Klingensmith Wedding #1

Bryan's sister, DeAnn, had 3 of her 6 children get married this summer. Kelsey and Aaron Tucker got married at the end of June in the Jordan River Temple.



The happy couple

The Bungalow in Pleasant Grove, reception site.

 

Grandma &Grandpa Boyer

 The oldest Boyer grandchild, Kris, getting a youngest grandchild sandwich.

 The food at this reception was AWESOME and they kept bringing it out!!

 Cara caught the bouquet

Jordyn needed her own flowers too... It was a great day for the family.

Warning! You may not want to scroll down...

We have some friends, the Stoneciphers, that we met through Cara's YMCA volleyball team. They are awesome people. They have two daughters who just happen to be the same age as our two daughters. It just made sense to be friends. We sat by them at all the games, went to lunch together once and were invited to dinner at their house at the end of the season in June.

Here is Dave giving Cara a ride on his custom painted motorcycle. He drove her around the neighborhood and then offered me a ride. I said no thanks...

Then he offered Bryan a chance to drive the motorcycle...

The following is evidence that Bryan should have said no thanks as well...

 Burns, bruises, meat scraped off his toes, wounded ego and total embarrassment were the injuries.

Thankful that it wasn't much worse!

Girl's Camp 2010



Our tribe name "Mahanamakamaka" (Friends with the light of Christ)



So I was called to be the Girl's Camp director for our ward this year. It was especially exciting because it was Cara's first year to attend. She was not offically in YW yet but because she was going into 7th grade she could go. The poster above was for our fundraiser. It was a total success!



How many YW can squeeze into the Bishop's truck?



The before picture

 

Our Iron Chef Dutch oven masterpieces



Catching fish. Cara was really good at this!

Singing Camp songs. Some of these are the same as when I was a youth...



Leading a song at lunch time. "The Princess Pat"



  

Safety goggles? Check.



Sharp-shooter

 

Swimming on the last day of camp.

 

The Last Supper



I loved spending time with these girls. Especially the one in green next to me. The week was full of fun memories and I feel blessed to have gotten to go for her first year!

Hmm... I'm thinking someone was bored...

The Sunday before we left for Utah one of our favorite young men sat right behind us... the next thing I knew Jordyn was showing me the sacrament program that Josh had drawn a picture for her on... She didn't appreciate the fact that he'd drawn her brain as an acorn!

Not to be outdone, Jordyn decided to draw a picture for him! Here she is holding me on her shoulders while Josh can only hold a furry dog and a furry cat on himself while he's getting stormed on. Jordyn adds that he falls over from this as well.

Then (and this one made me laugh so hard it was almost embarrassing!) the next one came over the pew. I had to look really hard to see Jordyn underneath the sumo wrestler...

Finally, Josh drew Jordyn being sawed in half by his magician alter ego.

Here is the artist himself - Josh Green. I actually think he's quite talented but maybe we shouldn't sit in front of him again... ☺
Sorry for the photo quality it was my camera phone...

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

   The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History got a major face lift last year. When it reopened we decided to get a family membership.

   My camera batteries died before long but I did manage to snap a few shots of the girls digging dinosaur bones together....

Constructing houses...

And doing some major shopping.

   The museum also right now has a Leonardo daVinci exhibit that is spectacular and very much hands-on as well as a 4-D movie on Barnett Shale. The girls love the part where is shoots water out at you.

We'll be back soon!

Trampolinas

The girls love to jump on the trampoline when the sprinkler is on underneath. It makes me happy when they can play and have fun together!

Cara says it looks like she's sitting on the fence in this picture!

Kindergraduation

Jordyn's kindergarten year was a very good experience for her! She absolutely adored her teacher, Ms. Kennedy and learned many new things that she would come home and tell us all about. Her reading and writing skills increased by leaps and bounds. I am amazed by her progress! The end of the year culminated with a song-filled morning kindergarten graduation.

Here she is in the middle of the pack singing, "The World is a Rainbow". I remember singing this song when I was in elementary school. ☺

Getting ready to sing "A Toody-Tot" and hanging out with her buddy Nazir from Pre-K. He's a great friend to Jordyn!

This is Ms. Kennedy. Jordyn says, "She is beautiful and nice and she loves me a lot each and every day! She taught me about things like being nice to people and she loves when I listen to her. She likes to talk about things that are really good like writing center and home center. I love Ms. Kennedy two thousand!"

We love you little one.♥

Jordyn's First Straw Hole

I tried my best to not be such a freak about Jordyn's first loose tooth. I really did. Good intentions...

In the end, after over two weeks of that tooth jiggling, wiggling, and tormenting me, I had Bryan hold her arms while I jerked it out quickly. I swear that tooth was taunting me. Jordyn was actually happy that I got it out - I promise.

In this photo you can see that Jordyn had been avoiding brushing around the loose tooth for awhile. Actually, don't look. It's not pretty...

Here she is with her trophy. I doubt there's a kid out there who was more excited to lose her first tooth. ♥

Stake Conference Shout-Out

We attended Stake Conference on Sunday.

We expected to see old friends from 5th ward. We expected to be uplifted by some great speakers and beautiful music. We expected to have sore buns after sitting for 2 hours on folding metal chairs.

We didn't expect Cara to be mentioned in a talk. Seriously.

Sister Gennell Jones was Cara's primary teacher in 5th ward when the stake realigned two years ago. Two years ago?! She is now the 1st Counselor in the Stake Relief Society. She prefaced her comments with, "I was teaching primary a few years ago and there was a young lady in the class who, I hope won't mind me sharing this..." My ears perked up and I thought, "Could she be talking about 5th ward?" She was speaking about testimonies and she said something to the effect of how she was impressed with Cara's ability to have a strong testimony even though she was the only member of the church in her whole school. You should have seen Cara sit up quickly and look around shocked that someone would remember her! People around us started turning around and pointing even. It was completely unexpected.

It reminded me again of how blessed I am to be the mother of these two sweet girls. It brought up a good discussion about how others ARE watching and paying attention to what we say and do. It was almost as if I watched Cara's self-esteem rising. Awesome.

Sometimes I feel that I don't deserve them. We'll see how I feel after we get through the teenage years. :) And actually, we sat on the last row of cushy chairs...

Whirlwind Weekend

Many months ago I agreed to go on a scrapbook retreat with some of my oldest, dearest friends. The dates happened to fall on my birthday weekend and I figured that would be a nice birthday gift for myself. As the date came closer things started accumulating for the same weekend and I started regretting the decision to go on the retreat.

Here's a list of all the things I missed while I was gone this weekend:

• Bryan got tickets to the Ranger's game Friday nights. Jordyn managed to make it through a whole game and they even stayed for the fireworks.
• My school's Family Fun Day. Only THE best school carnival you've ever seen. Complete with ginormous rock climbing wall and Cara performed a flag routine with the Ensemble girls and a dance routine with some friends.
• Cara's volleyball game where I'm told she was a rockstar.
• Jordyn had a friend's birthday party to go to.
• My dear friend's oldest child, Charlie, got baptized on Saturday night.
• Both of my daughters bore their testimonies in church on Sunday. SO sad I missed that one!

Needless to say, Bryan had some serious running around to do to keep up with the weekend's activities...

While I did miss out on way too much family time, I did enjoy myself immensely.

• I completed all the work I took with me. I honestly didn't think I would get as much done as I did so I could've brought more to work on.
• I spent more time laughing this weekend than I have in a LONG time. My face hurt from laughing not long after I arrived.
• I got a break from the hustle and bustle that each weekend seems to bring whether I'm ready for it or not.
• Had many deep conversations about life and children.
• I actually slept in until 9:30 yesterday morning. I can't remember the last time that happened!
• Bryan made dinner Sunday and Cara baked and frosted a cake for me.

It really was a great weekend! Can't wait to do it again!

All I Can Say is Wow...

This is what it looks like when your 11-year-old misreads the recipe...

These are my Grandma Perkins chocolate chips cookies. Instead of a cup and a half of flour, Cara only put in a half cup... I think it's hilarious that the chocolate chips are resting on top of the flat, flat, flat cookie crisp.

Is it bad that I ate some anyway? ♥

Excuse the picture - it's with my phone camera...

Snow Much Fun!

So it's nothing compared to the slamming the east coast is taking but for Texas it's a BIG deal!

Bryan says it's the most snow he's ever seen here and he's a lifer...

We've got 8 inches of snow and it's still coming down. School was cancelled for tomorrow before we even left the building today. That's a first!

Our usual Texas snowman is a foot or so tall...

Jordyn and our neighbor buddy Cole.

Just don't eat the yellow snow, right grandma?

I don't know why she thought this was so fun but she slammed numerous snowballs on her own head...
That's a full-on Daddy snow angel. Love it!

The is the backyard around 4 this afternoon. There's so much more now - it's intense!