May 2012

 In May, I start one of my favorite units in preschool - Wild West!  I don't have many pictures, because I don't have a preschooler, but the girls had a great time before school!  They were excited to see all the cowboy/girl stuff out!

 

  I borrowed a chicken for our Wild West unit (Little Red Hen).  Eden just adored it!  That's one reason why we ended up getting them later!

 

 

 Eden's a little poser and loves to have her picture taken.  I oblige her because she's just so dang cute!

 I snuck in bed with Ella and Eden to read to them one night!

 Here's the preschool class of 2012!

 Eden joined us on a fieldtrip to Cabellas.

 The girls in their Grandma dresses!

 Preschool graduation.  I always add a few new elements every year.  This year I made a track with electrical tape all around the room.  The kids marched around it when they came in and stood in the little squares for the program.  It worked to keep them all in a line!

 Here's the back of the room and the tape track.

 Here's the picture taking area.  I think Ella was in charge of the camera by this point.

 Eden by the track!  I sure was glad to get preschool and graduation done!!!!!  It gives me the last week of public school off so I can watch all the end of school performances. 

 

Ella wanted to have a Beauty Salon Birthday party this year.  I found these cute invitations on Pinterest and just knew I had to make them! The "brushes" actually go in and out of the bottles.  And on the back it said, "To schedule your appointment, call..."  (Of course, the only person to call was Mason to RSVP for Tanna!)

 

 

Eden had a BLAST with these and painted everyone's nails multiple times! 

And to get ready for Ella's birthday party!  We didn't get any during party pictures (way too busy), but here's the set-up.  This is the lotion making station.  Poor grandma got this station.  It wasn't a tricky recipe, but I didn't realize it would be so difficult to squeeze the lotion into the bottles!

 Here's the take-home bags - beauty bags with beauty supplies and some treats.

 The hair and make-up stations.  Our neighbor Baylie our cousin Samantha came to be salon helpers.  I gave each of them an apron with their name on it.  Baylie did their hair.  She was SOOOOO excited to do this station.  She called me several times during the week to ok hair ideas with me and even came the day before to show me all her supplies!  So cute!  She had way fun with it!  Samantha did a great job on the makeup.  However, I didn't know Baylie had brought mascara and eyeliner.  (I only had blush and lipstick out.)  So I was VERY surprised to see kids with huge outlined black eyes show up at my nail station!  Hope their parents enjoyed seeing it!! 

 The nail station.

 This is the waiting room - all set up by Emily, Ella and Eden!  We also had a movie showing.  As the girls arrived, they sat in the waiting room waiting for their group to be called to their station.

 Here's the cupcakes - SOOO easy this year!

 

 And the flower hair-bow making station.  (Steve aka Stephan was in charge of this station!)

 The nail salon sign.  Front.

 Back.

Here's a few pics of present opening and cupcake eating!

 

Of course, we have to make our birthday trip to Chuck E Cheese and Toys R Us! 

 

And we stopped at Claire's in the mall to get Ella's ears pierced!!!  She picked some cute Hello Kitty earrings.  Here she is all excited to go!

  

And here she is after the first ear was pierced!  In retrospect, we really should have done both ears at once!!

  

But she survived and here she is showing off her new look.  (No the big black eyes are not her knew look!)

  

 On Memorial Day, Steve and I ran a 5K.  I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but we did it!

 THEN, Steve finally indulged me and let me buy some chickens.  We ended up with one for each girl!  We didn't like the coops or prices, so Steve decided to tackle that project.  It's taken him about a month of Saturdays, but it's almost done!  And it's pretty amazing!

 Ella also got a Beta fish for her birthday and Eden sweet-talked us into a goldfish!

 As roommom, I got to decorate Ella's teacher's door.  The kids all finished a sentence starter like, "I like it when Mrs. Fox..." or "My teacher is fun because..." 

 Here's Ella and Mrs. Fox.

Emily is such a little monkey!

Family Memorial Day dinner!  The kids all "got" to eat outside!

Steve's the master griller!

The kids loved all the water play!  Lynn and Dustin filled water balloons for them!

 

We were excited to show the girls the lunar eclipse.  I even made two viewers with the girls.  However those were pretty boring and pointless.  Luckily Steve's welding mask was much more fun.  We went down the street to watch, but just as it was about to start, the clouds rolled in.  They finally faded away after the lunar eclipse was over.  Kind of sad.