Finishing Summer with Josie's 3rd Birthday

Summer has been good around the Lee home and despite the heat that won't stop we've been having a lot of fun.

When you're cool, you're cool.  One lunch Ian stuck his napkin on his head and smoothly said to the girls, "hello ladies."  We promise we don't let him watch Friends.

We had the opportunity of running a children's class for the homeless kids at the Road Home shelter in Salt Lake.  Our family and the cute Dixon family went for the evening.  It was an incredibly humbling experience and the kids observed and thought a lot about how lucky we truly are.  We headed out for dessert afterwards and have never seen Rachel laugh quite this hard - she loves these friends and so do we!

 Ian was sick and Rachel made him this adorable card.  We love that they are "best brother and sister forever."

Rachel has gotten to be really good friends with a cute neighbor named Ella.  We were able to go to her baptism and it got Rachel even more excited for her big day this next year.

We found Rachel's awesome list of things to do the next day: wake up, eat breakfast, draw pictures, go to park, workout, make lemon chicken (a recipe she wanted to cook for dinner), be sailors, eat dinner, go to bed.

Justin did a great job in his run of the Three Musketeers and Rachel had fun on a date with Mom to check out Justin's incredible fight choreography and sword fighting skills.

We were not sad to say goodbye to the facial hair around here though.  It did however help him look like some of the crazy singers in the Olympic Closing Ceremonies.

 Ian got his Twinkle Trophy for all of his hard work.

 Rachel had a great season of tennis this summer and Kassia is such a cute teacher to these kids.

 She even let Ian and Josie join in the closing cheer.

 What a great aunt!

And the cooking continues around here.  Rachel was really excited to try out this apple, peanut butter, marshmellow creation.

 Coconut the gorilla got some clothes...

 And Rachel used the sewing machine by herself to make him this blanket with  a "C" on in the middle.

 We do not ever need a dog because we have Josie to ruin our newspapers for us.

Nana surprised the kids with this really fun secret mission series from Highlights.  Their first mission was to China and they worked on it pretty much nonstop for two days.

 We headed to the Tracy Aviary to begin birthday celebrations for our Josie.

We had a great time!  Josie's favorite were the hornbill birds of which she does a pretty great impression.  We also loved the new owl exhibit and other expanded areas.  Grandma even treated us to some delicious French pastries afterwards.

 Ian is a goof and loves his new meditation pose.

The big day finally arrived (she has known that her birthday was the end of summer for a long time - and we're sure it feels even longer to a 2 year old!).

 Josie couldn't peel her eyes away from this much-adored Kermit cake by Grandma.

 She got some great presents and had lots of fun testing everything out.

 We had one very happy girl on our hands.

 She didn't need any help on the candle front this year.

The evening ended with some pretty sweet Rachel/Justin rendition of Muppet songs.  A real karaoke machine is definitely in this family's future.

And the little ones got soaked by some sprinklers.  Fun, fun, fun.

Things we love about our sweet Josie at 3:
Even more so than the other two this girl is always the center of attention.  She is a clown and knows how to always get a reaction and put on a show.
She loves to charm people of all ages and has some serious fans in the neighborhood (young women, grandmas, etc.)
She loves to sing and pretends to be Ariel.
She loves to dance and gets very serious about her moves and costumes.
Her favorite foods are noodles (lasagna and spaghetti are favorites), cherries, nutella, eggs, icecream, salsa, nuts, and frozen fruit.  She'll eat a little of pretty much anything.
Her favorite movie is the new Muppet Movie
Her favorite songs are There are Giants in the Sky from Into the Woods and They by Jem she calls it "ba ba dum"
She loves playing family, baking, and mostly willingly going along with Rachel and Ian's games.  Our favorite is when she's Watch the dog when the pretend to be the Box Car Children.
She loves to give kisses and hugs and is quick to say she loves you.
She loves to read and will go through huge stacks of books.
She is so excited to be a big sister and likes to talk about the ways she is going to help with the baby.
At her check-up she was tipping the scales at 24.4 lbs (2%) and 34 1/2 in (5%).
We love our Josie and are so glad she is a part of our family!

Our garden keeps going crazy and Ian was so excited about this awesome purple carrot that he grew.  We've been busy canning lots of spaghetti sauce and we'll do some salsa this week.

We were able to go to Brigham City to do a tour of the new temple.  The open house was so nice and the kids loved seeing everything inside this beautiful building.  Their favorites were the mirrors in the sealing room (they place them opposite of each other so that the image looks like it's going on forever) and the beautiful chandeliers.  The cookies at the end weren't too bad either.

Rachel and Ella like to make plans and decided a week prior to hold not only a lemonade stand, but bake sale as well.  These girls baked up a storm and they were so cool some of the big girls in the neighborhood got in on the action as well.  They delightedly did this for three hours and had a great time.

One of the many reasons Bridget never wants to leave this neighborhood is because of this incredible neighbor.  Anne Jeppesen took Rachel and Ian with her kids and another neighbor to the Sweets candy factory for a tour and totally made their day.  Ian was in absolute heaven because he got to hang out with the amazing Peter and make himself sick on candy.  One small summer disclaimer:  if you're thinking Rachel only has two outfits your eyes are not playing tricks on you.  While many clothes belong to this girl she pretty much only wants to wear one dress and two casual outfits.  School next week is totally going to cramp her style!