Evelyn turned 2 on Friday! Here are the two girls getting ready for the birthday party on Saturday.

 Evelyn "chose" her cake and her party theme. Clarisse gave her a few suggestions and went with the ones that Evelyn repeated back. So Evelyn had a princess party, and here is her pink castle cake.

 Of course, it's no surprise that she requested a chocolate cake. Yum!

 And here she is playing with her toys... Evelyn is still very excited to have new things to play with.

She loves her horses, and look, this one is big enough to ride!

We had so much snow this weekend, and Evelyn and Felicity enjoyed playing in it. Here is their little snowman. They didn't seem to mind the cold. Not as much as I did, any way. I was the one who decided it was time to go in....

As you can see, the snow was really falling!

Thanks so much to all of our family members who helped to make Evelyn's birthday special!

Here's a quick update on the vacation! We stayed with Grandma Marie for a week at her cabin. The cabin is by Navajo Lake if you know where that is...it's east of Cedar City. Anyway, We had a great time together, and Evelyn and Felicity really bonded with their great grandma.

 Evelyn was really intrigued by Grandma's big teddy bear. At first she was too shy to touch it, but eventually she warmed up to it. It was cute!
Evelyn loved being outdoors, and her favorite place was the meadow. She loved finding flowers and filling holes with rocks. She found a few horny toads which she called "corner toads."

 Clarisse and I were able to go out and do some exploring due to Grandma's kind babysitting. We were able to see some amazing sites including Cascade Falls.

 The hike to Cascade Falls has great mountain views as well as strange red rock formations. The falls are unusual; the water comes out of a hole in the cliff.

 We also visited Strawberry Point and looked out on those amazing red cliffs. I didn't go out onto the "point" of Strawberry Point at the request of Grandma and Clarisse. Instead I just observed the view from a safe distance.

There's so much we could tell about the vacation, but I am out of time and pictures. We really enjoyed playing board games with Grandma as well as eating cookies and delicious meals. Thanks for all you did to make the trip special for us Grandma Marie!

 We had a great week with Dennis and Robin being in town! The girls loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen. We really appreciate all you guys did for us while you were up here.

 Here we are feeding the ducks at Liberty Park. We had kind of a funny experience... At first no ducks would come and eat our bread, but we noticed that some very large fish were ceasing the opportunity. Eventually we lured in a few ducks, and then the geese that had been ignoring us the whole time decided to join in.

 As is the custom, Clarisse took the opportunity to sing in church wile her parents were there to listen. It was AMAZING! I had goose bumps.

OK, I ought to say a bit about all that the girls are learning even though I don't have a lot of cute pictures to go along with it. Evelyn is getting better at making sentences. Some examples are "I did it!" "I see you" and "I get you". She can alter tenses a bit too. For example, it we say "you did it" she will say "I did it" in response. She also can put words together like "sleep, bed" or "sleep, grass" when lying on the grass. She is getting more imaginative too. She has a little orange stuffed cat, and Clarisse and I were recently discussing a name for it. I suggested Ginger and Evelyn picked up on it immediately and started repeating the name over and over. She likes the cat so much more than she use to now that it has a name. Maybe it makes her toy seem more like a real cat.

Felicity has developed a lot too. She can actually sit herself up now, and she is often on her hands and knees trying to learn to crawl. She can't really crawl yet, but she gets around by sort of flop-rolling like a fish on land in slow motion. She really likes to be held in a standing position and has pretty good balance.

 On Saturday, we took the family to the Cathedral of the Madeline here in Salt Lake. Our objective was to finally get a look at the famous stained glass windows. I won't bore you with the details, but I thought you might like to see some pictures.

The rose window pictured above was Clarisse's favorite. My window if choice was the one shown below.

 I have one funny experience to share from our visit to the cathedral. When we first walked inside, Evelyn seemed nervous and clung tight. After she got comfortable, she started looking around and saying "sacrifice?" I have no idea where she got that from. I think that it's a word that she associates with Jesus. Or maybe it was the altars. Anyway, she surprises us.

Here's just a short post about our visit to the meditation chapel in Memory Grove Park. The park is just east of Capitol Hill in a ravine, and it is full of memorials to fallen soldiers. The meditation chapel is a memorial as well and was funded by the parents of a solder who died in World War II. The terraced area around the chapel has engraved stones with the names of local soldiers who gave their lives in World War II, and the chapel itself is closed most of the time.

 Clarisse and I herd that the chapel would be open for a couple of hours today, so we went to check it out. The chapel is small and only contains one room, but it is an impressive space nonetheless. The interior is all marble, and there is one large bench facing this engraved wall at the front.

 The most beautiful part of the chapel was the stained glass windows. There are four windows, and each one is dedicated to a branch of the military.

 The high ceiling was a sight as well. I didn't get a picture of the marble floor, but the floor and the ceiling have a similar design.

Anyway, it's just a small little place, but I thought that those of you who visited the park with us on Memorial Day might be interested in seeing the interior of the chapel.

 There isn't much news, so I will just share some pictures of the girls and talk about the things they are doing. As you can see, Felicity likes to ride on the little car that Evelyn got for Christmas. She can't move it herself, but she loves being pushed, especially if she is being pushed toward Evelyn (it's like a game of chase).

 Here is felicity showing off a little curl mohawk. She likes to be in the "push-up" position but doesn't crawl yet. She can get around a bit by flopping and rolling though.

 I wanted to show Evelyn's hair from behind because it's so long and curly. It looks like we put a lot of work into her hair, but we don't. It's all natural!

Evelyn is a runner! She likes to do laps in the yard while shouting "RUN!" It's a good way to get out the excess energy.

Well, that's about all the news (or all I have time for). Hope to keep up with this blog better in the future!

 We had a great time with Chris, Leslie, Sarah, Nathaniel, and Daniel when they came to visit over the Memorial Day weekend! Evelyn Loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa and her aunt and uncles!

 It was cold and rainy on Saturday, but at least Evelyn had an opportunity to try out some of her new clothes. She loved this hat (she is pointing to this picture and saying "hat" as I type).

 On Monday we went to the Hogle Zoo. Here we are looking at some orange little monkeys.

Here's Evelyn playing ring around the rosies with Grandma and Uncle Flan. Hope that we can see you all again before long!

Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since the last blog post. Mom is hungry for pictures of Felicity. Now that we have internet, it will be easier to keep the blog up to date. Here's a great picture of three beautiful girls all ready for church. As you can see, Clarisse updated her hair style for summer. I like it!

 Here is Evelyn enjoying some outside time. "Outside" is her favorite place, and she asks to go out whenever a door is opened. Once she is outside, she heads for the nearest flowers. We have decided that Evelyn's two great pleasures in life are flowers and juice.

 Here is our growing Felicity. She is getting more smiley, but it is hard to capture in a photograph. She is a very observant baby and usually has an inquisitive expression on her face.

 I love my new job! I am learning some valuable skills, and I get to work with a group of nice, fun people. I don't know how to describe the work without using a lot of jargon. Basically, I do quality control testing for drugs that are manufactured at the site. I can tell you more about it if you are interested. If you aren't interested, I understand!

Spring is arriving as evidenced by all of the flowers that are spontaneously popping up in the yard. Whoever planted the bulbs in years past deserves a big thank you. Evelyn has developed an appreciation for flowers, and it gives her a new reason to like going outside.
It was a lot of fun having Bekah over for a bit before she entered the MTC. Evelyn loved playing with her aunt.
We were able to stop at Lisa's on the way to the MTC and visit with family. Thanks for all of the cookies, Grandma Marie!