Natalie's growing up

I noticed the other day that Natalie doesn't suck on her finger and twirl her hair when she's tired anymore. I was worried about her ruining her teeth at the time and she got her fingers stuck in her hair occasionally. But it's always amazing how quickly they grow out of certain phases. It was so cute while it lasted. Natalie is so precious to me. I love the tender moments when she sits on my lap and grabs my face in her tiny hands and says, "Look at me mom. Momma I love you so much, you're so beautiful." I love it when she looks up at our wedding picture on our wall and says,"Momma you're a princess and you got married. I want to be a princess and go to the temple too." I get hundreds of experiences like this that make motherhood worth it. A couple of weeks ago she said, "Mom, I like Scotty,"(a boy in nursery with her)and I said, "Yeah, do you give him hugs?" "Yeah, I give him hugs and kisses, at church, in the dark room." I have no idea when she would have been in a dark room with him but I thought this was hilarious. These moments are so precious and make the lovely potty training phase worth it.

Happy Father's Day!

This is a candy bar poster we made for Marc for father's day, he also got four tickets to a Cardinals game and he took me, and his brothers, Kevin and Craig. The poster reads, "Mr. Goodbar, we would like to take 5 to tell you that you are our Almond Joy. We love you for a million Riesens. Love, your Butterfingers (Because none of us can catch). Happy Father's Day!

Fun at the Zoo

We went to the zoo on June 9th with my best friend, growing up, Joy (Croshaw) Wooden. This is her with her son Joshuah, and us of course. She was in town visiting before her brother left for his mission. We saw each other at the temple and decided it would be fun to meet at the zoo. We got to see the sea lion show and the dinosaur exhibit. Natalie is holding hands with Joy's nephew and we thought it was so cute. I'll do a slide show later of the dino's, plus we are going again this Friday to the zoo, so I'm sure I'll have more pics of that.

Here's a cute picture I took from my friend's blog of our kids at botanical gardens. I thought it was so cute! What great little friends Natalie has had.

Thanks for the prayers!

Thank you, everyone for your prayers this weekend in our behalf. We sent out an e-mail on Friday asking friends and family to have their thoughts with us as we hunt for a job. Sorry to those of you who didn't recieve our e-mail in time. We could still use prayers. We definately felt extra strength and comfort today and we greatly appreciate all of you who care so deeply for us. It's wonderful to know the support group we have backing us. We love you all and as always, we will keep you updated as much as we can.

Ben's pictures

Thanks Ben

Benjamin and Becca Munson took some great pics of the kids last night. We loved this one. We will post some more shortly.

This is a really cute little outfit my sister-in-law Paige made with a matching bib and birp cloth. I love them! If you can't tell, the front has a "J" on it with the same material. This is perfect for summer. I may need to get the pattern from her, but it looks simple enough that I may try to do it on my own. Thank you aunt Paige, we love you!

Julia

Julia has started to eat solids for the past couple of weeks. She LOVES food. It's like she has been wanting it all along and now that we are finally giving it to her she is so happy. She tries to grab for our food, but we aren't there yet. Although Natalie did try to give her a grape the other day (scary), luckily I saw it and got it quickly out of her mouth. She has been sleeping longer at night and now it's not such a big deal if I'm not there to feed her, now Marc can just give her cereal or bananas or whatever to tide her over. Food makes her sleepy. This particular time, she fell asleep while Marc was feeding her. And it wasn't the first time either. She's our happy little girl!

Here's another day of the kids at the Batanical Gardens. It's free on Wednesday mornings so we've been trying to go every week.