Amish Country

Last Wednesday night I went to pick up my Mom and sister Shannon from the airport and then we stayed overnight in Lancaster to see a bit of Amish country.

Maelie and Kyla frosted a ginerbread cookie at Kitchen Kettle Village... this was a cool place where you could sample all sorts of yummy foods, I loved all the salsa!

a cute little wooden train that Maelie and Kyla played on

the goats at Bird-in-Hand

We even stopped by an Amish Farm for some homemade root beer!

hulahoops!

We have reinvented the family tradition of blankie rides! We go from throwing the kids up in the air, then to swinging them upside down and all around (hulahoops), and finishing with swinging them onto the couch. The kids love it! And we finally had someone to take pix of it! - Thanks, Mom.

***PALMYRA, NY***

YEAH!! I finally made it to Palmyra, New York! It was beautiful! Jonas and I got to go to the temple on Friday night! We live about 3.5 hours from the closest temple so we gotta take any chance we get to go to the temple so we dragged Mom and Shannon to Palmyra over the weekend! Thanks!! Saturday we saw the sites and Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting in Palmyra, walked around the temple, went back to Hill Cumorah and then drove home!

Palmyra temple

Jaxon crawled (normally he scoots everywhere) more than a few times on top of Hill Cumorah, it musta been the grass!!

Hill Cumorah

the printing shop of the Book of Mormon

Moroni on top of Hill Cumorah - the fam and Shannon

this was so great - the Peter Whitmer home, where the church was oganized - could really feel the spirit here!!

the girls in the Sacred Grove

I have always wanted to come here and it was as awesome as I thought it would be!

this pic is on the temple ground with the sacred grove in the background

The First Vision statue at the Smith Farm

the girls at the Palmyra temple - Mom, Shannon, Mistie, Maelie, and Kyla

Hill Cumorah - incredibly beeeeeautiful!

Jaxon at the top of Hill Cumorah

Maelie and Kyla in the Smith home

Mom and Shannon are coming!

I am driving by myself with the kids to pick up Mom and Shannon from the airport today (1.5 hour drive) wish me luck!! We are then going to Lancaster to experience some amish! I'm so excited!!

time to get a gate for the stairs?!

Maelie and Kyla with their friend Abbie

AHHH!! Look what Jaxon did yesterday!

He was pretty proud of himself!

seriously in shock here....

and a FIRM believer that every child is so different! When I pottytrained Maelie, I thought it was the hardest thing I had ever done and I thought I was a horrible mother! SERIOUSLY! So, I have totally been putting off Kyla, even when she went potty at 16 months old, I didn't push it at all. Well, Kyla is already telling me when she needs to go! Maelie doesn't even do that still!!! Maelie only tells me she needs to go when she needs to poop! I am still telling her to go before we go anywhere and when we get home and she still has occasional accidents! ANYWAY, it is just so crazy how different each child is! I am in HUGE relief that Kyla is doing so well and just hope and pray that this continues and isn't a fluke! Pleeeeeaaaaasssssseeee!!!

Jaxon is such a little cat napper so he is pretty worn out by the end of the day! Last night he fell asleep while Jonas was feeding him some pears. He was seriously sitting there with his eyes closed and still taking bites of pears! It was so funny! He slept that way for about 40 minutes!

He loved playing with these paper towels yesterday and got so mad when I tried to put them away! Poor little guy got shots today...

Maelie loves preschool! Today she made some binoculars that she was pretty proud of. She also loves being a sunbeam and practices her primary part everyday. She likes to make new friends everytime we go to the park. She likes to play with Kyla and their favorite thing to do together is play dress up!Kyla is potty training! Today we picked out some princess undies and some little pets that she gets when she goes potty. She is doing pretty good! She is very girly and likes dressing up. The other day she came out in a tutu and a tutu only - Jonas said, "Wow Kyla! You're so modest!" And she said, "No I'm not modest, I'm showing my shoulders." Ummm... Kyla, I think you're showing a little more than that! I always hear Maelie talking to Kyla about being modest and how the princesses usually aren't. She's very aware of it, I just hope she doesn't offend someone someday! Jaxon is all over the place and into everything. He is such a happy baby - most of the time! He still only has the 2 teeth but I think he is working on some more because he hasn't been sleeping that great. However, last night he slept all night, we were pretty excited!! He is eating fruits, veggies, cereals, bread, and puffs/cheerios!
Sorry, not much else going on, we're just living normal everyday life! =)

picture tag

This is fun! The rules are to use google images to search your answer and pick something off the first page that answers each one!

my first job

my college degree

what I'm doing now

the town I live in

my best friend's nick name

my first name

my favorite object

my favorite food

my favorite animal

my favorite color

the town I was born in

my bad habit

my maiden name

my age

my past pet

my favorite place

a place I'd like to visit

I tag everyone because I want to see everyone's! :)

Child of God

On Sunday, Maelie got her part for the primary program and she already has it down, click on "child of God" to the right under videos!