Ethan's Birthday, Mindy's Performance and Easter

This was a very busy weekend! I'm kind of glad it's over, but it was also a lot of fun!

Here are Ethan and Elle at the Wildlife Preserve in Ogden while We waited for Mindy's performance. We're glad we found something fun to do on Ethan's actual birthday.

This is Mindy after the show. They didn't let them come out to get their pictures taken in their costumes which was a bummer because she was so cute!

Ethan opening his presents right before bed. Elle's got her ballet stuff on, she wants to be just like her sister!

Easter Morning, on the way to church.

I love this picture!

Our neighbor happened by so she took a picture of all of us - we were all late for church.

Decorating the rice crispy treat eggs that Angela brought, with Grandpa.

Mindy getting started on her chocolate bunny.

The Captive Audience.

Look at Ethan's cute dinosaur cake!

What a happy birthday boy! 5 years old!

You Can Never Have Too Many:

Sunny Days. (these were actually taken last week)

Hours spent playing in the sprinkler in the back yard.

Kids on a chair. (ok, maybe you can have too many of these, but at least this is not too many)

Pictures of your little angle sleeping.

Princess Party

Tuesday night we had a unbirthday party for all the girls in my young women’s group. It was a princess theme so we all had fun getting all dressed up. We played some games and had a white elephant gift exchange. It was so much fun!

Christine and Liz getting all fixed up

This is my friend Ann. Doesn't she look very princessy?

Look at the CUTE cupcakes Ann made too!

Aquarium

We went to the aquarium yesterday because the kids got their chore chart all filled up. My dad met us there and we had plenty of fun. The kid you don’t recognize is my friend’s little boy, Ethan. Elle calls him Little Ethan and sometimes Tiny Ethan. We all had fun and had delicious Thai food afterward.

Forgotten Feet

Today we were driving in the car and Elle had her window down. She stuck her foot out the window and said, "Mom, you forgot my foot!"

What a funny way to think of things!

Valentine's Fun

Today we had so much fun making Valentines. Mindy had to make some to bring to school (I guess she didn’t have to make them, but I think this is more fun than buying them from the store. No offense, Sun), and of course Ethan and Elle wanted to make some too. I don’t know if Ethan’s supposed to bring any…. Not that I know of anyway.

They kept themselves busy for probably an hour and a half decorating little hearts with a whole package of glitter pens. It made quite a mess, but it was pretty easy to clean up. Definitely worth it.

I was very impressed that Mindy stuck with it and made all 24 for her class, and wrote her name on them all. Last year, I ended up writing her name on most of them

Here they are with all their creations all set out to dry.

Something you don't see every day.

A clean kitchen! At least I don't see it every day. I need to print this out and put it on my fridge so that I can see it every day. That will help me remember what a nice kitchen I really have. Isn't it lovely all done up like this?

Rock Stars, Homemakers and Princesses

Here's Pete giving Ethan a drum lesson on Rock Band. He was doing really well! He said he wants to be in a rock band when he grows up and he wants to call it "Rocking Out."  

Here's Elle helping me make bread.  She had to do the mixing all by herself, and of course she's only wearing underwear.  What else could we expect?

Mindy finally has everything she's been wanting since she was Elle's age and she would dress Ethan up like a princess so she would have someone to go to the ball with. Elle is happy to play a long.

Here are some pictures of our trip to St. George.  We went on a beautiful bike ride through Snow Canyon on Saturday, and on Monday we spent another beautiful morning rock climbing at Black Rocks.  It was a great weekend! There are more details on my other blog.

St. George

This weekend we are in Sunny St. George! It is so nice here.  We went for a bike ride yesterday and it was probably close to 60 degrees! Nice hu? We are staying with Pete's parents and it's been a lot of fun , and a lot of work, having the kids here.  I'm glad we got to come though, Grandma and Grandpa are always so great to open their home to us, even though we totally trash it!

Tomorrow we have plans to go climbing, and I'm so excited! I hope I'm even able to do it after all these years! And I hope my wrist doesn't still hurt too bad to do it. (see bike ride)

I'll post pictures when we get home. Enjoy the long weekend!

"I needa go poddy!"

Those 4 little words can be the last thing you want to hear sometimes, like when you're at the store and in hurry, or in the car on the freeway with nowhere to stop.  

But they can also be music to your ears when you're laying in bed with a headache, and it's your little 2-year old running up the stairs to go potty all by herself!  

Elle has been doing really well, and I'm so excited that she's finally getting it! She still has accidents, and I've decided that she really should still wear a diaper to bed, but she's getting it! Yeah!

My Little Student of the Month

Mindy is student of the month for her class for January. That means she worked really hard and didn't get any bad marks in class (or she didn't turn her card as that is what they do in her class when you get in trouble). Today was the awards assembly, plus all the first grade sang so she was really excited.  She made sure that I knew I was supposed to get her a balloon with candy tied on it because that's what everyone gets.  I talked to her teacher today just to find out if we really did need to bring her something or if the school did it because if it's everyone, that would seem like the school did it.  Her teacher said that not everyone gets one, but about half, and it's just whatever we want to do.  Some bring balloons with candy, some bring flowers and some with take their kid out to lunch or something.  But nothing is really required.  Of course, I didn't want Mindy to be the only one not getting anything, and I am really proud of her so I went and got a balloon and tied a package of starbursts on it with a little note.  I hope she liked it.

The assembly was really cute with the first graders singing songs in English and Spanish, and Mindy did a really good job.  Then they named all the student's of the month and when Mindy went up, Pete brought her her gift.  She was really cute with her little glittery crown on.

Ethan's FIrst Day of School

I know it's a weird time to be starting school, but at the beginning of the school year, Ethan wasn't quite ready and I wasn't quite ready to deal with the crying that would ensue if I made him go.  It's just preschool, it should be fun.  Over the past few weeks, I've decided that he's ready to go now, so the other day I went and signed him up.  Today was his first day.  Mindy and Elle fussed over him, helping him get ready this morning, and we hurried over to the school early so he could meet his teacher.

It was kind of anticlimactic because we thought he was going to go to the morning class, but then it turned out that the morning class is full so he's going to go to the afternoon class.  By the time we got there and he saw his classroom (complete with dinosaurs!) he was really excited to go back in the afternoon!  This is a good sign!