March 2012

March is a special month for our little Emily. Of course, she's not so little anymore! She celebrated her 9th Birthday in style! It kind of wears me out just remembering it! On her actual birthday, I stopped by McDonalds after my workout at the gym to pick up hotcakes for breakfast! I had had a REALLY hard time thinking of gifts to get her, but I had a few little ones for her to open that morning. But I stopped at Target later that day and splurged on a few more toys including a large Squinkie set - they are itty bitty toys that come in those plastic balls like you get in gumball machines - with a zoo playset. Turns out it was a hit...for a few days. I picked up some lunch and a balloon and surprised her at lunchtime. I think she like that, although she gets so shy at school it's hard to know what she thinks! She and Ella played for a while after school with her new toys until it was time to hit the town! We met Daddy afterwork for an evening of Build a Bear, dinner out, and ice cream out. We stayed out until bedtime, but Emily was still a "bit" sad that we didn't make it to bowling! So we just prolonged her birthday another couple days with more fun!
Check out Ella's 2 strikes right off the bat. (And completely ignore my double gutter balls!)
Ella's such a great helper to little Eden! Love their expressions!
Success!
Ahhh, so handsome!
Notice how Ella trounced us the first game!!! (Again, please completely ignore the mom's score!)
Emily's birthday party was the next Saturday. Steve's always so good to help me with the girls' parties! Emily chose a zoo theme this year. Her invitations had a picture of her behind zoo bars I cut out of the cardstock. It said something like come Party with us and we'll make a Party Animal out of you! Here's Emily in her safari hat. We had some toys out for the kids to play with until everyone got there. It was a smaller turn out this year, but definitely easier with less kids and older kids!First off, we had a "get to know you" game called monkey knot. Everyone grabs random hands and they have to figure out how to untangle themselves without letting go of anyone's hand! They did a pretty good job and wanted to play it a couple of times!
Next everyone picked a mask or stuffed animal and that was their part for a jungle-themed Reader's Theater story I told them. They had to make their animal's sound anytime I said their animal. They were good sports!
Next we played zoo animal songs and had to freeze like the animal I called out!
Then we divided into groups and they had to quickly use TP and black streamers to turn a friend into a zebra!
That's Tanna under there! They all wanted to get wrapped up again and again, so instead we made a 3 headed zebra!

Zebra Ella!
And the last, MOST FAVORITE, game was giraffe neck stretch. They had to hold their hands behind their back and stretch their neck to eat the donut off the string the fastest! We went in 3 age groups!
Eden thought eating the donut was much more important that any ol' game I had planned!I did cupcakes again for Emily's party. I kind of like that I can have them already served and each kid gets something cute instead of something cute that's been cut up! We made owls.
Next it was present time!!!!
These are the gift bags Emily helped me make that each kid got to take home with them!Emily likes her owl cupcakes!
Eden was pretty tuckered out after the party! But she did have time to find her hat from her stuffed animal Curious George!
Eden is TOTALLY in imagination stage! She wear her Rapunzel dress and hair almost everyday and out to almost every errand! She can play on her own now and is constantly talking to herself. She loves the show Super Why and we now have an imaginary Super Why living in our house. She explains her life away to him all day. I think it's how she makes sense of the world. But I better watch out if I answer a question she actually directed to Super Why! She'll say, "No, I talking to Supa Why!" Everything is a "him" now too. Like, "Him in my hand." It's such a fun stage to observe! Of course, she never could sit still during church, but now she wants to talk to Super Why during church! That and singing hilarious sentences during the songs at the top of her lungs in her Opera voice get a few chuckles from the folks around us! Like, "I at church!!! And I going to nursery!!! I like nursery!!!" And on and on!
Emily got some Lego sets made for girls at her party. First Legos this house has ever seen!
The Mia Maids and I were in charge of the monthly combined activity. We put on a talent show and called it "Mormons got Talent." The presidency did a great job following through with everything to put it on including getting a MC, getting a popcorn machine, setting up the room and stage and sign, and getting everyone to signup to share a talent! It was a fun night and except for me having to buy a dozen helium balloons in a terrible windstorm, I didn't have to do much!! I love having a class presidency. It's the first time we've had one since I got called into YW a couple years ago!
Ahhh, daddy can make reading time so fun!! Especially when he's reading "Pinkalicious" for the millionth time!
Our front door was no longer dead-bolting due to a rotting frame. So that got put to the front of the wish list. I had a hard time picking a door I loved. They don't have many fiberglass doors in stock anywhere and I didn't want to pay special order pricing! But we settled on one and I really do like it. Luckily Steve is handy and saved us the $250 install fee. And Dave was nice enough to give up a Saturday to help him. (And now our old door is going to a good cause...Dave's new shed!)
And our resident daddy's girl, Ella LOVED helping out! Since I really didn't want too many "little helpers" painting, I gave them brushes and a bucket of water and they had a great time painting the sidewalk! Luckily we had beautiful weather for the install day! Steve painted the door a mahogany color about a week later, then I painted the shutters the same color. I think it really adds a touch of class to our exterior!
Steve surprised me one day with little notes hidden all through the house. How he can remember that it was the 11th anniversary of our meeting is beyond me! Each note was a letter of the alphabet with a note and a picture inside that was a memory of that day! I think I got myself a keeper!
On free museum day, I took Eden up to the Children's museum in SLC. I've taken the older girls there dozens of times, so I didn't feel too bad about a mommy/Eden date day! She was finally old enough to have the time of her life!!!!
Next project of the month...a zoo keeper for their stuffed animals! They had a toy box dedicated to stuffed animals, but they were always all over the floor because they didn't all fit. I searched the internet for an organizing idea I liked and came up with this! I drew up some plans, dragged Steve with me to Home Depot for the lumber and he put it together for me the next day! I painted it that evening, and on Monday night he added the bungee cords! Of course, the kids had to play in it before we could load it!
But they had fun cleaning for once!
Finished product. Luckily we've dug for most of the favorites and they now reside on the top of the pile!
Totally random. I checked on the kids before I went to bed and I found Emily in Eden's bed and Eden in Emily's bed. I didn't know what had gone on, but I was glad they worked it out themselves. Then in the middle of the night I heard Eden yell out, "Emily, I want MY bed!" Apparently Emily was a nice big sister and switched back, because that's all the fuss I heard!
And Ella slept through it all!
The girls in our stake were very fortunate to be asked to sing at the YW general conference. There were a LOT of LONG practices they had to commit to as well as many other commitments, but they did it and had an experience they will never forget! The leaders and moms got tickets to go and they looked and sounded beautiful! Glad I got to be a small part of that! It was fun to see Kellie, Holly and Kayla there as well! They got tickets and came down with their ward.
I was a volunteer mom for Ella's fieldtrip to the Children's Museum at the end of the month. She clung to me like glue all day! She was so happy I could come. My neighbor was nice enough to watch Eden for the day so I could go. I've never been able to go on any fieldtrips before because of Eden, but Ella told me she thought it was because I didn't want to go! I felt bad and tried to explain it to her! Despite some drama with a ticked off mom, it was a fun fieldtrip!
The school was nice enough to let me bend some rules so I could drive myself (didn't know that was going to be a problem!) and let me take Ella afterwords so we could see Mom and Dad get off the plane from their mission to Japan! The Lord was watching over us that day, and gave us several "tender mercies." I was hurrying to the airport and just followed the signs to economy parking, not really thinking. We parked and ran to the nearest shuttle stop and got there RIGHT as it pulled up. We didn't have to wait at all! As I was talking to a nice lady sitting next to me and telling her what we were doing, she said, "Why didn't you park in the parking garage?" It hadn't even crossed my mind that there was a choice! But we ran in the airport, found the escalators, Lynn waved us over to where they were standing and Mom and Dad appeared on the escalator about 10 seconds later!! It was a fun reunion and nice to see Diane, Richard, and Larry as well!
Paige was nice enough to drive us back to our car when we were done, but I was kind of mad that I missed the one hour parking time by about 5 minutes! That and forgetting to buy the cheaper parking ticket inside the Children's museum made this couponing mom sigh dollar signs!!

That night we had a welcome BBQ for M&D! We got lots of hugs!
We had it at our church's pavilion and it turned out to be beautiful weather...another tender mercy! Here I am serving dad an American version of squid on a stick!
The grandkids all donned their kimonos or Japanese PJs to sing "I am a child of God" in English and Japanese for grandma and grandpa.
We had to rush Ella to a birthday party, she missed about 1/2 of it, but she had a great time getting her toenails painted and making decorated flip flops. In the meantime, Dustin and Steve got a nice campfire going so we could roast s'mores.
Here's the sign the girls made to welcome G&G home. They decorated most of the hearts so we could give them a "Heart attack!"
Chris, Sloane, and Holden stayed the conference weekend with us. They used the leftover hearts and about every scrap of paper they could find to write little notes to each other. They had a great time together! E&E loved sleeping over with Sloane the most!!
The girls got their faces painted at a Home Expo.I had some preschool kids go on vacation during March, so Eden got to be a substitute preschooler! The kids all loved her and took good care of her. She got to be there on Leprechaun's day - here she is showing off her trap.
Eden loved her pot of gold the Leprechaun gave her!
Ella's always so patient to let me try out fancy things in her hair! This was my 5 minute attempt at a shamrock in her hair on St. Patrick's Day!
3 Princesses!
Emily also had her spring piano recital last month. She wasn't very excited and wouldn't smile for any of the pictures, but she did a good job! She played "I am a Child of God" and "The Snake Dance."
There's March's memories via the photos I took! We're already midway through April, but we'll save those pictures for another day!