Dancing Queen

Most of these pictures are from the dress rehearsal of Isabella's first dance recital.
{My mother-in-law has a much better camera and took pictures of the big night itself -- so I may post those when I get them.}


This year they did "Wizard of Oz"

Isabella's class were the snowflakes that wake Dorothy up after the poppies make her go to sleep.

(Here are Miss Amber's great gams!)

Gettin' ready to bust a move. Apparently the robot was part of her routine.

And the soldier called to attention.

This girl's got moves! Check out her pose. Nice.

More posing with snowflake friends. (I didn't check with their moms if I could put them on my blog -- I hope it's allright!)
Isabella is the one with the farmer tan.

A little mom and me time.

Ah...the beautiful snowflake.

Now, look closely at the picture. Do you see the cover up on her nose? (First of all, take note that that is MY cover up and happens to be several shades too light for her. Good for her she didn't get my pasty white skin.) I was going to touch up the photo and remove the cover up spot, but then I wouldn't be able to share why it was there.

My beautiful dancing queen is a bit....active. A week or so earlier, she was running around outside and bit it right on my neighbor's driveway, thus skidding with her nose. {Small side note -- she was running into the dress rehearsal and tripped and fell once again on the asphalt. Luckily, she avoided the face and just got a few scrapes on her arm and knee. Graceful beauty!!!}The worst part was the not the wound that followed, but rather her incessant habit of picking off the scab that formed. So, in efforts to hide the aforementiond bright red scab that should have been healed by now, I put cover up on it that was too light and still drew attention to it.

See? Now if I had touched up the picture I wouldn't have posted this story and wouldn't be able to look back at this, read it, and laugh at my fantastically fun dancing queen.

Good job Snowflake!!!

Before and After

Liam loves the bath. Sometimes the floor gets more of a bath than the he does.

He was serene enough that I could snap a few photos.

BEFORE....



AFTER....

I had to carefully edit this one.... hee hee!

New LDS radio channel

There is a new internet radio station called "Mormon Channel." It is the official radio station of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

You can access it here.

I have been turning it on during the day and just leaving it on and I have to say that there have been a few programs that have been so inspiring and helped me to hear the right things at the right time.

One of my favorites so far is a program called "Everything Creative." I was able to hear the first one-hour episode which was an interview with Dr. Mark Henderson, a professor at Weber State University. Apparently he teaches a course on creativity and his discussion was absolutely INSPIRING!! The program is based on Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on creating something -- remember it? We all remember it and love it! If you get a chance to hear this first original one-hour episode, YOU MUST! I just loved it!

There are so many great things to listen to!!

p.s. You may just even hear a little voice from our household -- Anders has been helping to record the "Scripture Stories" program.

Free CHOCOLATE! WHAT?!?!

That's right!!! FREE CHOCOLATE!!!

Here's how it works:

It's called the "Real Chocolate Relief Act"

Every Friday, {that's TODAY} all summer long, you can go here and receive a coupon for free chocolate from the Mars company.

They limit it to 250,000 coupons each friday, but you can get up to FOUR per email address for the summer. So, if you miss out today, do not fret. You have all summer.

So, here's to Friday and here's to you and your free chocolate! Woot! Woot!!!

Zooreka!!!

My kids LOVE to play games -- I think probably most kids do.

"Zooreka" by Cranium is one of our favorites.

It is fairly easy to play.

And is actually a lot of fun.
You can take a look at it here.

What is your family's favorite game?

Just clowning around

Max LOVES to dress up and be crazy and
HAVE FUN!

This is a clown hat and vest I made for Anders in kindergarten for their circus day.

It makes me smile just to see him in this.

Be still my heart!

This is so pretty!
I'm in love!

When I have another baby and I'm a millionaire -- I'm going to buy this.

What?

What are you laughing at?

The fact that I referred to myself as having another baby?

OR

The fact that I referred to myself as a millionaire?

I can't decide which is funnier either!!!!
But I really love this sling.

You can find it here
It is from Serena & Lily
A company with BEEEEEE-autiful things and I DO love to look at beautiful things!
Happy browsing.

His first tooth

{This is mostly for the sake of the Daddy}

Below are my attempts to try and document his first tooth.
It is very difficult when you are not a great photographer.
There are even a few blurry ones, but he made such funny faces while sucking on his grapes, that I had to include them.

Carrots for lunch. Yum!

Sour grapes?
If you look closely you can sort of see the tooth.

Loves the grapes and thinks this is a very funny game.

Look close for that tooth.

More sour stuff. hee hee
See that white speck of a tooth?

Laughing at his funny brother.
You can kind of see it right here.....

What?

Look really close for that tooth.

There it is.
At least we tried.
If nothing else, he had a great time taking his picture.
Why oh why do they grow up so fast?

Ahhhh,....a boy and his

SNAIL???!!!!!!!!

(sorry for the blurry photo)

Max was playing outside and found a snail and decided it would be his pet.

He named it Larry.

He didn't even seem to mind the slime coming off of Larry as it crawled around his hand. (BLECH!!)

He later found a second snail and named it Gary.
So, we now have two pet snails named Larry and Gary.
He has taken very good care of them. He even told me when they were taking a nap.
And to make things really interesting he took them in the car with us to drop Anders off to school (unbeknownst to me) and was in the back saying...."Oh. It's all bubbly."
I looked back to see him blowing the bubbles of foaming slime off of his pet snail out onto the floor of the carpet.
I don't however know if it was Larry or if it was Gary.

Note to self {and spousal unit}: Must buy him a real pet -- like a dog.

Art Show

WARNING: LOTS of photos!

One of my favorite events at the elementary school is the annual art show. They put a sample of all of the childrens' art from the entire year on display for everyone to adore.

I LOVE IT!!!!

These photos will not do it justice, but you'll at least get a hint at how cool this event is. (I documented it in case we ever move and I need to help get this started somewhere else.)


All of the pieces are put together by grade. Not every child's piece from every project is shown, but they choose a large sampling and every child gets to have around 4 or 5 pieces shown.
The gym is absolutely packed with art displays. It takes my breath away every time!
The best part is they have a sign with each set of pieces that tells you what artist they learned about and what they children were trying to accomplish. They cover SO MANY different artists and art styles throughout the 7 grades (k-6.) They also use a variety of mediums. Every grade is different and some of the grades cover sculpture, photography, as well as paint, chalk, pencil, etc... These kids are so lucky. I don't remember ever linking my goofy art projects to certain artists, but....maybe it happened. I just love that they do it here.
Here is Anders' version of Paul Klee's Head of a Man {as you could see from the previous photo.}
He is trying to imitate his piece. hee hee
They learned yet another style from Paul Klee. In these spictures they painted the entire paper with all different colors. Then you covered it in a special black paint and then scratched away the black paint making their design. (I need to find out what kind of paint that black paint is -- I think it would be fun to do this summer.)
Here is his fish painting.
They learned how to weave.
The second graders also got to learn about illustrators and tried to imitate illustrations.
Here is is Rosemary Wells illustration.

This is his piece after studying Ansel Adams.
He took a picture of the "Y." hee he He loves BYU!

See all of the artwork behind him. So COOL!
Second graders also put together a book of their teacher's portrait.
{Sorry. I don't know why the photo won't flip.}
Here is his teacher. He didn't have time to finish coloring it. :)


When the art show is done they send home all of the artwork. They have two FANTASTIC art teachers at the school that facilitate this. The art show itself is such a fun event and they always have several students playing music the entire time, and usually a guest artist.

Some of my favorite pieces from Anders came from kindergarten. {I also loved the Jackson Pollock piece they did in first grade -- but they couldn't send home a copy for everyone because they worked on it together as a class.} They did a cool set of trees featured in all four seasons imitating Monet. I love them. (I'll have to take pictures and post them on here.)

I love that I, as a parent, get to see all of the art work on display (it is much more fun than just bringing it home), but I also REALLY love that I get to see the point behind all of the art that comes home. {In kindergarten they made Santas and I thought it was just a fun holiday project. I later learned at the art show that the santas were studies in proportion. Cool.}

If your school doesn't have something like this going -- you ought to check into getting it started. Art is cool. :)

Do your kids ever get ahold of your camera? #2

More monkey business with mom's camera.

These actually turned out pretty cute.