Life with "Wee Ones"

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler celebrated his 6th birthday on May 2. He decided he wanted to open some of his presents at breakfast and some after dinner, so that's what he did.

A new scooter. "I knew it was a scooter!" he said.

Decorating his cakes. He wanted Ninja Turtle cakes.

He chose McDonald's for dinner.

(Um, nice face, Megan!)

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler, Emily and Megan

The birthday boy with his haul.

The camera on my phone didn't take a very good picture of Tyler's name for birthdays on the school's marquee.

Tyler is SUCH a great kid and brings us so much joy. He loves school and it has been so fun to watch him learn to read this year. He is a pro at his sight words and can read many CVC words and "long vowel words" like a_e (made) or i_e (five), etc. He is going great at piano and has shown real improvement in soccer. He is a great big brother and likes to play make believe with the girls, but he can also be a tease. He likes playing with legos, riding his bike and his scooter, and watching Netflix. We sure do love him!

Sunday, May 18, 2014

April Wrap Up

A few last things from April.

By the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference, the kids needed some fun things to do in the front room while I watched in the family room. The kids continue to love playing with the wooden blocks.

Blanket tent

I put our trampoline back up and here are my helpers. They brought out Tyler's tool box with toy tools.

The local sno shack always offers $1 sno cones for any size on their opening weekend. Unfortunately the opening weekend was cold and rainy, so we bought them and took them home to eat.

Emily

Megan

Tyler

Um, yeah...that's a big mess!

I love these two beauties. They were wearing their new dresses that my mom bought them. (Emily and Megan)

I was in charge of a school fundraising spirit night at IHOP. Here we are doing our part to help with the donations.

Emily

Megan

I now have a co-choir director, Becky. She is a parent of one of the 6th grade school choir kids. And even though her son will not be at the school next year, she still wants to continue on as a choir director, so yay! Anyway, she was not familiar with the Hope of America program that we are teaching the kids, so she and I went to the Marriott Center to watch one of the student showcases. It's pretty awesome to watch 5,000 kids sing patriotic songs.

The girls had their dance pictures one night. (Obviously it was not a parent of 3-year olds who decided to have their assigned time at 7:45 p.m. ... and they were running late....)

Emily

Megan LOVED getting in her costume and requested that I keep taking pictures of her. Here's a couple of them.

I had a piano recital for my 11 piano students on April 30. My parents came down to attend. They were only able to stay one day because they were up early the next day to return home to watch other grandchildren be involved in their respective activities. They are amazing! We ate dinner at Arby's and then went to Dairy Queen afterwards for a treat. (I didn't get a picture of that.)

Here is Tyler doing his recital piece. He was the first one to go, and it was so cute because once he was done he didn't know what to do, so he just sat there. I finally had to start clapping and clapping so he would know to get up and bow. (We had practiced the bowing, so he was an expert at that!)

It was awesome to have my mom be my duet partner for the final number. This is a song that my brother Greg and I used to play in high school. It's such a fun song.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Easter

We had a great Easter.

We always love our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was such a beautiful day.

Tyler, Megan, Emily

Megan

Tyler

Darrell went with Tyler to his age division egg hunt and I stayed with the girls.

Enjoying some breakfast after the hunt

Emily (she had to get a picture with her basket on her head too)

Dying Easter eggs. The kids didn't want to wait very long for each egg to sit in the dye, so the eggs weren't very dark this year.

Megan, Emily and Tyler

Later, after the eggs had dried, the kids put stickers on the eggs.

Waiting to see what the Easter Bunny brought.

Searching for the hidden eggs

Checking out their candy haul

All dressed up in their Easter clothes. (Megan, Tyler, Emily)

We had a yummy ham dinner and decided to make this Rhodes Roll bunny out of bread dough. It looks a little scary, but the kids loved it.

I love Easter and the opportunity to remember the real reason of Easter--the atonement, death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. We had some great teaching moments with the kids this Easter. I love teaching them about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Visitors

Darrell's mom Carol and sister Brenda visited us for a few days in April and we loved it.

The kids were excited to open early Easter presents.

Carol and Brenda were here for my birthday so that made it extra special. We had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner. Yum! Yum!

We had a chocolate Costco cake for dessert.

Emily, Tyler, me and Megan.

On Saturday we drove up to Park City and walked along Main Street. The kids liked looking in the windows and getting pictures by the unique statues, art, etc.

Megan, Emily and Tyler

Emily requested a picture by this statue.

Megan and Emily pretended they were performing on stage and asked Carol to come up and sing and dance with them. She was a good sport!

Five years ago when Carol and Darrell's dad Wayne were visiting, we also visited Park City. Here are the pictures we took then. (So grateful for pictures and wonderful memories.)