4th of July

Blueberry Buckle Dessert

Red, White, and Blue Pancakes

Ellie marched in the parade. We all watched.

Tons of fireworks visible from our house-love that.
Emma at EFY.
Rainy day that got super hot.
Grateful for our great country!

Easter

On a super cold, blustery, wintery April day, our subdivision held its annual Easter Egg Hunt and Activity Day. It's very handy because it's basically held in our back yard. There were pony rides, face painting, jumpy houses, burgers and dogs, and the Easter Egg Hunt. There must have been enough eggs filled for around 60+ kids, but because of the weather only about 8 kids (in my kids' age range) were there and I brought 4 of them (2 friends). They ended up rolling the wagon over to the yard area and using that as the "basket". They filled the wagon with candy filled eggs. Literally hundreds of eggs were in there. Thank goodness they decided to drop most of them off at the neighbor friend's house. We only ended up with about 80 or so.
We tried something different for our eggs this year. I colored small pasta and rice and we decorated blown eggs by gluing the pieces on. As it turns out, this project requires more patience than most of my kids had. The younger two ended up just covering their egg in glue and rolling it around in the pieces. Whatever. It was fun and different from the same ol', same ol'.

St. Patrick's Day

My kids love to get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. It was a beautiful day and they were having fun. I love Lauren's shamrock skirt.

cookie press

I found a brand new Pampered Chef cookie press at the thrift store the other day and just had to get it. I've been curious about this for many years. It turned out so fun. There are tons of recipes out there for the cookie press. This is just a simple butter spritz that I colored pink for Valentine's Day. Not all of my kids like them (This is meaningless. They don't like anything.), but Richard liked them pretty well. I think they are tasty, but mostly just fun to make.

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Our Christmas season has been filled with holiday crafts and baking, plenty of singing and concerts, just enough snow to say we had some, Nutcracker dancing (kinda), shopping and wrapping, great Christmas stories, eating, eating, eating, parties with friends, vacation planning, finals at school, not enough house cleaning, and a greater appreciation for our Savior. We hope you have a very merry Christmas and a fabulous new year! We love you.

Halloween 2010

Everyone looked adorable for Halloween this year.
Ellie - cowgirl
If I ever find time I will post a picture of me wearing that skirt when I was about that age. I love, love, love that I kept all my dance costumes. My kids have gotten so much use out of them.
Lauren - Wonder Woman (her favorite super hero)
Emma - American Girl Doll, Molly
Maddie - Belle
Maddie "made" her Belle dress for a Personal Progress project. We had to do the bodice twice because the size was weird. We were using a little girl pattern and it fit like a little girl (short and wide). We had to modify it to make it more womanly. We were both pleased with how it turned out. Her friend dressed as Cinderella and they were helpers at the school Safe Halloween, which was soooooo packed with kids. But it was really cute. They acted just like Disneyland princesses and talked and waved to the little kids and when they came upon other "princesses" they acted like they were their best friends and had been looking everywhere for them. I'm sure they got more pictures taken that night than anyone at the school. Kids were lining up to get their pictures taken with them just like at Disneyland.

Mother's Day

This was a fun Mother's Day. At our school the 3rd grade does a big Mother's Day celebration. So I spent the day with Lauren while she pampered me, served me, played a game with me and then participated in a skit and performed a few great songs. She was so adorable because you could just see in her face how seriously she was trying to do her very best. She made me a couple of cute projects. Apparently a phrase that I use a lot is, "Clean your room" and my favorite show is Oprah. Well, since I haven't watched Oprah in years I think we can safely say that her other observation is a bit off too. Right? I mean, surely I'm saying other things more frequently than "clean your room". Let's just say I am, Okay?
Then Ellie made this cute picture. The written part said that she likes it when I sing because I do it well. Thank you, Ellie, for this observation. It beats the heck out of Lauren's "You looked funny the day you stayed in bed all day." I don't even remember that happening. Seriously, does this child even live with me?

Easter Weekend

We opted for a little get-away this year--a road trip to Tennessee. I had never been to Tennessee before and I have to say that it was beautiful! Spring must be the best time of year there. The weather was fabulous, the flowers were blooming, everything was green and the temperature was perfect.
First stop was Memphis. I have wanted to see Graceland for a long time. I'm not a huge fan, but of course I like Elvis. He's an icon and his life is fascinating. However, I think the glory days of Graceland are over. It was so tourist-y and the house just looked old and worn. I was kinda feeling bad for the "king". I also thought it was going to be huge, but it really wasn't. I'm sure it was big for those days, but I know people who live in homes that size now and they aren't even celebrities. He had a pool, but it wasn't even very big. In a way it made me like him more. It made him seem a little more like a real (possibly humble?) person who lived in a real house with his parents and other relatives. His airplanes though, made him seem like a rock star. Very cool for those days. Totally 70's. One thing we both thought was kinda funny was his TCB logo. Apparently, Priscilla did the artwork (she drew the lightning bolt). It seemed very amateurish and he had it on everything. But again, it made me kinda like him more.
Memphis itself was a bit scary, old and rundown. We have a friend who is from there and she warned us. She says the city government is so corrupt that there will probably never be good days in Memphis again. She says it is a main stop for drug trafficking. It's sad to see a city go so completely downhill like that.
Next stop, Nashville. We got in town just in time for the Easter egg hunt at the (I can't remember the name of it) mansion. The grounds were beautiful. But, we were there about 10 minutes into the 4-hour long event and wouldn't you know ALL the eggs were gone. :( So we had to be content playing with the chicks and ducks. That was fun. Then off to the Parthenon. This was Emma's main stop. She loves Greek mythology and was really looking forward to this stop. Again, a beautiful park with the Parthenon right in the center. But, it was closed that day so she couldn't see the Athena statue on the inside. Bummer.
Then on to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I enjoyed seeing a country music presentation there and wandering the museum for a while. Hey, if you are interested in Hank Williams at all, this would be a great time to go to the museum. They have this huge display on him. I now know more about Hank than I ever will need to, I'm sure. My favorite part was the dresses. Everything from Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Reba McIntyre, and Carrie Underwood (that giant flowing thing she wore a couple years ago at the CMA awards--glorious to behold). Kids HATED this part of the day. Really. . .hated this whole thing. Oh, well.
We wandered downtown Nashville for a while that night. It was kinda cool because lots of people who are trying to break into the "biz" were out on the street performing. We saw some pretty talented people/kids.
Our last stop was Opryland. No show for us though. Uhhh. . . I would have had to sell a child to get in. I had no idea shows were so expensive there.
So, that was it. It was a nice little excursion that the kids pretty-much hated. But hey, at least the Easter bunny found us.
P.S.--I missed every bit of conference, so we'll be reading the next ensign very carefully. pooh!

Christmas collage

Christmas

Cousins, pajamas, presents under the tree, lots of excitement, cell phone, robes, blankets, Glee, Barbie style salon, Nintendo DS (finally), books, dresses, Christmas dinner made by the man :), happy to clean up, white Christmas just in time, new snow pants and gloves, art supplies for lots of drawing, our guest put in the new kitchen faucet :), treadmill for the extreme overeating, big beanbag chair, everyone happy, everyone getting along and helping each other! It's been a great Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Richard's mother and her husband and Richard's brother were able to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had a great time visiting with them. They were a big help in putting together our new grill and putting up our Christmas tree. Check out the cranberry bowl I made. It was fun and turned out really cool. It's just an ice bowl, but Ellie really wanted to do it.
We are so thankful for everything we have. We are truly blessed.

Halloween

After we finally decided to get costumes out of the costume trunks this year this is what we came up with.
Maddie and Lauren are rockers. Lauren was just a little too comfortable in this costume. But she looks pretty darn cute.
Emma was very quiet all night. :0)
Ellie was a fairy. Yes, this is familiar, but still very cute. Why let it go to waste? I'm thrilled she chose to use this again.
Happy Halloween!!

Happy New Year!

Christmastime in Chicago

We took a night trip to the city to check out some of the pretty decorations. There are several books published on the beauty of Chicago at Christmas, but I think we should have figured out where to look before we left. We only found a few things. But they were pretty. I wore my little Russian hat. The kids were laughing at me. You can too.
And in truth, our main objective was to go to Al's Beef for authentic Italian Beef sandwiches. We went, we ate, we enjoyed. You can get them two ways: dipped and dry. I wanted to do dipped, which is basically french dip, but the whole thing at once. Richard would have preferred dry, so of course, he went and got one the next day and did it dry. That is soooo him. We're trying to experience all of the legendary food places while we're here. There are lots of them.

gingerbread men

We finally got around to making gingerbread men this year--after Christmas. Ellie has been really interested in gingerbread this year. They did a big unit on it in school. So her Christmas book was Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett. As part of the illustrations on each page there is a running recipe for gingerbread and she wanted to use that recipe. So that's what we did. It actually turned out really good. They had a great time decorating a few, but soon tired out. I'm glad I didn't make the double batch that I had considered.