More Dresses I made...and my handsome boy Aiden :)

The first part of this year I was very busy with making dresses. In fact I made 10 smocked dresses between January and June. We just had some family pictures done and in them are the dresses I have made. Our friend Aeryn (red hair) is in the picture with Robyn and Emma all in their baptism dresses. I did not make her dress, but taught her mom how to make it. She did a fantastic job!

Emma, Robyn and their "sister" Aeryn in the baptism dresses
My beautiful girls...Robyn, Gwen and Emma in their Easter dresses
My good looking boy!!

Rock Hounding with Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim

Our family has been working on a science project learning about volcano's and volcanic rocks. Aaron's Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim live close to us and they are big rock hounders and last Saturday they took us out to a sight to look for Pyrite. We had a great time digging for rocks and cracking them open to see what we could find.

Emma with her bucket of rocks
Gwen loading her bucket with all sorts of rocks
Aiden's favorite part was opening the rocks up with a hammer

Ellis Island

Sandy city did an exciting event for 9-11 where they set up the field across from city hall to be a mock Ellis Island where you could go through the steps of becoming an american citizen. They had the kids walk to different stations where they learned what people have to commit to, to become a citizen. They watched a video about Ellis island, took a test about American History and then took the pledge. It was a great chance to teach the kids about being a patriot of our country and why people are so willing to die to protect it. They had a great time running around all the flags and being with their friends as well.

Liberty Girls

This year I decided to host a Liberty Girls Chapter. My girls have been apart of Liberty Girls since we have moved to Utah 3 years ago. For those of you who don't know what Liberty Girls is, it's when we take the fictional history books from the American Girl company and we study one girl/time period for a semester. We do activities, field trips and crafts that relate to what that girl might have done. At the end of the year the organization that is in charge of Liberty Girls holds a super activity around one of the time periods. For instance last year they had a high tea party in the time period of 1776. It's great fun! Here are some pictures of our girls first meeting this year.

Utah State Fair

The state fair was a few weeks ago and we always like going to see the big pumkins and what people have made. The kids really enjoyed seeing the beehive and all the animals. They also loved going down the big slide.

Aeryn's baptism

At the begining of this month we got to witness our friend Aeryn being baptized. I helped her mom make her dress and we got a really cute picture of the girls and the boys.

Our family was asked to sing during the program where we were accompanied by Aeryn's aunt and uncle who sang through American Sign Language. It was such a sweet moment to think that the spirit can talk to us through all languages.

Robyn, Aeryn and Emma

Aiden with his "brother" Clayton

(Aiden is older than Clayton...poor kid took after me)

Gravitational pulls and gravity

We had fun with this experiment one school day learning about gravitational pulls and gravity. It was interesting because I thought the salt swing would have stayed circling, but it kept changing directions. The kids had fun getting salt every where.

Camping at Albion Basin

At the end of August we got to go camping with our homeschooling group to Albion Basin. It was beautiful there and we had a great time enjoying the outdoors. At night we stayed up talking about all sorts of fun topics, watched the stars, told stories, roasted marshmallows. The next morning one of the mom's made a treasure hunt with the treasure being a large water melon to share. It was fun to watch the kids explore their surrounding and learn by doing.

Aaron with Gwen on his back

Aeryn, Emma and Robyn at the creek

Ainsley and Gwen observing the creek.

Robyn and Emma watching their dad carve a stick
Campfire with our friends

I asked Gwen to smile and this is what she did :)

This is as far as Aiden would sit from the fire. He's going to make a great Boy Scout someday!

Declaration of Independence in Salt Lake

We got the privilege to wait in line for two hours to see an unsigned copy of the Declaration of Independence that visited Salt Lake for two days. We also got to tour the State capitol building while we waited. It was a great time to share with the kids the importance of this document and to get some good dad bonding time. The Nielsen's shared this moment with us.

Kibbie kids with the Nielsen kids and the Brigham Young statue

Involved dad's
Us in front of the document

Our favorite pass time: Hiking

Here we are hiking up near Alta to Lake Cathrine. It was a beautiful day and there were many wild flowers. We also met a friendly prarie dog that liked our chips.

Robyn, Emma, Aiden and Gwen

Emma

On the Trail

Wild Flowers

Our friend the prairie dog

Our Garden, New Classification: The Jungle

So, we re-named our backyard garden to The Jungle. Last year we planted many plants and only a few survived. This year I planted much more thinking that half would die. Nothing died and now we have a jungle in our backyard. Everything did so well that I can't mow the lawn. I contribute, the jungle, to composting and Aiden's nightly prayers in which he asks for the garden to grow "really big". Here are some pictures Robyn so proudly took of our jungle.

Darth "Gwen" Vader haunts our home

One weekend we had a movie day where we watched Star Wars 4, 5 and 6. We had a great time and have a constant reminder of this weekend from Gwen. There's something wrong about her not being calmed by a primary hymn, but with the imperial march...hum...

Emma was baptized

How does time go by so fast. I don't feel old enough to have two kids baptized now. Emma was baptized this August and it was a wonderful moment. There's nothing like seeing your daughter and husband go into the water to take a necessary step to know God and be with Him again. One of my favorite parts is to see all the little kids surround the font to cheer Emma on. We had the privilege to have so many members of our family members and friends join us for this special day for Emma and missed those who could not make it.

Emma with her Dad

Aaron, Tina, Gwen, Aiden, Emma and Robyn
Everyone that came to share this moment

Emma with her Grandpa and Grandma Thompsen