Trip to Springfield

We had an exciting trip to Springfield, Illinois last weekend! Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield for about 25 years, and was buried there. We went and saw the Lincoln Museum, the Lincoln home, and the Lincoln tomb.

Here we are with the Lincoln family.

We got to take a tour of Lincoln's home, redone to be like it was when he lived there.

Jessica was very worn out after that and promptly fell asleep in her car seat, so I just sent Nate out to see the tomb up close.

We then drove on to St. Louis, Missouri and spent the night so we could go to the temple in the morning. Our hotel had a swimming pool and Jessica went swimming for the first time!

St. Patrick's Day

We had a fun St. Patrick's Day this week! Jessica has been wearing our clover beads around for quite awhile. She loves to drape things around her neck!
I made a rainbow jello to go with our green dinner. In the pan it kind of just looked like a brown mess, but when cut into small pieces it turned out really cool! It had lots of fruity flavors.

Mischeivious Baby!

Cute picture, huh? It has nothing to do with my story...

I put Jessica down for her nap as usual after lunch and after going in to change her diaper once I thought she would really be ready to sleep! Meanwhile, I was reading. Sometimes Jessica would be babbling away and sometimes she would be quiet for so long I thought she was asleep. She was pretty happy, but she had been in there an hour, so I thought maybe I would take her on a walk to see if that would help.
I went into her room and pulled her out of her crib, and started to get things we would need to take (binkie/blankie) when I noticed a wrapper in her crib. ("I wonder how she got this?") It was a dumdum wrapper-banana flavor! I figured she must have grabbed the wrapper out of the garbage and taken it to bed without my noticing...but then what were the little bits of paper doing around her mouth, and how come her eyebrow was all sticky? After some further investigation, I found two halves of a dumdum stick lying on the floor by her crib. I also found on our walk (in the light of the sun) that her face-and ear were stickier than I thought.
I think I would have noticed if I put her in bed with a sucker, so I think she must have put it in her crib earlier. The question is, can a 14 month old think, "hey I will just put this in my crib and then later, when mom isn't watching I will unwrap it and eat it?" If so-who gave her a taste of a dumdum that would make her want to do that?

Alden's Wedding

We had a very fun trip to Utah, but, as usual didn't take as many pictures as we should have. It was so much fun to see our families!
Alden and Kira's wedding was beautiful!

The "three-some" (Kerry, Nate and Alden) and wives.

Jessica Walking

Well it took me awhile to finally get the video, and then to put it up, but here it is! (Somehow in all the buttons I was pushing I got a soundless video!)

Jessica's Laughs

Nate fixed our computer so it will accept our movies again (I think it is amazing how he can do that!) We took this video sometime after our New Year's party. We just can't quite get enough of Jessica!

Coming soon....Jessica walking (as soon as we can catch her on camera!)

A New Year and 1 Year

We had a great visit with Crystal while she was here! She was here for 9 days, but the time flew by! We picked her up at the airport in Chicago and rode the train into town. We got Chicago-style hot dogs, then went to the Sears Tower. We went up to the "skydeck" which was over 100 stories up! We stood in line forever so when we got to the top it was dark (and Jessica was asleep). It was really beautiful to look out and see lights everywhere-except Lake Michigan.



We also had a great time celebrating the New Year. It was fun to be able to play some games for more than 2-players! We also got to open a lot of fun surprises from Nate's parents who sent us a "New Year's Party in a Box" for Christmas.

We also took a day trip to Nauvoo, and stopped at Carthage Jail on the way as well.

Jessica had her first birthday while Crystal was here!!!!!
She still didn't quite understand about unwrapping presents, but she seemed to enjoy cake right off.



Crysy and I used my new cake decorating book that Nate gave me for Christmas to decorate Jessica's cake.