Beating the Heat

We miss our pool at the apt. But we definitely had a good time in this little pool too! We need to have some friends over next time!

Jump for Joy!

It's beach season, baby

Cute moments

I snapped some pics of my girls yesterday, thought they really captured their little personalities!

Our little pest!

Our neighbors have a orange tree, and everyday we find orange peels in our backyard. We were pretty sure the wind wasn't blowing them, and for a while I thought maybe we had some rude neighbors that were eating, then throwing the peels over the fence.

Well, today we found the culprit. I swear, if they get in my garden, they're toast.

Her first dentist visit

She wanted to hold my hand the WHOLE time. With joy, my sweety.

The Oakland Zoo

A fun family outing to the zoo!

We loved every minute of our time together.
Chloe: We weren't sure if she would actually enjoy it. But she spotted every animal right as she walked up. Her favorite part was the little play area. She was so good, just sat and looked around the whole day. Highlight of her day was the ice cream we bought. She makes a new begging noise when she wants something really bad, if you're a Mom you probably know that noise, but is impossible to write down into a word. Any trys??
Riley: Was excited to see "Simba" and "Pumba & Timon" Simba was asleep on the rock and after 5 seconds asked to see more animals. There were tons of Timons (meerkats) she liked watching them. Pumba (warthog) was dead asleep where we could hardly see him. The sign next to the warthog said they are extremely sensitive to noise... bummer.... we were about to scream "When I was a young warthog!!!" just to see if he answered back. (in case you don't know, these are all Lion King references)
The highlight of the trip was watching the alligators get fed (they feed them dead rats...nasty) They splashed all around and guess who got wet, and screamed, and cried???

Yup, Riley. Bless her little heart, she hates to get wet. She pulled it together after a few minutes, and we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our day.

A few things we've done this month

Our first official Beall Family Easter egg hunt, I know Riley is 3, we're bad parents. She loved this, mostly thinking that the Easter bunny was in the house.

She asks "Mommy, did the Easter bunny go into my room?"

We drove to Utah the day before Easter, the following pics are things we did there

(This was Riley's hair after the 10 hour drive to Utah, it had its own solar system)

piggy piggy

I had some apples and peanut butter yesterday and left my plate out on accident...well, take a look at who discovered it

General Conference Weekend

This weekend we had our church's bi-annual conference. This is when the "general authorities" of our church speak to us. It was beautiful!

My favorite was Jeffrey R. Holland who spoke about being lonely. I think I liked it so much, because of the details he described of the final days of our Saviors life. How all His disciples left Him, even Heavenly Father, for a brief moment on the cross, and He needed that to truly understand how we feel when we feel lonely, depressed, or sad. It definitely increased my testimony of how much we can depend on Christ, and how much He went through - simply because He loves us.

During the 2 sessions on Sunday, we walked to the park for a picnic. It was a beautiful day! As we walked to the park we were reminding Riley that we can play on the grass, but that because it was Sunday, we couldn't play on the play structure. We believe that Sunday is a day of worship and that we should only do things that bring us closer to God or our family/close friends. So, would playing together at the park, tear us apart? No!
Riley kept saying, "but those kids are playing, they're mean"! We reminded her that they aren't mean, sometimes other families do things different . And, my mind raced ahead to the future and I kept thinking that this will be an issue her whole life! "Those other kids are_____" ....You fill in the blank. Sometimes, as we're driving to church, I see people at the Starbucks, in their cute tank tops, walking the dog, and I want to say "those people are playing - I want to too - they're mean"!

At the heart of it, I know that our church is true! On Sundays, there is really no other place I would rather be than at church with fellow latter day saints, and where I can learn! I know if I teach my child the principles I was believe are correct, then she will grow strong in this gospel, and find more joy then the 20 minutes on the playground would have given her.

Our Sunday ended with s'mores out in our backyard (it still sounds weird to say "our backyard")This was Chloe and Riley's first experience with s'mores - it is now a love affair never to end!

I love the marshmallow stuck to Chloe's face, she don't care - she luvvved it.

Chloe's little buddy

Halle is 4 months older than Chloe, and every time they get together they are so cute. They just kind look at each other, and poke at each other. (they haven't hit that possessive toddler stage yet)

This day, they had a minute long hug, it was pretty funny! I couldn't resist a picture.