Jessica

Jessica is a fun girl who loves to snuggle, read, do crafts, and play. She is now in third grade, and loves being with friends, but she is also ready to come home and play as soon as school is done. You can often find her with her nose stuck in a book...and sometimes it feels like her ears are in that book too because when she reads, she is in another world! Jessica loves to play games; Twister and The Game of Life are some of her favorites. 

She is a great big sister most of the time, and wants to teach Adalynn everything from colors to how to play the piano. Adalynn loves when she gets home from school for the day and runs up to her for a big hug when she gets back. 

We have an open adoption with Jessica's birth family and love to be able to stay in touch with them and visit them. We are blessed to have so many who love her and our family. 

Random fact about Jessica: she likes collecting all kinds of things and often has bags of these collections throughout the house. One time, she collected an extra set of car keys that we found months later, after we sold the car.

Adalynn

Adalynn is almost two and it amazes us how much she seems to learn each day. She loves animals, cars, babies, and books. She is a busy girl who doesn't like sitting still, in a shopping cart, stroller, or car seat. Even the high chair is getting tricky these days. If she had her way, she would run everywhere!

She likes to talk, although most words sound the same or are made up words for now. She loves to dance and pretend to sing. Her facial expressions are fun and we love watching her have fun.

Adalynn is mostly nice to Jessica, except for the occasional pinch and trying to learn how to share. She is good at giving hugs and wants to be just like her big sister. She is often a mama's girl, but she might pick our family dog, Lady, as her best friend.

Random fact about Adalynn: she hated baby food as a baby and when her doctor said to try giving her medicine in applesauce, we fed it to her in some chili instead. She loved it. 

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

What a summer! We played and played and had so much fun! Andrew got more vacation time at work after hitting 10 years, so we took advantage of it and have taken more fun trips and had lots of fun the last few months.

Oregon in April, visiting Brianna's family. Hillary, Andrew's sister, got married in April as well! Then, in June we went to Colorado to visit Jessica's birth families and oh, how we love them! It was a great visit and we are so glad we were able to go. Later that month we had a family reunion with Brianna's extended family in Ephraim. And then the big one...Seaside beach in Oregon!

We had a lot of normal summer days too...heading to the water park, playing mini golf, or hanging out at home in our pajamas until lunch time. Jessica and I have perfected that last one! Add in a few fishing trips with dad, a backyard campout, trip to the zoo, and a belly flop contest (that was Andrew...he even got an Elvis wig for it!) and we had a fabulous summer! Now, it is back to school and a real schedule, which is nice, but I'm already missing our care free days and my little buddy (who is already in first grade!)

Now that you got a brief summary, here are the pictures. Hooray for pictures!

Hillary and Claudio's wedding with all of Andrew's immediate family.

Colorado trip...Garden of the Gods. It was SO amazing!

Family Reunion's with Brianna's extended family always involve mud, Ephraim mountains, and four wheelers.

Feeding Grandma's goats with cousins

Seaside Candyman! Look at all that taffy! 

Tillamook factory...Jessica wanted a picture with the cow, Tilly, and just sat down and pretended to milk her. Ha!

My brother's family joined us for a few hours one day and we got to feed the seals at the aquarium. So fun!

One night we built a campfire on the beach to roast hot dogs and smores. Why have we never done this before?

Fun at the zoo with cousins!

Fishing with dad

Andrew's belly flop contest outfit for the All Together Playground...his name was The King Salmon. It turned out more like a Knee Flop but oh well, I'm glad he was brave enough to do it!

Best Dad Ever!

This post is dedicated to Andrew because he is the best dad ever! I was looking at our pictures tonight and I'm hardly in any of them...probably because these two have so much fun together (and also because I am sometimes taking the pictures). Here are a few of their fun times:

Daddy daughter dates are the best! We all love them around here.

Jessica wanted to try out some craft googly eyes for her own eyes, and it looked so fun Andrew tried it too. They both love making faces!

See that sled? Andrew built it out of skis, wood, and rope. He built it so he and Jessica could go sledding together. Good thing it snowed a lot this winter...it got a lot of use!

This was an unofficial take your daughter to work day and Andrew loved having her there, and even let her play with some flarp (okay, I sent it with her). All went well, until...

...oops, flarp and hair don't mix well. He did his best to get it out, but fortunately, I was able to get her right away and get that stuff out with a bath.

 

 Park day daddy daughter date!

Another sledding trip...another funny face!

A few of our favorite things...

Today is a day of Facebook and Instagram, and not much blogging, so I feel as though our blog is rarely written on anymore. We've decided we should start posting some of our favorite things every week. We will see how many weeks that lasts, but for now, here are some of our weekly favorites:

Andrew

Favorite things: 

- Having Monday off work.

- Pulling Jessica on a sled (tied to a fifty foot rope) through some slushy snow in the park.

Favorite meal: lasagna soup

Brianna

Favorite things:

- Hosting a lunch with friends.

- Jessica telling Andrew she needed to whisper something in his earball!

- Watching Andrew and Jessica dance last night. (I can't figure out how to post it from the iPad, so for now, watch it here.)

Favorite meal: lasagna soup

Jessica

Favorite things:

- Watching the Peanuts movie at the movie theater (Jessica has been having a hard time sleeping all night long, so we made a chart and after ten nights of staying in bed, we all got to go to a movie! Woohoo!)

- Running to the track with mom and running away from the cracking ice in Alaska. It was tricky.

Favorite meal: pizza or barbeque pork sandwiches. She said both were good.