Szokes

First off, I must take this opportunity to say THANKS JENNA, for letting us have copies of all the pictures! Our camera was mostly dead so we didn't get many pictures from the rest of the trip. Jenna saved our bacon! (How's that for credit, Jenna?) :)

The weather was great! Cool and crisp, only needed a sweatshirt or light jacket. The girls enjoyed playing outside in the yard with Jessica and Deena.


One day Jessica got to stay home from school so we could go visit a pumpkin patch and corn maze. We had so much fun!

I love that Deena and Kenna are sharing-Cute girls! We missed Morgan!
They had several of these painted cut-outs scattered throughout the maze the girls enjoyed posing behind.

Deena had a little help from Uncle Mike on this one!

That's a seriously big pumpkin! Not quite as big as Uncle Jason's though!

Bryn looks so little between us!

The stroller wasn't really cut out for the off-roading required for the corn maze.

I love this picture of beautiful girls with beautiful mountains in the background. I wish I could say I took the picture perfectly placing the mountain when I stole Jenna's camera. But actually didn't notice the mountains until I saw the picture on the computer.

Jenna was a little friendly with Casper. :) It made us all laugh!

Goodbyes are never fun! Thanks for letting us stay with you Szokes!

Grandma and Grandpa

On our way down to Utah County, we stopped by to see Grandpa and Grandma at my cousin, Kaylene's house. It was so great to have them up at the baptism, but I didn't get to talk to them much and didn't get to say goodbye. Grandma and Grandpa stayed for church on Sunday, but left right after Sacrament Meeting. Brynlee was pretty sick so I only stayed at church long enough to see all the Desmond kids say their parts in the Primary Program and then headed to Melinda's house to let Bryn nap. I thought they were coming back to the house after church, and was so sad I didn't get to say goodbye. So I was glad we stopped for lunch with them and got a chance to visit (and say goodbye). They are so wonderful!

Catching Up with Friends

Sunday after conference we went to our friends, Cheree and Brett's house. They moved from Idaho a few months after we did and it was fun to spend some time with them! They also came up to Idaho for the baptism. The kids had a great time together! We are excited to see them in Hawaii sometime when Bailee is 7! Thanks for sending me these pictures, Cheree!

Whitney and Carter-she loves being a big sister to him and he loves her!

The happy couple-Cooper and Brynlee.
He does still have some catching up to do.

Their first squabble
It was fun to watch them play together. One time we were in the kitchen and they were on either side of two open drawers emptying them. They started playing peek-a-boo with each other through the drawers. It was SO CUTE! I wish we had taken a picture!

Bailee and Kenna

Making YUMMY pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with Cheree!

Blackmail Photos

We let the girls have a sleepover in Bailee's room. They were so silly and stayed up WAY late! It was fun to hear the laughter coming from upstairs. I did finally have to go upstairs and sit with them so they would actually go to sleep.

The girls being silly-coming up with their own poses.

General Conference

The First Presidency
Henry B. Eyring, Thomas S. Monson, Dieter F. Uchdorf

When Whitney found out that we were going to be on the mainland for General Conference, she was so excited and asked if we could "please go see President Monson." She knew you had to be eight to go to the Conference Center and was very excited that be eight and newly baptized. We weren't planning on being in Utah yet for Conference, but since she was so excited to see the prophet, we wanted to do everything we could to make it happen. We were able to find three tickets to the Sunday morning session and my friend, Emily, volunteered to watch Bryn and Kenna. (Thanks, Em!) Whitney colored a picture for President Monson thinking she would be able to meet him and give him the picture. I don't think she had any concept of how many people (21,000+) would be at Conference. It was very sweet. I guess we'll have to mail it to him. We got up before 5 a.m. to get to Conference from Idaho.

The night before we left, we let the girls fall asleep with their cousins. It was so cute listening to them whisper with each other. (I wish we had taken a picture.) Em was bummed that she didn't have a "twin" so I climbed up with her and talked with her until she was ready to sleep. We miss all the little things we enjoyed living two miles apart!

Sorry- the pictures are terrible. We forgot the camera in the car and only had Mike's phone that didn't do so well with the lights.

It was a special time to share with Whitney. She was full of questions. When President Monson walked in, the whole congregation stood. I felt the Spirit confirm to me that he is a prophet of God. I leaned down and whispered to Whitney what I felt and she told me that she felt it too. It was well worth the extra effort. I hope she remembers that feeling forever!

Brynlee's 1!

I can't believe Brynlee has already been in our a family for a whole year! She has been such a blessing in all of our lives! Her sweet smile warms our hearts. I love how Whitney and Makenna celebrate just as much as Mike and I do in every little thing she does! We love our Bryn!

Her legs used to be skinny?! They certainly aren't now!

Grandma and Grandpa Jones plant a tree at their house each time a grandchild is born and Grandpa makes a plaque with the child's name and birthday. It is fun to watch the kids and the trees grow. Each time we are up there we try to take a tree picture. (I think Grandma has a picture of her with her tree last year, but I don't.) This is Bryn with her tree on her 1st birthday.

I meant to post about Brynlee's namesake last year with her birth announcement, but never did. It's better late than never, right? There are a few wonderful women that Brynlee's name comes from. My Mom, Peggy's middle name is Lee, so that is why we chose to spell Brynlee the way we did. Her middle name, Lorene, is my Mom, Ellen and also my maternal Grandmother's middle name. We figured it was the perfect fit. Brynlee Lorene Johanson.

Brynlee and Grandma Jones when she came to help while Mike went to start working in Hawaii.

Brynlee and Grandma Bowman

Grandma Jones made this cute page of Brynlee LOVING her cake. She was definitely a fan! And really enjoyed the ice cream, too. She doesn't know how to use a spoon yet, but the ice cream was too cold to eat with her hands. But she's a problem solver-she just leaned over and ate it right off the plate. Then she figured out that she could lift the plate to her mouth. It was so funny!

A month or so before her birthday Brynlee became fascinated with the girls' dolls. For her birthday we decided to get her a baby of her own. It was ADORABLE! She was really upset that it was attached to the box. After fixing that problem, she hugged and kissed it. And then wanted to let everyone else see, mostly Grandma and Grandpa. She would walk back and forth between them, handing her baby for admiration. When she deemed their turn over (2-3 seconds) she would "uhuh" for the baby back, kiss it, bounce it and head to show the other one. This game lasted for at least 20 minutes. SO CUTE! Then, with some prompting, she let the rest of us love on her baby. But she was mostly interested in showing Grandpa and Grandma.

My mom said watching her, she had visions of Brynlee someday bringing her real baby for them to admire. I'm not ready to think about that! I'll just stick with the doll. :)

It was sweet to watch the girls let Brynlee get all the attention and be so excited for her. They are GREAT big sisters!

Grandma makes personalized picture ABC books for the grandkids on their first birthdays. Brynlee LOVES her book. She calls it her "Nama" book and requests it at least once a day. Thank you, Grandma!! Especially now that we don't get to see everyone very often, it will be good for her to still be able to know faces.

Montana

We debated about going up to Montana on Tuesday or Wednesday, finally deciding to go Tuesday after Mike spent the day at BYU Idaho. We were glad we went when we did because it started snowing early Wednesday morning. Luckily we were able to drive up on dry roads, but still got to enjoy some snow.

The first skiff of AWESOME packing snow! It was so wet and heavy!

Mike borrowed snow clothes from my dad and made the bottom two sections of a HUGE snowman.

Since we didn't have snow clothes for the girls, we only had them help put the face on. (Winter travel from Hawaii is tricky that way. We only had sweatshirts, pants and tennis shoes.)

"What is this white stuff? I'm not sure I like it. Although, it does taste better than the sand I'm used to."

We got our dose of snow! YAY!

You've read the book, Snowmen at Night? "So if you're snowman's grin is crooked or he's lost a little height, you'll know he's just been doing what snowmen do at night!"

Sledding with Grandpa. Mom called a friend and borrowed some snow clothes so the girls could go sledding on Grandpa's hill.

The sledding hill was perfect. We got just enough snow to use it, but it wasn't crazy cold!

We tried to go snowshoeing at Bridger Bowl but there wasn't enough snow so we just hiked instead. Mom wasn't feeling well so she wasn't up for the hike. We missed having her there.

Brynlee didn't love the hiking backpack or having to be bundled up. (I guess she is a Hawaii girl!) She still wasn't feeling very well and I think she was cold. At the top she was pretty upset, so I took her out of the pack and zipped her into my jacket and she fell right to sleep. It was amazing how much warmer it is with an extra body. I felt bad I didn't take her out earlier.

It was a beautiful view! We took a picture of the girls sitting on the ski lift chair on Mom's camera, but I guess we didn't get one with ours. They thought that was pretty cool and were wishing that it was on so they didn't have to walk "all the way to the top!"