Briana and Eddy's Wedding in Utah!

So blogger messed up the spacing on my pictures and wouldn't let me download more than one at a time, which means there's no way I'm dowloading again! So top to bottom:

1. Briana and I shortly at their reception.

2. Julianna and I at the table. Uncle Christian found crayons so Julianna could make a book. She just had to make one, so we used a napkin!

3. The cake cutting was fun to watch!

4. On the steps of the beautiful Salt Lake Temple ready to take pictures.

5. Briana and Eddy right after they came out of the temple. The sealing was so wonderful, and even my parents got to attend.

6. A family shot while we were waiting.

7. The Bountiful Temple, where they received their endowments the night before. Another wonderful experience with Joel's family!
8. A walk to the park the morning of the endowment. This was Blake and Will holding hands. They held hands the whole walk. It was too cute! We stayed at my parents' house in Utah, where my sister Callie's family was living (but not anymore!) so they got some good cousin time (before everyone got sick, that is...)

9. Lily and Julianna on the slide.

10. Feeding the ducks at the lake by the park.

We had such a great trip last weekend to Utah to attend Joel's sister Briana's sealing to Eddy Mann. It was such a memorable experience! The drive went well, and besides my family getting sick, everything was great!

The Bookmakers

Some drawings done by Blake (Joel did the Bat signal).
Julianna loves to draw stick figures.


Blake showing his aquaman.

Blake's Ironman and Green Lantern (notice how he tries to spell them! I love it!)

My kids are WAY into making books these days. By this I mean, I get some sheets of printer paper, fold into four, staple the side, cut across the top, and they have 16 pages front and back to make into whatever they want. It all started when we did social stories for Julianna last summer (a way of teaching a behavior through personalized stories). Now when Julianna's therapists come over, they ask what she wants to do, and it's always, "Make a book." And sometimes when we are feeling ambitious the books involve cutting squares and drawing the pictures, then gluing onto bigger squares of construction paper. We have so many handmade books around the house, and Julianna even has a special bag full of them that we had to go through because the bag was bursting. Now when we are feeling REALLY ambitious we will go to google images and print out characters for the pages and make up a story.

The great thing about these books is you can choose a problem behavior and make a story to teach them how to overcome it. This is what I have done for Julianna many times and they seem to work. Another great thing is Blake is becoming quite the creative kid, and artist. On Sunday, he got a bucket full of his toys, asked for a new book, and drew a superhero/toy on each page all by himself, complete with the name below that he sounded out by himself. Some pictures of the books are above. Anyone want to donate paper? :)

School pictures

The BIG kindergartner!

The BIG 2nd grader!

BOTH my kids are in school now. I can't believe it! They are doing well and I love that I can volunteer any time! (Without younger ones, it's pretty easy!) The pictures might look fuzzy because I took a picture of their pictures on the wall.