Life in Lewisity

Happy Sixth Birthday Carolee!

2010-07-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

How have six years slipped by so quickly? I really do understand how she could have gone from this:

Newborn Carolee

To this:

.....So quickly!!! Our Carolee is growing up fast! She turns six today, and is still such a girly-girl! She loves playing house, dress-up, & princesses. She has so much fun with her neighborhood friends, Emma, Shelby, Kolbee and Haak... among others. She is so kind with people feelings and likes to help people feel better. She loves to learn about Jesus and His gospel. She looks forward to going to American Heritage School in the Fall to start first grade.

Carolee loves to help Mom cook and bake, and doesn't mind the clean up either. She is such a great friend to her sister, Brynn. They can play for hours with only minimal refereeing by Mom. She is a wonderful helper and loves to play with her baby sister, Averee, who adores Carolee so much! She can make Averee laugh and smile when no one else is able to. What fun this girl is! We're so happy and blessed to have her in our family. We love you, Carolee! Here are some pictures of Carolee as she has grown up:

First Halloween- 4 months

16 months old

Getting into Mommy's Mascara

2 1/2 years old

Easter 2007- almost 3 years old

Halloween 2007

3 1/2 years old

5 years old- dressed up and did her own makeup

This girl can pull the funniest faces!

What a Rock Star!-- At the Fourth of July Parade 2010

What a beautiful, loving girl we have! Happy Birthday, Carolee!

Geocaching

2010-07-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Jon came home from school one day and told me about something he had heard about called "Geocaching", and said he wanted to try it. I had heard about it a few years ago when we lived in South Dakota, but had forgotten about it, because I thought we'd never own a piece of technological equipment so advanced as a GPS device!
Fast forward five years, and here we are with GPS on our phones. So being the high-tech family we are, we could now give it a try! For those who don't know, Geocaching is basically a big treasure hunt. People hide containers, called geocaches, outdoors and put the coordinates online for people to find. Here's the website we used to look up where to go: http://www.geocaching.com/
We had grand visions of finding great treasures and exploring vast caverns, monolithic mountains... going places no one else had ever seen (except, of course, the people who hid the Geocaches there)! Then reality set in, realizing we had only two hours and three kids under the age of six. We wrote down a few coordinates to find and set out for our high adventures in Lehi, Utah!

We traveled down the road to a field behind the Elementary School. Following the map on Jon's phone, we came to the location where the Geocache was to be hidden. And find it... we could not. We searched high and low. Under rocks, behind bushes, on telephone poles. So we decided to try another one. After a couple locations of unsuccessful hunting, we found ourselves on a dirt road by the Jordan River in west Lehi.

Fun on the dirt road

Averee and her Daddy

Taking Time Out for a Kiss

Ahhhh... Fresh Air!

Skippin' on Down the Road

Gathering "Treasures" (flowers)

Brynn, so proud of her findings

Carolee wanted to pick every flower she saw

As we were walking, we came to a torn down old house near the river. After doing my motherly duties of warning the girls of critters that could be lurking in the rubble, I sent them on their way to explore.

The crumbling sidewalk around the pile of debris

This would be a great location for our next house!

After disturbing the ghosts who, I'm sure, thought they were at peace in this remote location, we figured out that we were on the wrong side of the river. So, instead of doing as I suggested (crossing over it with the kids on our backs, leaving all else behind.... just like the pioneers), we went back to the car to drive around it... Where's the fun in that? Just kidding... I'm sure I was the first one to get to the van, and relish in the cool of modern day air conditioning. I'll leave the crossing of rivers to the pioneers.

Safely on the other side of the river, we found a bike path to follow to get to our ever-elusive Geocache. The path led us near the river, which held lots of wildlife for us to enjoy.

A gorgeous black and yellow bird perched on a reed

Fish splashing in the water

We saw a lot of fish in shallow water near the edge of the river. After much excitement watching the fish, we continued our hunt. We consulted our GPS and went to the exact coordinates our hidden treasure was to be found. Again we searched high, low and everywhere in between. NO LUCK! Seriously, those things are really hidden! Someday maybe we'll find one and there will be rejoicing and feasting and all sorts of celebration. Until that day however, we will keep making memories like we did this, the first day of our geocaching adventures!

Hello... Is It Me You're Looking For?

2010-07-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

I KNOW! All of you out there who have been asking me or making me feel guilty for not doing my blog or shaming me with your adorably cute pictures on your own blogs..... here is the Lewis Family, back in action.

Were we ever really in action? I mean, two pictures of Christmas a year and a half ago is not what I call active. Let's face it, I've been blogging-ly sedentary for quite some time. Well, NOT anymore! I can't stand having all these pictures loading me down, I've got to shed the cuteness and share it with you.
Get ready, though... I just might become addicted and you'll all wonder why you asked me to do it in the first place. Should I ever overwhelm you with too much information or the faces of my three little angels... too BAD, you asked for it.

I'll just start with the Birthday Girl Brynn:

Brynn (3)

We went to St. George for our niece, Erin's wedding at the end of May. The kids and I stayed for a week. While we were there, we celebrated Brynn's third birthday with aunts, uncle, cousins, Grandma & Grandpa. The kids had fun on the Slip N Slide. Here's some awesome moves by the birthday girl:

She wasn't the only one having fun!

Maren and Gracie

Carolee and Tayler

Apparently, Uncle Gavin didn't think the girls were getting wet enough, so he took matters into his own hands:

We also had a water balloon fight with the fifty million balloons that Grandpa, Gavin and Gina filled earlier that day (Sorry, no pictures of this). When the balloons ran out, Gavin and I still wanted more, so we had a good water hose fight, with the "adults" and other children looking on. I love being a kid!!

Opening Presents:

Caterpillar Cake!

What a fun party! Thanks, cousins, for making it special....

.....and a little crazy!

2008-12-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

This is the perfect picture to describe Brynn's 2nd Christmas. Pure joy and excitement for each little thing that she, or anyone else unwrapped. She'd do the little breath drawing in, "Ahhh", all day long. It was so funny.

Christmas Morning 2008

2008-12-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

I think Carolee is still in shock that Santa actually made it to our house. But Brynn isn't phased, she just goes to town playing for as long, and hard as possible.