Too Cool For Skool

Avery looooves to wear sunglasses.  She snuck Sophie's on here.

She also loves to make us put them on, then pull them right back off of us.  It makes her laugh really hard and she has the most infectious, adorable laugh ever.  It's really gravelly and hilarious.

She thinks she's the bee's knees, and she's probably right.

She has her daddy wrapped around her finger, that's for sure.  Poor Joseph, has to stretch himself far enough to be wrapped around 3 girls' fingers.  What a guy.

Avery loves her daddy so much and is a lucky girl to have him!

Happy Father's Day to the Greatest Daddy!

Dear Daddy,
We love you so much! There are so many reasons why you're the greatest daddy in the whole wide world. Thanks for playing chase and hide 'n seek and hot 'n cold with us, thanks for reading us stories and singing us songs, thanks for jumping in the cold pool with us even when you would rather stay in the hot tub, thanks for loving our mommy and loving us. We love you so much!

Your Girls,

Sophie and Avery

p.s. The end of this video I said Happy Father's Day and I love you, but it got cut off. -Sophie

Avery's first steps

Avery is trying to walk and is taking more and more steps every day right now. She started learning on her little walking toy that you'll see at the beginning of the video, but she's become very daring lately and is trying to walk all on her own. We caught this video of some of her very first steps, although she had done much better than this before the camera was rolling, of course. So it's not great, but it is what it is. I'm sure I'll have another video to post soon of her as a walking machine, because she's on a roll!

Dallas

Joseph and I just got back from a fabulous trip to Dallas, TX.  Joseph had to go for work and my mom volunteered to come down and stay with the girls for the week so that I could go with him.  It was heavenly!  I love our girls and I love being a mom, but sometimes a break is very nice, especially because it reminds you why you love your kids so much.  I was quite anxious to see them again once it was time to come home and I really missed them a lot, but we had a great time while we were there.

I have a few friends from my mission to Poland who live in the Dallas area, so a few weeks ago I called them up to get everyone together while we were there.  We met at TGI Fridays in commemoration of how we would often eat there in Poland (yes, they have them there).  They all brought their spouses and kids so it was fun to see these elders being daddies to such adorable boys.  Two were from my MTC district, Phillips and Ostreicher, and then I served again with Phillips in Gdansk when he was companions with Durkovich.  They are highly entertaining guys, especially together, and our district meetings weren't always the most productive because we laughed almost the entire time.  Great memories.

Not much Polish was spoken since it's been a while since we've all been home and we're all out of practice (well, I am at least) but it was just fun to get together and reminisce about good times in the Poland Warsaw Mission.  Thanks for coming to see us, guys! (L to R: Scott and Connie Phillips, Matt and Emily Durkovich, and me).

Joseph and I took an afternoon while we were there and went to the Dallas Temple.  It was quite the adventure getting there using public transportation because we ended up having to walk quite a bit.  I eventually walked most of the way there with no shoes since my blisters on my feet were already too huge to believe, so I felt a little bit like those who have to sacrifice a lot to make it to a temple, and I think it made the session a little different than usual which was nice.

We were both so sweaty by the time we made it that I'm surprised they still let us go in, but they took pity on us thank goodness.  It was just nice to be there together.

I was able to spend a lot of time on this trip working on projects that I've been waiting for a time such as this to complete, but I still ventured out a little bit to sightsee.  One place I had to go was the 6th Floor Book Depository Building where they have an exhibit about the shooting of JFK.  The window it supposedly took place at is the top one on the right in the picture above.  Nobody knows whether Lee Harvey Oswald really did it or not and he was killed before he had to testify so we'll probably never know, but being the history lover that I am, it was very interesting and I loved my visit.  I think I was there over 4 hours and it's just one little floor, but it was fascinating stuff.

I had just begun the tour when the fire alarm went off in the building and we had to all evacuate down the 6 flights of rickety stairs until the fire dept. came and checked it out.  It was a false alarm and I quickly continued my tour.

The white "X" on the road at the center bottom of the picture is the spot where JFK was shot the last time, which is the shot that killed him.  

This is the grassy knoll where conspiracy theorists, like the gentleman above, say the real killer of JFK shot from.  That's the same fence that was there in '63 and just may have been where the killing really took place.  We'll never really know I think.

Silly Sophie

We went to a birthday party yesterday and this is how Sophie looked while listening to the story.  She and the other girls were playing a little dress-up before the party started.  I think she's attempting to make bracelets above the elbows the newest fashion trend.  And the glasses?  Priceless.

"Up"

Sophie loves movies.  She begs daily to watch a Disney movie and it takes all my creative power to come up with other ways to distract her.  But when Joseph and I talked about going to see the new Pixar film "Up" we decided that it would be fun to take Sophie with us.

We weren't able to get very great pictures of our trip because my old camera kept dying so I had to just shoot and hope it turned out.  So here we are before going into the theatre and inside before the movie began.  Just Sophie and I went so that Joseph could stay home with Avery.  Sophie liked the flick a lot, though her little body was too small to hold the big chair down and it kept flipping up on her.  I had to put up the hand rest and put my legs on the front of the chair to keep it down for her.  I'm not sure she totally knew when the previews and hilarious short at the beginning were actually over and the real movie began so there was a little confusion, but she eventually figured it out and had a good time.  We won't be taking her to the theatre again anytime soon, but it was a fun Mommy/Daughter date just this once.  By the way, I loved the movie (and Joseph saw it later and loved it, too) and would highly recommend it.  Very clever as always, very sweet (made me cry a couple times), and a good message, too.  We both gave it A's which is saying a lot for us.  Thanks for the fun date, Sophie Girl!  I love you!