miss else.

our sweet elsie turned four last week. she brings such a joy and life to our home. she is our free spirit who loves life, wearing pajamas, her buggy blankies, yellow, polka dots, having her hair down, the zoo, playing with her sissy and ruff housing with her bros.  

for her fourth birthday celebration she requested we go to javier's for dinner so she could order her favorite, rice & beans. she even was spoiled with a birthday song and fried ice cream. thursday we went to the zoo with cousins, a few days before the big day because of baseball games. luckily we were watching 4 cousins for a few days and so that made elsie's bday even more special. we got to see the new safari park at the zoo. and...best part of elsie's birthday zoo trip was the train is working again!! wahoo! 

on her birthday she requested blueberry muffins for breakfast, which she doesn't really eat, just the sugared muffin top, mini corn dogs for lunch, and waffles for dinner. we went to 2 baseball games that connor said he won for elsie. after dinner we had water world with cousins. she requested an umizoomi cake, which we accomplished by printing off umizoomi pinwheels and putting them on top of the cake. i made her favorite, carrot cake, which is almost all of the siblings cake of choice. 

for presents she got a suitcase, 2 new buggy blankies and a skirt. she was also spoiled with presents from grandmas & grandpas, aunts & uncles and cousins. it was a great day indeed. 

elsie, we sure do love you!

passport sticker number five.

this week we visited the brigham city temple. this is one of my favorites. i think a lot of it has to do with all the family history we have in brigham. we headed up with sara and kids on wed afternoon after naps. connor wasn't too excited to do another temple, but quickly changed his mind when we got there. we've loved taking pics next to the water feature at each temple. we've figured out they are always on the east side. we also noticed little pepper plants in pots and also planted throughout the flower gardens. also, two clumps of corn stocks in the flower beds along a rock wall. also, many, many fruit trees throughout the grounds. most of them the fruit was still very small, but we thought looked like pear based on their shape.  the peach blossoms on the stained glass windows and on the carved into the rock on the sides of the temple were beautiful. they are also etched in the fence posts.

afterwards we drove over a few streets east to the cemetery and found some packer graves. the kids' great~great grandparents grave on the packer side. we looked for smith ones, but didn't have success...next time... we also found lorenzo snow's grave.

temple passports.

this summer as part of our summer fun list we got the kids temple passports. they are a little blue book that lists all the temples in ut and has a sticker to put on each temple page when you visit that temple. we're determined to do as many as we can. some may be too far to travel in the short few weeks of summer, but we're gonna try! :) so far we've done 4. bountiful, logan, jordan river and oquirrh mountain. it's been really fun to learn a few new facts about each temple and also for the kids to visit and hopefully begin to realize how special these buildings are and how blessed we are to have so many so close to us. 

bountiful temple ~ we visited last wednesday 6.4.14 around lunch time so cory could come along during his lunch. we packed a lunch and had a picnic on the grounds. but first we went to visit grandma shirley's grave. that day marked the 5th anniversary of her passing. we sure miss her. will must miss her a lot because he face planted on her headstone and imprinted the 'a' on his forehead. poor boy. :(  

logan temple ~ connor had 2 comp baseball games in logan on saturday 6.7.14, so we drove over to the temple after the games. it was pretty crowded cause it was a saturday, but still so nice to be there. the kids loved the huge hill in front. they each rolled down, except else {she was worried it would hurt her tummy}. not too reverent, but fun for sure! we learned that the logan temple used to be painted white. 

jordan river ~ today 6.11.14 we ventured down south and west with sara and cousins. we stopped here first. we learned this angel moroni is one of 5 that carries the gold plates. it was pretty cool to see. we also liked the little strawberry plants throughout the flower beds. they were quite pretty and looked yummy! :)

oquirrh mountain ~ 6.11.14 after we visited the jordan river, we drove through mcd's, got lunch, and drove a mere 7 minutes down the road to visit another temple. south jordan is the only city in the world to have 2 temples in it. we also thought it as cool that the granite came from china.

we're excited to see what other adventures our temple passport will bring!!