Day 174

Day 173

When Zane wakes up around 5:45, he nurses to his heart's content and then he's happy like this for an hour before he goes back down for a nap.  He loves it when I hold his feet up to my face when he's nursing and always has to hold my fingers close to his face.  I love this baby!

Day 172

My cuddle bug.  We love this little guy so so much!

Illustrator?

Allie is a wonderful illustrator, both on paper and digitally.  She drew this free-handed using Paint, and I think she has great mouse control and eye for color and design!  She will be taking an Adobe Illustrator class from Alma Loveland this summer to polish and grow her interest in graphic design.  Some samples of her logo and web design.  I like the name "scrapbook soiree" (she made it up, she is good at branding things) and love the logo she made up in Photoshop.

She is growing up to be a very talented and awesome girl.  We love her!

04/09 - Disney on Ice

Maddie and I got to go to Disney on Ice with Mindy and Maizy back in April.  Mindy had 2 extra tickets so we went.  We were in the Fox News Suite, so it was nice and had a good view.  Maddie loved all the princesses, but best of all she wanted a "white princess treat", whatever that means.  To this day I do not know exactly what she meant by that -- she must have seen something at the US Airways Center that she wanted.  The prices were super expensive for such little toys so I told her I would take her to the Disney Store if she wanted a treat on a later date.  Luckily, she was fine with that. 

 

Maddie wouldn't smile or look at the camera for anything. Turkey!

Dentist

I know, I know.  It's not all that important.  But I had my camera in my bag, and I couldn't resist taking photos.  Especially of Maddie in those star sunglasses while her teeth are being cleaned.  Too funny.  This was right after school on the day of Maddie's dance recital, May 13th.

 See what I mean?  It's pretty funny.

 No cavity club member

 No cavities for this girl, but ortho appointments are coming up!

The only one with a cavity this time around

Dance Recital

 It was Maddie's class recital on May 13th.  She actually danced this time around!  Last December, if you remember, she just stood there and froze.  Maybe it had something to do with the ice cream her Grandma said she could have if she danced for us.  She was very cute and so fun to watch.

After, as promised, her Grandma and I took her to Dairy Queen.  She was in heaven!

End of School - 2011

Collin on the morning of the last day of school. He made his teacher that big old pencil case from an empty paper towel roll on the left.

The last day of school couldn't come fast enough. We had a great but busy last 2 weeks of school - with their Music Concert, Allie's elections, and cleaning out their desks and classrooms. For teachers'' appreciation, I went the food route and had the kids write their teachers personal thank you notes. Collin of course gave it extra and even drew and colored in the cards he gave to Ms. Mitchell and Ms. Gross. I should have taken a photo of his cards. But all in all, we had 8 teachers between the two.

Allie finished off her last day of elementary school with a bang. She worked hard on a 45-question extra credit assignment for her Math class and was very nervous about her grade. Her progress report when she got home from school showed she had a B+ in Math and was so downhearted that her extra credit didn't make a difference. I assured her that Mr. Carrell couldn't have already graded her last few assignments -- she was feeling that B+ was an eyesore on a report card with 12 A's. It's terrible she is a perfectionist like her parents.  It is a curse.  So sure enough when I checked HomeLogic this week, she got an A- in Math, with a 4.17 GPA. She also came home with a Presidential Award in Physical Fitness - and her PE teacher tells me that she is a fast runner and outran boys in her class. I cannot believe she will be in Middle School next year. 6th grade already. Boy the years go so quickly.

Collin finished the year out with a 4.0 average for all his subjects. He got a National Physical Fitness Award from PE, and his teacher Ms. Mitchell bragged about his near-perfect handwriting. I don't know what it is with him and Allie - but they write so much better than I do. No chicken scratches! He will be in 2nd Grade next year -- I had hoped to have Mr. Eyre (of the famed Richard and Linda Eyre's family) for his teacher next year, but he is moving up to teach 3rd Grade.

We celebrated the end of the school year with a pizza lunch and gelatos on Tuesday after Memorial Day. Here's to a long and fun summer - the kids don't go back til the 22nd of August this year!

 At their last and final concert of the year

 Singing the Fifty Nifty United States

 Maddie always tries to hang like this to be "like Agnes" (from Despicable Me)

Andrea, here's your new FB profile photo. :)

And last but not least, Tuesday May 24th was also graduation for my preschoolers.  I of course was flying by the seat of my pants so I didn't get everything ready until late Monday night.  and it had to all be set up the night before even though the graduation didn't start til 10:30 because Allie was giving her speech that morning. So I literally went to the school at 8 a.m., got back around 10, fed the baby and put him to nap, then did graduation after.  I was relieved when it was all over!

Memorial Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was a blast. We had three days' worth of celebrations - 2 birthdays and of course, the memorial holiday. Chad and Megan drove down from Provo -- it was a nice surprise and nice weather for them to come home to also -- the weather was pretty tame! Reminded me of when Kevin would spontaneously decide to drive us all down here without telling anyone when we lived in Utah and New Mexico.  So I said to Chad "you pulled a Kevin!".  Those two aren't much different.  Hopefully Chad doesn't start to have an attachment to Utah like Kevin does.

 

We started off the weekend with swimming for the first time -- I didn't since the baby was asleep.  Then, we met up for Todd's birthday dinner at Joe's Farm Grill.   Sunday dinner the next day for Lorraine (and Todd's) birthdays at the Merrill's.

 57 and looking good! Cake was yum-o!

These 3 will get to be in the same grade for school

Monday afternoon we met up again at the cemetery for the annual family memorial to honor Kevin's ancestors - his grandpa served in the Air Force, and others who were pioneers.  It is a wonderful opportunity for all the kids and us to learn more about their great heritage - and Jack, Kevin's dad takes time to share stories of ancestors so they are more real than just names.  This year we even got to hear the story of someone who died in the Titanic.  We also got to see pictures of Granny (Naomi Ellsworth Harris)'s family.  Then it was dinner at our favorite Mexican place, Someburros.  It was a fun day to spend with everyone.

 Allie and Bubs

 Collin helped me pick out the flowers for the grave. 

 Telling the stories

 Holding up a photo of his parents, Roy and Naomi Harris

Last year, on Memorial Day, I think we just barely found out I was pregnant.  And now he's 5 months old!

Spotlighted!

A few weeks ago on Mother's Day, Maddie was spotlighted in Primary.  She had been talking about it for weeks! Every week prior to this big event, she would come home from Church (even on our little weekender in Snowflake) saying she didn't get spotlighted.  Our primary does a cute spotlight where they get to sign their name on their scripture bookworm, Bookie.  Maddie loves that thing.  Since Grandma Lorraine is the primary secretary, she gets to do the spotlight, so it was extra special for Maddie.  I got "wind" that she was getting spotlighted that day, so I hurried over to the primary to take a few pictures.

One of the funny things Maddie said was that her favorite food was Red Ramen instead of pizza.  And she hadn't even had any ramen for a while (we keep ramen in our pantry, yeah?!)  She picked "Once there was a Snowman" to sing with the other kids.  It was way cute and Maddie was so happy to get Smarties at the end and Grandma helped her write her name on Bookie.