Third Trimester

My third trimester has not been fun to say the least. Between carpel tunnel, high blood pressure, bouts of insomnia, a sinus infection, an ear infection, and the usual aches and pains, I can hardly wait for it to be over. I feel about as good as I look.

Grandma Parry

The day after Christmas, Grandma Parry had a very serious stroke. Thankfully we still have her with us, but she has to work very hard on a daily basis to make improvements. We try and visit her about once a week and the girls love to practice flash cards with her. I don't know how much she likes it, but if she doesn't, she's a good sport to put up with it.

Sledding

We finally got enough snow to go sledding. I guess it would more accurately be described as barely enough snow, but that didn't make it any less fun. Sadie insisted on going down on her tummy by herself most of the time. Ashlyn, who doesn't like walking in the snow, loved sledding in it. And Kali spend just as much time doing backward somersaults down the hill as she did on her sled.

But best of all, we weren't the only ones with sledding on our minds. We got to the park the same time as Danielle, Kate and Carter. It ended up being a family thing.

Valentine's Day

The girls had so much fun this year on Valentine's Day. They were excited to get the movie Bolt and some sparkly books from Josh and I and they were just as excited to give valentines to friends and family.

Crazy Hair / Accessory Day

Today was crazy hair day at school and Kali thought of the perfect thing to wear--her birthday wig. I guess she was the star of the day. Not many people in her class did anything so all they could talk about was Kali's hair. Even her teachers commented on it.

The Liahona

Tonight we started reading about the Liahona for our family scripture study. Josh's dad has one so Josh decided to borrow it to make our scripture study a little more exciting. He also had the great idea of pulling out his compass and the scriptures and asked the girls what all of them had in common. They seemed to comprehend the similarities quite well. It has been really fun to delve into the Book of Mormon with the girls this year. We've been reading out of the Old and New Testaments over the last couple of years to keep in line with the Gospel Doctrine curriculum, but now that we're in the Book of Mormon, we've gotten a lot more participation from the girls. Not only are they more familiar with the stories, the ideas and concepts seem to make much more sense to them too. We're so lucky to have such an amazing book of scripture. Ashlyn even reads a verse every night and she repeats every single word, not just the last word of the phrase like most kids her age.

Valentine Crafts

Kali and I have been crafting for almost a week now to get all her valentines ready for grandparents, classmates, and dance friends. It's probably more than I want to do in the future, but I'm pretty impressed with our end results, especially the piano valentine box.

Marvelous Me

Kali just finished up a new session of Discovery centered around "the primacy of self discovery". She signed up for the "Marvelous Me" class. It focused on proper etiquette, self esteem and confidence. The session finished up with a recital where the kids were able to show off what they had learned. Kali's group did a ballet / hip hop dance (the girls danced ballet while the boys did the hip hop). Her group had the shortest performance but it turned out nice. I just felt bad that I had Kali wear those awful shoes. They said she needed to wear black shoes and that was the only pair she had. So the first time she kicked her foot out, her shoe went flying (thankfully backwards) and then she was off for quite some time while she attempted to recover from the mishap. Oh well, you live and learn.

Pajama Girl

Sadie has an obsession with wearing the weirdest things to bed. She has a drawer full of some of the cutest nightgowns, but she rarely wears them. She thinks she has to wear something different every night and they usually aren't pajamas. They're soccer uniforms, or random pants, or shirts layered on top of each other. You name it, she wears it. Lately she even begs to wear shirts out of our closets (hence Josh's T-shirt).

Kaleidoscope

Kali got to go to Capitol Theater to watch the dance group Kaleidoscope perform today. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-graders at her school are currently working on a performance for discovery and their teachers wanted to make sure they understood that it's just as important to be a good audience as it is to perform. When they asked for volunteers to help chaperon, I lucked out. It worked out with my schedule and I was able to get a babysitter. Not only did I really enjoy the performance, but I was also impressed with Kali and her classmates. They were so much better behaved than those from other schools.