Liesel Gracie Girl

Here are a bunch of random photos I've taken of Liesel over the past month.  Most of them were taken with my phone, so they aren't great quality.  

Tea party with her dollies

 Looking lovely in red

Almost every day she wears the dress up shoes my Aunt Amber gave her for her birthday. 

Wearing all of her new dress-ups simultaneously.

Liesel and our little friend Brielle

Liesel adores her little baby sister. 

Every time she hears a female vocalist, she cheers and says, "prince-muss"  (princess)!

A few weeks ago I gave Liesel a haircut.  It looks fuller and more grown up.

We love our little princess!

Backtracking to July

This post happened way back in July.  Brad was called to be 1st counselor in our bishopric.  He had been the 2nd counselor for over three years.  He had gone to Scout camp for a week with the 12-13 year olds, but since he switched responsibilities, he is now over the 14-15 year old boys.  He went up to their Scout camp for three days.  He was gone over the 24th of July, so we decided to spend that time at my parents' house. 

 The 24th of July is Pioneer Day, a holiday here in Utah.  My parents and I took the kids downtown to watch part of the parade.  We lucked out to find a shady spot, even though we came after the parade had already started.  The kids really enjoyed it!

 In the afternoon and evening we played games.  Parker enjoyed Guillotine.

 A bunch of the adults played Masterpiece.  I love all of the art!  We also had a barbecue that day.

The following evening I went out to dinner with some of my missionary friends, Amber Henrie, Miriam Pereira and John Faulkner.  We ate at Mimi's Cafe and then Faulkner treated us to cupcakes from his family's shop, The Sweet Tooth Fairy, yum!

Longtime Friends and a Cool Park

I took the kids down to Salt Lake to sleep over at Brad's parents' the first Friday in July.  Earlier that morning I met up with some friends that I met when my family moved into a new neighborhood when I was twelve.  We've been friends ever since, but haven't gotten together in a long time.  My friend Toni has lived in different states for the past several years, but was in town from New Mexico.  We met up at Nicholls park in Fruit Heights.  It has a castle theme and is super cool!  Toni and I visited while the kids played.  Here is Parker with his captain's pose:

 Jason and Liesel on the slide.

This is a seriously awesome playground!

Can you see Parker and Jason's little heads peeking over the top? 

 Then we headed down to City Creek to meet our friend Janet for lunch.  It's fun that we were all friends in seventh grade and now, two decades later (we're old) we still get a chance to catch up.

 We ate a Kneader's, which of course the kids loved!

New Park

Our friends invited us to play at a park with them.  We hadn't ever been to it before and the kids enjoyed it!

 Our friend "Little Parker"

 Liesel, Bentley and Abby

 It took Parker a few tries, but I was impressed at how well Parker could cross the rings monkey bar-style.

This is park is quite close to our house, so I'm sure we'll come again soon!

Splash Pad

They opened a new splash pad at a park near us.  We went a few weeks ago with our friends.  Liesel took a few minutes to warm up, but then she loved it!

 We brought lunch with us to enjoy at the park.

Here are our friends, Bentley

Abby

 Rylee and Houston. 

I'm sure we'll be going again soon!