Dear Arianna, (5 years)

Dear Arianna,
This year has been incredible. I think we have have entered the realm of memory. I think you will start to remember parts from this year. We said goodbye to a foster brother and sister this last year, so have gone from being an older sister to having an older sister to being the only sister :) 
You have started piano lessons and love to sing and dance. Music has always been a huge part of your life and you use it to entertain and comfort yourself and others. 
You have also been doing swimming lessons this year. You are such a fish and have no fear of the water. You have had a hard time being away from me at times, but you have gotten over most of your separation anxiety. 
Sleeping has been a hard thing for you this year. You have had a lot of fears that we have had to combat. The current combination that works is listening to Magic Tree House, music from the baby monitor, 2 nightlights, and your closet light on. In the past we have had to switch your beds, blankets, lights, toys, and other wonderful thingy-ma-jigs :) 
You have continued to homeschool along side Deven. You can add and subtract numbers up to 10 and count to 100 by 1's, 5's and 10's. You can read at a beginning 1st grade level and love learning and experimenting. We have been learning about simple machines and your favorite is a wedge...I have no idea why...but it is. 
We have traveled  a lot this year. We have been back and forth from St. Louis and Kansas City multiple times. You have loved the children's museums in both cities. We have also gone to Nauvoo and Normal, Illinois, and our big trip out west. You love to travel and are great in the car...we have discovered audio-books and Magic Tree House is your favorite. 
You dress yourself every day and as part of getting dressed you pretend to be something...a character from a tv show or an animal. Every day you pretend. Every day you create stories to act out. Every day you throw your non-stop energy into being something else. 
You love animals...more than anything else, you love animals. Any kind of animal, you love to learn facts about them and pretend to be them. The other day to came to me with 2 baby dolls in your arms (a rare occurrence because it is always stuffed animals in your arms) and asked me to watch your baby foxes and proceeded to make them "growl". I guess the baby dolls were the closest you could find to a fox ;)
I am so excited for this next year. Every year has gotten better and I love the little girl you are becoming. You have a kind obedient heart and are quick to love and serve. We cherish you. 
Love,
MOM

Trip Out West (Part 2)

For most of the rest of the trip the pictures are self explanatory. We drove to San Diego and stopped at the temple there. We had hoped to be able to go inside, but it was closed for renovations. Then we met my mom and her brother on Coronado to start a real vacation...The kids saw the beach for the first time, got to pet a dolphin at Sea World and just hang out and relax. We were able to spend Friday and part of Saturday with my mom's sister and her family. We also went to the USS Midway and the kids got to climb in all types of airplanes.   We then tackled the 27 hour long car ride home...straight from San Diego to Springfield with a small detour to drop my mom off in Las Vegas. The kids did great, Ben drove through the night and we switched off...I would definitely do it again!

Love my girl

Ari called these the "nibble fish" they eat the dead skin off your hands

Trip out West part 1

We spent 2 weeks traveling out west. It was quite the trip and the kids did amazing! We drove through 10 states (about 4,000 miles), slept in 6 different places (including the car), renewed friendships, and saw prairies, foot hills, mountains, deserts, forests, and an ocean.
I will warn you, I didn't get as many pictures of people as I would have liked. If we were with people it was usually filled with talking and enjoying each others company.

I think Kansas was the only place boring enough to put them both to sleep

There was a beautiful rest stop in Colorado, about an hour outside of Denver.

Ari and Deven loved hiking Bridal Veil Falls. 











We drove up to Salt Lake and met up with Liz and Alan Graden. They were the ones that introduced Ben and me. (Of course this is the only picture I got, the kids were running all over the place!)

In Provo we stayed with Ben's cousin Royal and his family. Our kids had a blast playing together. I didn't get very many fun pictures at all but Deven and Zeke loved building together and all the boys came up with some crazy games.

We then drove to Bakersfield to visit our good friends Rachel and Shiloh Logan.

They had a leopard gecko...one of Ari's favorite animals.

While I was there I was able to do some family history. I was able to find my great-grandfather's obituary and gravestone. 

Then we drove down to San Diego and stopped in LA to visit Amy, a good friend from high school.