Kimbri Playing the Piano

This is a constant occurrence in our house :)  I hope she continues to love it! Sometimes it makes it hard for me to ever sit down and just play, because she is on my lap the instant I play two notes. Haha! But I love that she loves it!

The other day she got out the Disney Songs book and flipped until she found a page with a picture she recognized and said, "Mommy, Kimbri play Simba" or, "Mommy, Kimbri play Princess Jasmine" or Ariel or Belle or whatever was on the picture at the beginning of the song. It was cute. I love my little girl!

Feeding the Animals

About a mile and a half down the road is a little house on a corner lot that has tons of random animals! Like, for example, they have goats, donkeys, turtles (the huge kind!), geese, dogs, and pigs. From what I hear the owner's daughter is a Vet and brings home these animals that aren't wanted or being taken care of properly or something. So he puts out a little container of food and you can feed the animals. 

Kimbri loves it! I thought she would be a little scared sticking a tiny piece of food in their mouths but she shoves it right in and thinks it's so fun! So we go there quite often to feed the donkeys and goats :) 

Rick Made a Cake

One night Rick decided he wanted to make a cake. I was on my way out the door to go running and wished him luck. When I came home he had made a delicious cake! And obviously from the pictures of Kimbri eating the cake, it was super yummy!!

Rick even said that he will be making me a birthday cake this year, now that he know how! :)

Riparian Preserve

A few weeks back we took a family walk through part of the Riparian Preserve. It's right next to the library so we went and checked out several books for Kimbri and then went on a family walk. It was really fun and the kids loved seeing the ducks and turtles in the big lake!

Kimbri loved getting a shoulder ride!

Tutus

Kimbri loves wearing her tutus. And this particular day she wanted to wear about 7 all at one time. Ha! Whenever I start playing the piano she runs to her room and puts on her tutu and then runs back out to the living room and starts dancing. 

She was twirling around and around. Then she would stop and just giggle... and then start all over. She is so adorable :) Her smile and the way her eyes squint up when she giggles is just so cute! 

Then Garrett got in on some of the tutu action. Wearing a black tutu and a princess crown. Gotta love having an older sister ;)

Playing in the dress up box! 

Swimsuits in February

I have fallen in love with Arizona winters. The summers? Not so much. I about died of heat last summer. But we have totally enjoyed wearing shorts all year long! 

And I never imagined letting Kimbri play in the water in February. But it was 80 degrees and feeling hot. Garrett was napping so I sat out on the back patio with the screen open and filled up the pool and water table that my friend found at a garage sale for $2! Sweet! It's definitely a hit. 

And yes, our grass is dead. But it's starting to green up now that the temperatures are rising! Weird, I know. The kind of grass that's in our backyard survives much better when it's hot. Most people plant a "winter lawn" with a different kind of grass that is luscious and green but we didn't bother doing that this year. But I think next year we will! 

Anyway, I snapped a few pictures of Kimbri while she played in the water :)

Kimbri & Mommy ~ Gilbert Temple

A few weeks ago (mid February) I took Kimbri on a little buddy day, just the two of us. I took her to the Gilbert Temple open house. Rick and I had already gone with some of our nonmember friends but I really wanted to take Kimbri.

We had been learning the primary song, "I love to see the temple" and I wanted to be able to take her and show her what a temple is. So I reserved us tickets and we went!

As we drove up to the temple she saw it out her window and got so excited and said, "There's the temple. So big! Jesus' house!"

We parked and went into the church building to watch the video before the actual tour started. Up on the screen was a picture of the temple. She was so anxious. Kimbri saw the picture and stopped mid tracks, pointed up to the screen with her cute pudgy little finger and excitedly gasped really loudly and then said, "There's the temple!" The ushers laughed. It was so funny how excited she was!

After the movie we were escorted to the beginning of the tour. Of course we had to put on the little booties over our shoes first and Kimbri wanted nothing to do with those! It was so hard to convince her to put them on. Finally I got them on and as soon as they were on, after walking two steps into the temple they were off again. After struggling to get them on and have Kimbri keep them on, an older man came up to us and said with a smile, "I think one pair of small bare feet would be ok to walk through the temple." 

So off we went. The temple is absolutely gorgeous. They had us start out in the baptistry. We walked by the font and when Kimbri saw the water she said, "Oooo, there's a pool. Kimbri go swimming!" She cracks me up :) I told her we could go swimming in a couple weeks when the pools open up for the summer (which they opened up this week! wahoo!). 

We made our way through the whole temple, ending in the Celestial room. Oh my the chandelier in that room is incredible!! I read in the newspaper that it is 18 ft tall and 8 feet wide and weighs 1,500 lbs!! Can you believe it?! That is amazing. 

After finishing the tour we walked out into the beautiful Arizona sunshine (I still can't believe how the winters are here!) and I tried to snap a few pictures. 

Kimbri wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a picture of her actually looking at the camera. Oh well, such is the life of a 2 year old. But the pictures I took are still super cute of her anyway :)

After taking a few pictures we started walking toward the car to head out. Kimbri was sad to leave and kept saying, "Go see temple again." She loved it. I'm so glad. It was sad to have to leave but it is so close to Sams Club and the other grocery stores we shop at so we drive by there to see it often when we are out and about. 

We had such a fun Mommy/Daughter buddy day! I love you Kimbri!