanging from the banister (there was candy in each of the balloons) and some of the many tissue paper flowers I made.
The piñata, a must-have for a fiesta!
The doors to the deck
The kitchen--lots of rosettes and tissue paper flowers I made but most of the printed decorations and the papel picado were purchased.
My piano in the dining area of the kitchen.
the entrance from the kitchen to the mudroom/laundry room.
The cake!
Michael and Kiki
I made the birthday girl wear a sombrero :)
I made horchata and limemade
We set up a couple of table in the living room so everyone could sit and eat
Juddy, who just turned 14 on 8/19!!!
Jared
Tim
Cousins--Wyatt, Carma, Avery, Makenna
Cousins--Wyatt, Carma, Avery, Makenna
Jamie's kids
 
Jamie and two of her kids and Kiki
Carma and Kiki
Jamie and her daughter
Jamie's son
Jamie and her family
Jamie and her hubby
 
 
Carma
Maw-maw
Paw-paw, Tim, Maw-maw
So many candles! :P
 
Wyatt enjoying the cake and ice cream
 PINATA TIME! Since we had to do it inside, we used the ribbons, instead of letting the kids hit it:
Avery
Makenna
Wy-wy
Jamie's son pulled the string that released the candy
Candy!!!
Avery was gleefully screaming, "Candyyyy!"  It was so funny!!
 
More candy from the balloon pinatas!
Jamie's hubby
Tim
We were sad that a couple of friends weren't able to make it at the last minute.  It was still really fun, though!

Sat., 8/23: I went to the temple with my parents to be there for my dad's sealing to his parents (and his parents to their parents, and his parents to each other); while I was getting the temple cards straightened out (the paper was printed wrong or something), they did the baptisms for my mom's youngest brother, who died Nov. 2012, and a couple of other ancestors.  That evening, I went with Kiki, Judson, Tim, and my parents to The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my mom's birthday.

Sun., 8/24: After church, everyone came to our house for dinner (left-overs from the fiesta).

My parents left early this morning (8/25). It was a fun visit and the girls are sad that they are gone.  We had a dentist appt. to keep us busy after they left, though.

Today was the twins' 4th dental check-up and they still freak out. Jared had to get in the chair with each of them and hold them down just to let the dentist look in their mouths for a few seconds. Dr. Swenson is so patient, though. They cheered up when they got a prize from the treasure chest, though, and when we went to Slurp afterwards for an ice cream sandwich and brownie sundae! And they had fun dancing there, too.