Part 2: Week with GrandMare

Burke Lake Park with GrandMare

The Park had a lake, a family of ducks, a carousel and a train

It was beautiful weather and a great little place fairly close to our house

This sounds funny, but I felt like we were in the movie Narnia (#1) where the kids ride to their Uncle's house on a train through all this beautiful terrain! 

We were sad to see GrandMare go.  We love visitors so if any of you are considering a vacation...

Marianne left Saturday morning. That afternoon Jon took the kids to another cool park.  Next to the park and lake there was a small reptile house

Apparently there were toads in the little zoo/house and then there were more toads down by the pond.  When Jon and the kids walked out on the dock to see the fish and toads, a toad jumped up right by Jon's foot. He jumped, yelled and ended up scaring the living daylights out of Luke!  Oh no!

The kids kept telling me about the snapping turtles

This week we headed over to our 2nd family in DC's house...Cam, Sarah, Lucy and Nora

I loved Lucy's new pool---primarily because it had a sneezing giraffe!

The kids had a blast and it felt good to get out

Nora and Claire

The Deedee Claire

We are loving Claire's sweet smiles

My friend Callie gave her the adorable feather headband :) The shirt and skirt are actually for a 9 month baby and Claire is barely 6 weeks!  She could grow into the shirt, but her pudgy belly fills the skirt out!

Finally got some really sweet smiles of hers on camera.

I love this picture!  My baby "Claire Atrisha"(what Luke calls her) is our little angel

Part 1: Week with GrandMare

Our sweet GrandMare came to visit this week! Several people commented at church that she could be Jon's sister, she looks so young! Enjoy some pics of our time with her!

Bedtime stories

Bathtime!  My favorite :)

Making our own little pizzas!

Aren't my kids sweet?  I love this picture :)

Gotta love Emmie's extra dark eyebrow....Em put some makeup on with GrandMare that morning

I don't think Mare ever set this baby down!  It was so fun to see how much she adored this little precious Claire

Naptime...if these two could sleep at the same time every day, my life would be bliss. 2 kids napping=mommy napping

Curlers!  I remember my mom putting these in my hair for special occasions.

The special occasion this time was joy school graduation the next day.

Even Luker got to join in on the fun!

These are some pictures of my joy school kids

Here we are re-enacting the "Caps for Sale" story. I am the peddler and they are the monkeys stealing my hats. I swear we could have played this game all day and they would be content

celebrating a birthday at the park for joy school

The big day arrived!  My joy school friends covered my teaching days after I had the baby. I said I felt good enough to host joy school the week GrandMare came. It just so happened to be our last week of joy school. I had so much fun planning the graduation. It was so fun to have GrandMare there too. She taught this same curriculum to Jon when he was Emmie's age!  She helped a lot by watching Miss Claire so I could get everything else done.

The kids painted their caps the day before. Emmie looked so cute that day with her curly hair.

These are the sweet kids I've been able to work with the past few months. We also love and miss our Utah Joy School friends! 

I had a really special moment with Em at the graduation. The kids all lined up to sing the "joy school pep song."  They had practiced it during one of the classes.  I had some pom poms from Aunt Hannah that they used while singing it.  Another mommy led the song. As I watched Emmie, I just had this really cool "proud mommy moment."  She was SO excited to sing this song. She was loud and proud and knew all the words.  She was jumping up and down and looked so happy!  The other kids were a little shy about singing it in front of everyone.  Emmie was kind of looking at them like "come on guys, sing and dance with me!"  When they still didn't get into it, she just thought "Oh well, I'm going to go for it." She just kept singing and dancing and loving it.  I was so proud of her enthusiasm, self-confidence and happiness.  She is such a sweetheart. It brings tears to my eyes to picture her in that moment. I am SO GRATEFUL Heavenly Father sent Emmie to my home nearly 5 years ago.  It has been a JOY to be her teacher this past year!

The graduate with baby sister

This was GrandMare during some of the joy school.  Do you think she had a hard assignment or what? She told me that this is what HEAVEN is going to be like for her :)

We are SO grateful Mom Mare came to spend the week with us. I have more pictures to post of our fun week with her. We are going through "Grammy Ann" withdrawals!

These kids LOVE their sister

She's a really good sport about it :)  Happy Week to all!