Valerie

Well, I have some sad news today. My oldest sister, Valerie, passed away after fighting cancer for two years. She died on Monday and we attended her funeral on Friday in Pendleton, Oregon. When I told Jannika that Aunt Valerie had died, she said, "Mom, remember that if we get married in the temple we can see people again that died?" I just cried and hugged her close to me. I am so thankful for the gospel.
Valerie was a wonderful sister and when her family lived in Castle Dale when I was in High School, we used to talk a lot. We still had a good relationship when they moved but it was a little bit harder because of the distance. But whenever we talked on the phone we could just pick up where we left off. Our family does have a great tradition of writing a family letter every few months and keeping up to date on each other's lives. Valerie not only included news of her family but also her thoughts, feelings and insights, especially about the gospel. It is so wonderful that our family has these writings as a tribute to her life. She had a positive attitude through her treatments and had an ever firm testimony of the gospel. She was a great example to me. My only regret is that I didn't connect with her one-on-one as much as I should have. I guess it is a lesson to me to connect more with the people that mean the most to me. I love you, Valerie, and I will miss you.

My Kirst

Here are some things my babe is doing right now:

She is learning new words every day

She thinks the camera is called "cheese"!

LOVES Barney and Lala (Dora)

Calls Jannika "Gaka" and herself "Din-Den"

Loves watermelon and pop-a-ples (popcicles)

We sure love her!

My Jan

I know, I have some really random posts but I just keep finding cute pics that I would have put on earlier if I had known how to blog! Last night I was writing down some things about my girls so here's a few

Jannika:

Loves books and practicing writing

She is obsessed with Dora

She writes her name

Says the sweetest prayers

Says she wants to be a teacher and a mom when she grows up

Her favorite things are:

Long noodles (Ramen)

Sweedish Fish

Little Caesars breadsticks

Purple

Dancing and playing dress ups

I just asked her what her favorite thing to do is and she said, "I like to help people so they can feel better." (I have a suspicion that this answer might be because we just practiced her talk for primary tomorrow that was about service! What a sweetie pie!)

Last year's San Diego trip

Okay, now it's time for some nostalgia... I'm going to live in the past and put on some pics of our awesome trip to San Diego last year about this time. We had tons of fun with our friends, the Phillips, and we just want to remember this trip! We spent a lot of time at the beach, went to Sea World, Coronado Island, Tijuana (and almost couldn't get back into the U.S.!), the San Diego Temple among other fun places!

The Chocolate Face

Here's just a funny picture of Kirsten with a chocolate face. We had ice cream sundaes one night and she got a hold of my bowl that still had chocolate sauce in it. What a funny girl! She was eating away and as soon as I got out the camera she said, "cheese!" with this facial expression! She has been saying so many new things. She can put 3 words together like, "a daddy go?" She almost always knows the answer: "daddy boom?" which means daddy's vroom or daddy's truck. She is very into Barney right now( heaven only knows why) and wants to watch it all day. She also likes Lala (Dora) but not as much as Barney.

First day of school

Wow, I have really wanted to add to my blog for a long time but I haven't gotten around to it. Oh well, here's some updates. Jannika started preschool on September 4 and she goes 3 days a week for two hours each day. She loves it! It is called "See World Preschool" and it always reminds her of our trip to Sea World last year. It is so fun to see how grown up she is. On the first day of school we got her all dressed up in her new school clothes and she started to cry. I asked if she was scared to go to school and she said no; she was crying because her clothes were too big! So we had to put on some older clothes that fit her better and she was all set!