Spring 2012 - Aspen turns 4!!

Aspen turned 4 in February, which she thought was a major accomplishment!! We all worked together to make her a Princess castle cake, because of course she is a Princess! She helped decorate it, and ate as many embellishments as she put on the cake.

She went for her 4 year doctor visit, she is still in the 50 percentile for everything, height and weight. Here are some photos getting her blood pressure, hearing and vision check. She is doing fantastic!!

We went on a trip to the Magic Kingdom for Aspen's birthday

and she got to eat dinner with the Princesses, a BIG highlight for her.

Aspen absolutely LOVED riding the Hippogriff roller coaster in Harry Potter World, she made me ride it 6 times with her. Here are also a few more photos from the theme parks.

She and Claire have lots of fun together. Here are also some photos from gymnastics, spring break vacation, Easter.

Aspen had her first professional manicure and pedicure before we went on the cruise ship, she chose her nail paint, it was so cute!!!

She and Claire love to go running with us, so here is a photo of them dressed in their running gear at the end of a run when it was cold.

Spring Break Cruise to Mexico

Mexico April 2012_2

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Claire turns 12 and New York City !!!

It's hard to believe but Claire turned 12 in February!! She's a beautiful girl and has such a sweet personality. Claire is crazy about her little sister, her loving nick name for Aspen is "Pippy". Claire is really enjoying being in the Young Women's program now that she is 12. For her 12th birthday, as a special treat, Brenda and David carried on the family tradition and let Claire choose somewhere she would like to go visit in the US. Claire chose New York City, so off Brenda and Claire went the day before her birthday! It was a grand adventure of epic proportions! We just went for a long weekend since school was out for Presidents Day. Claire really wanted to go tour the Crayola factory,

so we flew out early Friday morning to New Jersey and drove to Easton, Pennsylvania about an hour away, spent the day at the factory. It was an amazing and fun place, she was so thrilled to see it all.

Claire loves to write stories, and had been writing a story about how colors really got their names,

so she felt the tour of the Crayola factory was crucial to her story.

When the factory closed, we hurried off to New York City to catch our first of 3 Broadway shows for the weekend - The Lion King!! It is such a fantastical musical, with fabulous, bright, vivid costumes and music. Claire was absolutely enthralled!

The show ended about 11 pm, so then we walked around Times Square

and I took her up high in the Top of The Rock Observatory, where I treated Claire to a dessert buffet so she could have cake high above New York City as the clock struck 12 while she turned 12 years old! By the time we got to the hotel for bed that night, she was exhausted!! Nice to know that sometimes my stamina can outdo hers!!

The next day, her birthday proper, was spent touring The American Museum of Natural History, the New York City Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, exploring and ice skating in Central Park.

There were so many fun and fabulous thing we saw and did, she was so excited. As we were walking through Central Park, we had a fun New York City moment...we were a bit confused trying to find the rink, and we asking people directions, and we ran right into movie star Natalie Portman carrying her new baby boy, and she was walking with the star from the movie Home Alone, McKalie Caulkin. So that was fun. I got a photo of the movie stars and Claire on the bridge right next to them.

That night we ate at a sushi bar and off we went to Broadway show #2, Spiderman!!! What a fun, amazing production that was! Made even better with music composed by U2 !!

We visited the LDS church, the LDS Temple in NYC and had a great discussion with our very nice taxi driver from Hong Kong. One of Brenda's brother's had served a mission there and had taught Brenda some Chinese, which I had not forgotten, so I had fun speaking what little Chinese I knew. He liked us and asked lots of questions about our church. We visited the 9/11 Memorial site,

the Brooklyn Bridge,

the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

There was so much to read and learn at these historical sites.

Our last day we spent shopping, at FAO Schwartz where Claire got to play on the BIG PIANO,

the Worlds Largest Toys R Us store to ride the Ferris Wheel inside, the Swatch Store,

Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum,

lunch at Planet Hollywood and a Broadway showing of Wicked, (always our favorite) before flying home.

We got lots of hugs from David and Aspen who had missed us, but had their own weekend of lots of fun and adventure back home together.

Summer and Fall 2011

ok I've gotten too far behind! I'm adding some photos of recent events and some of summer, then hopefully I can catch up. The girls are so busy and full of energy and lots of fun, I hardly have time to sleep! Last weekend we did our annual trip to the pumpkin and apple farms. We went on a hayride, and Aspen was so excited to get to pick real apples off a tree! Aspen especially enjoyed the petting zoo with the baby chicks and feeding the baby goats. Keep scrolling down, I can't figure out how to remove the big space gap that follows.

Claire is playing the flute and LOVES it, she named her flute "Jupiter". Here she is in summer flute camp.

Aspen loves climbing trees.....

Aspen and Claire love the water, playing in the rain and lots of swimming!

We took turns doing Daddy-daughter weekends and Mommy-Daughter weekends. Claire and I went to Savannah, here we are on a dolphin cruise. David and Claire drove to Memphis to see a BYU football game for their weekend.

Aspen did lots of fun things at home with whichever parent she was home with.

Claire moved up from elementary school to middle school, here she is, beautiful girl!! I took this right before the ceremony.

Here is a photo of Claire on her first day of middle school and Aspen on her first day of pre-school and painting at preschool.

Claire and Aspen got to be in a fashion show at a local department store, they both LOVED the spotlight.

Aspen got a bit nervous at first, but Claire is such a great big sister, she gave her some hugs and words of encouragement and then Aspen was fine!

This summer we did our annual Disney experience, here we are on a jungle cruise and at breakfast with Mickey.

We also got to spend a couple weeks in Utah this summer, Claire got to go to an amazing camp at the Olympic Park with her cousins (pictured here) and learned to ski jump into a pool! She is so brave and quite the eager ski jumper!

Aspen loved visiting the big statue of Jesus Christ.

Aspen and Claire also LOVE rock climbing, here they are being brave as can be while I watch in awe of their physical abilities! Last weekend at church Brenda was in charge of the annual Daddy Daughter dance, this year the theme was "Tacky Dance", oh they had a blast!! Dancing, and David doing his "tacky moves" and getting a photo with the rock star Justin Bieber, so tacky!!! They really enjoyed themselves.

Brenda has been doing a lot of road racing this year, 2 half marathons and numerous other races. Here she is in Utah doing a race with two of her sisters.

Stay tuned...never a dull moment in our house hold!