End of January and all of February

On January 28th I helped out in Faith's class when they did market day. Different stations were set up around the classroom where the students had to figure out different money related problems to "buy" things like they were out shopping. My station was a flower shop where the kids had to figure out what different arrangements cost by looking at the key to see how much each type of flower was and then adding it up.

There was a video store

and a supermarket along with two or three others where there were different activities. It was a fun time and the kids learned a lot about money that they will use in the real world. I love Faith's teacher, she is the best!

Later that day I cleaned our fish bowl. I have an easier time scooping him with my hand rather than the net and Christian became jealous that I got to "pet Grape Juice." Against my better judgement, I let Buddy have a go at it. He was very gentle and thought our fish "felt weird."

On February 4th Faith's class painted designs in sqares of what would later become the tail of their Chinese dragon.

There was one square left which Faith's teacher started to add stripes to, but then turned the paintbrush over to Buddy. He made some great dots! Unfortunately, we missed out on the Chinese Dragon parade due to our getting the flu of some sort that had us down in bed for over a week :( I'm sure it was awesome!

Here is the grandparent Faith read to at Apple Village Assisted Living on the 5th. She got to partner with Spencer! (Does it seem to you that Christian and I are always at the school or on a field trip with Faith? It does to us, too!)

They sang the cutest olden day love songs and invited the residents to sing along. Here's "Daisy".



The kids made these cute toy car shelves at Home Depot on the 6th. I think they're pretty cool!

After that, we went to Joy's house for Sierra and Lily's joint birthday party. The kids loved playing "Under the Sea" with balloon "bubbles"!

Joy held a freind party for them the day before and had made mermaid tails and seashell bras for the girls,

and shark fins for the boys! We had fun with the leftovers, even if Christian doesn't look like it in this picture.

Some might say it was a little too much fun :D

Faith squeezed into a tail even though they were made for three-year-olds, but got uncomfortable with the fit and took it off not long after. But she was certainly a beautiful mermaid!

Lunch consisted of shell pasta salad with tuna, hot dog octopusses (had to look that one up--not octopi like I thought), hot dog/spaghetti noodle squid, and goldfish crackers.

Buddy doesn't know what to think of his squid!

For the games, we started with Under the Sea Limbo.

See it in action:



Then, Flounder toss with three different sized fish toys.

Lastly, pass the sea anemone. Isn't Eric a fun uncle to always play the kids' games? We love him!!

Then it was on to the presents.

Faith was finally better by the 12th (Christian and I weren't so lucky) and she got to go to the Kaysville City Daddy Daughter Dance. Her dad even brought her roses! They said it was fun and had great treats, but the only activity was dancing (there was even a dj). Tony does not dance, but apparently he made a bit of an exception for his little girl.

This is the picture she had drawn of her dad several weeks before, in anticipation of the event. She was sooooo excited! I love the Steeler shirt detail and our kitchen cabinets in the background!

On the 15th Christian said he was making breakfast for him and Faith and brought his finished masterpiece to show me. I don't think he'd ever had cottage cheese with fruit before, but he figured it would be good! He even washed the berries first. What a sweet brother!

On the 19th we were back at Apple Village. Christian loves the bird they have there as well as the turtles that have their own pond near the front door.

This time, instead of reading, the kids sang a few songs and then played Wii Bowling with the grandparents! Faith did great on her turn,

and everyone had a ton of fun!!

For the second part of the field trip, we visited Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. I wonder what Faith's friend Elaina was shaking her finger at, too funny! They even sang the Donut Song to the employees.

On February 22nd Faith got spacers between her back molars in preparation for her braces. She was getting excited and very nervous about them!

My Mother's Day Gifts

First, Christian's offering which, you're not going to believe this ;) , he made entirely by himself. I think it's supposed to be a card since it's colored on cardstock. I love his cutting job! (And the other 80% of the paper, which Buddy threw away as cutting scrap, had really cute drawings on it as well.)





Faith made me this darling card at school. It's so sweet that it has her school picture in it!

At home, Faith made me this neclace with Pixos, which are little round plastic beads that stick together after you spray them with water. Christian has a play-doh fettish as of late, and smeared some metalic silver clay into it. I guess he just wanted to not be left out of contributing to this gift.

Faith also drew this cute ballerina which is two-sided and has cardstock in the middle.

This wasn't a gift for me, but Faith made it a few weeks ago and I wanted to share. It's a robe for her Webkinz! She thought up the pattern, cut it, and hot glued the belt loops all on her own! I didn't even know what she was doing until she showed me the finished project. I tell ya, this girl is very independant and self-motivated when it comes to things she wants to do. And I'm only a little freaked out that my 7 year old got out, plugged in, used, unplugged, cooled & put away a hot glue gun without my knowledge.

May Happenings

I finally got some pics edited to blog about! This first one I took May 6th and it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in it. Christian had gotten a hold of a spool of white thread and thought he would make a giant art sculpture-type-thing with it. He wound the thread around a bunch of bar stools and things on the counter, and then managed to hang a glue stick from it. Sounds like someone is turning out to be creative like his sister :)

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Later that day, my sister brought over their puppy, Tiff, for her first haircut. (Remember this little fluffball from Christmas?) She was really pretty good for it!

On May 8th, the sickness curse struck our family yet again and Christian was running a fever. By the next day, Faith was sick, too! Here the kids are, in the middle of the day, down for a nap with their "barf bowls". Tony & I were both suffering from some nasty allergies that week, so we were a pretty pittiful bunch of souls!

By Mother's Day the kids were both feeling better, so we visited the grandparents and brought gifts of homemade fudge. (I'll have to get the recipe posted soon--it's incredible!) I didn't manage to remember to take pictures besides this one, Buddy sure loves his grandmas!

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I had a wonderful Mother's day and got the cutest gifts from my kids (pictures coming in the next post). I love being a mom and feel very privileged to be able to stay home with them every day. Thank you Tony for working so hard to make it possible!

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On May 12th I went out to dinner with the fabulous ladies that I was in the 6th Ward Primary presidency with. It was so much fun chatting and laughing with those gals, I can't wait to do it again!

I should mention that I have a new calling--nursery coordinator! I'm so glad to still be in the primary, and I really look forward to doing some fun things with the tiny ones. I'm especially excited to do music time with them!

On the 13th, Faith told me that she noticed a bird coming out from behind our satelite dish. We got on a ladder and found this nest with four little chicks! They'd been there for awhile because they were already all feathered out. On Memorial Day we checked on them and they were already gone :(

Early May 14th I left for a PTA conference being held on the BYU campus. Faith made me this letter to remind me how much they each would miss me :D

I ended up having a lot of fun with our PTA board ladies, even though some of the seminars were less than thrilling. The first day I went to a class about getting people involved in their child's education and one about the School Land Trust program. We then met up and went to lunch at the Brick Oven, which has great salad and pasta bars. My last class was about an online membership program. We went to dinner at PF Changs. I'd never been there before and I loved it! After that, we stayed up too late playing Phase 10 and being silly.

The next day I had a really neat class about increasing membership and then one about PTA awards. After that, there was a general meeting where we got to hear from motivational speaker Chad Hymas, and that was an absolute treat! We skipped out on the presentations and instead spent a long lunch at T.G.I.Friday's. The last class was called "Music and the Brain" and was taught by Michael Hamblin. What great information! Did you know that most children under 14 are kinesthetic/tactile learners (they learn best through movement and exploring the environment)? We did a fun clapping game to "The Lady With the Aligator Purse" and soothing (& tiring!) movements to "Kumbayah" as part of the seminar.

The conference certainly did its job--motivated me to do a good job in my positions in membership and grants next year. I hope everyone reading this who has kids in school will become a PTA member!! It really is a great organization which does a lot for the children with a small amount of money.

I got home Friday night and on Saturday the kids spent a lot of time playing our new Wii game "Wii Ski & Snowboard". It's hilarious to watch Christian play this and try to avoid crashing into everything!

Faith's team won their soccer game that day. The regular season is over, but they have one makeup game on the 30th.

When my mom came over to watch the kids while I was at PTA conference, she brought an awesome gift. These two containers of tiny caterpillars and a butterfly pavillion!

Here's how big they were on the 17th,

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. . . . . . . . . . and the 19th,

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and the 22nd. In this one they are getting ready to make their chrysalises. I will post more on them in a week or so ;)

Speaking of new pets, Faith got this Beta fish and named him Grape Juice.

When I was editing this picture of his fish bowl, I noticed a pair of sneaky little eyes on the lower left. Come on, Dusty, say it with me "Fish are friends, not food!" (~name that movie~)

You can see him better here, he's getting sooooooo big!

And finally, Christian doing his favorite activity again--cooking. This happens to be lemon poppyseed muffins.

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We've had a great month of May at our house!

since Easter

While Faith was on spring break, I went into the optometrist at Sam's Club for a check up. I was glad that Faith was there to keep Christian busy during the long appointment, and both kids were really very good and mostly quiet. One exception was while I was answering the "lens one, or lens two" questions behind this thing.-->

(I learned while trying to find a picture of one that it's called a phoropter. This blog is nothing if not educational!)
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Christian started in with his, "mom------mom------mom." I kept telling him, "Quiet, Bud, and mom will be done in just a minute." and finally the doctor told him that he needed to wait until mommy was done. After a hundred more "mom"s, I finally said, "WHAT, Buddy?" and he replied, "Mom, wook wike wobot!" (translation-"Mom, you look like a robot!")

Next, the doctor put on crazy specs on me like these which have interchangable lenses, but he put a black plastic piece in the left side while he checked the prescription for my right eye. After a minute or two Christian blurted out, "Now wook wike piwate!" (Now you look like a pirate!) After that one, Faith, the doctor and I all cracked up!!


On April 14th I found this cat toy on clearance for $7 (regular price: $18) and just couldn't pass it up. Faith had been wanting something like this for Dusty and was just thrilled.







She even made him a matching pirate's hat!

A couple of weeks ago, we had gotten these barstools and I forgot to take and post a picture.
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It was the weirdest thing. First of all, they are from Target and our dining set is from RC Willey, neither of which carried the opposite item and they are not marked as being from the same company (which I'm pretty sure they are since they're nearly identical.)
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Secondly, was the way we got them. I had seen them in a Target ad about 8 months ago when they were on sale for 15 or 20 percent off the regular price of $90 each. I, of course, decided to wait until they went on a better sale. I scoured the Target ad each Sunday only to find that these never went on sale again! I checked on-line a few months ago and they weren't even listed, so I was afraid they had been discontinued.
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That particular Saturday at the beginning of April, we went out to eat at the Bountiful Chuck-A-Rama, which is unusual because we don't eat out very often and if we do go to Chuck-A-Grandma's (as Faith calls it), we go to the Riverdale one. We stopped at the Centerville Target on the way home and happened to find my barstools being clearanced out for half price!
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When we asked an employee for a flatbed cart to wheel them out, he remarked that he was surprised and glad to be getting rid of the stools so quickly since they had been in the back room for awhile and he'd just put them out a few hours before! Luck like that just doesn't usually happen around here! Even better was that my mom paid for them as a gift to us!!! I should have entered the lottery that day :)



On the 15th, we had a blizzard most of the day and the snow finally started sticking around 1 pm. This is crazy Utah spring!






That night I made omelets for dinner which Tony, Christian & I thoroughly enjoyed (Faith doesn't care for eggs and didn't really touch hers). The next morning, Buddy wanted to eat Faith's for breakfast since he loved it so much! Here he is with a gigantic bite.


On April 17th our primary had a talent show activity. Faith brought this picture of Olivia for the display table because she decided that art is her best talent. I think this drawing is amazing!
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Some of the other kids sang, played piano, did karate, jump roped, played kazoos, and one even showed his talent for burping. Afterward, they got medals, light sticks (for letting their talents "shine"), and giant cookies. It turned out to be a really fun activity and all I really had to do was make the invitation and call half the families with a reminder!
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On a sad note, just this past Sunday I was released as the Primary first counselor. Yes, I was only in the presidency since November, but the president had been in for three years. (Interesting note: I was the third person to be first counselor in this presidency that I know of because she lost one who got called to be Young Women's president and another when the ward split this last time.) I hope I get another calling in the primary, I think I'm too used to the action and would have a hard time sitting through a three hour block of church without it!



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After the activity, I couldn't get the kids to leave the church grounds! They ran up and down the little hill and collected lots of dandilions. I played with this pic a bit--cropped it extra close and desaturized the color--and thought it turned out pretty cool.






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Then, the little monkeys climbed up on the hood of the car and didn't want to get off. It seriously took us an extra 30 minutes or more to get on the road after that activity!
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On the 18th our family headed over to J & J Nursery to get some flowers and such for our front and side planting beds. I love this pose of Buddy's, it reminds me of a "keep it real" rap star pose!




We picked mostly budget-friendly petunias, but also got some snap dragons, marigolds and geraniums. (We later stopped at WalMart and got two rose bushes and four peonies.) We also bought large and small hanging baskets and an urn of white geraniums. The kids loved the koi pond and could have spent another couple of hours staring at it!


Also at Walmart, Tony picked the kids up some gardening gloves in thier favorite colors. Christian had fun playing outside, and Faith was a big help planting the flowers. Next up will be a vegetable garden, as soon as we get a non-stormy weekend!!

The next day after church, I let Christian spend a minute or two watering our new flowers with his long lost friend, the hose sprayer. Unfortunately, it took him way longer than two minutes because it was just so darn fun.
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And I say "unfortunately" because little Buddy's mom is not so great at remembering the sunscreen at the beginning of spring, and she needs to work on that now that she has a child with skin just one nano-shade darker than an albino. His arms got kinda crispy and his face looked rosy, but it could have been much worse.

Tony's 38th birthday was the 20th, so we celebrated the day before at the parents' houses. My mom made Tony his favorite dessert, Chocolate Lush. (You can find the recipe for it HERE.)

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He got money, fun cards, and a shirt.

I don't write often enough how much I and the kids love that guy. He's a wonderful, caring husband (and believe me, I know how hard I am to put up with!), works so hard for our family, and is the cutest, sweetest, funnest dad ever!!! We love you soooooo much, happy birthday Ton!!




The night of the 20th, Christan was doing his best to talk me into letting him fall asleep in my bed (good try, Buddy!) while Faith rounded up items to take to school for a time capsule that she was putting together in her class.
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They were each sealing their items in a #10 can, not to be opened until high school graduation. She wanted a recent picture, so I took this one that very night and printed it out for her. Tony and I each wrote a letter for the project and I gave them to Faith in sealed envelopes.
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After school the next day, Faith asked what we wrote in the letters. I told her that it was a surprise and that she would find out when she got to unseal the time capsule.

"Is it the Easter Bunny's phone number??"

"No."

"Is it Santa Claus's phone number?!?!!"

"No."

(Very dejectedly) "Oh."
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And lastly, here is a video of Christian singing "Happy Birthday" to himself (because he always wishes he were the birthday boy) and blowing out a hot glue stick "candle":