Visit to Arizona

Our trip to visit Grandpa and Grandma Rose and Grandma and Grandpa Scott was quiet and relaxing. Both sets of grandparents are doing well. You would never know that Grandpa Scott had open-heart surgery a few months ago. He is like the energizer bunny. He walks both morning and night. We had to keep a brisk pace to keep up with him! Grandma Rose is continuing to feel more energetic. She accompained us to the Mesa Temple on Thursday morning. After our session we wandered the temple grounds and took some pictures. We also went into the visitor's center. They have a photographic display called "Reflections of Christ." As we walked amongst the various pictures we were deeply moved by the love of our Savior. The photographer captured the compassion and love of Christ in the carious pictures depeicting his life. After seeing the photos we watched a video sharing the experiences of the photographer and the crew. A lot of effort was put into this display and I hope all of you will have an opportunity to see this it. (They are hoping to have a traveling exhibit that will go to each of the visitor centers.)

While visiting Grandma and Grandpa Scott we made a quick trip to Mexico. Not much excitement happens in Quartzite where Grandma and Grandpa Scott live, but they love being there.

Parkers bike

I thought I had posted these pictures but I guess I didn't so here they are. Parker now knows how to get on and off his bike. I loves to push it and it light enough that he can turn it if he runs into something. Some days I will find him just sitting on his bike. Though today he made progress. He moved about a foot, though he was sitting on the bike backwards. And he stood on top of it again today, but got down when I looked at him We are going to have to work on this one.

all boy with a little bit of mommy's helper

Parker's latest thing is to carry around an airplane. Shawn has one too and Parker can fly it around for ever. Parker is not allowed to play with the other airplanes because he pulls pieces off of them. He is such a daddy's little boy.

But when mommy is around he can be my little helper in the kitchen. I put an apron on sunday and he kept pointing at it and pulling at it so I put it on him and he walked around with a hot pad until we took it off.

Sunday Mornings

Sunday mornings are long at our house these days. We have church at 11 and finding things for the girls to do before church is always a challenge. I keep trying to get some cute pictures of Madison, but the girls usually get in front of the camera or Madi is too tired to smile. We captured a few cute ones this morning (too bad she scratched her nose yesterday). The girls were getting along for about 5 minutes and sharing the high chair while they ate their snack. In all the pictures either Katie or Hannah had their eyes closed, but I though this one was still cute.

"Nu"

This is snow and nose and no as Parker says it. He will point to your nose and say "Nu" and he will say this when he doesn't want anything and when it was snowing and we were talking about the snow to Parker he said "Nu" so we decided to go out and play and let Parker experience the "Nu" or snow as we call it.

Life at the Lovejoys

Three Cute Girls

Hannah wanted to have her hair straight so we straightened it and had to call Grandma and Grandpa on the "homework" to let them see. She is getting so grown up. This is Hannah's outfit that she wears every day except sunday and if it has to be washed (This is going to be one well worn brown shirt and "no hole pants" as Hannah calls them. She has a pair of pants that have holes in them. She used to wear them every day. I'm grateful she wears these pants. At least I'll get my money's worth for this pair. I've decided Hannah really has to be able to pick out her own clothes, so if you ever want to send clothes as a present for her, the money would probably be better. If she picks it out she is a lot more likely to wear it. I let her buy a sweatshirt at Old Navy for $4. She wears it almost every day, of course over the brown shirt. One day I was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt (not a nicer one, a real t-shirt one that I would wear to bed or exercise in). Hannah took one look at me and said, "Mom, you don't look cute."Needless to say when I really got dressed for the day, Hannah gave me the stamp of approval.

Parker is one

Parker is officially one now. He loved playing with the balloons on the ground. He didn't quite know what to do with the cake- but he loved the cars on top of it.

This weekend

A friend gave us a blue church shirt for Parker and i couldn't wait to have him wear and it look like he really goes to church. We thought he looked really cute in it. Though he is getting tough to take pictures of because he always wants to be on the move. during church we had a friend sit on the outside of the bench and he let Parker slip by him and Parker was off. His little walk is more of a run from what it looks like.

On Saturday I went with 4 other girls into the city for brunch. We had lots of fun talking and walking around the city for a while. Though it was really cold so we didn't walk as much as we had planned on. If you look really close the white things that look sort of like bowl are acutally glasses of hot chocolate. When we asked for hot chocolate we didn't think we would get a bowl- they even had a lion head on eat side.

This one if for Peter- i think you will know where this comes from. Just think Seinfield. We have all kinds of famous places around us.

This little trip into the city has given me a new adventure to look forward too. We would like to go visit the city a little more often- we just have to have a plan and then it is lots of fun.

Dad- if you ever make it out this way I will have to take you to a church that is really pretty. Construction was started many a years ago- more than 100- and it still isn't done. But they have a really pretty spiral staircase. Even the underside of it is gorgeous. I wish I would have taken a picture of it.

Reading Festival

Today we went to the 97.1 Reading Festival and got to meet George and Strawberry Shortcake. Hannah had her face painted. She also played Hockey and Katie and Hannah played in some jump houses. It was a fun morning!

Beautiful Girls

Here is Hannah before church last Sunday with her nails Painted and glow in the dark earings! She looks so old to me in this picture.

Here are the girls in their dress-ups before I cut Katie's bangs. I can't believe I waited so long!

why our toilet paper looks like swiss cheese

This picture tells it all. He must have eaten through many many layer and then he didn't wpit it out he chewed it and swallowed it.
He is proud of his work.

Baby steps

Parker just started to push chairs around the houselast week and laundry baskets and books. I think it is funny that he goes so fast, but he loves it. I am glad we have nice neighbors since it can get a little noisy. Just yesterday he took 4 baby steps actually more like shuffling steps and today he took 7 with some pauses. We are proud of our little man. Just in time for his first birthday!!

Castle Rock State Park

It was a very overcast day but we decided to brave the elements and go on a 4 mile hike at the Castle Rock State Park. If you like cloudy days it was the day to be there.
Mike, Diane and Jeff had a lot of fun climbing and finding places to hide. This is just one of the many rocky climbs that they went on. There were huge rock formations throughout the park. This is just one of them.
Mike and Jeff, the shadow men on the mighty peak. Oh my, it is really far down from here!!

Lookeee here!

Ok. I am hooked on this digital stuff. This was the third or fourth try for this page and I finally did something that I really like. I ordered my own adobe photoshop elements version!

Christmas photo

I'm not sure how well these photos will blow up. We tried to take a family picture at a friend's house but she didn't have her camera on a high resolution.

Santa and Christmas mix

Parkers first visit with Santa. Started off ok:
Ended in tears:

Parker enjoyed the Christmas mix. He loved playing with the bag. He even liked eating it too. I only gave him a couple of pieces but once he finish one peice he would come back for more.

Clapper

Parker just started to clap yesterday at dinner. We thought we would get it on video for everyone to see. He is in the mode of copying everything that we do. I clicked my tongue yesterday and now Parker will do it. To listen to the video you have to pause the music on the bottom right of the page.

Once there was a snowman

Peter stayed home to study today so while Katie and Madison took a nap, Hannah and I made a snowman. It was great packable snow. Then we made cookies to deliver for a secret santa going around our ward. Then Hannah unrolled rollos for pretzel/rollo/pecan treats for a party we are having tomorrow night. Tonight we are going to our ward Christmas party. The girls are very excited.