Kindergarten Talent Show Star!

Tuesday during Kindergarten, Zach's teacher held a talent show for all the kids in his class. We tried and tried to help him come up with a talent, but in the end, he decided he didn't want to do one. He quickly changed his mind after he saw a few kids in his class perform, but by then it was too late. Luckily, over half the class didn't do a talent, so it wasn't as if he was the only one. His teacher invited any family to come and see the talent show. Jeremiah had already gotten off of work last week for Daddy donut day, so Hailey and I went to see it.

The whole class performed a talent, which was really fun to watch. They performed a Mexican Hat Dance and it was just darling! As you can imagine, I didn't get a whole ton of really great pictures, but here are a few I was able to snap during the dance.







The good news is that I had took a few video clips of the dancing. The bad news is the the clips were just too big to put on the blog. So for those of you who live close and visit us often, you'll have to remind us to show you the video clips of our little "dancer."

Walking back after the "performance."



This is him sitting and watching some of the kids perform.





Look at my big grown-up boy - what a smile!



And this is a picture of him and his best friend Landon. The two of them have been inseparable the last few weeks and I was so glad that I was able to get a quick picture of them.



Cute little friends!

I'm Ready for My Close-up!

I had a complete make-over including hair, make-up, and jewelry the other night. I think these are the best stylists ever!





Now that they have me looking my best, I'm ready to go anywhere and do anything!

Good for the Soul

After what has seemed like a very long and cold winter, we've had some really nice spring days. The temperatures have been in the mid to low 60's and have really be enjoyable. The kids have spent a portion of each of those days outside playing and have loved it! They have really had cabin fever the last month or so and have been waiting impatiently for spring to be here.

Yesterday was one of those really nice days (along with the today and tomorrow) and so after lunch we all headed outside to enjoy the warmth and fresh air. It really is true that sunshine is good for the soul. Even as an adult, I've felt a little bit of cabin fever myself and yet, after only 10 minutes outside, I was feeling refreshed and energized.

The kids decided to swing and blow bubbles. Now that they are both old enough to blow bubbles themselves, I'm able to sit back and just watch them have fun. I've always been busy working or doing something else when they've been outside thus far, but yesterday I took a little while to play with them and grabbed my camera to get a few fun pictures.

They love blowing bubbles! Each of them have their own bubbles and love to sit on the swing and blow, blow, blow!



Bubbles and smiles!



More bubbles and smiles!



And a good day outside wouldn't be complete without swinging!



An action shot of swinging! Not too bad if I do say so myself!



Another action shot - nice close-up of Zach's boots!



Swinging and having fun!



Zach has finally figured out how to pump his legs and keep himself going for quite a while, but Hailey's not quite to that point. So after I gave up pushing her, she decided to do some other things. First she decided to slide down the slide.



Next she wanted to play with the soccer ball.



Finally, she decided that she'd blow some more bubbles.



The kids were having so much fun swinging. They couldn't stop giggling the whole time. Ah, the days when something so simple could make you giggle and giggle!



Looks like Zach isn't the only sports-minded one. Hailey was pretty impressive kicking that soccer ball around. Not bad for a 3 year old!



It was a very fun afternoon. We all felt much more energized after being outside in the sunshine and getting some fresh air. Spring, keep coming and bringing us more warm weather so that we can enjoy many more days outside!

See the next post for a surprise we got while we were playing outside that made our day even more exciting!

Tractor, Tractor, Tractor!

As many of you know, the city/state is planning to put a road right behind our house. We have love/hate feelings towards this road. We LOVE that they are putting in another road running east and west between I-15 and Saratoga Springs, it will reduce the amount of congested traffic on Main Street and will be so nice. But we really HATE that's it going in right in our backyard (or just behind). It's a long story behind us being right next to it, we didn't know when we built here that the plans were to put in a major road. But despite what happened, we are where we are and the road is going in where it is. We've decided that for now, we're going to be positive and happy about it. The fact that they are putting in a 14 foot sound wall between us and the road helps out quite a bit as well. That should shield us from the noise and protect the kids from any danger.

After years of planning, they have finally started and yesterday was so exciting for us! A big bulldozer came and was pushing around some dirt right behind our house. The kids and I were outside playing and were so excited that the weather was nice enough for us to watch. It was pretty amazing and I snapped a whole ton of pictures. Zach wanted me to put them on the blog for everyone to see, especially his cousin Ashton who loves tractors.

This is a picture from an upstairs window. Looks like they were smoothing out the area back there so that they can finally begin working on the road.



It was amazing how close the bulldozer got to our back gate. He put quite a big pile of dirt there and was driving on top of it. It almost made it look like he was driving on top of our back fence!



Hailey was so funny watching the tractor. I caught this picture of her - it was such a cute pose!



My kids are scardy-cats and I was sure they'd be terrified of the tractor and all the noise it was making and want to watch from inside the house, but they were fascinated and weren't scared at all. This is a picture of Hailey blowing bubbles for the tractor.



This was such an amazing sight from where I was sitting. Zach swinging with the tractor in the background, it was probably at least 15 feet from him, but from the view, it looked like it was right next to him.



They spent hours out there watching the tractor from different places. This was one of my favorites - they climbed up on the slide platform to really get a good look.



Zach got more creative and found this little spot to watch from. He was probably up there a good half an hour watching. I would have gotten tired and bored after about 5 minutes, but not Zach, he loved every minute.



I also got a few video clips since it was so amazing. Here's just one so you can see (and hear) how amazing it was to watch.



We loved the sunshine and being outside to see the tractor, it was a pretty fun day!

A Very Busy Saturday

Yesterday was a very busy day for us. Seems like we had activity after activity all day long.

We started out with a very FUN primary activity. It was a journey with Lehi and his family as they left Jerusalem. The kids "journeyed" into different rooms where they did activities like Lehi's family did. From the Jerusalem room to the Returning for the Brass Plates to Searching for Food, Building a Boat, Crossing the Ocean to The Promised Land, the kids had a blast being "apart of the journey." The best part was that we had all the kids dress up in Book of Mormon costumes. Most of you know that I'm not very creative, but I was able to throw together a couple of very simple costumes for the kids.

When I asked the kids what they wanted to wear, they said "our dress-ups!" I had to nix that idea right away since we would have had Sleeping Beauty and a pirate at the activity - not exactly Book of Mormon characters. They were a little sad at first, but decided the other costumes would be fun too.

Don't they look cute? I may be a bit biased, but I think they were the cutest kids there! I had on a costume too, but since I was in charge of the camera, I was able to avoid any embarrasing pictures of myself!

After the activity we headed home to have lunch and get some stuff around the house done. After dinner, the boys headed off to a Utah Flash Basketball Game. Zach got the tickets from Junior Jazz and he wanted to take his Dad with him. So Hailey and I decided to have a little girls night out. I took her to her favorite store (Target, of course) and let her pick out some nail polish so that we could head home and paint our nails. She almost didn't want to even stop for a treat because she was so excited, but the the thought of sugar was enough to get her to pause for just a minute. She picked out some gummy bears and we headed home as fast as we dared drive to get painting. This is a picture of her on the couch after I painted her nails.

She picked out some red sparkly nail polish. I was sure it wouldn't show up as much as she would want, but she was determined that she wanted THAT color. If you know Hailey, then you know how determined she can be when she gets her mind set on something.

Pictures of both her toes and fingers - you'll have to look really hard to see the red sparkly polish.

And despite that it didn't show up tremendously well, she was thrilled with it. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that she got to choose the color herself. But since she insisted that I paint my fingers and toes as well, I was glad it wasn't anything too flashy.

She and I had such a fun girls night painting our nails, eating gummy bears, and watching a movie on the couch.

It was a very busy Saturday, but we sure had fun.

I also couldn't help but include this little video of my Hailey that I took on Friday night. She often runs throughout the house singing some sort of song or bit from a movie. If you don't believe me when I tell you that it's hard to get her to be quiet, let me just tell you that she continued to sing this song for a good hour before she went upstairs to get something and got sidetracked up there. Although, she did keep singing and we could hear her upstairs for quite a while.



(She's doing the "Baby Bop Hop" - yes, way too much Barney, but she loves it.)

She's definitely one of a kind!

It's Pirate P"AAARRR"TY Time!

We had a big boy turn 6 yesterday! Our little (well, not so little anymore) Zachary turned 6 and boy did we party - all day. He decided he wanted a pirate theme and was so excited about all of his decorations. I decorated the house after he went to sleep on Tuesday, so that it was all decorated when he woke up. He was so excited and kept running around the house pointing out all the fun things that were up.

He had a blast at Kindergarten where they gave him a crown, sang to him, and he got a fun book, pencil, and bubbles from his teacher. He also got a token for the prize tower in the office. He took Reese Peanut Butter Cups for his birthday treat and couldn't wait to share them with his class. He came home with a big smile on his face and told me over and over about the fun things they did.

After kindergarten Nana, Michelle, Ashton, and Branson came down for a little party. We had lunch - Zach chose sandwiches - really quick, then headed to the bowling alley for some bowling. The kids had a blast and almost made it through 2 games. I forgot my camera, but Michelle has some really cute pics on her blog, so if you're interested, you can check out the fun we had.

Next we headed home for some present opening. Zach was thrilled with the bowling set Michelle, Ashton, and Branson gave him, the Scooby Doo Beach Towel from Nana, and the Scooby Doo movie from his sister.





After presents, we had cake and ice cream complete with singing and blowing out the candles 100 times as is tradition in our family. I think there may have been more melted candle wax than frosting on that cake by the time we were done!





After we had our fill of cake and ice cream, the kids headed off to play with the bowling set and the other toys. They had such a blast until Michelle and her kids had to head out to meet Brian. We sure had fun with you guys, thanks for coming to share the celebration with us!

You might think this is the end of our partying, but we're just getting started! About 5 minutes after Michelle and the kids left, Papa and Taylor arrived. The kids played with Tay and a bunch of toys until Kylie, Jedd, Michael, and Afton arrived. We had a yummy dinner of Hamburgers, Hotdogs, and French Fries - all Zach's choice of course.

After dinner Zach had round 2 of opening presents.

He loved the Shrek XBOX game from Afton and Uncle Bubby,


the Cubbies hat from Awa and Jedd,


the construction set from Nana, Papa, and Tay (I thought I got a picture of it, but guess I didn't), the pirate play set from his sister Hailey,


the Connect 4 game, Scooby Doo Leapster Game, Cars XBOX game, pirate dress up outfits, and the remote control truck from Jeremiah and I,


and the Cars Leapster Game from his Nana and Papa in California.


And as if we hadn't already had enough cake and ice cream already, we had round 2 with that as well!


He was such a good brother to share with his sister in blowing out the candles.


We all enjoyed some yummy cake and ice cream.


Thanks for everyone for coming and helping us celebrate the birthday of our special boy.


Looks to me like he had a wonderful birthday! Happy Birthday Bud, we sure love you!


P.S. In case you're wondering about the $10 off sticker on his shirt, it's a sticker from Papa. He works in the meat department at Smith's and every time the kids come to see him at the store, he gives them a sticker. Ashton and Branson stopped by to see my Dad on their way down and Papa sent a sticker down for Zach and Hailey. Save $10 - what a bargain for such a cute boy!

Princess Party

On Saturday we were invited to a special Princess Party. Hailey's cousin Jocelyn finally succeeded at getting potty trained and we decided to celebrate with a fun party. The girls dressed up in their best princess outfits and we had a party for them.


Our three little princesses


A tea party


Opening presents


My little princess

We had so much fun and the girls were so cute! Thank you so much Jocelyn for inviting us to your very special party, we both loved it!