Sweet Sisters

Not every day is filled with love notes, hugs and kisses around here, but today was an exceptionally good day. My kids got along and just seemed to be so sweet to each other. LOVED IT!

My day started out with me making my bed and finding a sweet love note from my 5 year old, Paige. It said (in her own 5 year old spelling) "For Mom, You love me very much and I love you very much. I love you a billion days very much. Love Paige". Then this afternoon Megan sent me on a treasure hunt to find 4 love notes she wrote for me. I remember leaving notes for my parents underneath their pillows when I was a little girl. Now that I'm a mom, I know how much my parents must have liked that. I'm not the only one they love by the way...Megan made one for each one of us the other day, and Paige loves Brad more than anyone, so he gets them from her all the time. This morning I found a love note that Paige had slipped underneath Ashlie's door. It was cute - it said "I love you for 60 days". :)

So, Paige fell off of my bed today and scratched her stomach on my nightstand somehow. She was crying big time, and so I tried to comfort her with hugs, & her blanket, so she could ice it while I read her some stories. Well, Megan "one-upped" me. She created this for her little sister - complete with books Paige can read, a note for her, a water bottle, her favorite stuffed animals blanket, and pillow pet:


Thought Megan deserved to be in the picture. Days like today I'm reminded that Megan was truly meant to be the big sister in our home. She can be a real sweetheart.

Easter & Spring Break 2012

We have never done this before, but I'm not promising we won't do it again, because it was so much fun... The Saturday before Easter we took the kids to 4 Easter egg hunts! They were all fun in their own way - Smith's was fun because they got so much candy so quickly, The City Park - because we saw friends, Midway Store - because the kids found special eggs that got them a free scoop of ice cream, and the one in my parent's backyard - because the eggs were actually hidden!

We had no idea what to expect at Smith's. For sure I wasn't expecting this:


Ashlie was on a seperate aisle for her age group with Brad, and Megan was on an aisle for kids her age. I was with Paige, and went to check on Megan, and saw her and all the kids her age kneeling on the floor, scooping as much as they could up into their baskets. On the over-com the manager kept saying, "Clean it all up kids, I don't want anything left!" ...Well, they did! Paige and Ashlie both bent down, picked one up at a time, carefully choosing which candies they wanted. After a while Paige decided she was done. When I met up with Megan, and saw how much she had I was seriously dying inside because she had so much. Then I looked and noticed that most everyone had as much as our kids, and the store manager was handing out huge handfuls to latecomers. It was very fun.

I snapped this photo just to show the difference between Megan and the other two. Paige and Ashlie had quite a lot in their buckets, only proving more just how much Megan came away with.


Ready for the hunt at my parent's house! It seemed like it was really fun this year. The kids were looking for their eggs for quite a while, my parent's have so many hiding places in their yard.



Afterwards we rolled eggs, got in the hot tub, and had a really yummy BBQ.
I love the fun that comes with Easter celebrations, and also love the spirit of Easter Sunday.

Our spring break was the week following Easter. Brad took off work on Tuesday and we had a great family day down in Provo / Orem. First we ate at Tuchanos restaurant, then we went over to a spot we love - The Noni Gardens (which are right by Tuchanos). It's like a mini, free botanical garden. We walked up to Bridal Veil Falls, and enjoyed the first really warm day of the year!
Here are the kids at the Tahitian Noni Gardens. They kept saying to me, "Take my picture over here mom!":












Forget-Me-Nots will now forever remind me of Pres. Uchtdorf's talk:




I hope you all had a really fun Easter & spring break!

This is called a "3 month Review"...

SURPRISE! I BLOGGED AGAIN!
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

January's Primary Song

I just wanted to pass this along, because I think it's pretty neat...
The January song for Primary is "As a child of God". I'm the primary chorister, so yesterday I introduced the song to the kids in my ward. I shared with them that a simplified version of the song is in the January issue of the Friend Magazine. I challenged those that have a piano or a keyboard in their home to learn the top hand. Taking a closer look at the magazine last night, it said that every month they are going to include a simplified song in the magazine. I took 10 minutes today and taught it to Megan, and she can already play it. I just labeled the keys on the piano, and wrote the note name above the notes on the sheet music for her. I'm so excited about it, and think it will be a super good way for the kids to learn this song.

If you don't have the Friend magazine, it's really easy to get it at www.lds.org (click on magazines, then Friend, and there's a link right there).

Post Water Line Repair Photos

As many of you know, our water line running from the street to our house sprung a leak last Thursday. Four leaks actually. We had a vacation to St. George planned Friday morning - Sunday, so our water was turned off during that time. Brad spoke with lots of plumbers / excavators on Monday and got their bids. Tuesday (yesterday) we were excited for the project to start, so we could get life back to normal again. Our excavator / plumber was very confident that he'd only have to dig a hole around the meter, allowing him to pull the old pipe out, and the new one in (without disturbing the yard too much). Last night at 7pm he and his crew realized that the pipe was not going to pull. It was completely stuck in the ground, not even budging. That's when they tried digging in the flower bed by the house, so that they could try pulling it again. It still didn't work, so that's when they had to dig up the lawn. Because they had the excavator originally starting by the street, then digging by the house, and then eventually digging in the middle, the lawn got ran over by the excavator like crazy. Last night somehow a brass connector piece was buried in all the dirt somewhere. Without the piece our plumber couldn't get our water hooked up last night. So, this morning about 7:15 they were back, and finished at 10:30. They ended up putting about 8 hours into a job they thought would be quick. I am so thankful that the crew seemed very honest, and that our plumber said he'd never raise the price after giving a bid. They did their best to dig shallow to get the lawn scraped off, and they set it to the left, and placed the dirt to the right. They also intentionally left the area raised up so it could settle during the winter. Our flower bed is definitely going to need a complete overhaul come spring, but we'll be okay.

Here are some sad looking photos I just took this morning. Now I'm really excited for it to snow (to cover up the ugly!):














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