Piano Playin

So I haven't really practiced the piano in years. In my defense, we haven't had a piano until last year. I finally started practicing on Monday. I'm surprised by how bad I was at first, but I'm getting better! I'm getting some of the hymns down that I used to play all of the time. It is kinda hard to practice because Livey always wants to play with me, but she has so much fun and is so cute to watch that I don't mind. I try getting some good quality practice in when she sleeps. Wednesday I was playing a hymn and singing along and Livey climbs on the bench and starts pounding on the keys and singing along with mommy. It was so adorable!

So Olivia's new favorite song is "Popcorn Popping". She loves doing the actions and usually gets ahead of the song in her hurry to do all of the actions. Guess who else loves the song? Maddy! Whenever I do the popcorn popping action she smiles and laughs and starts babbling along :D
I love being a mommy to such adorable little girls!

Camping and Anniversary

Dennis and I celebrated our 3rd year anniversary on August 7th.

I can't believe we already have two kids! When Dennis proposed to me, he took me to The Roof Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Building for dinner. Having the Salt Lake temple right outside the window is one of the best things about The Roof. The best thing is the dessert table! Its an all you can eat buffet with amazing food and even more amazing desserts. Our favorite is the creme brulee. Dennis and I have made it a tradition to go back to The Roof every year on our anniversary. It costs about a hundred dollars to go, but the food and the atmosphere are so worth it. This year when we got to our table they had a sign saying "Happy 3rd Anniversary!" And Dennis also had them put a little rose bouquet at my place setting, which was a happy surprise for me. My brother Roy and his wife Marissa were babysitting Livey and Maddy and they had their own 6 month old son to care for, so we didn't do anything else that night. We decided to get a new tent for our gift to each other. We had fun going to Cabella's and we even found the perfect tent on sale. The tent is an 8 man tent and is huge.

We tested it out by going camping two weeks later. My parents and Roy & Marissa went with us up to Squaw Peak to some free camping grounds. We had just gotten set up when across the Meadow from us, some guy's jeep caught on fire! Everybody got out of the car fast and they came running over asking if we had water. The 5 gallon jug of water we had sadly didn't do anything to the flames. Dennis called 911 on my phone and tried to explain to the operator how to get there. The jeep started catching a tree on fire and I was kinda freaking out and got Maddy in her car seat all ready to jump in the car and get out of there in case there was a forest fire. The popping sounds the tires made when the heat was too much scared me a lot! I have never seen a car catch fire before and all I could think of was the movies where the car is on fire for about 2 seconds then explodes in a huge ball of fire. Luckily real life is different and cars don't really explode like that. The jeep had pretty much burned to the ground by the time the firetrucks got there and put out the flame. They had quite a few firemen there and they had to stay for a few hours afterwards in case the fire started back up again. What an exciting start to our camping trip! We almost didn't go camping at all because the night before Olivia had a fever of 102. I called the doctor and he said to monitor it and come in the morning if it didn't go down. So we went to the doctors office around 9 and he said her throat was really red and inflamed. He thought it was probably strep throat. He also let us know that Maddy couldn't get it since she was under a year old, which was a relief. We asked the doc if he thought we should go camping and he told us to go. After the first dose of medicine Livey seemed to feel better and her fever went down. For dinner we had chili dogs with all the toppings. And of course what would a camping trip be without s'mores? After dinner my mom and Marissa brought out their guitars and we sang campfire songs. Then we decided it was time for bed. Olivia has a little princess tent that actually fit inside our big tent. And we took the swing for Maddy to sleep in and that also fit nicely into the tent. We had a horrible night sleep. Olivia kept on waking up and crying off and on all night. We tried putting her between us to sleep, but I kept on almost falling off the air mattress. Then sometime after midnight a tow truck had come to take the burned up jeep away, with all the beeping and yelling I'm sure no one slept through that. And of course when that was over some late partiers decide to make a ruckus. Maddy even woke up to nurse more then usual. I was also freezing because we didn't put the fly up on the tent, which keeps in heat. *Sigh* We also had to get up early to eat breakfast because Roy had to go to work. My parents got a little more sleep then we did, so after breakfast they took Olivia so that Dennis, Madalynn and I could go back to the tent to get more sleep. What a crazy camping trip! Next time we definitely won't go when Livey is sick and we won't forget to put up the fly so we don't freeze. But besides that we actually had a good time camping and we are very gratful that there wasn't a forest fire.

Church calling

I'm excited to announce that I finally have a calling in my ward... Drum roll please...

I am now the 1st counsler in the YW presidency! That means i'm in charge of the Mia-maids. I am so looking forward to it. Wednesday will be my first young womens night since I was in YW. I love love love the young womens and I think I'll be very happy there. Two of my girls came up to me and told me how excited they were that I was called. I am just a little intimidated thinking of how much I used to look up to my own leaders and hoping that I will be a good leader.
Wish me luck!

Poems

I wanted to post 2 poems I wrote a few years back. Hopefully I'll get back into writing more poems soon. Maybe posting these will inspire me.

Roller Coaster

Up and down

Lurching from side to side

Never knowing what to expect

Can't see the turns ahead.

That double loop hit me by surprise.

Feet dangling in the air

Feeling so insecure, is this safe?

Finally it slows down

Only to speed up

To zoom through the scariest twist of all!

A rapidly plunging downward spiral,

My heart stops.

It pulls up only just in time.

Am I safe yet? Can I look now?

Who can tell in the roller coaster of my life.

Jennifer Sue Bischoff

It may take a long time,
and a steel frame of mind
Who would have guessed
It would be such a mess?
I know that we are not born
To be sad and to morn.
Happiness is the plan of life
for it surely isn't strife.
We cannot live in the past
when there is the present -
We cannot dwell in the present
When there is our future.
Learn from our past mistakes
Then we will see what the future makes.

Jennifer Sue

Making pizza and watching TV

Olivia made her first pizza! Papa Murphy's is our favorite pizza place and they recently came out with a "Mini Murph" pizza for little kids. Her daddy helped her make it and she tried eating all the cheese before it was cooked. Lol. She loved making it and eating it :)

 

Here are some pictures of Olivia sitting with her little sister watching some TV



Watching some tv together

And here is one of Maddy and her pretty pink bow :)



Olympics! Woot! and 7 peaks

Can I just say that I love the olympics? Dennis and I have our DVR set to record all the action on NBC. (Basically all the events the US is in) My favorites are volleyball (beach and regular) gymnastics and swimming. I used to play v-ball in high school so I can explain some rules to Dennis when he doesnt understand them. The Fab five in gymnastics are just amazing. I was so heartbroken for Jordyn when she didn't make it to all around. But they won the team gold medal! First team gold in 16 years! And of course everyone knows about Michael Phelps and his awesomeness.


We went to 7 peaks today with Olivia. Dropped off Maddy at the grandparents so we could focus on Livey today. Dennis and I have the pass of all passes and even Olivia has a tadpole pass (which was free). First we went on the slides. Dennis was able to hold Livey on his lap while riding down. She seemed to like it. Then we played in the little kid water area. She just loves water. She also loves the Lazy river. It's so cute to watch her. After about two hours we left to go get Maddy. It seems like everytime we go swimming we have to get Little Ceasers afterwards. I was starving! Nothing like a hot fresh pizza when you are going to pass out with hunger, ok not pass out, but I was pretty hungry! I'm a nursing momma and can't seem to get enough food!