The newest memeber!

Jordan is the newest member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in our family!

Jordan's baptism was this past Saturday. We were so excited for her. She has been preparing for a while and was super excited. She was able to get baptised the same day as her best friend Lizzie and her friend Ryan who is in her primary class. The other night we went to the church to get her baptism outfit. Friday night she and daddy practiced how she would be baptised. Daddy was nervous he wouldn't remember the prayer since he hasn't baptised anyone since his mission, and he could remember the prayer in Spanish clear as a bell.

We were excited to have the baptism at our chapel and not have to drive to Mt. Vernon. We were also super excited that Auntie Marion and Auntie Karin came for the special day. They arrived on Saturday and were with me when I picked the kids up. They had Ella the dog as well, so the kids were excited.

So Saturday came and we were running a bit late, but everyone got changed in time for the program to start. We took a few pictures before hand as well.  I was a bit worried that there might be drama when Jordan saw Lizzie in her dress, because she cried when I told her Lizzie was wearing a dress, but she did very well. I think the excitement helped her. Plus the fact that the church provides little white "leotard" thing to wear under the jumpsuit. She loved that and asked for one for herself.

Jordan and daddy, as well as the other 4 kids and daddies were so brave-the hot water heater to the font was not functioning, so the water was freezing cold. I felt so bad for them all. But, I was super impressed with Jordan-she just walked right down into the water!!!! Darin said the prayer and baptised her perfectly. She did make a big gasp when she came out of the water-like when the pool is too cold. Then the sweet thing stood there freezing in her towel so she could watch her friends be baptised as well. Lizzie's feet came out of the water, so she had to be done twice, and Jonaton missed a word in the prayer and had to do Ryan twice as well. The witnesses were Bishop Stowers and Ken Cazier. 

A few shots from the day

Jordan and daddy

 Ahh, that face. How I love that face.

 

Jordan and one proud mama!

 Lizzie, Ryan and Jordan

Jordan and Lizzie with their best friend Karly Vallejo. She has been friends with the girls since kindergarten, and we were so excited that she came to see the girls get baptised. She is a great friend and we love her family!!


 Our family after the baptism. The boys did start the day with ties...

And our family with Aunties. And of course, Ella. She spent the time in the car, so was happy to be out. 

 We did more pictures when we got home.

Kisses for the big girl!!

 Jordan and mommy with Aunties.

 And one more of my sweet little girl.

Preschool Picassas-weeks 1 and 2

I have been teaching classes at the local Rec center and this session I was 

able to add a new class to my  list: Preschool Picassos.

It is an art class, this time for 2-3  year olds. I have taken this class with Jordan and Spencer, so was excited to be able to teach it. 

I decided to try to find a book to read each week to base my project on. 

Here is my first choice.

We did lots of painting and talking about colors. I have a good group of parents and kids, 8 total,  and they all seemed to really enjoy it.

Week 2 The Rainbow Fish

I love this book and thought it would be awesome to teach about sharing and to do a cute project.

The book I got an idea from.

directions

supplies all ready. I got sparkly foam and cut out fins shapes. It was nice since they had sticky backs the kids could just peel off and stick on.

Landon helping me make my example to show the class.

And my finished product. A bit childlike, but then again, I am teaching toddlers:) The class went well and the kiddos loved working on it.

tires and fairies

Arggg.....I love this new way to get pictures on my blog-it's so fast, but I hate the way you do the text. So forgive the big spaces and annoying layout.

Today's family outing was a total and complete rip off from a friend's blog. Well, I asked if we could copy, and she didn't mind. So thanks Sarah, for the awesome idea!

The pics are in opposite order of the day, but I'm not in the mood to fix them. So here we are at the second stop for the day. Ann Marie Sculpture Garden. (and I'm too lazy to put in the link as well-just google it and you'll find it:) I had wanted to go a couple weeks earlier, but things got in the way, so we finally made it. Problem was, there was a HUGE art festival going on, so it was packed. Plus it was rainy. Darin wasn't too thrilled, and even after I said we could leave, he said no. We hadn't driven over an hour to go home.

So it had a display of fairy houses I wanted Jordan to see. The kids all really loved it. I wanted to take longer and really look, but we had scheduled a time with Steve to go look at houses and had to go back by a certain time, which I thought was an hour later than it really was. So we had to hurry.

Anyhow, the kids really had fun seeing the houses. Some of them were pretty cool-extremely ornate.

Kids looking at some houses

 One of Jordan's favorites

 This was my favorite. The Safari fairy house

 more house and a funky sculpture I liked

Here we are at the actual first stop of the day. Calvert Cliffs State Park, in Maryland. It was about an hour and 20 minutes from our house. I thought it was a bit closer, but it wasn't too bad. I was worried it was going to rain the whole time, but it only sprinkled, then was fine. When the kids saw the park, they got out and went running.

The all the play stuff was made from recycled tires. It was great. There was lots of climbing, running, and swinging. Even Darin and I got in on the action.

We really loved this place. I was thinking that I wished I had packed a lunch. We for sure want to go back on a day that we can spend more time. There's also a really nice hike to the beach and there's a place where you can do some fossil hunting as well.

The tire swing was pretty fun, although Darin got a bit excited pushing us and I got a bit dizzy. So fun, though.

House update

Things are going along very well. We had the inspection of the house last Monday. It went well, generally speaking. There are a lot of little things that need to be done-like outlet covers, wires covered up, etc. The house is in great shape overall. Nothing structural to deal with. About the only major problem is the windows in the basement are not large enough to meet code for proper "egress" which means that a fireman needs to be able to get in the windows in full gear if there were a fire. Guess the kids won't be using those rooms as a bedroom for a while.

When we were there with the inspector, we inadvertently flipped a switch that had something do with the air conditioner, so it didn't work properly. The owner called and invited us to go over and she would teach us how to use the system. So after work Friday, Darin and Steve went over. The owner was super nice and explained the whole system to Darin. She said they interviewed a bunch of HVAC companies before  putting the system in and that it is probably over done, but it works well.

She also filled Darin in on all the neighbors. There is one with a 1 year old, a high schooler who is a great babysitter, a family with a kindergartner and first grader, the sellers agent who lives next door has an 8 year old girl, and the one last house has kids as well. I'm super excited that there will be so many kids close. It may make me rethink my idea to keep the kids at Rose Hill to the end of the year-I may want to do it half way through. I just have to figure out how it would work with preschool and Brownies.

He said that the owners were moving sooner than they they thought-they are moving next door to the grandma. Darin told her to not get upset over the inspection report, but she said there were a lot of things they were still meaning to do to the house but were moving sooner than they expected. So hopefully they will fix everything without a problem. The appraisal was done yesterday, so I am curious to see how that goes. We also are supposed to look up the washer and dryer we want and let them know, and they will look up one they want, and they would probably meet in the middle. I don't care if we get the exact same ones I have at home now. I just want them shortly after moving in.

Do, things are looking good!! I love looking at the pictures to try to figure out where we are going to put things. We will certainly need new furniture, but we can take our time and get our things put away and thing figure out what we need.

Darin hired movers for Nov. 3rd. I collected boxes from 2 people on craigslist yesterday. I can't believe it is actually getting closer. We have a month left, and two of those weeks Darin will be in Europe. I plan to pack and get lots of stuff upstairs from the basement to save time that the movers have to be here. The less time it takes them, the less we have to pay. They are coming a day the kids are in school, so we should be in the house by the time they get home from school, then it is just putting things away, but at least they will be able to play outside while I unpack!!!