Raising Girls: ummm, I don't have a fun title today

sooo...yes, I know it's been awhile. But in my defense, we've had some problems. Our computer completely shut down (we think it was a virus) and we went to Texas for a week. So I haven't been able to post for awhile. But now I'm back.

In Maricela news, that girl is movin!! She's crawling all over the house. She can pull herself up to stand (and does it quite often). She follows her sisters wherever they go and has so much fun playing with them. And the girls are so sweet to her. They bring her into their little clubhouses that they make, they make special clubhouses just for her, they share their food with her (not always a good thing), they get her toys to play with, they read to her, etc. It's so neat to watch them play together and know that they're developing this strong sister bond. You can tell that they all just really love each other. Hopefully they won't lose that closeness during the teenage years.....

Yesterday was a great day. We had so much fun together. We went up American Fork canyon to swim in a lake in the middle of the mountains. The water was a little cold at first, but once you got used to it, it felt SO nice. Here are some pictures of us at the lake.

There was a little prairie dog (I think that's what it was) that came over to where we are to beg for some food. The girls thought it was so cute and Elena was trying to get it to eat out of her hand. He was just about to when she moved her head and it scared him off. She got bored of waiting for him (she really did a good job of staying still - I wish she would stay that still at church!) and never did feed him out of her hand.

But Keith did and one of our friends that was there did, too. It got to the point where we had to shoo him away because he was trying to get into the Doritos bag!

Amya definitely won the "staying in the lake the longest" award. She was like a fish! She had her goggles on and was swimming around in tubes and with water wings. She did not want to get out of the water. Her lips were purple and she was shivering, and we couldn't convince her to come out. After she finally did, she ate a little, warmed up, and then said she was going back in!!! Crazy girl!

Tea had a good time. She loves rocks and dirt, so she was totally in her element. She didn't like the cold water very much. It took her awhile to get used to it, and she didn't want her whole body to be in it. She sat on top of me while I was in my tube.

And Maricela had fun as well. She has recently discovered the amazing taste of rocks and dirt and we had a hard time keeping her from eating every one she could put in her mouth. She didn't like the water at all. I tried to put her in it, but as soon as her feet touched the water, she lifted her legs up to her b*tt so that she wouldn't have to feel the cold water. Needless to say, she spent her time on the blanket, trying to eat more rocks.

When we were all tired out from the lake, we packed up our stuff and headed down to the farm. We rested up there and hung out with Bonnie, Joseph, George & Angie & their kids, and Keith's mom. We lit some fireworks around dusk and the girls had a lot of fun with that. They must have thrown hundreds of those little poppers, and the girls had fun going around and stomping on the ones that didn't explode. (Notice that Elena's barefoot but that didn't stop her!)

We also had a lot of fun with the sparklers.

Amya took this shot of Keith, Maricela, and me. I like how she's looking up at us.

George and Angie brought those little neon bracelet and necklace thingies. I think the girls were more excited about those than the fireworks. They had a lot of fun making necklaces, crowns, and bracelets.