Big Girl Night

So Scott and I went to this restaurant....Barbacoa a couple months ago. Everyone in Boise raves about it. It was so much fun and decorated like an art gallery. It really is quite amazing. You have to look at it yourself, so if you haven't been there click on the link! Anyway....I knew after we went that the girls would just love it! So Hannah took the littles for their first ever sleep over and we took the big girls to dinner! We let them get dressed up in whatever they wanted! Yep! We did! I think the girls had more fun walking around and posing than anything. They were so funny!

Trying to look like a model

Prettiest Girls Ever at Barbacoa!

This picture doesn't do the Birthday treat justice...but it is glowing! It was really neat!

More posing...in the bathroom!She begged me to go in there and take pictures of her in the fancy pink bathroom!
I love these girls so much!

Hailey Turns 9!!

She wanted her hair curled for her Birthday!

Hailey turned nine a couple weeks ago! Nine! Which means she is halfway to 18!! How can that be??!! We had a friend party a couple days earlier, which Hannah took photos of! I haven't seen them yet! We did a pink poodle theme and the girls got feather hair extensions put in by me and nails by Hannah. They also made bracelets and filled candy bags. Then they each made their own pizza. It was lots of fun and no girl drama. I was so worried there would be tears in the bathroom by at least one, but there wasn't! There's a lot of girl drama these days, which is heart breaking for me, but I know something they all go through.

On her actual Birthday I got her from school and took her to Red Robin for lunch. We did gifts that night when Daddy got home. We also took the big girls out Friday night, but that is another post!

Thrilled to get Mckenna the girl of the year!

A new fur coat picked out by Rachael!

Love this face...she was opening a gift from Gracie!

The gift from Gracie!

Love this pic! All excited about her new DVD!

Justin Bieber...the exciting DVD!

Heart Day

I am sooo behind on my blogging. February was such a crazy month! Getting back from Disney World, each girl with a big school project, Valentines for every kid's classmates (Over 75), Hailey's Birthday and her three celebrations, etc, etc. I am so glad this week has calmed down and we have a lot less on the schedule! Anyway, Valentines Day must have started rough for Alex. I didn't remember that until I looked at this picture and burst out laughing. It was short-lived I'm sure, as most of his grumpiness is. We gave the kiddos each a WebKins (which we then put Hailey in charge of getting them set up on the computer and assisting them. She gladly took the roll on and it has gone great!) They also got a box of chocolates and a slinky. Those slinkies have provided so much entertainment. Who would guess? Such a simple toy and they love it!

For Valentines Night Scott and I decided we were going out! We never go out on actual Valentine's Day and usually make it all about the kids. Well no more! So Scott brought home Happy Meals and Amanda came over and babysat. It was great. I'd had a really busy day being at both girl's school parties. The kids came home with tons of Valentines and candy. (Anyone noticed they don't just give away cards anymore?.It's packs of candy and toys! Craziness! But so much fun!) So Amanda fed them their Happy Meals and Scott and I went to Fork. We LOVE that restaurant. And then we even went to a movie! Can't remember what it was called though. It was at the cheap theater so it was an older one about twins where Adam Sandler plays both rolls. It was hilarious. All in all it was a great night!

School Projects

Let me tell you, it has been a busy couple of weeks for school projects with the girlies! Scott and I have spent a ton of time working on school stuff. I never assigned this much work when I taught!!

This week it was Karis' "All About Me" week. She was thrilled. We prepared her posters to share with the class. On Friday the whole family came in, Hailey even got to get out of class, and we watched her presentation. The class also wrote a book for her and she got to sit by Mrs. A and listen to what every student in the class thought of her. The theme seemed to be they adored her. In fact, Mrs. A said that children are often each pulling on one arm of her begging her to sit by them.

She wore her pink sparkly dress that Grandma bought her at the beginning of the year. We also brought in heart shaped brownies for the class. It was very touching. On a side note, Karis' reading has come sooo far. At the beginning of the year and last year we had some concerns. In September she was able to read 4 or 5 words per minute. She is now reading 100 words a minute!! Mrs. A told us in her 17 years of teaching she has literally never had a child come so far so quickly! We are so proud of her! And it just goes to show that when Karis makes up her mind she can do what she feels is important! She told me she thought she was a bad reader at the beginning of the year and now she is a good reader and she is so glad! Wow!

 For Hailey's big project this year they had to choose a business in the city and construct it. Then the entire 3rd grade (7 or 8 classes) put them the gym to show the city of Meridian! What  a project it was. My friend's husband owns Texas Road House and we love it, so she chose that restaurant. I can not take any credit for this besides getting the paraphernalia and buying the supplies. Scott and Hailey did the rest and it took hours!! It turned out so well though and everyone was quite impressed! Scott even stained the Popsicle sticks to make it look more authentic. Whew!

Now I just finished over 75 small Valentine Cards for each of the kiddos to pass out at school. I am ready for a breather. Oh and Karis also had to construct an ice house designed to keep an ice cube frozen for hours last week. When is Spring Break??!! And what are we going to do with four in school next year??!!

Disney World Day #1!

First off, I am going to try and blog about each day in Disney World. We bought the photo pass when we were there which was worth every penny!! Basically you have a little card and there are photographers at almost all the characters and at many major places throughout the parks. At the end of your trip all the photos are put on a CD. I was really hoping to get at least 100 pics. When I got home and checked, I had over 400! Unfortunately, I don't have my CD yet so I can't post all my amazing pictures! However, I can post a few that I took, more candid ones, each day. If you'd like to see all of them hopefully this link will work, or just let me know and I will send it to you. Or you can see the link on my facebook page.

So we left Thursday afternoon and didn't get to Orlando until midnight. We knew the kids would be pretty tired the next day so we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. We had heard there was less for our age of kids there, so we wouldn't need as long of a day. OH....couple little things. We stayed on the DW property which was wonderful. We stayed in a "value" hotel which isn't as luxurious, but suited our family just fine. We knew we would hardly be in our room anyway. The hotel was awesome though. We got a 2 room suite which makes all the difference in the world when traveling with 4 kids! Especially when a certain little girl wakes up crying and can't sleep. She can be scooted into Mommy and Daddy's bed and the other 3 can keep right on snoozing. The hotel had a huge guitar shaped pool, but we didn't actually spend much time in it. The weather was between high 60's and 70's so just a little cool for swimming. The staff was wonderful though and so sweet with the kids. Everyone there is really into making it a magical experience.

Also another thing we got with our package was the Disney Dining Plan and it was AMAZING. I seriously never want to do Disney without it again. Took all the stress out of meals. We got the quick service meal plan which is the lowest one and we still had way more food credits and snack credits than we needed. Of course we managed to use them all though! Each day we got 12 meals and 6 snacks so I thought we would be on our own for breakfast. Well the way our family eats, 4 credits was always enough per meal, with food to spare. Every meal was a drink, main dish, and either 2 sides or 1 side and 1 dessert. And then with the snack credits it made it so fun because whenever they wanted a snack like Mickey ears or cotton candy they could get one and we weren't thinking, "There goes 5$ on candy!". In fact the last day we still had 11 credits, so I got to buy candy to take home. So fun!

OK back to day 1 Highlights:
♦ Aerosmith Rockin Roller Coaster- the girls and I went and it was awesome! The littles were too short so instead they went with Daddy to the Mickey Mouse club house show which they LOVED. Especially since they watch that show all the time, to see it live was amazing for them. It was so fun to see Disney through our kid's eyes!

♦ Tower of Terror-It really is terrifying. As I was on it I was thinking, "Why in the world did I do this again? I hated it 3 years ago and I hate it now!" Alex and Hailey loved it. Karis did it once and was shaking after and talked about it for hours. How terrified she was and how she would never do it again. Avery didn't do it. Disney has an awesome program called child-swap. So if you get up to the ride and any kids won't or can't do it one parent keeps them, the other parent takes the other kids on the ride. Then you swap, but the kids get to go again with the other parent. So on several rides the kids got to go twice because Avery didn't do many big rides. She loved the predictable non fast or  non scary ones though!

♦ Toy Story Mania- This is a ride everyone talks about and it is what is pictured above. The kids loved it! All of them. Avery scored the highest on this ride. You are playing a game while on the ride! Too fun!

♦ Beauty and The Beast Live- All the shows are done so well at Disney. Real actors/actresses and dancers. The kids just loved this show.

♦ Voyage of the Little Mermaid show-they loved this too!

♦ And of course everyday there were many characters to wait in line to see and get autographs from. We got over 30. Those pics are mostly on the photo pass though!

That day ended with dinner back at the hotel and swimming and bed. Every night we went to bed around 10 or 11 and got up around 9. Everyone slept it so it was wonderful. The 2 hour time change worked in our favor!