I actually just imported my photos clear back from Christmas today. This is my attempt at sharing a fraction of the last few months with you.
Dad and daughter as shephards:
I love doing fun food for the holidays. It's one of my favorite things. Here are our cute snowmen and reindeer cookies:
Megan and a couple of neighbor girls built this snowman (all by themselves) for a lady in our ward. You've got to love Paige in the picture - she just walked down the street with me to pick Megan up, but wanted to stand in the photo as if she'd help build the snowman! :)
Cooking with the kids:
Princesses, kittens, fairies, and butterflies live at my house:
(I have to add that Megan made her own crown, and the kitten ears on the headbands for her sisters.)
I threw a Valentine's party for Megan and about 8 friends. It was fun to do something like this for her - just because I wanted to:
Paige's new favorite TV watching spot - the windwsill. Unfortunately, Ashlie loves climbing up in here now too:
This is my little buddy...
Ashlie and I go to library story time on Wednesdays together, and Mondays and Fridays she kindly goes to the church and plays in the gym while I exercise with other women in my ward. I'm LOVING this! Tuesdays and Thursdays Ashlie gets to play with her little friend, Emmett while his mom and I volunteer at the school. Most of the time, I love being with this little girl of mine:
I was able to volunteer in Megan's classroom for the Valentine's Day Party. The mom in charge chose to work the party around a Star Wars theme. I got to bring the cupcakes which I let the kids decorate with either Star Wars or Heart toothpick "picks", and with fun sprinkles. One of the other moms brought A TON of really neat Star Wars Legos that the kids built with for the Lego competition. The computer lab teacher loves Star Wars, and the mother asked him to come in and judge. Megan's spacecraft didn't win, but I was proud of her for building one! There were some girls that didn't.
Fun days at school! Here's the girls on their way to school on "Crazy Hair Day", and Paige after 100's Day in Kindergarten:
We had a fun night at their school last night. It was Family Literacy Night, and for an hour and a half we rotated to rooms and listened to stories, and the kids participated in activities that went along with each book. For Dr. Seuss they each received some ooblek, and made a "cat in the hat" hat. At the Harry Potter room we tasted jelly beans, then in the room for "Diary of a Worm" the kids touched worms, watched them crawl on the carpet, and then watched the mom make worms out of this cool science solution. Megan and Paige have been starting school at 7:45 am 3 times a week for quite a while now, so that they can participate in the school choir, and a school art class. Here are their cute leprechauns they made in art class last week:
This year the girls left out one gold candy, and one gold bracelet each, to try and attract the leprechauns to our house for St. Patrick's Day. Well, it worked! We had a nice leprechaun that came and filled their candy dishes with even more gold candy! He left a note saying that he was a nice leprechaun, and just liked to look at gold and jewels, instead of being one that took gold. Megan made traps for the leprechauns, and even caught some! We took a year off of having our traditional green eggs and ham for breakfast, and started the morning off with Lucky Charms. I made a St. Patrick's Day bingo game that we played as a family, and the girls made fruit loop necklaces (rainbows :) ). Anyway, best part of the day was probably our traditional mint ice cream / oreo frozen pie!
Our blackout round:
I wish there were more pictures of Brad and I to share, but honestly, with young kids, I'm the one taking all of the photos. Brad's normally on the video camera at the same time. The kids are cuter anyways. Our life is full, busy, but not too busy. Things just seem pretty perfect lately. I am really enthusiastic about the new job chart / incentive program I've put together for Megan and Paige. They've been going beyond the morning checklist, daily job chart, and "help the spirit be in our home" that they earn tokens for. They've been doing extra service each day in order to earn themselves even more tokens, that they trade in for rewards. Brad and I have been enjoying reading some good books (I'm half-way through the Hunger Games series for the 2nd time), and like I said, I'm enjoying exercising with friends. I just decorated my house for Spring yesterday, and that makes me happy. Megan came in 2nd place in the 3rd grade Arbor Day poster contest, and just finished up swimming on Thursdays with her school class. Paige writes all the time. She writes the way things sound, and it's cute. Her drawing is getting really good, and she works on it a lot. I haven't had Brad work on any house projects in a while, and I think he's loving that! I will do my best to update again soon - it's a great way to kill an afternoon, right?! - Camille
