The Fourth

Just a few pictures from the festivities. I think this one is perfect: Daisy's sober-but-fascinated face, and her careful, not-quite-clenched hands.

Junie loved it all

Oohs and ahhs

The highlight of the parade, for these boys, was the American Fork band playing "76 Trombones" as they walked by

Four thousand people

Miss Daisy's vocabulary increases every day, with the unfortunate side-effect of making it almost impossible to guess what she's saying from context. Luckily she's getting easier to understand too, but every so often I just become totally perplexed. It's painful the way she enunciates so patiently for me, and I still so often remain clueless. 

There were a few days in a row we were driving in the car and she chirped out suddenly, "Four thousand people, mommy!" I could NOT understand where she was seeing them or where she got that figure.

"Four thousand people! Four thou-sand peo-ple!" she said more and more frantically. Occasionally I thought maybe she was saying "Four DOZEN people," but that was as far as I got.

"Show me the four thousand people!" I kept saying, and she'd say, "No, Mommy, I didn't say four thousand people . . . I said FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE!"

Finally she pointed and I looked out the window.

Oh. Oh! A Volkswagon Beetle. 

And now I know.

In the kitchen

Junie plays and plays with this little kitchen. She takes things in and out of the oven, drops things into the sink, turns the knobs, and stands on her tiptoes to reach things. Usually this is accompanied by singing or jabbering. It's adorable.

Snippets

Sebby is still building lots of things. After he builds them he wants to take pictures of them from every conceivable angle.

Space Needle

Water Park

The people next door to us are finishing their basement, which means there are lots of interesting things to watch from the window

This baby wreaks havoc and then installs herself in a little cubby

Daisy likes to pack a little lunch, then get onto her rocket and count down to BLAST OFF!

12 months of Juniper

One Junie year in pictures

Well, I thought this would be . . . more impressive somehow. She stayed kind of tiny, didn't she?  There was some hair growth, though, and it's fun for me to see all these pictures in succession.  After this I'll post another series too.

Annular Igloo

We did get to see some of the annular eclipse (or igloo, as Malachi called it once).  The eclipse-viewing glasses were great---much better than looking at a fuzzy crescent-shaped pinhole shadow.  Unfortunately, the sky got cloudy so we didn't see the totality (or, as total as it would have gotten here).  But we still thought the crescent sun was amazing!

Yaay!

Even with a few clouds moving around, you could tell a difference in the light. It was kind of filtered and soft (I don't know if you can tell from these pictures)

Various things

Here are the boys watching one of the fountains at City Creek in Salt Lake. We like the fountains very much. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to see the retractable awning in action..

Note the fire in this fountain (at the arrows). Amazing!

Daisy in her pink skirt

Junie in her customary post-nap attitude

We played at a park with some pretty tulips

There was much marching and singing going on

Junie got to this tulip before I could stop her. (Daisy can be seen wearing the same dress here)

I just love this picture

Malachi takes his sisters on a ride. Whee!