Real Salt Lake game again

In June we went to another Real game and took Rachel with us :)

The girls adore Rachel and we just love her too! Can't wait until she and Sky can finally get married!
The mascot! He came right up the aisle beside our seats so I grabbed the girls and got him to pose for a pic! It was AWESOME! He was super busy with people wanting to get pics, so I was rushing before Izzy was even prepared.
Oops. Of course the kids don't look for the picture!

Other recent pictures...

We have gotten to play with Hailee and Cam a lot lately!! Riley and Hailee even had their first sleepover at our house this week. Unfortunately I didn't take pics during the sleepover, but I have some from a different day!
Don't mind my girls hair!!! It's not done in ANY of the photos in this post. oops!!

Izzy was "stuck" in her kitchen. She didn't know how to get out. She was crying for me but when I saw why, I ran for the camera and she smiled :)

Izzy napping :)

Riley napping. This is a rare sight...she doesn't nap anymore...but this was taken the day after the sleepover. She was tired!! Missed out on about 4-5 hours of her normal sleep that night.





Camryn!!

Such a cute pic of Hailee.

Too hard to get all 4 kids smiling and looking at me!

And here is a pic from a recent bloody nose. Both our girls are like Travis. All 3 of them get bloddy noses that are pretty bad. I never have. I think I had like, one bloody nose my entire life.

KINDERMUSIK!!

The girls started their four week Kindermusik camp and it has been a hit! I get a break NO KIDS (6 hours a week)!!! and the girls love it.

Izzy was SILENT the whole way to Kindermusik the first day. She was nervous and excited!! Here is the video I took of her before I took them in!

REAL SALT LAKE

Anyone who really KNOWS Travis knows he loves soccer. He grew up playing and when he can find the time, he still plays. Well, living in Utah has some perks. One of them happens to be there is a MLS (major league soccer) team here. And they rock. Last year they won the MLS cup. I think that's what it is called...in case you don't realize, I don't know a TON about soccer, but I know enough that I find it fun to watch.
We have some friends (old soccer friends from Rexburg days) that frequent the Real Salt Lake games (that is the name of the team here). And they invited us to go to the season home opener back in April and we have been hooked ever since. When we went in April, we didn't know it was going to happen, but David Archuletta sang at half-time!


Sorry about the lame photo...That is David singing on the jumbo-tron screen thing.

I have a video of him singing....but its too large a file to upload here and I'm so tech-retarded that it would take a long time for me to edit it down.

Well, this past week RSL were playing the LA Galaxy...who they happened to play and beat for the title last year. So this game was sort of a big deal. And we decided we needed to be there. So our friends the Schanz family came down from Idaho and went to the game with us again! And THIS time, David COOK sang the National Anthem and then put on a concert after the game. Pretty sweet. I didn't know that was happening this time, either. We have picked awesome games to go to. Not just because of entertainment, but because the team tied or won.

Yep, RSL beat the Galaxy 1-0!!! It was awesome. Especially since that lone goal was scored in the the 82nd minute or something like that (it was near the end of the game).

Sorry about the pics being in reverse order. Blogger=headaches

Anyway, we are going again tonight "for Father's Day" ha ha. That's what I am telling myself. Because we couldn't really afford a gift...so this is it! We got a good deal on four tickets from someone John works with and so we are taking the girls and Rachel (Skyler's fiance) with us!!! GO REAL!!!!!

The End of the School Year

Well, Riley's first year at American Legacy Montessori Preschool ended on Thursday. Luckily there is Kindermusik camp starting next week for four weeks. But then I am sort of hoping that July and August fly by because Riley LOVES preschool!!! And I am hoping when I send both girls in the fall, Izzy loves it, too!!

Thursday there was a little graduation at Miss Rebecca's house and we had a potluck while the kids played. It was lots of fun! Riley with Miss Rebecca. Each kid received a certificate with their photo saying they had completed "Year One" of the Montessori curriculum. Super cute!!
I happened to be sitting in the perfect spot when the kids came out. Riley was the second one!! Lucky!

The kids wore dad's white dress shirts backwards for graduation gowns. How cute!

Riley with Miss Ariel
Riley with Miss Miley
Daddy with the girls
Mommy with the girls.
Izzy can't make a normal face for pics, I guess!!

The kids sang several songs that they learned throughout the year.

Can't wait for Year Two. And the FREE time I will get each week in the fall! Happy summer for now though!

Life never slows down!

Yet I still keep waiting for that to happen!!! Even though I know it won't!!! Oh man, I can't believe how scarce my blog postings have been this year. Just wanted to give a little (or big) update...we will see how much I have to post.

Not a whole lot is new with us, we are just living the good life :)

The girls are growing and getting smarter and prettier all the time.

Preschool is ending this coming week and I am sure Riley will be sad. She has LOVED going to preschool this year! And she has been thriving! She has started READING!! At 3 1/2 that's pretty impressive. Her teacher just raves and says she is way ahead of other kids her age. So that has been a proud parent event for us. She knows MOST letter sounds and the book series the teacher uses begins with the short a vowel sound for 6 books, then the short i vowel sound for six books, which Riley is about done with. But because she knows the other vowels, she can read a lot more words than what she has learned. At first it was hard to get her to blend the sounds together, but now she totally gets it. We have a wall hanging with hooks in our hall that says FAMILY. The other day I overheard her saying FFF-a-mm-i-ll-ya. Then she said, "that's not a word!" and I said, Riley, you almost had it. It says family, when you see an ly together it sounds like "lee". :) She wants to read more, but its hard for me to know how to explain things like "ch", "sh" and when there is an "e" at the end how the vowel in the word is really a long vowel sound. That's why I sent her to preschool in the first place!! I am so not smart enough to know how to explain things at her level! Also, someone asked her what her name was the other day and she said "Riley, R-I-L-E-Y" it came out so fast. I had never heard her just spit out those letters so fast! Adorable!

Luckily, even though preschool is over, for 4 weeks Miss Rebecca does a kindermusik camp in June. So I am sending Riley to that and Miss Rebecca says she will continue to send books home so she will keep reading! AND Isabelle is going to go to kindermusik with Riley to try out the preschool environment. I would love to send them both in the fall!!! I can ALMOST imagine the freedom 3 times a week!!! ALMOST. I hope it works out!!

Izzy is so smart, too. She talks way beyond her age level, for sure. The things she comes up with are impressive. At almost 2 1/2 I was starting to worry she would never want to potty train. Because Riley was about this time and any time I would try with Izzy I just got frustrated. Once in awhile she was into, but for the most part, it was a general lack of caring. But last week I decided I had had it. It wasn't Izzy's problem, it was more my issue. I would start gung-ho and then tire of the process quickly and give up. Well I decided Friday was the day. So we took off the diaper and put on big girl pants and she has done incredibly well. In once week, she has used the potty about 50 times. I know this because she has sticker charts and that's how many stickers she has earned, each time she has gone. Do you go toilet 50 times in one week?? Does that sound like a lot? And she has had several accidents and still wears and wets diapers at night. Little kids go a lot!!! But overall, she is doing so well. Friday was super successful, the weekend was incredibly rough...but I knew if I was consistent with stickers and treats and stayed patient it would pay off. She isn't fully potty trained, but she is so, so close. She wakes up every morning and goes straight for her potty! She hasn't peed in a pair of big girl underwear since for 3-4 days. So I am saying it's been a success!!

The girls are so different from one another I can't get over it. Most times they are great friends. Though there are plenty of times when they fight...which I know is normal. It's just they are two totally different spirits/personalities. Riley is super sensitive and bossy. Both girls can be quite argumentative. Riley is also very interested in learning, constantly and is pretty flighty at times. She has less common sense and more "book" smarts it seems.

Isabelle is spunky and has this love of life that I can't get enough of. She is cuddly and sweet. And while she likes learning too, she isn't as driven as Riley currently. Both girls love to be read to, to dance, to play outside, and keep me SO BUSY!!! The girls are usually pretty protective of one another which I love! It seems I butt heads with Riley more than Isabelle and I know its because we are just similar. We all are stubborn though in our own way!

Izzy is better with manners. But I really am working hard to teach them BOTH their P's and Q's!! Riley tends to be the whinier of the two, but Izzy definitely has her moments. I find this preschool age is super hard but so fun, too. I am such a baby person. If babies stayed babies longer, give me ten!! The problem with babies is they become toddlers and preschoolers...lol. I really love my girls so much. But they are trying to teach me patience!!! Apparently it really is hard to teach an old dog new tricks :) They keep me so busy I am EXHAUSTED!!

As far as me and Trav, we are both trying to make the most of our gym memberships and get in better shape!!! This summer we have trips planned to Coeur d'Alene for the 4th of July and the Anderson reunion in southern Idaho in August that happens every two years. Also, I am looking forward to the birth of Brad and Kim's baby in June (or any time now!). Yay for a new niece and cousin for the girls!

So I guess that's about it. Remember, these posts are more for me, for journaling purposes...but the pictures below, those are for the grandmas and grandpas, and aunts :)
Still finding it to be nearly impossible to get them to cooperate for pictures!!!

Izzy's first ever BRAIDED pigtails. Had never tried to braid them before now! At least I am good at capturing "firsts" for our kids, even if they are pretty lame! lol
The girls told is they were building tents....this is what we found!

We had never tried this but Trav's aunt had talked about putting her girls hair in "rags" and then it is all curly. So we decided to give it a whirl. I did Riley's....
...and Travis did Isabelle's. And he did a much better job than me. This was after bath time. Then you sleep with the rags in your hair and have curls the next day!!


Unfortunately I had somewhere to be early this particular morning and I had to pull the rags out before heading out...and because Riley has so much hair, it wasn't dry enough to hold the curls, they didn't stay in more than an hour :(

Good morning, beautiful! Isn't she sweet?
Her hair seemed to hold the curl much better. For one, she has curls anyway and secondly, her hair was dry because its so much shorter!

Izzy love's Aunt A's poety book.
This is Riley, sleeping in the car with Sunglasses on. I thought it was cute
It's been so long I didn't post about Easter...which we spent down in Albuquerque, NM with my dad, his wife, my two younger sisters, and two younger step sisters. Here are the girls on Easter. Riley's hair is often in her face. Travis is ready to get it chopped off I think. He says she looks like an orphan or something. lol
Izzy is still trying to wake up. They had fun looking through their baskets!

Family Picture!

Our stake is having a temple fireside at the end of April and they are asking for pictures of every family at the temple. So our ward set up times for the families in our ward to go over and have someone take the picture. The sun was sort of in our faces...but I think for having two fidgety kids and too bright of sun this turned out pretty well.