One Small Voice

Why is it that nothing important goes on until a trip is planned? Dave and I are heading out of town, and coincidentally, Kate's class is having an end of the year program for the parents while we are gone. Lovely. It probably wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that our Wannabe Pop-Star kind of has a starring role in the program. Kate sings a little solo, leading the rest of her class into a song. See? Kind of a big deal. Luckily, I was able to go to a rehearsal, and the grandparents can go to the actual program. So it will all work out; at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Anyway, while watching today, my Proud Parent Cup runneth over! I just love being a mom and feeling my heart swell over the things my kids do. I am so proud of my talented little girl! She has such a great voice; something you definitely realize when the rest of the darling kindergarteners chime in;)

Apple Day

Kate's take home reading book challenged us to have an appley-sort of day; so we did. With only 3 apples on hand, Brother and Big Sissy made apple prints and a most delectable applesauce. After eating her small bowl of warm, homemade applesauce (and discovering there was no more), Kate complained, "Aww...I wish we wouldn't have wasted an apple doing the apple prints; that part wasn't even that fun!" Totally agree. The paint was not that fun, especially for the clean-up crew. The applesauce, however, was super fun and absolutely tasty! I'll go ahead and give myself a big, ol' pat on the back for our successful, apple-themed morning;)

Easter Highlights

The Easter Bunny hopped into town. Kate gladly sat next to him. Cole reluctantly “stood” next to him. Don’t let his smile fool you; Coley was terrified, but this is progress:

After dying the eggs Cole says (word for word and in one breath), “Let’s do one more egg! Just only one more! Want to play eggs! Easter Bunny eats eggs!” Do you think this kid was excited for Easter?

Kate roasted mallows at Grandma Sandra’s Easter party. If you like cancer, she can hook you up:

Cole discovers sunglasses; wouldn’t take them off all day:

Cole discovers squirt guns. He’ll never be the same:

Getting to pet a real life Easter Bunny; doesn’t get much better:

Easter morning. Cole and the mom sick. Boo. Kate gets a pic in her Easter best all alone. I don’t think she was upset:

Grandma Sherrie’s Easter party. Managed to get the children to sit still for 10 seconds:

New trampoline at Grandma’s means it was a very happy Easter, as well as a many happy days to come:

Happy Easter!

Enter Tooth Fairy!

Big Sissy lost her first two teeth all in one day! 1 tooth at school; and the other, later that night. And guess who pulled them out? Nope, not her dentist dad…Kate!

                

Right after school, Kate walked through the front door holding her tooth proudly in the air. When Cole caught sight of the gap between her teeth and the tooth in her hand, he declared, “Let’s fix it!” That’s my boy!

Later that night, we finally got to use the Tooth Fairy pocket pillow that I “masterfully” invented and handcrafted myself (thank you very much;). We put her teeth in a little baggie, tucked them in the pillow and read a Tooth Fairy book. The book “mistakenly” claims that lost teeth are rewarded with a quarter. Kate very quickly corrected that. Apparently, the going rate per tooth is $1 each. Good to know. Morning came and she was right: $2 big ones! That, and a very authentic tooth certificate from the Queen of Teeth herself!

And lest we forget, we’ve also been left with a very cute and temporary lisp!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

St. Patrick’s rolled in again. So did our lazy leprechaun. I’ve discovered he isn’t as creative as most other green men out there. Seriously, have you seen the stuff other people’s leprechauns do? Totally makes our leprechaun seem lame.  He’s done the same trick two years in a row…but I guess we’ll count it a blessing that he visits;)

This year Kate made a trap. She made a big, beautiful rainbow because she’s “the best at drawing rainbows” and then glued it to a shoe box.—side note: I have to agree. Her rainbow was the best I’ve seen. Come morning, we saw that her rainbow trap had enticed little Lenny, but sadly it didn’t catch him. And he even stole the handmade rainbow…

 

The rainbow yarn trail (again). Yeah, they look pretty jazzed about this…

And the gold at the end of the rainbow trail; the most important part! This, they liked (again).

 

 

Thank you, Lenny, for sharing your gold! See you and your old tricks next year!

Witchy Woman

Last Saturday, Sissy performed in a Wizard of Oz skit with her singing/acting class. Conveniently, two of the three leads went to none other than the owner’s daughter AND the teacher’s daughter. Hmm…fishy. Luckily, I didn't have to be too annoyed by the "coincidental casting" since Kate landed herself the last lead role as the Wicked Witch of the West;) Wahoo! Katybug only had a few weeks to learn her lines, and I think she did very well…especially, with her witchy cackle!

Above: Threatening Dorothy, “I’ll get your pretty little dog!”

Below: Cutest little munchkin face

And what would a performance be without the obligatory videotaping? Here, Kate recites the poem, Blood Curdling Story:

Blood Curdling Story

Yup. Kind of proud of our little girl.

Museums, Ferris Wheels, and Temples

Okay, so life has been moving along, undocumented. Here are a few items to play catch-up…

MUSEUMS:
This winter may darn well be the death of me. It’s taken every ounce of energy to survive the endless cold. Kate and Cole are both in their prime. Kate is 5 (and 1/2, as she would remind me to say) and is helpful and sweet. Cole is 2 and is cute as can be. But put those two sweetie pies in a room together for 5 minutes unattended and we’ve got a vicious game of cats and dogs. They just fight! It’s a lot to listen to day in and day out. So when I can’t take anymore indoor, togetherness time, that is when we hit the road. People think I’m just a good mom going on so many field trips, but no. It’s prevention; prevention from being the mom who is teetering with the notion of crazy.

So here we are at the NHMU. We’d been to this museum at it’s old, crusty site, but this was our first trip the new place. It has 5 levels and we just started on the 5th floor and wound our way down. Each floor has a children’s laboratory where they can do sciencey activities like puzzles, magnets, building blocks, etc. Plus, lots of their exhibits had hands-on stuff for the kids. Pretty cute all in all.

 

   

   

There were some dancers there from the U that day that made the kids do an interpretive dance. Kate was all about dancing like triangles and horses, but Cole? Uh, uh. He had a meltdown in the middle of the dance floor. Wish I had the pic (which I don’t), but total, typical him. He oddly hates being asked to sing or dance in front of a crowd. Coincidentally, he also hates leaving places when he’s having a good time. The museum resulted in me carrying out his kicking, screaming, boneless self. I’ll take that as a compliment. Something like, “Thanks, Mom, you’re seriously so dang cool!”

FERRIS WHEELS:
The kids and I did Scheel’s several weeks back--I still have to shake my head when realizing that a visit to the local sporting goods store is what we do for fun around here, but now we’re getting off topic, aren’t we? Anyway, the ferris wheel line was about a 2 hour wait. I knew Junior would not last; hence, we bowled, shot guns, did the photo opps, played in the play place and actually had ourselves a lovely time without doing the ferris wheel. I promised Kate we’d come back to do it when we had Dad with us.

Kate asked for weeks, and then last Thursday we finally made it back. There was absolutely ZERO wait time for the ferris wheel so that was wonderful. Kate and the dad sat on the opposite side of the ferris wheel from Cole and me. And sweet Cole kept saying, “Hi, Dad. Hi, Kate,” in a quiet little voice that only I could hear sitting next to him. Pretty darn cute. When we disembarked the ride, Cole cheered, “Let’s do it again! I ride with Dad.” Anyway, the night was lovely. Kate, too, sampled her first piece of buffalo meat while there. And on the car ride home, kept saying, “Mmm…I just loved that meat!” That girl has some Grandpa Lyle in her for sure!

A shot of my babies with the shark they caught:

TEMPLES:
On Friday, our cute nephew, Jaxon, got married in the Manti temple. It was quite the trek going down there; one I haven’t made since graduating from Snow College over a decade ago! But it was fun to drive past my old apartment and town. I swear I don’t recognize anything down there anymore!

So the wedding was mid-day and all potential babysitters were either in school, working, or at the wedding with us. We ended up having to bring the kids, but it wasn’t a problem. The temple has a little “waiting” house next to it that is just for kids. Genius! So while we attended the temple, our kids played with blocks and watched Book of Mormon cartoons with Jaxon’s sisters. So great! I guess I also have to mention that the temple matron assisting us that day was the mother of one of my old, Slow Knowledge, ex-boyfriends. Whew! A good reminder of the bullet I dodged. But funny, nonetheless!

     

After the ceremony the entire family bombarded one of the few restaurants in Sanpete County, The Malt Shoppe, in Ephraim. Being in the sticks, they had probably never seen such a crowd! But the food was marvelous. So marvelous, in fact, that Kate requested it the next day for lunch. Aww…man, just too far of a drive for that;)