Reminiscing

A few months ago, I sent a bunch of photos into a company to have them digital scan them for me. I had a voucher from Groupon and it was about to expire by the time I actually sent them, but this week I got my pictures back and my digital copy. So I thought I would share a few of my favorites. 

I'll start with my sweet Jonathan. 

I love this picture of him. He always has been a hard worker :).

We always laugh at this picture, because he buttoned his top button into his collar, is missing teeth, and is dressed like a lumberjack. But a very adorable lumberjack.

This captures Jonathan's personality:

His senior picture:

And his mission to Portugal. It is so interesting that there is a horse drawn cart and an automobile in the same place. I am thankful that Jonathan served a mission and when we were dating, I knew it was a good sign that he always talked positively about his mission and said he wanted to take me to his mission someday. He still says that, and I hope he does take me there one day.

And now on to me.:)

My grandma thinks this is a picture of her grandparents. Anyway, they are my family and I am grateful for the picture. And even more grateful that I didn't live back then.

And more teepee pictures. I couldn't resist, especially since this one had snow in it. I still ask my mom how she did it out there. Amazing and crazy at the same time!

We had goats. I didn't like the goats. They were big, and stinky. My mom had to get up and milk them every day. Needless to say, I have drunk my fair share of goats milk.

The girls get their sense of fashion from me :).

Me and my sis. We didn't let a lack of electricity and running water slow down our beauty regime. A girl has to have priorities. 

This was our swimming pool-plastic covered tires.  I wasn't a big swimmer.

Every girl has a chopped bang picture.

And then the awkward tooth phase, when you have adult teeth in a kid mouth. This is me and my brother David.

Then the 80s hit. Look at me rocking the jean jacket, the neon, and the poof hair. Oh yeah. 

This is me with all my brothers and sisters. I love them. (And check out the rolled jeans. I tried hard to be stylish. Sometime it worked, sometimes it didn't.)

I love this picture with Sherri Dew in the MTC. She came and spoke and let us take pictures with her. She is one of my heroines. And I served with Hermana Scoville in the MTC and in our mission. She is one of my faves.

And well, you know what happened after that. I met my true love. ♥  I am so blessed to have him. He is so amazing. I love him more today than I did when we got married, although I didn't think that was possible then. 

And, as they say, the rest is history!

Bath Time

A while back I made the goal to take ten pictures a day with my camera. The point was to learn how to use my camera. In actuality, I don't take ten pictures a day, but when I do pull out the camera, I take like 90 pictures. It's ridiculous and is filling up my hard drive fast. 

But I love that I have all these pictures of the girls! They are my subject of choice to photograph, since they are the reason I wanted a nice camera.  

These are my favorite photographs from this past week. I opened up the blinds in the bathroom and let them take a bath in the early afternoon so I would get lots of natural light.  

These pictures remind me how blessed I am, and how I want to be better and do better for these little angels in my life.

Working the camera...

Some days, we just feel like getting our picture taken...

and I love days like that!!

Swimming Lessons

The girls just finished their swimming lessons on Friday. And they loved it!
Except for at the beginning. 

At the first lesson, Sami and Janie were begging to go home. At one point Sami ran out of the pool telling me she wanted the blue van, meaning she wanted me to drive her home. Their teacher, Miss Allison, had them stick their faces in the water and started teaching them how to swim and reach for the side of the pool from the first lesson. Which is great, but didn't go over very well with the girls. 

I wasn't sure I was going to stick with it at that first lesson, but Miss Allison assured me that after 2 or 3 lessons, they would like it. So I decided to pull out the big guns for the second lesson: I told them if they did good and didn't cry, I would take them out for hamburgers and french fries. 

From that moment on, they have loved swim lessons. 

Seriously.

And I only bought them burgers and fries that one time! ☺ 

She taught them how to float and Janie loved to float. She would smile and it was darling! Swimming and kicking under water was a little bit harder for Janie, but floating was great.

Miss Allison also taught them to dive. Sami loved it, but it was a bit of a struggle for Janie, but by the end, she was doing really well.

Sami seemed to catch on to how to kick and move her arms right away. When Miss Allison told her to swim, she would kick ferociously. She loved Miss Allsion, she loved swimming, and her favorite was at the end of the lesson when she would dive for rings. She loved the rings!

I will say that when Miss Allison asked me to drop my girls off the diving board, I had serious heart palpitations. I kept saying "What? You want me to do what?" She was under the diving board and always caught them. But it was hard tossing my babies off!

At one point during the lessons, I told Jonathan that I hated seeing Janie cry when she was learning dives or being dropped off the diving board (sorry, Janie!), because I know just how she feels. I was afraid of that too (and truth be told, I still am). So I feel sorry for her. But Jonathan asked me if I wished someone had helped me work through my fears. And the answer is YES! So Janie and I stuck with it. And now I find her pretending to be a pool and diving for rings. 

They both learned a ton and I am so proud of them.

So next year, we will be back with Miss Allison.

We started off this holiday in Arizona City with Jonathan's brother, Jeremy, and his family, Aunt Tami, and Grandma.  We played, talked, had a bbq, and played some more.  

Grandma is one of our all-time favorite people. No question.

In the afternoon, we decided to get some sparklers and some butterfly firecrackers (they spin on the ground and change colors).  We hadn't even started and the girls were in a corner of the yard, nervous. We assured them it was very fun. 

This is the picture I took as Jonathan was lighting the first butterfly. Janie was so nervous and I'm not sure she knew why she was nervous.  I was scared of fireworks too at her age, but I can't say exactly why either. So Janie must get it from me. 

The girls decided sparklers could be fun.

Sami put her sparkler down on her foot and got a little burn. It didn't leave a mark, I think it mostly just scared her, and then she was done. Later Jonathan and I were like "What were we thinking giving the girls fire on a stick?!!" Jonathan said he had nightmares of Janie lighting Sami on fire. Where are the sparklers that we did as kids, that just light little sparks?

We had a great holiday. The girls were tired out by all the excitement. I am so glad Jonathan was home or I don't think we would have done anything fun (because he is the fun parent-always has been).  

God bless America.