Updates...

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I've last updated my blog! I've updated the pictures of the girls and of our family--hope you like the pictures.

Life has been super busy here, and I don't even know why! Mike has been gone a lot lately with his calling and with work, plus he is trying to study for his P.E. Exam (Professional Engineer). So, I guess I've just been busy being mom (isn't that busy enough?).

Mike and I have been fighting a cold this past week. I think Brooke has a bit of the same cold, but it has not slowed her down one tinsy bit. Yesterday I took some cold medicene. The package didn't say it was night time or day time, so I took it. It ended up making me drowsy the whole day! At first I thought the cold had taken a turn for the worst. I couldn't get off the couch, and when I did, I felt light headed and extremely tired! By the time the medicene wore off, I was feeling a little better and put two and two together to realize that the medicene had me feel so horrible. No wonder I didn't feel very well, it was making my body want to go to sleep and I was fighting to stay awake! I looked at the package later in the day and under the warning section, it said it may cause drowsiness. Hmmm, smart move, Jenn! Anyway, I feel like a new person today. I still have the cold, but feel like I have soooo much more energy today.

The girls are doing well. I took Brooke to a speech therapist earlier in the month to check her speech. When she talks she misses a few sounds (i.e. the "th" sound, "l", "r", and some others). The therapist said she wasn't too worried about Brooke's speech for her age. The therapist said some of the sounds Brooke was missing were not worrisome until she turned 7 or 8 years-old. She did, however, give us a couple of ideas to try and gave us some material to practice saying some of the sounds. Brooke is already picking up on the sounds and learning the correct way of saying them, now it is only a matter of making it habit to say the sounds the right way!

Emily is growing. Mike still calls her "Squirt" because she is a lot smaller than Brooke was at this age. Emily is 19 months and average for her height (32 ") and weight (22 lbs). When Brooke was the same age, she was 6 pounds heavier and a few inches taller, so to us, Emily is small. But I have noticed lately she is growing because she's growing out of some clothes and she can reach things on the table and countertops that she used to not be able to reach. Emily is still our little garden thief. No sooner does she get outside, then she is raiding the garden of all our strawberries (green, white, or red--makes no difference to her) or rasberries. She is still pulling off my tomatoes (same thing, green or red) and calls them apples. It is really cute to watch, but at the same time, it would be nice to enjoy some of the stuff we've planted, too!

Back in April (or May?) I was called to be the Primary Chorister. I really enjoy this calling and I am always looking for fresh and new ideas, so if anyone has any ideas I can incorporate PLEASE let me know! Thanks.

Well, I think that is about it. Here are a few pictures from this past summer. Enjoy!

Pictures of the girls at the BYU-I gardens.

Family picture at the gardens.

Brooke and Emily enjoying the sun in their little pool. You can see our garden in the back ground. We put it in this year, so it isn't much to brag about this year.

These are some pictures of a wicked dust storm we had a couple of weeks ago. I took the pictures off of my back deck. You can barely make out some of the houses behind us.

More fun in the sun...

Last month, Brooke and Mike had a "campout" out in our backyard. Brooke wanted to sleep in the tent, so Mike set the tent up and they had a fun campout outside. I don't think either of them slept that great, because they were both extremely tired the next day. Brooke ended up taking a morning nap, which hasn't happened since she quit taking morning naps as a baby! But, I'm sure they enjoyed the time they spent together, and hey, it will be a great memory for some time to come!

Brooke stated taking swimming lessons this week. She has one more week to go. I am thoroughly impressed by how well she is doing. At the beginning of the week, she wouldn't let go of the wall, let alone put her face in the water. Now, her instructor keeps telling her to go back to the wall (she tends to go bobbing around, wherever she wants). She also will go completely under the water on her own, without plugging her nose! I can't wait to see what more she will be willing to try and learn this week!

We also got our garden plot put in earlier this summer and finally got some veggies planted. We were a little late getting it in, but what we did put in seems to be doing well. My mom and dad gave us some rasberry and strawberry plants, and they have already produced this year! Emily is our garden theif. As soon as she figured out that berries were growing out there, anytime she is outside, she goes straight to the garden and looks for new berries. If she can't find any ripe ones, she will pick the green ones. When the green berries are all gone, she walks through the rows and holds her hands up and says, "Go?" (where did they go). It is really cute. She also thinks my tomatoes are apples. The tomatoes are green right now, but she points to the tomatoes and says, "apple, apple." She has picked a few of them, too. One day she piced a tomato and took a bite out of it! I'm sure she got a surprise, because it definitely wasn't an apple, and it was a green tomato at that, too! I'll have to get a picture of Emily in the garden and post it soon! The girls love running up and down the rows of corn saying, "A monster, a monster's getting us!"

Memory Tag

I just visited a friend's blog and she had this tag on her's. It is for everyone and/or anyone who wants to do it.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Summertime Fun...

Okay, so I know it has been awhile since I've last posted, but I'll try to make up for it in this post (hopefully without boring you too much!). This past month has been crazy--but then again, aren't most summer months? Brooke was able to go visit her Grandpa & Grandma Tolman for a couple of weeks during the first half of June. Emily and I went to pick her up and stayed for a few days. The last few pictures (sorry the order isn't correct--it is backwards) are of the first trip we took to Idaho. We went to the zoo, a water park, and went on a carousel ride. We came home for a week, and then turned around and went back to Idaho (with Mike this time) for another week and a half! We had a lot of fun during our stay--Jill, Katie, Theresa, my mom, and myself decided we needed a girls' night out, so we went to dinner and then to a movie--kidless! Brooke celebrated her birthday (July 3) while we were there--we went to the water park (again) and then had a family party at my parent's house, with sparklers to finish off the night! Mike and I were able to go to the temple a couple of times while in Idaho, too. The Rexburg Temple is beautiful! I also had my 10 year class reunion I dragged poor Mike to (and he was an excellent sport about it, too!) It was nice to see a lot of classmates and get reacquainted with them--seeing their kids and finding out what they're up to these days. By the end of our visit, we were ready to go home! We had a great time, but we were all anxious to be back home. Here are some pictures of our trip(s), like I mentioned earlier they are in backwards order (sorry about that, but you get to see the same thing either way). :0) Grandpa Tolman found a baby rabbit in his garden. Mike was able to catch it so the kids could pet it. Of course, Brooke (our little animal lover) wanted to take it home to be our new pet!

Emily and Adam (Josh and Jill's two-year-old) are having fun hanging out at the end of one of the slides at the water park.
Brooke blowing out her candles. Every time I asked Brooke what she wanted her birthday cake to be, she picked a different animal, so I decided to make a barn cake and I made cupcakes to go along with it that had different farm animals on them. The cousins loved it! Thanks Aunt Katie for your help with the barn cake.
Emily enjoying her cupcake.
lots of food=lots of fun
Thanks to Uncle Jason, we were able to end the birthday party with some fun sparklers.

Girls' night out--we used Jill's birthday as our excuse to go out, but next time I think we'll just go, without any excuse at all!

Adam, Brielle, Emily, and Brooke on top a tiger at the Idaho Falls Zoo.

Brooke, Emily, Brielle, and Aunt Katie having some fun at the water park. Brielle is a water baby, we couldn't keep her out of the water. Emily, on the otherhand, would only put a finger in the water.

Carousel ride--we went for two rounds. Each time the ride stopped, Emily would hold onto the bar with a death-grip, not wanting to get off!

We're home and enjoying being home for now. We don't have any more trips planned for the summer, but have lots of fun things we want to do here. Tonight Mike is planning a "campout" in the backyard with Brooke...more excitement pending!