Sunday, March 29, 2015

March

Although March isn't technically done, I thought I'd "catch up" early.  Here are some things we've been up to.

Playing cards.  We got up the card table because the tiny little blue play table is too small, but our dining room table is too big and this one is just right. (Emily, Megan and Tyler)



The kids at preschool take turns (about every other month) taking the treat bucket.  (Don't you love preschool fashion sense?)

Emily



Megan



Playing on the devices



A "trip" to the park on a beautifully warm day.

Emily



Tyler



Megan



"P night" at Young Womens one night:  pizza and pedicures while discussing "P" things like prayer, peer pressure, etc. all while wearing pajamas.




 
The kids enjoy drawing, especially Tyler and Megan.  I kinda feel bad about not keeping all of their creations, but I've decided taking pictures of their artwork works too.

Tyler's



Megan's

 


The kids have also been in to finding "how to draw_____" (cats, dragons, etc.) directions on the internet.  They don't quite have the spatial coordination down, so then they ask me to draw them.  I am NOT an artist, but apparently I can kinda look at an easy drawing and duplicate it.  Here are a bunch of cats (and a blue mouse) the girls wanted me to draw.  (They did all of the coloring themselves...obviously...well, at least I hope it's obvious.)


 
The girls trying on the flowers the Rocketeers girls will wear for a couple songs for the school choir concert.

Emily



Megan



 The girls went to a princess birthday party.  Emily went as Anna and Megan was Rapunzel.  They even wore their "glass slippers" for a few minutes until their feet were killing them.

 

We didn't do anything too crazy for St. Patrick's Day, just green milk and green donuts for breakfast and green milk and green mashed potatoes to go with ribs for dinner.  (Just a funny story.  I had the bowl of mashed potatoes sitting on the counter.  All of the sudden it disappeared and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE! The next morning I went to get something out of the freezer and lo and behold, there was the bowl of mashed potatoes.  Darrell had though it was ice cream and put the bowl in the fridge so it wouldn't melt.)





We celebrated our 10 year anniversary this month!  Since Darrell's birthday is 2 days after our anniversary, we decided to celebrate the weekend before by getting a babysitter so Darrell and I could go to the Melting Pot to eat.



The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant.  It was a lot of fun to eat there and everything was SO yummy.  We ordered the 4-course meal.

The first course was a cheese fondue.  The waitress mixed our cheese fondue for us at the table (there's a warming "plate" at each table) and then we used our skewers to eat tortilla chips, bread, apples and veggies.



The second course was a salad (no pictures.)  For the third course we chose their "classic" meat selection--shrimp, beef tips, chicken, steak and pork.  We choose a vegetable broth and then cooked the veggies (potatoes, broccoli and mushrooms), as well as our meat in it. 



The last course was a chocolate fondue (we went with a s'mores combination) with fruit and bite-size desserts. YUMMY!

 

Since we were celebrating our anniversary, they gave us each a chocolate covered strawberry.



On the day of our anniversary, we went to the temple to do sealings and then went to Applebee's for appetizers and dessert.  The chocolate chip cookie sundae was huge (and yummy!)





As is tradition, I tried on my wedding dress that evening.  (Not recommended after eating appetizers and that HUGE sundae)  The girls especially loved it and thought I looked like a princess.



Me, Megan, Emily and Tyler



Trying on my tiara

Megan



Emily



Tyler



It doesn't seem possible that 10 years have come and gone.  We have been so blessed!  (An interesting side-note about the pictures in this collage.  These were taken by our photographer's "shadow photographer."  These candid pictures were some of my favorites, but all that we got was a no-read CD with the pictures on it, so I had to print the pictures and then scan them to get them on the computer.  Fast forward 9 1/2 years--last August I got an e-mail from Tyler's principal explaining that when he was a teacher he had a side business of photography and would shadow professional photographers.  Last August he was going through his photos to find pictures of him and his wife for their anniversary when he clicked on a "wedding" folder.  It turns out they were OUR wedding photos and he sent me the file. What a small world! And we even spied him a few times in our wedding video as we watched it this year.)



I had to take a picture of Tyler's calendar.  He likes to put a circle on each day as it comes.  Here is where he's been anticipating "Dabby's" birthday.  So cute!



On Darrell's birthday we went and saw Cinderella at the theater.  It was so good. (Megan, Emily, Tyler...and Cinderella)



We had pizza and birthday cake for dinner.



The kids were so excited to have Darrell open their presents (goodies from the dollar store.)



Megan, Tyler, Darrell and Emily  (Love all of them so much!)



Megan has been begging for months to get out and fly her kite.  We had a nice windy day and actually got it up in the air!  Then Emily took a turn and the wind whipped it around and crashed it to the ground where it popped (it has a blow-up element to it).

 

Playing dress up with last year's dance costumes. (Emily)



The English/Spanish story time came to an end this month.  Here the girls are enjoying the same book being read in English and then in Spanish.



We went to the mall to see the Lego display.  The exhibits were so awesome.  (For some reason the kids thought they had to salute when I took there pictures.)

The U.S. capital building



The Statue of Liberty



The White House



I went on a preschool field trip to the fire station with the girls.

Emily listening about fire safety



Megan practicing "Stop, drop and roll"



The fabulous Miss Katie and Principal Dan with 3 classes of preschool kids.



Megan



Emily



Emily and Megan



Ice cream cones at Arctic Circle after the field trip



This year's cute new Beehives at New Beginnings.  We went with the theme of "embarking" so these cute girls are in the crow's nest of the "cruise ship."



We took advantage of a free hour of jumping at "Jump on It" with our "Pass of All Passes" passes.  The kids LOVED it. (Sorry about the blurry pictures from my cell phone.)

Emily, Darrell and Megan



Tyler



The foam pit (Emily, Megan and Tyler)



Since Easter falls on General Conference next week, the girls wore their Easter dresses today.  (They're the same ones as last year--there's an advantage to having the dresses be big last year.  But was IS new is their shoes.  Emily got some sparkly silver Elsa and Anna shoes and Megan got some black and white polka dot Minnie Mouse shoes.)


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, March 23, 2015

Happy Birthday Mom!

A big-as-Texas Happy Birthday shout out to my momma!



We love you!

Sunday, March 1, 2015

February

Megan wanted me to take a picture of her drawing.



The kids got money from Darrell's grandma, Grandma Nellie, for Christmas and they were FINALLY able to go to the store and spend it.  Megan chose these 2 Monster High girls. 



Emily bought this cute little bunk bed with twin dolls.  (And Tyler bought a Spiderman Lego set, but I apparently never got a picture of it.)



Playing Mr. Bucket with Daddy




 Valentine's hairstyles





Megan writing her name on her Valentine's



Emily doing her Valentine's




Tyler wanted to have a minion Valentine's box




It turned out cute.  (Thanks Pinterest!)



What the girls' mouths and hands looked like after enjoying blue Fun Dips they got from their Valentine's party at preschool.



I helped do Tyler's class Valentine's party. (Thanks, again, Pinterest.)

Enjoying snacks and coloring Bingo papers





Here they had to cross the rug by only stepping on large paper hearts.




Sucking up Skittles with a straw and seeing how many they could transfer from one cup to another in one minute.





Graphing conversation hearts



Emily and Megan had to come with me.  Tyler's teacher (who has 4-year old twins too) was nice enough to get out paper, markers and stickers for them.  Megan must have been wondering around the room when I took this picture of Emily.



Enjoying our heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's the night before Valentine's.



Yummy donuts on Valentine's day.



Our traditional Valentine's dinner to In 'N' Out



We had a chance to attend another Grizzlies hockey game.





Emily, Tyler and Megan Love these cuties!



I love that my kids are able to play kid games now.  Tyler got Trouble for Christmas, and it is one of the games I had growing up.  (It's way better than Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, although the kids still like those games.) The kids can also play Go Fish, Crazy Eights and Old Maid so it's been fun to mix things up and play together as a family.



It was nice enough to get out and enjoy the back yard.  I'm really trying to get them to learn how to pump on their own and they were getting the hang of it. (Notice Megan didn't have a dress or skirt on that particular day.  That was an anomaly because she's worn a skirt or dress every day for MONTHS.)





Tyler enjoying his Hot Wheels track (while dressing as a chef with his apron and In 'N' Out hat.)



Tyler finally joined the "lost tooth" club.  Once he discovered his tooth was loose, I had to get one last smile with all those cute baby teeth.



First lost tooth.  He had a loose tooth for quite a few days, then one day he was eating a muffin at breakfast and it "got caught" in it.  Good thing he didn't eat it or swallow it!



He lost the 2nd one 3 days later at school.





We went ice skating at the Olympic Oval for Young Women one night.  All of the pictures were blurry as I tried to take pictures with my phone as they skated by, so this one is just a representation of the fun activity we had.



The girls enjoy going to story time at the library.  We have been a few times to the bilingual one.  They sing and read stories in English and Spanish.  It's pretty fun.



Enjoying the bubbles at the end of story time.
  



The kids and I went to a volleyball game at the junior high to watch one of the Young Women play.  Here's Emily enjoying going up and down the stairs.




I had the chance to attend a "Star Raising" party at the Make-A-Wish foundation.  Sweet Ari was granted a wish through the foundation and then was invited back to add her star to the hundreds of others.  What a wonderful foundation and a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Ari's life too.