nauvoo

Well, what a summer the Wester family had this year. boating, camping, backpacking, how to squeeze it all in, I guess I will at least post the highlight of our summer, a three week trip to Nauvoo to visit the folks. I flew across the country with the three kidlets, whilst Josh stayed home. That part was not the highlight. The kids had a blast working at curly grandma's custard store, riding papa's horse drawn carriage, and visiting with their cousins. Nauvoo has church history galore which the kids soaked up. We came back spoiled from the grandparents, more knowledgeable about the early beginnings of the church, and a little stouter around the waistline from a daily dose of custard. Oh but it was so smooth.

There is a little variety show put on by the senior missionaries and the young performing missionaries called Sunset by the Mississippee. My kids thought it was the funniest thing and we watched it nightly. Had most of it memorized by the end, the kids could sing all the songs and recite most of the little jokey plays. Here's curly and Ava watching intently. After this we always ran over to play the pioneer games that go on before the pageant every night. The kids had a ball.
Dad hooked up Leo to the carriage and took us for a ride. The kids laughed and lauged at how Leo would run whenever he got in the grass.

Ally at the reigns

And here we are at Carthage jail, such a powerful place. The kids loved it too. It was funny, they show you a little video before they take you through the jail, and it tells about Joseph Smith. Luke knew this was where he was shot, so he leaned over to me during the video and said "mom, when we go up there, are they going to shoot us too?" no.

Now we are into back to school, pictures will come later skater.

haircuts

The girls were looking a little scraggly (Luke's hair is just growing back from a sahve, so he is not) so I tok them in for haircuts to my good friend Jayme. This was Ava's first real haircut-which means it was not me snipping away at long looking pieces while destracting her while in the bath. She was a little nervous, but had a good time and loved to show off her hair cut to dad and her friends later.

She is afraid of the blow dryer at home, but sat very still for this one. she still did not like it one bit though.

Ally loved her new do too, she got a lot taken off. We do it curly most days though, its was easier, and cuter too, I think.

I went and got mine cut short a couple of days later. So all the girls have new hairdo's for the summer. I didn't get the dog cape, or any pictures taken of me though. I did sit still.

Easter

We had quite a few fun Easter festivities this year. lots of eggs and treats. The highlight though, is always the egg hunt at grandma and pa pa's house. The kids got quarters this year, which came in very handy last week at a garage sale. And Josh and I had little competition for the dollar-filled egg find. Too bad no one else came home for Easter this year. Here's Ava, having a great time. The favorite Easter bunny item was a bubble blowing dog. While the treats lay languishing on the floor and in the baskets. I thin I ended up throwing a lot of the candy away. but we still have the bubble dog.

Luke got tricky bubbles too.

Here are the kids in their cute easter outfits, thanks to grandma and her savvy shopping. Luke also had a cute moroni tie, but did not want to wear it for the pictures, and looked very grouchy in the picture we took after we made him put it on. He loves it, just not while he was trying to enjoy his Easter stuff.

Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

visitors

We have had a lot of visitors lately, and we have loved seeing our family and friends. Ava was more than happy to share her coveted and over-rubbed belly button with Drew and Ashley's littlest... The kids had so much fun with their friends, and got some good exercise doing this until we got smart and hooked the four-wheeler up to the wagon.

My dad came and we loved the key lime pie that he taught us how to make. It is so fun to see him cooking, he makes us a new treat each time he comes.

WE are crushing up graham crackers for the bottom of the pie. And eating some. It turned out Ally had strep throat, and it is amazing that none of the rest of us got it after this.

And my grandma came with my dad. it was so fun to see her, she is one of my very favorite people in the world, and always sucha great example to me. We had some good talks and learned some interesting things about her from her great stories.

gardening

Curly grandma came and we got into some serious gardening. Here are some of what she bought. I think we planted peas, pumpkins, strawberries and raspberries so far. Once she left we got lazy and have not yet put in the rest of the crops. We are taking baby steps this year to see how our luck with gardening turns out. Luke and his best buddy Garrett from two houses down were great little helpers, digging and digging in the dirt.

And then they needed to take a break after some hard work. These two little guys are so cute, it is fun for Luke to have a great neighbor finally.

Ally's bookclub

For Ally's bookclub, we read Socks (2 out of five stars-kindof boring) but since it was about a cat, we made these little cat cupcakes. And pipe cleaner and paper kitties. Ally came up with these little critters on her own.

lookie here, Ava and Ally with their cats, waiting for their friends to arrive.

each girl designed and ate her own cat cupcake.


We also had chex mix for dry cat food and ate it out of bowls (not shown) to offset the chocolate milk and many other chocolate items. the food was a hit. the discussion was kindof like...well, like herding cats.

sorry, no pictures of Luke at this time, but he has a big soccer game tomorrow, so we will try to get some of that up here soon.

painting day

I had a poster to paing for our church primary activity, and Ava came down in the middle of it and decided to get in on the fun. she is real proud of her painting shirt

this picture is for curly grandma, she is saying hi.

It's kindof nice the day when Luke has his playgroup and Ally is in school, so Ava and I can just hang out.

little angels

Ava was hanging out with Ally, and then I went up to check, and here they were, all worn out and fast asleep. What little angels.

random stuff

Well, it seems like December and January have been so full of so much stuff, some good, some bad, almost all causing major change in our lives, that I haven't been too good about updating this. Plus facebook seems to take a larger amount of time that it probably should. So I am resolved to do better. Happy Valentines Day!!! Josh and I traded babysitting with some friends this year, so we went out Friday so they could go out tonight. We went to a hawaiin restaurant here in Boise, with a buffet and live hula dancing. It was interesting and fun. so today for V day, Josh went snowboarding, and when he got home I made a trip to the gym to work out alongside the couple of people who didn;t have other plans. The kids had fun with their friends and we made Valentines cookies. So it was a good day, and kindof nice not to go out on a busy Saturday night. We have been busy with Josh's new company, which seems to be all squared away as of this weekend, so Boise Legal, here we come. Let's hope it's a good change.

So enough ramblings about us. Does every singel two year-old girl have to wear fancy dresses over their clothes? We are two for two. I see other moms with thier little ones dressed the same way out around town, we just smile a knowing smile. I'm sure some of you know what I am talking about.

We took Ally and Luke skiing. Josh was VERY patient, and they both loved it. Luke has even been back one more time (he's free) but they were very good and had a lot of fun. I pulled Ava around on the sled and we hung out and watched in the lodge.

Here in Boise, we get a lot of what is called an inversion. See the clouds? We live under them. It seems about half the winter, we are living in a cloud. and it's cold. then we go to the mountains, and it is warm and sunny. Crazy.

So here are the kids yesterday with some friends enjoying thier school Valentines spoils. they planned out their own little party, I opened Ally's room door and here they all were, sucking down the pixie sticks.

Pre-Christmas fun

Well, we had a pretty exciting Christmastime around here, probably like most households with little kids with wild Christmas blood in them. Or maybe it is wild Christmas sugar. WE were lucky and had my mom here for almost a month. Besides being a free babysitter/cleaner/chef and someone to talk to during the day, she spoiled the kids and introduced them to the art of making Christmas candies. Ava had a blast dipping pretzels, and then dipping her own fingers. And licking them. Yum. We also had a very very white Christmas, with lots of snow. See how Ally's head is also the head of the snowmen. My children are so clever.

After getting chilly in the snow, we needed to get cozy with some hot chocolate by the fire. Ava never made it out that day, but needed to be cozy nevertheless.

Luke was a shepherd in his preschool Christmas program. I wish I could post how he sang the very loudest (and I mean LOUDEST!!!) for the songs they sand to the old folks. I'm sure even the hardest of hearing among them could hear that day. I was laughing so hard I couldn;t video straight, but he was pretty cute.

We had a fun night with curly (my mom) at the mall while Josh was travelling. There were guys making balloon swords and puppies, we rode the escalator many times (the absolute highlight), got a butterscotch sucker at See's candy, patted the puppies at the pet store and got a pretzel while the kids tried out the rides that take quarters. they even got to put money in one this time (thanks grandma). Ava couldn;t quite make it onto Santa's lap, I should have a picture of me holding her at a safe distance while she sucked her two favorite fingers and rubbed her worn out bellybutton.

And Santa did make it to our house, I will post Christmas pictures later. This is progress for me to get these up, so just enjoy them for now.