Tidbits

1. Dirt 

Well, I got a little overzealous in my planting of the spring flowers.  I was tricked by the warm weather we enjoyed a few weeks ago, and got excited a little too early.  It's been really cold here the last several days.  So Arthur brought my pots in last night to protect them from the freeze.  This morning in the rush of getting children out to the bus stop, I forgot to put them back outside.  And when I got back from the bus stop, I'd forgotten about them altogether.  I was upstairs when I heard Hayden laughing at something that was just hilarious.  I thought "how cute!  Sean must be entertaining him."  But it didn't add up because I didn't hear Sean.  Finally it dawned on me:

I don't know about you, but when I see pots of flowers inside, the first thing I think is, "Wouldn't it be awesome to throw that dirt everywhere?"  I mean, honestly, what else would they be there for?  

2. Preschool Fieldtrip to Albertson's:

So I thought I was doing awesome arriving at Albertson's 5 minutes early.  (No small feat for me, who is usually five minutes late.)  I didn't think anything about being the first one there (also very unusual for me) since I was so incredibly punctual this morning.  Well, after 10 minutes, I thought, "There's no way everyone but me is running late this morning."  So I went home to check my email and sure enough, I was at the wrong Albertson's.  And I made it to the right Albertson's 20 minutes late, instead of 5 minutes early.  What can you do?  

(I'm getting more and more spacey lately. . . . I could write an entire blog about some really spacey things I've done in the last three months!  Later maybe . . . )

Anyway . . .
When we pulled up to the grocery store for our field trip, I had a hard time convincing Sean to get out of the car.  You could tell he was thinking, "What is this?-- a trick?  You tell me I'm going on a field trip and you take me grocery shopping?" But I have to say, this field trip was so cute!

Our "tour guides"  Mark & Jesse (I think those were their names) were great with the kids.  Each child got a little Albertson's grocery bag and at every station they went to they'd give them something to put in their bags.  Bananas & apples at the produce station, cookies from the bakery, string cheese from the deli,--- they showed them the ovens they bake in, and the big freezers and refrigerators where all the milk and ice cream and things are kept.  (Since those refrigerators and freezers have to be constantly running, they said their average electric bill is $50,000.00 a month!) They got balloons from the floral department, and toothbrushes from the pharmacy, and capri suns from a very friendly check-out lady.  It was such a cute field trip!  Who would have thought?  

Thanks for planning it Sarah.  We loved it! Hurray for Albertson's!

3.  Photo shoot

Sean took  over 100 pictures yesterday. He took tons of the couch, several of Hayden, a few self-portraits, practically a whole album of his wooden train tracks, and quite a few motion shots--that is, he was in motion and everything was blurry.  Here is one of his best.  

For obvious reasons, it is named, "Feet."  

Sugar Cookies

Yesterday afternoon we had some friends come over to play and make sugar cookies. The kids rolled out their balls of dough, & cut them out and everything! Surprisingly, they looked pretty good, and were very tasty. One of our little friends, David, knows the true purpose of a sugar cookie; his frosting layer was about three times as thick as his cookie layer. I was trying to get a picture of it, but he was too quick putting it in his mouth. :)

Wild Wednesday (narrated by Dallin)

On Wednesday we went to the zoo.  We didn't really care about seeing any animals.  We just wanted to climb on stuff.  Here is a picture of us and lots of our friends climbing on a throne and taking over the world!  KID POWER!!!  DESTROY ALL EVIL!  

Lots of us retired but queen Daphne & Queen Brynn still saved the world.

We got captured in a cave, but we escaped.

We ran away and fed the ducks.

Who's this handsome devil?  IT'S ME!

Spring Break Adventures (by Dallin & Daphne)

Dallin:  Today we did a bunch of chores.  We did not like it.  But we got to go to the Aquarium after.  We had a great time.  Let's get to the real story so you know what the whole adventure is about.  

Dallin: One day we went to the Gardens next to the Aquarium. We were by two fountains. Me and Daphne took some money out of the fountain and threw some back in. I made a wish that the water would be warm.

Daphne: I wished that I could be a princess.

Dallin: But it didn't happen. And then we went into the Aquarium after we ate lunch.

Daphne: And we had fun playing with Bakugans. (???? Mom: We didn't play with Bakugans at the Aquarium.)

Dallin: That was just a joke from Daphne. Then we walked over to the Aquarium and took money out of the puny fountain and threw it back in.



Dallin: Then we walked into the aquarium. We looked at the fishes really fast.

Daphne: I hid from the eels because I'm scared of the eels.

Dallin: Then we went to the sharks and looked at them for awhile. Then we decided to go home.

Daphne: No--then we decided to go get icees and popcorn.

Dallin: We were sharing the icees. Then Mom gave Hayden some icee. Hayden loved it! When we took it away from him, he yelled at us, and then he asked us politely for more. He said, "ga-ga?"

Dallin & Daphne: WE HAD A GREAT ADVENTURE!!!! 

Flower Pots

Today is the first day of spring!  What better way to celebrate than this?

The weather has been warming and my empty flower pots on the front porch were looking very glum and in need of some color.  So Hayden and I went out and bought flowers to plant in the pots.  I love spring time!!!

God made dirt; Dirt don't hurt.

What a BIG helper!

He really didn't want to hold still for these pictures.  This was the best I could do.

When I brought Sean home from preschool, he was very excited about the new colors in our pots!

"I smelled them!" ~ Sean

Can't I pick just one, Mom?

Pagosa Springs Getaway

Arthur took me on a get-away this week.  We hired a young couple to tend the children while we left for three days and two nights.We left Monday morning and went skiing/boarding at Santa Fe.  The weather was perfect, there was a few inches of moderately fresh powder and we had a GREAT time!  Then we drove up to Pagosa Springs, Colorado where we stayed at the Springs Resort & Spa.  That's about the best combination--a day of skiing and ending the day soaking in the mineral hot springs.  Ahhhh.  

Tuesday we skied at Wolfcreek which was a fabulous day despite the crowds (Oklahoma and Texas were all there on their spring break) and the snow was old and crusty.  Still, we just love that ski area.  They had extended hours due to spring break, so we stayed until the bitter end--catching the last lift at 4:55, and skied down to the parking lot.  And of course, went soaking when we got back.    

Wednesday we slept in until 9! (What bliss!) and spent the day meandering around Pagosa Springs and dreaming about buying land up there so we can build a cabin someday.  

We forgot the camera so I grabbed some pictures off the internet just to give you an idea.  Our snow wasn't as powdery as these pictures though.  :)

Both of these are Wolfcreek.  

(Why is this font suddenly blue?  

whatever.)

Tresann looked pretty worn out when we got home.  Hopefully she and Justin will still want to have children of their own after watching ours.  I did tell them, that when you have your own, they usually come out one at a time, and they start off small and immobile, and don't talk back or fight with each other.  It's a good thing you get eased into the parenting, thing right?

It was so much fun to hang out with Arthur and spend lots of time 

playing, 

relaxing, 

eating out, 

talking and being together.

 Hooray for get-aways!

Painting

When we moved into this house a year ago, something we knew we wanted to change right away (give or take a year . . .) was the paint.  The living room and dining room were brick red.  I like red in moderation, but this was too much for me.  I couldn't find any "before" pictures except this one that shows the piano in front of this half-wall.  The main reason I didn't like the red was that my cherry wood furniture was just swallowed into the wall.  And it made the dining room feel like a cave.

Here are the kids helping me prime the wall.  This lasted only about five minutes before I nearly had a heart attack.  They were dripping that stuff everywhere!!!  Finally I just said, "Okay, you guys go play outside and I'll finish."  It took me a couple of weeks in one and two hour increments to finish priming just the dining room.  

So our awesome friends Steve & Erin came to the rescue one Friday and helped us get everything taped, primed and painted.  They left at 10 p.m. but it was done! 

 Thanks a million Steve & Erin!

Here are some pictures to show you how my beautiful piano pops out against the new gray color we decided on.  It's amazing what color can do.  One of my piano students said last week, "It feels a lot calmer in here!"  

I love that!

Pansies & Brownies

1.  Pansies in my favorite Vase

This is my favorite vase.  Whenever my kids bring me flowers, this is the vase they go in because it's perfect for those flowers who've been picked clean off their stems.  I don't know about your kids, but my kids are really good at picking flowers with no stems on them.  Dallin supplied me with these pansies today to go in my vase.  True to form, there were no stems on them.  And that's why this vase is a perfect mom vase.

2.  Sean & Brownies

Sean:  Mom?  Can I have another brownie?

Me:  Another brownie?  Um, I don't think so.

Sean:  Please?

Me:  If you go potty on the toilet you can have another brownie.

Sean:  I not go potty on the toilet. 

Sean:  (after a moment's pause) Mom?  You go upstairs and read a book?

Me:  You want to go read a book with me?

Sean:  No, YOU go upstairs and read a book.

Me:  (laughing.)  Ah, you want me to go upstairs and read a book so you can sneak into the brownies?

Sean:  Okay!

Gotta love that kid.  And what a push-over am I?  His sneaky logic won him another small brownie.

Variety Show

This past weekend, Daphne participated in the Hubert Humphrey Elementary Variety Show. She sang a song  called, "To Share" with Kirra & Megan, two of her friends from our ward.  They were adorable.  Now, not to be mean, but there's a reason they call it "Variety" show instead of "Talent" show.  (There were a lot of acts that took no talent whatever, and were really lacking in taste.)   Judging on talent, these cute little kindergartners were (in my estimation) in the top five of all the acts.  If you're judging on cuteness, then they were definitely #1.  (I'm not biased or anything, though.)  They looked so small up there on that stage, but they sang out beautifully and got a big "awwwww" from the crowd at the end.  

  

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