General Conference Weekend

A couple weekends ago, we got to watch General Conference which is when we get to hear the prophets and apostles in our church speak to us. We like listening to the apostles, but Syd and I really like the activities Mom plans for us.

I was at an art camp for the first session, so it was just Syd and Peyton. If you look closely at the table, you can see what happened when Mom let Peyton try to color. Too bad Peyton doesn't know how to keep her crayons on paper. At least it washed off easily.

Our family room gets a little messy during conference while us kids are working on different activities.

Here's our conference store. Mom used to have little buckets of candy for us to eat whenever we heard certain words during conference, but we all got tired of eating so much junk. So she set up the conference store. Whenever we hear a topic on the conference board, we tell Mom and she gives us a ticket. After each session we can use our tickets to buy cool things from the store. If you're like Sydney, you spend all your tickets after each session. If you're like me, you save them all till the very end and then carefully decided what to buy.

Here's my traditional Lego temple that Dad helped me build. It's the Provo temple.

After conference was all over on Sunday, the sun was shining and the weather was awesome, so we headed to Kubota Garden.

I tried to tell Syd that these things we found on the ground were pieces of dog poop, but she didn't believe me. Then she tried telling me they were Cheetos.

We also found two fuzzy caterpillars.

Mine got scared and curled up into a ball.

And if you look under all the bushes, you can find cool caves.

Picture overload:

We have had such an awesome fall, with lots of sunny days, which we love. It will be a bummer when it starts getting cold and rainy most of the time again.

A little of this and a little of that

And here are a bunch of random photos so you know what random stuff we've been up to.

Aunt Denise and Uncle Chris were in Seattle for a few hours, so we got to see them for lunch and hang out at Alki beach.

Grandma and Grandpa de Jong came to visit and we got to go to a cool children's museum with them.

And just some cute pictures for you to enjoy:

Hmmmm, seems like I'm not in many of those last pictures. So here's a picture of me with the Lego construction site I built.

I LOVE LEGOS!

Look who is ONE!

Peyton turned one on August 31st! We were all so excited for her birthday. Mom was really excited to be able to celebrate a birthday in the summer with nice weather instead of with rain in the winter when Syd and I have our birthdays.

We headed to Seahurst beach in the afternoon to do some exploring. In case you didn't know, Peyton started walking a few weeks before her birthday. She loved walking around on the rocky beach and exploring the rocks and driftwood.

Dad, Syd, and I had fun too. Oh, and Mom was there, but she was the one with the camera, so no pictures of her, as usual.

Sydney and I couldn't wait to open Peyton's presents--I mean, to watch her open them. When the time finally came, she needed a little help. She didn't quite get how to tear off the paper.

She opened this baby doll first and was totally happy with it. She gave it a big kiss (which looks like she's eating the baby's head), and then walked of with it. We had to hide the baby in one of her other presents so she would actually open the others.

Then we had the cake! Peyton didn't cry when Mom lit the candle like Sydney and I did for our first birthdays. I think that's because Mom made sure the cake was out of Peyton's reach while we sang to her, so she didn't almost grab the fire and have Mom scare her. WARNING: There are a ton of cake pictures coming up. Peyton actually got messy with her cake, so Mom took a ton of pics. This isn't even half of them.

Sydney and I kept trying to photo bomb the pictures,
so Mom finally took a picture of us with Peyton
so we would stay out of the rest of them.

I think she liked the cake.

The next weekend we had a few friends over for a little birthday party for Peyton. Since it was such nice weather, we had the party outside and BBQ'd. After lunch, it got really hot and some of the kids played in the pool and the sandbox.

By the way, Sydney put that bandaid on her head herself
because she had a tiny little scratch on it.
She actually just loves her princess bandaids way too much.

We had cupcakes instead of cake, and when Peyton saw her cupcake she got soooo excited. I think she remembered how good her cake was from her actual birthday. She dug right in.

Then we/Peyton opened her presents. She needed a little help again.

Katy showed Peyton how to play the piano.

I think Peyton had a great birthday. And now that she's walking everywhere, she's a toddler instead of a baby! And she sure is getting fun to play with. Happy birthday, Peyton!