Growing Up So Fast!

Gavin and Cierra had their very first opportunities to do the talk/scripture in primary on Sunday. Gavin did the talk, Cierra did the scripture. Cierra went first and read a scripture (or at least recited what I whispered to her, very well in fact!). Then Gavin did a talk on the same scripture. It was about serving God, and we went the Ammon route, about how Ammon served God by protecting King Lamoni's sheep and servants and then taught him about Heavenly Father. They both did SO well. They stood right up there and spoke loud and clear in the microphone. I was so proud of them. They are growing up way too fast!

Dankie (Afrikaans)...

Gracias (Spanish) , Merci (French), Is askwali (North American Hopi), and Thank you (English) to Matt and Angie for helping me to get the slideshow embedded on my blog. Without you guys, then I wouldn't be able to show everyone my cute little family in quite this way. I wanted to show my gratitude to you, so I'm saying thank you in as many ways as I know how (and a whole bunch more that I found on Google!!).

So... Blagodarya (Bulgarian), M goi (Cantoneese (for service)), Dank u (Dutch), Dankon (Esperanto!!!), Tashakkur (Farsi), Paldies (Latvian),Tika hoki (Maori), Dzieki (Polish), Moran taing (Scottish Gaelic),Khawp khun kha (Thai), Diolch yn fawr iawn (Welsh), and Ngiyabonga ka khulu (Zulu). He he he.

Cute Videos!

Jenny and Mitchell are some of our best friends.  We don't get to see them very often anymore (at least in human, non-WoW form) because they live in Hurricane.  They have some really cute kids named Tuesday, Cricket and Atticus.  These are some videos that Mitchell did with the kids.  Enjoy!  And Mitchell and Jenny, WE MISS YOU!!!!

Beautiful Ashley

Isn't she beautiful?

Warning!!!

Just to warn all of you, I just barely downloaded a bunch of pictures off of my camera (finally), and so I have put up a bunch of posts!  Sorry it took so long!

Gymnastics!

We are trying to find one good hobby for each of the kids (see the post below), and since we really can't get the twins to stop jumping on the couch and off of everything else that they can get on, we decided to try gymnastics with Gavin and Cierra.  We figure that at the very least, they can get some of their energy out and maybe our little accident prone Cierra will learn how to fall without hurting herself!  The picture at the top is of the twins in their little gymnastics outfits.  Cierra's is so cute!  I love it!  She also looks so big.  Gavin just wears little shorts and a t-shirt for his outfit.

Any pictures that I can take will be from a long ways away.  They take their class at the Legacy Center in Lehi (which is an impressive facility), and parents aren't allowed on the floor during class, so we go upstairs and watch from a balcony above the gym.  Here is Cierra in her first rotation.  It is  a little obstacle course designed to teach the kids how to follow directions.  She is crawling through the hole!

Here is Gavin in his first rotation.  He got to be on the uneven bars!  They were teaching them how to hold their body up on the bars by using their upper body strength to hold themselves up and have their feet pointed.

Cierra on the obstacle course again.  She is getting ready to do a front roll down the ramp.

Gavin's first rotation again.  He is walking on all fours on the parallel bars.

Here's Gavin on the uneven bars being supported by the instructor.  He will definitely build some upper body strength!

This was another rotation that the kids did.  It was to start to teach them how to do the vault.  But, they just ran and then jumped off a small springboard onto the mat.  Here is Cierra right after she jumped off the springboard.  She was fearless!  The instructor had to catch her!

Both of the kids really seemed to like the class.  Hopefully they will continue to enjoy it!

Ay-Yah!

We have decided that we really want to find one good hobby for each of our kids that they really like and that they can stick with.  We'll still let them do other little things (like seasonal soccer, etc), but we want to find something that they can focus on and really like.  With Ashley, we had tried dance earlier, but it just wasn't for her.  We don't want to push anything on her, so we decided to look for something else now that we are getting settled up here.  When we talked about this with Ashley, she said she really wanted to try karate!  So, here we are!  So far, she has gone to three full classes, and she absolutely loves it!  I like the program, too.  It really focuses on discipline and respect, not just punching people like most think.  On Monday, they even had a stranger-danger portion of class where they learned a new sequence dealing with self-defense and they tied it into staying away from strangers.  Then they showed them how to beat the cr@p out of them if someone grabbed them!  :)

Ashley is learning Kwon Shu karate at her studio in American Fork.  One of the things that I like most about this whole thing is the respect that is taught and shown by the instructors.  The kids are taught to say "Yes, sir!" or "Yes, ma'am!" whenever they are asked a question or if they go into Attention Stance (Ashley is in Attention Stance in the picture above, but her head is turned toward one of the instructors).  Not only are the kids required to show respect to their instructors, but the instructors show the kids respect, also.  All of the kids are referred to as sir, ma'am, miss, or mister most of the time.  The rest of the time they use their names, but to a 6 year old (and there are some 4 year olds in her class, too), I'm sure that means a lot!

Here is Ashley completing one of the sequences that they were being taught that day.  They get to yell "Ay-Yah!" whenever they punch or kick, and Ashley thinks that's pretty cool.  She is really starting to speak up during class, too.  I can her her along with all the other kids.  For those of you who know how shy she can be, that is a MAJOR deal!

Ashley is doing a balance exercise during her focus training.

Here, she is doing some kicks.  I'm so glad that we were able to get her into this class.  I think it is going to be great for her.  Oh, and it looks like she will be getting her first "belt promotion" next month!  She will go from a white belt to a white-yellow belt!  In her class (Little Ninjas class!  Isn't that cute?) they don't ever technically leave being a white belt, but progress from a white belt to a white-black belt.  By then they are usually in the juniors class where they can earn actual yellow, green, etc., belts.

Last Soccer Game

Soccer season is officially over.  We do city league soccer in the fall up here, and the season started in August and just ended last week.  Ashley played one game every week, and by the end of the season, she had decided that she really did like to play.  She did her very best each game, and was able to kick the ball quite a few times!  Way to go Ashley!!

Ashley is hustling to get to the ball.

Hustling again!

She kicked it right after I took this.  Great Job!!!

She is so proud of the medal that she got for being on the team.  We are proud of her, too!

Zoo Time!!

We decided to take the kids to the zoo in Salt Lake for a family outing on a Saturday at the end of September.  It was a perfect day, not too hot but still sunny!  The kids loved seeing the animals.  This was actually Ashley's second time to the zoo!  She got to go with her kindergarten class for their end of the year field trip last year, so she was excited to go back.  Above is a picture of the kids in front of the zebra enclosure.

This is a cool water feature at the entrance of the zoo.  It's a ball that has water running all over it that makes it roll around on top of the teeny little pool that it sits on.  I don't know how it works, but it sure was fun!

This is Gavin in the primate room.  He really wanted to see the monkeys, and you can see that he thought it was pretty cool.

Here's the elephants.  This was taken right before one of the elephants started to, um, relieve itself.  Gavin and Cierra kept asking why they were peeing their pants and not going on the potty.  How cute!

Ashley is touching a huge wooden sculpture of an elephant.  Every once in a while it makes elephant noises and sprays water out of its trunk.  We tried to get her to sit on the trunk, but she would only get close enough to touch it.

This is how Ashley would measure up to a gorilla.  I can't believe how tall she is getting!

Here is Gavin compared to a gorilla.  He's a little guy!

This was one of my favorite pictures.  Here is Cierra doing a gorilla with ATTITUDE!  Cute!

We ended our zoo trip with the train ride around the zoo.  Ashley and the twins sat in a seat together while Bryan and I sat in one behind them.  

It was a fun day.  Now that we live up here, hopefully we will be able to do this more often!