Happy Birthday Kelly

Kelly turned six this past week. We are all happy for her and happy she is our girl. She was so excited to gain her freedom from the car seat :)

We saved her birthday for a day so that she could share it with her cousins. Cynthia, Niquelle, Nikki, Andrea, and Tristan went to the beach with us (Will was at a training) and then we came home, cleaned up, did some last minute birthday shopping and had a party. Grandma sent some light sticks for the party and I bought these funky plastic, probably toxic, "candles" at the dollar store that burned with different colored flames. It was fun, fun , fun all around.

Mother's Day Adventures

Maybe I was thinking more in depth about my responsibility to train my children to behave well than I do on other Sundays.

Maybe it was that we sat up closer to the front of the chapel than we have been for the last few months (we've been ending up in the back row a lot lately) and I was worried about bothering the people sitting behind us as well as the people in front of us.

Maybe it was because Stan made a breakfast (in bed for me) of eggs and toast instead of my usual cold-cereal-on-Sunday fare and the kids had more energy to burn off.

Whatever it was, Michael and Naomi were in true Mother's Day form (as in, "I think I'll just show everyone how imperfect you are, Mommy") and did the following during Sacrament Mtg.

Naomi -

said, "more" about two dozen times after the bread left our row,

stood on the pew, yelled at the top of her lungs and waved her arms, frantically trying to get the Aaronic priesthood to bring the water to her before the bishop,

pulverized a fish cracker into 227 crumbs that needed to be picked up individually,

pushed Michael off my lap at least five times,

played, "I want Daddy, no, I want Mommy, no, Daddy..." for two minutes,

and threw a major tantrum when Rachel left for Sunday school.

Michael -

needed to be reminded (threatened) on a continual basis to sit down instead of lean on the pew in front of us,

made a loud raspberry sound with his mouth (we hope) on the pew in front of us during one of the times he was ignoring the threats and during the quietest part of the meeting,

crawled under the pew to retrieve something from under the feet in front of us,

pushed Naomi off my lap at least six times and stepped on her at least twice,

tried to eat the fish crackers as fast as possible so that he could get as many as possible before Naomi got some more,

wrote on his tie,

and tickled (while yelling, "aarghhh" each time he reached for her) one of the the pretty girls in front of us.

All of which caused me to get the giggles and contribute to the general commotion, right when someone was talking about the nobility of mothers.

Ah, well, you all know I wouldn't trade it for the world. Isn't life great? Here's to all you mothers -

Happy Mother's Day :)

Piano Recital

Heather, Rachel and Summer had their piano recital today. Since all of our extended family live too far away to come listen, we're sharing excerpts from the two pieces each pianist played.

Animal Sounds

Tidbits From the Weekend

Yesterday, Summer and I took part in our stake's Tin Man Triathlon. We both have red dots on our bibs because we were only taking place in the run/walk, not the swim or bike race. Summer ran three miles in just over 31 minutes and I racewalked it in 35 minutes, 20 seconds. My goal was to make it in under 40, so I was happy :)



This morning, while we were getting ready for church, I was wetting Michael's hair and getting ready to comb it down. He looked at the shelves next to the mirror and politely asked, "Can you put jello in my hair?"

How could I say no?

Cha Cha Cha

Heather recently competed in a ballroom dancing competition. She got to pick out a new dress to wear as part of her birthday presents.

We put her hair up and found her something sparkly to put on.

Here she is with the group she went with...

...and here she is dancing the SALSA...

...the SWING...

...the CHA CHA...



and the FOX TROT!