Daily Fun

This has been one of Chloe's and Porter's favorite activities lately.  Porter gets his head drenched with water and Chloe proceeds to style her little bro's hair. 

 

I love this look of, "I'm not sure I came to the right hairstylist".

At Christmas time I braided Chloe's hair like this and ever since then she asks for her little braids to whip around.

 Porter loves to walk in the snow, he really finds particular joy in squashing snow clumps and kicking snowman.

For Chloe's early birthday present and a Christmas present for Ted, they both got some ice skates!  Iowa is a perfect place to have ice skates, ponds everywhere!  Lucky for us, our previous Branch President has a pond in his yard and he and his family are more than happy to share their frozen pond.  

 While Dad and Chloe were on the ice, Porter was thrilled to find some sticks around Pres. Pence's yard AND to whack the snow with them.

At one of the family's homes that Ted home teaches at, they had these little bats that Chloe fell in love with.  So, naturally Ted came home and made some with his kids.  Dad is the best!

Words can't describe...

An unreal and unthinkable tragedy happen Sunday night.  Ted and I were playing a game and when done I realized that the computer's screen saver had been repeating the same 2 pictures for the past few hours.  Thinking nothing more than, "oh, the computer froze", we turned it off and went to bed.  In the morning I turned on the computer to see this:   

"This" sign turned out to be the last "picture" I'd see off our computer.  After taking our computer in to the Apple store for "surgery" as they call it, and waiting 2 painful days, the dreaded news came back that EVERYTHING (baby/vacation/special occasions pictures, documents/files), everything was gone... 
I thought my 3 year old Mac was immune to this and had put on the "to do eventually list" of getting my computer backed-up, but alas, I had never done it.
My heart broke, honestly, I can't keep back the tears even now...it's still broken.  However, and thankfully,  I have a remarkable and wonderful "big-girl" that has truly helped me through this. 
The morning we got the bad news, Chloe ironically asked if we could sit down and look at her baby pictures.  I explained as best I could to her that those precious pictures and videos were gone.  She said, "that's sad mom, I really liked looking at those pictures", "me too", I replied. 
Then, a few hours later while driving to an indoor play area and all the while, me- quietly mourning,  Chloe piped up from her car seat and said:

"Mom, I know that losing all those pictures is sad thing, I really liked those pictures.  

But, you know, people are what are really important in this world. 

And we are a family forever.

and look at the world that Heavenly Father made for us, 

it's beautiful and we get to enjoy it". 

Thanks to my sweet and ever in-tuned angel , I know I can make it through this...because I still have forever family and it's true "people are what are really important".  Thank you my darling Chloe, thank you.

**However, let this be a reminder to you all to back-up and "save" your info.  

Believe me the $100 bucks for a external hard drive seems pretty trivial right about now.**

Happy TWO years Porter!

Porter turned  2 last Thursday and we had a blast celebrating our little P-man's special day.  Porter is so full of life and always has something to say about everything going on.  His "cheez'er" is unmatchable and his hugs are irreplaceable. 
We love you Porter and we're SO grateful for the life you brought to our family.

"Truck Mania"

Fun in cooler weather

In order of events, this is what we've been up to the past week.  

Playing outside enjoying Fall weather

 Going to the Blank Park Zoo

 I actually went across this bridge...and yeah, the kids made it look easy, I totally almost fell on my face.

 I think this is a new addition to the Zoo, you'd better believe Chloe was thrilled!  (for those that need a nudge of a reminder, it's a monarch caterpillar)

Did you know the word "Iowa" means: WINDY? Well it does...

(at least in my book)

When our little Maple Grove Branch was created months ago, our Branch President came up with the idea to plant an actual Maple (tree) Grove, in his yard.  Well, despite that he, our Branch President, was released a month ago, he still went through with his idea.  It was so much fun to be at the Pence's house again, enjoying their lovely and paradise of a home and yard.  Planting the trees was fun for everyone, especially because the hole's had already been dug :) (thanks President!). 
Now when we make our way through Iowa years down the road we can stop by the Pence home and visit the Maple Grove we helped plant.

 Such a wonderful yard!

 I love this picture of Ted and P-man

Cold, but happy family :)

Happy Halloween!

Our Saturday morning started out kid-happy proof with watching a Tinkerbell movie and opening their Halloween package from Grandma Nancy (always something to look forward too), filled with plenty of yummy goodness.

The "Bugger-fields" roamed again!  I'm all about recycling anyway right, why not keep using the same awesome costumes?  Saturday night we all dress up (mom = lady bug, dad = grasshopper, Chloe = butterfly and Porter = beetle). We had fun doing a (very) little trick-or-treating and then went to our friends house for food and fun. The cheesecake at the top was made by Ted, we took it with us to the house party, doesn't it look AWESOME!

Originally, Chloe was Enchanted Christmas Belle, but after wearing it  for a couple different occasions (parties, dance class and zoo), she was wanting something different.  This picture was taken at the Zoo where the Kids totally enjoyed going wild.  There was a huge line to go around the zoo/booths to trick-or-treat, but we decided to skip all that and just go to the "fun-zone".  Good-times

 

Dance Class

A few months ago, Chloe started asking me to be her "teacher" for her (pretend) dance class.  I played along, but started to think maybe she was ready for a real dance class.  Well, I looked into and found a couple things out, 1- can be pretty expensive, 2- every dance class for her age had already started for the year and 3- all the classes were full.  Luckily, I felt inspired to contact my friend who had her girls in dance before they moved from Iowa and through her found a great ballet class for Chloe to do.  To help with the expense of dance (and the size of her class) the teacher (Mrs. Cindy) asked if I wanted to help in Chloe's class!  I love to be there and luckily it's the most beginner class possible so no real experience in dancing is needed .... :D

Raising Butterflies 2010 ~Sept 1st through Oct 3rd 2010~

Here is our documentation of raising Monarch butterflies for this year.

I believe we raised a total of 14 butterflies.  September 1st, Ted, Chloe and Porter went to the West Des Moines Library and caught a handful of caterpillars and then we'd through the weeks we'd gradually find more caterpillars.  Our first butterfly hatched  September 19th and today during the break of Conference our last butterfly left for Mexico ... :)

We all love holding the sweet little fragile butterflies on our fingertips and feel the whole process is just a wonderful miracle.  As always, thanks Ted for enlightening us with the wonders of this world.

 For those interested in knowing.  These little black-yellow-while striped caterpillars are found on milkweed.  They eat TONS of the milkweed and when they're baby caterpillars they can triple in size in one day... you can almost see them growing.

 After the caterpillars have had their fill of food, they then proceed to make their chrysalis. The chrysalis stays this vibrant green until a day before they're going to hatch (about 10 days).  Then the chrysalis turns into what seems to be a black color, but really if you look closely you can see that it's just a squished up Monarch, ready to break out.

 

Ta-Duh!

 FYI -the above butterfly is a female Monarch

 It takes around 3-5 hours for the butterflies wings to dry so in the beginning holding them is not only fun, but very easy as long as your finger doesn't get tired of acting like a branch or steam.

 It true that Porter loves sticks more than the butterflies, but he still enjoys pointing and looking at them.

 Cutest chrysalis I've ever seen... :)

 This was our last one today... good-luck on your journey home!

At one point we had about 8 butterflies hatch around the same time, but because of rainy bad weather we had to keep them inside for a bit.  The video clip is of letting many of those butterflies go.