Camping

First camping trip of the summer - Marr Park in the pop-up!  Edith was the most excited.


Edith and Mommy lay down on their "wing" of the camper.


The big girls climb a cool stump with handholds cut into it. 


A scooter tour of the 3 unique playgrounds of Marr Park.  Daddy ran from playset to playset with Edith on his shoulders saying "that's my Daddy".


Edith was obsessed with the marshmallows as soon as she saw them hit the shopping cart at the store.  Finally, she gets to have her sugar (no chocolate, Edith does not like chocolate).  Alena and Nora each got to have 2 smores because they survived a trip on the merry-go-round on the first playground of the playground tour.  They had to hang out from the bars while Daddy pushed it around as fast as he could.  They didn't fall off, so extra dessert!


Reading books before bed is a great way to wind down and get ready for sleep.  After books, however, Edith was still not ready to go to sleep, so she began an hour-long monologue about camping, saying in a string "camping, fun, Mommy, stars, big pillow, little pillow, camping, moon.....".  On and on until she fell asleep - the last one to fall asleep.

Wet

Playing in the new water feature at Greene Square Park after a visit to the library.  Who needs a swimsuit.

Alena's first piano recital

Alena worked very hard and played beautifully!  Her version of "Over the Rainbow" was amazing - not a single wrong key was hit and she put a lot of feeling into it.  Aftwerwards, Alena commented that she really liked playing that grand piano, it sounded better than our $200 electric keyboard, which it should for $30,000.  Great job Alena!  Keep playing!

Last day of school :(

No more first or third grades for these girls......it was a great year....it will be missed.  Slow down the growing up, perhaps.

Here's the first day of school.

Christmas 2017

Prepping for Christmas can be a lot of work unless you have really good elves to help you out!

Adding the top to the tree.  

Hanging an ornament or trying to tear one off the tree?

The traditional co-hanging of the "JOY" ornament for the two Joy girls.

Looking good for something.....

Matching pajamas brought by our elf, Orange.  Cute girls!

Edith opens a present from Santa.

Alena opens a fairy door for her growing "fairy city" in her bedroom.

Nora claps for her little mechanical puppy.

We all sit down to play with the cool light-up cars and track with the singing, light-up drawing board.  Geesh, those toddlers get all the cool gifts!

The group at Grandma and Grandpa Jensen's.  Alena holds up a grey fox blanket.

Grandma and a bunch of crazy girls all hopped up on Christmas cheer.

Lab visit

Since Mommy had to work after Christmas, Daddy brought the girls up to visit the Lab, which they had been wanting to do for ages.  They finally got to see it all and Mommy showed them the many tools and instruments she uses.  They look good in lab coats, working the pipetter.  Alena has been obsessed with this rabbit fur hat (named "Fuzzy") and donned it as part of her official Lab gear.

Mommy the Snow Taxi

Mommy is working hard as a snow taxi, dragging a pretty large load down the

 snowy 30th Street to deliver a few neighborhood Christmas cards.

Santa

We got to meet Santa a couple times this year.  Neither was Norman Rockwell, but good enough for our family!

Alena and Nora stand in proximity to Santa at the Kirkwood Holiday Party.  A delicious meal served at 3:30 in the afternoon, with kids crafts and live music included.  Just be done by 5:30!  

Hy-Vee Santa!  Edith clearly loves it!

Cookie making

Girls making cookies with Grandma.

Edith and Miles each suck down a packet of applesauce.  

A November to Remember

As it does, life was fast and November was a blur.  Not to say that is was uneventful...it was full of great things as you will see....

Edith tries on some new winter gear.  She'll grow into it, once Nora is done with it, that is.

We visit the giant sloth at the Natural History Museum in Iowa City.

We didn't capture it in a photo, but Edith was very excited by the displays and twice ran smack into the glass at a full run trying to go see it.  She eventually figured out that there is glass there and we could only look at all the cool stuff inside.

Is this dangerous?  Yes. But allowing....encouraging a toddler to hang precariously between a microwave and an oven that could each open at any minute for the sake of a cute photo is always worth it. 

Edith's dream car.

Cousins chill at the Square in Washington awaiting the Holiday Parade.

More fatherly encouragement of normal kid activities.  Roof climbing to hang Christmas lights.

Edith turns 2!!!!!

Cake #2 for turning 2!

Daddy went on a work trip to Colorado Springs to the Broadmoor Hotel.  Super fancy.

Daddy's room.

Hike to a waterfall that is owned by the Broadmoor.

Part of a wildlife evening, also present were eagles and a wolf.

Super tasty and pretty dessert.   So...what was the conference about? .....does it really matter after all that?

Pumpkin contest

Alena and Nora each entered a pumpkin in the annual Erskine Elementry Pumpkin Decorating Contest.  Nora designed a "patriotic" pumpkin and Alena entered hers into the "most natural" category.  The stars aligned and both Nora and Alena won their respective categories by popular vote!

Daddy Builds a Kiln

It took something like a decade (plus), but Daddy and his friend Jeff finally got around to building a wood kiln of their own.  They worked on and off from May until October and had a lot of help from Cousin Alan, some girls, and Paul (very minor).  We'll have to see how it fires!?!

Alan digs a hole to fill with 3' of packed gravel as under-structure for the chimney and a more shallow are under the body of the klin.

Nora hard-packs the gravel.

Alena packs block sand on top of the gravel to fine-tune the surface for brick-work.

Yes....this small section of the kiln was actually level.  The rest of the kiln, who knows.

Hey Paul, now we can get to the hard work!

Last few layers of the chimney.

DONE!