Silly Girl

While playing Barbies at Grandma Parry's house, Daddy recommended Emma try on the shoes. She did and we were surprised that they fit....on her big toe. She thought it was quite fun and kept putting them on as we laughed.

Church History Museum

For family home evening, we decided to go to the Church History Museum. Just after we got out of the van and started walking a man driving a horse and carriage offered us a ride for free since we were just going around the corner. Our girls were in heaven...at least all but Emma. She was a little nervous about the whole experience.

The museum was great too. I personally enjoyed the section on the later day prophets. It had iPads set up near each prophet with things to scroll through. They also had pictures showing the prophets at a very young age and then a couple more as they were growing up as well as personal items. It just felt like I understood their personalities a little better. Kali and Sadie are old enough now that they were very interested in what we saw in the normal part of the museum too. They spent time trying to learn new things and asked thoughtful questions. A couple of times they were so distracted that I had to go find them because we were far ahead with the younger ones. I think they forgot that there was a kid area. We saved it until the end and all the girls loved it. They danced, fished, dressed up dolls, lifted plates, abridged plates, built temples, picked food from a garden and set the table. It was great.

Tradition

It looks like the Y in the lawn has become a tradition. I was debating doing it this year due to a lack of time. But when a neighbor drove by and reminded me that it was time again, I gave in and did it. And I have to say that I'm glad I did. It's a fun, clean way to enjoy the rivalry and show team pride. I may have even started an extended family tradition. After I mowed my Y, Sara mowed a U in her lawn and Todd spray painted a Y in his. Unfortunately BYU lost...again!

Teeth

Sadie has been dying to lose a tooth for such a long time. Kali lost her first tooth in the beginning of her kindergarten year and here Sadie is in 1st grade and still nothing. Well, she finally realized that she had two loose teeth. She couldn't stop wiggling them and came home from school today showing us how she could move them forward with just her tongue. She decided that she wanted Josh to pull them out. When he got home from work, he gave them a tug and of course they started bleeding. Sadie saw the blood and immediately started crying. By the time they were both hanging on by a thread, she was sobbing. We told her she had a choice, to either deal with them hanging from her mouth or let Dad finish the job. She decided to be tough. With one more pull, they were out. How cool is that--to lose two teeth at the very same time! And little did we know, the new ones were already growing in behind the baby teeth and one of them is practically sideways. She is definitely going to need braces in the future.

My Birthday

I had such a wonderful birthday this year. My girls made me some homemade gifts. Kali made a huge flower out of paper and Sadie colored pictures of elephants (my favorite animal) on pieces of tissue paper. Then Josh met the girls and I at Red Robin so that I didn't have to cook for the evening and surprised me with these beautiful flowers. Afterward he took the girls and let me go shopping for myself, child-free. It was fantastic!

Cheer

Kali's first session of discovery was cheer and she loved it. Her teachers did such a good job at teaching the basics of cheer in such a short amount of time. Then they taught them the cutest cheer / dance. Kali got to help do a lift and loved it.

Josh's Birthday

Unfortunately Josh had to work on his birthday. But in order to make it a special day, we made sure he woke up to presents on the piano bench. The girls did an excellent job making him some special gifts. Sadie gave him a homemade card with very kinds things written on it and Kali made a horse (Josh's favorite animal) out of paper. She had Ashlyn help her color it. It was very cute.

Gymnastics

Sadie got a chance to try out gymnastics at Academy West through her school Discovery program. After her first week, all she could talk about was the rope and the foam pit which didn't sound much like gymnastics to me.

When I went to help out, I realized that they were the only two things that didn't seem like your typical gymnastics activities. They also did the bars and beams and somersaults. They just weren't as memorable to the kids. I must admit, though, that it was pretty fun to watch her climb the rope. Also the teacher commented on how well Sadie did on the beam. Maybe we'll end up with two gymnasts in the future.

The last week there the kids got to put on a performance to show us what they had learned. It was like a mini routine on each of the four events: floor, beam, vault and uneven bars. The floor routine was the somersaults down wedges and cartwheels. The beam event included walking along the beams forward and backwards. For the vault, they ran as fast as they could and jumped into the foam pit and they did pull ups and little flips over the bars for the uneven bars. Afterward, they were given medals which made them all so happy. They were so proud of themselves. It was super cute!

Preschool

Ashlyn started preschool today. She was so excited that last night she asked me if she got to do her chores and then go to school. I said, "Yes!" and she grinned from ear to ear. I just hope she stays that excited about doing chores, although, I suspect that's not what she was so excited about. She's really lucky this year with preschool. The two older girls took preschool from my mom, but she and my dad have decided to turn in mission papers here soon. Because of that, my mom will only be teaching preschool through the end of the year and only for the grandkids. So once a week, Ashlyn will be headed to Grandma Bohman's house. I also signed her up for a preschool in my ward so that she would get a full year of preschool. So twice a week, she is going there. School, school and more school. The more the merrier, right!?!