Kentucky

The original reason for our trip back east was to attend the Stauffer family reunion at Sterling's sister's house in Kentucky. We came away without a single picture. It was an interesting time. The day we drove to Kentucky I cam down with a bad cold and a fever. Two days later Emma and Sterling joined me in my misery. We went through a lot of tissues and Tylenol. We didn't see much of Kentucky, but we did make a trip to the Instacare and the Walgreens. So that was fun.

We were able to enjoy some time with family. We played some super fun Minute to Win It type games. My niece gave me a fancy curly hair do. Great food. I had so much fun playing games with adults after the kids were in bed. My favorite thing was feeling like I was getting to know Sterling's family a little better. They have all been in the family for so long and I came along so much later that I sometimes feel like I don't know them very well, so this was great. One afternoon my two teenage nieces had everyone go around and tell their fall in love/engagement stories. They were fun to hear.

So, Kentucky...a rough part of our trip, but still pretty good.

More Ohio Vacation

Okay, I know it has been a few weeks, but I'm taking a break from mommy blogging tonight and updating the family blog. These are a few more pictures of our family trip to Ohio.

We visited Amish country in Berlin, Ohio. It was awesome!! They had a bakery and a cheese factory where you just walk through the aisles getting sample after sample. It was like Costco but 100x better. The cheese was my favorite.

 

Later that afternoon we went to a Rubbermaid store. On one floor they have a ton of kids toys that the kids can just get down and play with. It was great because it was completely empty, so Emma got to play with everything. Her favorites were the car and the shopping cart. She loved taking her baby and that giant bear for a ride.

 

Nicolette took me to walk around some gardens. They were really pretty, but it was so hot.

Emma loved playing with all of Claire's toys especially a talking Dora the Explorer house. 

We had so much fun in Ohio. It was beautiful and it was so fun to spend some time with the Brodericks. We have really missed them.Of everything that we did there our favorite part was just hanging out and laughing and sharing funny internet videos. Second favorite was the food. It was AMAZING! Also notable was seeing fireflies for the first time.I'm sorry for the two I squished as I attempted to catch them.

Vacation Time- Kirtland Ohio

In June we went on a big family vacation. We hit Ohio, Kentucky and Georgia, and Tennessee if you count the airport and the Wendy's near the airport. Our first stop was Ohio to visit our friends the Brodericks. We became friends in our BYU married student ward. It was so fun to get to see them again, we have really missed them. They live about an hour away from Kirtland, so we spent part of a day out there. It was so neat.

 

The Newell K. Whitney store where Joseph and Emma lived for about 18 months, also housed the School of the Prophets and was the site where many of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants were received.

In the room used as the School of the Prophets.

In Emma's kitchen in the back of the N.K. Whitney store. Also, just so you know, I don't love having a bunch of pictures of myself it's just that Nicolette was helping take care of Emma outside so we could do the tour and Sterling was the one taking the pictures, so I'm the one in them.

Emma and me in the place where the cut the wood for the temple.

Sterling in front of replicas of the pulpits inside the Kirtland temple. I don't have a picture of the ashery, but that was probably our favorite spot. It's hard to explain what it is, but we really felt the spirit of the saints and how much they sacrificed to build a temple and then to have to just walk away for it all to follow their God. So amazing.

Nicolette, Claire and Emma. We had to leash Emma to keep her out of trouble. Don't worry she still managed to get into plenty of trouble, but at least she looked cute doing it thanks to Nicolette's pigtails.

After we left the church owned property, we went to visit the Kirtland temple that belongs to the Community of Christ church. It was neat to see the temple and to think of all of the amazing things that happened there, but it definitely had a different feeling from the tour we had just been on. You could feel that something was missing. Also, our tour guide spoke almost no English so that was frustrating.

I'm so glad that we got to go to Kirtland. We would have liked to visit the John Johnson and Morely farms, but it was hot and Emma had had enough, so we stopped by McDonald's for some ice cream and headed home. It was so much fun. I'll continue about our trip later, but I need to go finish getting ready for church before Emma wakes up.

Fun in the Sun

I feel like I have been spending a lot of time working on posts for my new blog that I have neglected updating this blog, and our lives are super exciting, so I need to update you.
About a month ago my sister, Sarah came with her family for a visit. It was a jam packed weekend o' fun. There was shopping, splash pad and carousel, hiking in Zion, and Frostop (yum!).

 Playing at the Splash pad. Emma loves the water. The only problem is I can't get her to stop drinking it.

 Not a great picture, but Emma with her girl cousins. She already knows that she wants to be one of the girls. She had so much fun with everyone here.

 Riding the carousel with Grandpa. She cried the entire time except for when she was passing me with my camera. Then she would smile and wave.

 Our picnic in Zion. It was awful. The place was crawling with millions of caterpillars. It sounded like it was raining, but it was actually caterpillars falling from the trees. They were all over us all over our stuff. It was so gross.

Luckily once we got to the trails there were no more caterpillars. We just did a short hike because there were so may little kids. Emma loved riding in her new hiking backpack.

This month my Mom graduated with her Associate's Degree. I was so proud of her. She put her education on hold for a long time to raise her children. A few years ago she went back and started taking a few classes each semester. Even then she took time off or scheduled her classes so she could still be there to help when babies were born. She took a light class load last winter so she could take Emma for me when I had to go back to work. My mom is really smart and she could have been anything she wanted and I'm glad she chose to be a mom first. And now I'm proud of her for pursuing her education.

Now Sterling is on summer vacation! It's nice having him home, even if he is throwing off our groove. It's going to be a party all summer long.

A New Blog

I love looking at craft blogs, recipe blogs, mommy blogs. I'll admit I sometimes spend more time than I should looking at blogs. The more I looked at them the more I started to think that I wanted to start my own blog detailing the things I like to do as a stay at home mom. So, for the last couple weeks I have been working on my blog "Learning to Be a Mom."  I'm not saying my ideas are any better than anyone else, or that they are totally mind blowing, but I like getting to share the things I enjoy doing. Feel free to check it out.

Pictures

I've been wanting to post, but haven't had much to say. So here are some pictures from the last few weeks.

Over Sterling's spring break we didn't do anything too exciting. We did some spring cleaning. Sterling loved it. :) We also took Emma to the splash pad. She had so much fun.
Emma loves brushing her teeth. I have to fight her to let me actually brush her teeth. She just likes to hold her toothbrush in her mouth and suck off the berry flavored toothpaste. She also loves to sit in the sink.
Emma loves her babies. One day she woke up from her nap really grumpy. She just needed to hold her babies. They had to sit with her in her high chair while she ate her snack.

Sometimes when I need to get something done or when she is grumpy I will put on Yo Gabba Gabba or Blue's Clue's for her to watch. She is absolutely mesmerized.
For Mommy School one day I colored pasta and she got to go crazy with it. I have to say I loved how vibrant the colors turned out.
Emma loves to climb into her reading chair and read her books/pull all the books off the shelf. This is her current favorite. I got it for Sterling for Christmas. When I saw it at the book fair I knew we had to have it. Star Wars Heroes in a board book.
Emma in her cheerleader dress sitting on my cub scout box. What a cute girl.

Mommy School

By the end of last school year I was so completely ready to be done with teaching school and just be a mom. I am so happy with the way things have turned out. Being a stay at home mom is the greatest, and I promise I'm not just saying that. Luxurious it is not. Extremely frustrating at times? Definitely. But what job isn't? I love being here to watch Emma grow. She amazes me. But there is still part of me that misses teaching.

Luckily I was recently called to be a primary teacher. It has only been two weeks, but I love it. I think I have the best behaved class in the senior primary. I like pulling out my old teacher tricks such as "Put your finger on your nose when you know the answer," "I'll wait until you're ready." And what kind of teacher would I be if I didn't have a good teacher look to warn them from down the row in primary?

As much as I'm enjoying primary, I'm really itching to teach Emma all about letters and numbers and colors and shapes and everything. My pinterest board is already bursting with fun things for us to do. This week we started having Mommy School time when we do activities to help with her motor skills and exploration. They are super basic so don't be impressed.

Monday we played with play dough. I made some because I knew it would end up in her mouth no matter how closely I watched and this way I at least know what's in it. I also cut up some pieces of plastic straws for her to stick in the play dough. Mostly I played with the play dough and she played with the straws. But it was fun. Yesterday school was cancelled because she wouldn't nap and I was frustrated, so we doubled up today. First I put plain sticky notes on our sliding glass door. She would peel them off and crumple them up, and then I would stick them back up. It was great. We probably played for 10 minutes. Later I put some finger paint in a ziploc bag for her to finger paint without making a mess. Dang child figure out how to open the bag while my back was turned. I caught her before she touched anything with her yellow paint covered hand. Once the bag was closed again she lost her interest. We'll have to try that one again another day. Tomorrow we are taking a walk to explore trees and grass and whatever else we find, and then we'll blow bubbles.

I don't know how long this will last, or if I'd be able to keep it up when we have more children, but for now Emma and I are having a good time.