February 2011

This month has been a lot of fun! Started off with a HUGE snow storm and ended with a trip to the St. Louis Temple and the Gateway Arch.

First, the snow storm...I have NEVER seen this much snow in Missouri!! It was so much fun to watch the snow fall and then to take the kids out and play in it! Not to mention having Brevin home for a whole week with us, which the girls absolutely loved! Brevin and Aspen went out while it was still snowing to get a head start on shoveling and to play a little bit. Hadley and I stayed inside for a while so that it would stop snowing and so she could take a nap. We all went out and played together later on, but I didn't take the camera with me. We made a snowman and had a little snowball fight...LOADS of fun!!

A few days later my big brother, Jared, and his wife, Mary, had their first baby together!! His name is Spencer James Boman. He is so stinkin cute!! Aspen and Hadley loved holding him and kissing on him and can't wait for him to come to our house to watch him and his big brother Aiden!

We went over to Grandma Johnson's house the day before Valentine's Day for Sunday dinner. Aspen helped us make the pies....

while Hadley took a nap with Dad...

The next day...Valentine's Day...we had a party with the daycare kids. They had a blast! We made cookies and hats, had cupcakes, and traded valentines.

I thought that it would be fun to have everything we ate be red (or in the red family) or in a heart shape. So, for breakfast we had strawberry milk, bagles with strawberry cream cheese, and strawberries. For lunch we had red grapes and a cheese sandwich in the shape of a heart...

The older girls thought that it was fun...the rest of the kids could have cared less!

Just recently Brevin and I went to the St. Louis Temple...FINALLY!! We have been to STL before, but it has been a long time since we have made time to go to any temple. It was so nice to go back! Hopefully we can make it a more regular thing! While we were there we also made time to go to the Gateway Arch. I had so much fun because I had never been to it before! I was so surprised to see how many people go to the arch in one day! That place was madness!!

We had a little while before we could get on the tram to go to the top, so we walked through the museum and the gift shops, which were really interesting and had really yummy peanut brittle :) Then it was finally time to go to the tram. When Brevin told me that the cars are really small I didn't take him as seriously as I should have! There are five seats in each one and it is about the size of a bathroom that doesn't have a bathtub in it...maybe smaller and VERY short!! This is the door that you go through to get into one...

It takes about 4 minutes to get to the top of the 630 foot tall arch and then there are these little windows to look out. You have to basically lie down on this ledge and look straight down to be able to look out of it...at least I had to because I am so vertically challenged! These are some of the pictures that I took out of the windows...

This is a picture of some carriages that were right outside the Arch...I thought it was funny that they looked like ants...

We had some guy take a picture of us while we were at the top...

We saw this while we were driving home...

At first we thought that it was an anchor or something like that. Then we got closer and realized that it is a cross with a crown of thorns on the top. We aren't quite sure it if was a prop for a play or something or if this guy just liked the attention he got from having it in the back of his truck.

Overall, we had a fun month and got to spen a lot of time together as a family!

January 2011

Happy New Year!!
This month has been a LOT of fun! We had a little bit of snow early in the month and then a LOT of snow (snowpocalyps) later in the month and early in February! The girls had an absolute blast in the snow!! Oh, how I miss the snow...
Here are the girls all dressed up to go out and play with Daddy.

One day Aspen and Bailey wanted to watch a movie during nap time in a castle. So, Brevin fashioned a castle/fort out of a blanket in Aspen's room. Good thing those girls are small, otherwise they wouldn't have fit in there!

We got to go and watch "Donkey Basketball" in Carthage. Lynn, Andrew, and Jordan were all playing in the game, which made it all that more funny! I don't think we will miss Donkey Basketball again! It was a BLAST!

Aspen, Hadley, and Bailey LOVE being around the baby, Tanner, and trying to make him laugh. One day they were making faces and laughing their butts off!

We stopped for lunch one day at Moe's and Hadley thoroughly enjoyed the sour cream that came with her quesadilla. I think she ate more sour cream than anything else!

Then came Hadley's second birthday. I can't believe my baby is two years old!! Here come the terrible twos! She had fun with all of her cousins and the weather that day was absolutely beautiful! It was so warm we actually got to go outside and play for a little while with all the kids!

That night after Hadley's party we went to the circus in town. Whitney, Pagelynn, Emma, Grandma Johnson, and Jenessa came with us too. The girls (excluding Emma) and Brevin had fun riding the elephant. Then, Aspen and Hadley rode the ponies there too!

Towards the end of the circus there was a clown that was choosing members of the audience to come out into the ring with him to do something (we didn't know what...yet). He was on the other side of the building choosing people when Brevin leaned over to me and said "I always worry about them picking me..." Well, about 1.5 seconds later the clown walks all the way across the building just to choose Brevin to join him and the other four gentleman in center ring!!! I about DIED laughing!! It was histerical!

The next day at church Brevin found out just how many peope from the ward and STAKE were at the circus the nigth before and witnessed his wonderful dancing ability...LOL!!!! Couldn't have ended the month on a better note!