May 20, 2010 And this is what we do at Cold Creek

We see the fish:


Then we get ready to scare the fish:


Step 1: Gather rocks of various sizes, but the bigger the better:


Step 2: Place rocks on bench and examine rocks for special shapes and other identifiable marks:


Step 3: Throw the rocks!:


The wind up:


The release:


The splash:


Adelynne caught a lady bug and I told her to put it on her nose, and this was the result:


My goodness she is beautiful!




Catching the lady bug with Daddy:


When Amy got tired of carrying the rocks in her arms, she started gathering them in her dress. She seriously gathered rocks and threw them in the creek over and over and over again. I think she raised the water level of the creek!

Cold Creek, Nevada

This is Cold Creek, Nevada, where Dustin grew up. It is a beautiful little mountain community set in the mountains of Southern Nevada off highway 95. When we are there visiting with Grandpa and Grandma Belt some of our favorite things to do our take walks/hikes, mostly to the creek itself. Here are a few pictures of the views we enjoy when we are there:

Cold Creek:


I believe this is a view looking down into the desert valley just south of Area 51:

A few more pictures from Utah

These are the last two pictures from our time in Utah:
At Red Robin restaurant. The girls aren't really posing, they are just trying to reach the balloons.


In the car with Aunt Amy

Utah with Joe and Amy

After two days of driving through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and then Utah, we finally arrived at my sister Amy's house in South Jordan, Utah. We were all happy to be out of the car. We arrived at their place Wednesday night, and we stayed with them until Monday morning. During our stay we had the chance to go to Thanksgiving Point-- something Dustin and I have never done before despite having lived in Utah ourselves for 5 years! The girls were excited to go to the dinosaur museum so we did that first. These pictures are all in reverse order. After the museum we went to the little farm area where we saw this peacock flirting with the ladies, and the girls took a pony ride. We all had a great time!





I love the look of excitement on the girls' faces!

Adelynne really enjoyed being with Uncle Joe during our visit. He really is a great Uncle. He is very attentive to them and patient with them too. He is going to make a great Dad!

The giant shark head at the museum:

This is the sand and water table exhibit at the museum. The girls really enjoyed this part. Uncle Joe played with them the entire time as well making ravines and floods and canyons.

Uncle Joe teaching the girls:

This was the space tunnel. It was very dark and you walked on a ramp through the tunnel and it felt like you were walking in space. The girls liked going through it over and over, but they were slightly terrified too.

Another teaching moment with Joe:

One of the really neat things about the museum that I learned is that Joe's grandpa known as "Dinosaur Jim" Jensen dug and discovered the largest known dinosaur skeleton on the earth in Wyoming. The skeleton of the dinosaur (or maybe it is just the cast of it), is on display at the museum, and it is called the "Supersaurus." And it is huge!

Unfortunately, these are the only pictures I took while we were in Utah, but we also had the chance to go with Amy and Joe and my cousin Emily to see "How to Train Your Dragon." The girls loved it, almost as much as us adults! It was really a great movie. We went to dinner at Red Robin with Joe and Amy too. We also visited with my cousin Brittany and her darling new baby girl, D'Ana. On Sunday we went back to Brittany's house for a cousin get together, something I was so glad we could be a part of, especially since we are not going to my family reunion this year. It was great to visit with Matt, Brittany and D'Ana, Emily, Melanie, Joe, Liz and Cooper, and my sister and Joe. I love being with my cousins! Our time in Utah was too short, but it wasn't hard to drive away from Amy and Joe since we knew that we would be seeing them in California

From Mother's Day 2010

Well, I'm going to be playing catch up again, and here's the first of many pictures and posts to make! I like to get a picture with my girls for Mother's Day. Last year I was looking much more trim, but then again, I am about 5 months pregnant in these pictures. I love being a mother to my beautiful daughters, they truly bring me great joy in my life. They teach me about love and patience daily, which is something I need. Being a mother may not always be glamorous, but it is indeed fulfilling and rewarding. I feel so blessed to be a mother!





This is last year's Mother's Day photo, and I can't believe how much my girls have changed! Amy actually has hair for one, but they both have gone from toddlers to little girls-- oh my heart! So bittersweet to see them grow so much!



It was a wonderful day. Adelynne helped Dustin make me a homemade card with "flowers" (really weeds) that she had picked earlier in the week and they pressed in a book. Adelynne also made me a ceramic oval with impressions of flowers and leaves pressed into it that is painted purple-- she made it at her preschool. We had a wonderful dinner of pancakes and fresh fruit with our friends, the Aagards. I just had a great time chatting with Mary while the husbands watched over the children playing. It couldn't have been a better day!

Make sure you check out ALL of the posts I did, they cover at least 2 pages!

And now she is 3, a little bio on Amy

So Amy turned 3 on Thursday. Its crazy to think that my youngest child is 3, she really does seem to be turning into a little girl. I ask her all the time why she isn't my baby anymore and she just says, "there's a baby in your tummy!" But then lately Amy has been pretending to be a baby and she will crawl around and pretend cry or she'll want me to cradle her and feed her a "bottle" (sippy cup). It is cute right now, but hopefully she doesn't keep it up when the real baby does arrive.

Amy has the most tender heart. This may make Adelynne sound like a spoiled child, but Adelynne will complain quite annoyingly (at times) when she doesn't get what she wants, whether its a seat, toy, or bowl. And it seems every time Adelynne complains, Amy willingly (without Dustin or I saying anything to her-- we are usually telling Adelynne to quite whining)! gives up whatever Adelynne wants. And she does it with a smile. If Adelynne is happy, then so is Amy! Amy loves people, she loves giving hugs and smiles. Outside of her family some of her favorite people are Josh, Sarah, Dylan, Elliot, Minnie, Molly, Sabrina, and Courtney. She usually greets these people by excitedly saying their name and then smiling at them or giving them a hug.

Amy's tantrums have lately gotten really bad. The other day we were outside and I made her share some chalk with a little boy and Amy flipped a lid. She ran screaming at the top of her lungs to our stairwell, up the stairs and I'm pretty sure into her room where she most likely slammed her door and threw herself on her bed. And when she realized that no one was around to hear her, she came back to the stairwell and screamed and screamed. When she gets mad, she gets MAD. She also has a great pouty lip that she is not afraid to use, it sticks out like a mile long. She's also become really klutzy lately. She has so many scratches and bruises from her face to her toes from tripping and falling so much. Some I have no idea how they got where they are.

Amy loves to play dress up (but I think this may be an excuse just to take off her clothes and be naked). She loves to dance, especially to the music videos on Dustin's ipod. Some of her favorite songs are "You belong with me" by Taylor Swift, a song from the Tinkerbell movie "Fly to your Heart," "Connected" from Barbie movie "Diamond Castle." "Move It, Move It" from "Madagascar," and maybe another or two. She does know some of the words and I sometimes hear her singing the songs throughout the day.

She loves chapstick, barbies, babies (dolls or real ones), being outside and riding her bike, digging in the sand or dirt, eating dirt (seriously), and playing with her friends. She can't wait until she can go to the preschool that Adelynne goes to, and to have long hair like a princess.

All around, Amy is just a happy little girl. She brings such a happy and joyful spirit to our home. She has a silly sense of humor that just seems to make you crack a smile no matter what is going on. I can't help but smile when I look at her beautiful face. I know she is a precious Child of God and I look forward to seeing her fulfill all the potential she has for this life as she grows. But for now I am going to do my best to enjoy her while she is 3. I love you, my Amy baby! Always.

Time for the cake!

Everything is in order from last to first, but here are the events of Amy's birthday celebrations!

We did the cake after going to Monkey Joe's (see next post). So Amy waited ALL day to eat this cake. She was very happy to have us sing to her too. I'm pretty sure Amy did have a happy birthday.

Birthday FUN

As part of Amy's birthday, we took her and Adelynne to Monkey Joe's (a big jump house, blow up slide fun center). They both had a great time as evidence by their faces. And Monkey Joe himself even made an appearance. Adelynne was very excited, but Amy was nervous and kept her distance.









I love the look of fun on her face:

I don't know who the three girls are in this picture, and I couldn't get them out of the way, so they have made it onto the blog.

The birthday PRESENTS

The birthday festivities began after Dustin came home from school and Amy woke up from her "later than usual" nap. So she still looks a little sleepy here, but she was definitely happy! We called my mom on ichat so she could watch Amy open up her presents:
This was the box my parents sent to Amy, she was very excited about this big box just for her:

Amy got 3 dollars in her birthday card. She didn't think much of them really. But the next day when Amy wanted to "go somewhere fun," I told her we didn't have any money and she said in response and very matter-of-factly, "I have 3 dollars!"

Grandma made her a quillo (blanket that folds into a pillow). It had safari animals on it, particularly a hippo and elephant, as Amy's beloved bedtime pals are her hippo and elephant.

Grandparents also sent Amy a new outfit, which she immediately put on which was fine with me because she was still wearing the dress Sarah gave her the day before:

Her next gifts are from Dustin, me, and Adelynne. This one is the 3 musketeer barbie that Amy wanted:

She unwrapped this shoe box (which has another outfit inside), and Amy happily said, "A box!" like that was her actual gift:

And this is a Princess and the Frog umbrella:

A few weeks ago Adelynne colored and cut out this heart for Amy and then wrapped it up with her own homemade paper. Then she set it aside and waited for the day Amy could open it:

Sister hugs! Amy adores her big sister:

So Amy's birthday gifts from Dustin and I might seem a little random (the umbrella and barbie), but I want to mention that for months now, when we have asked Amy what she wanted for her birthday she has ALWAYS replied, "musketeer barbie and princess and frog umbrella." She has never wavered in that answer, or ever added to it. Adelynne got a musketeer barbie for Christmas, so I guess Amy has been a little envious, but we are not sure why she wanted that umbrella. She already has an Ariel umbrella that is kind of broken, but we're not sure where she got the idea for the Princess and the Frog umbrella. But Dustin and I decided to get her what she wanted since it really was a fairly simple request. We ended up ordering both of them on-line since we could not find them in the stores, but that really wasn't a problem either.