Making Daddy Proud

The other night after dinner, Andie picked up Rob's basketball and was trying to dribble. Rob was so excited! I, of course, got out the camera and started recording. Rob is excited to finally have a girl who would rather play with a basketball than play princesses!

Preschool Days

A couple of moms in the neghiborhood got together and decided to do a neghiborhood preschool. We each take turns teaching 7 kids. It's pretty fun, and you only have to do it 2 days every 7 weeks. It's been working out great. The kids are getting really good at writing their names and letters.

This week, it happens to be my turn. We always have a letter and a number of the day. Today it was letter G, and number 11. Thursday will be H, and 12.

For letter G we talked about things that start with G. Goat, girl, goodies, grandmas and grandpas, gardens, and grapes. For our craft I mixed three different colors of purple finger paint, cut grapes in half and we used them as stamps and made a bunch of grapes.

This is the sample I made the night before.

This is Kate's bunch of grapes.

For the number 11, I found a worksheet that had a tree and the number 11 in an apple in the corner. I also found some clip art of an apple, resized it and the kids glued 11 apples to their apple tree.

Here is the sample I made.

Here is Kate's.

It's fun to see how the kids incorporate their own ideas into art and craft time. Some kids colored their trees just like the sample, others made rainbow colored trees, some were solid blue.

Maybe Kate's tree is supposed to be a fall tree where all the leaves are dying and getting ready to fall off.

P.S. Kate was also very quick to tell me I had colored outside of the lines "just a little."

Samuel the Lamanite...according to Kate

Last night after dinner, Kate wanted to read the scriptures. So she went to her room and retrieved her paperback Book of Mormon. When she came back out to the kitchen she stood up on her chair and proceeded to preach the gospel...according to Kate.

We heard lots of stories, some about Nephi and some were about Maloni (Kate's version of Moroni). Most of the stories included scary monsters, and Nephi and Maloni running and hiding in caves. But my favorite of the night was her story of Samuel the Lamanite.

It went like this:

"Bahold, Samuel the Lamanite. He got in High School Musical, and he couldn't find a girl. But he hated girls. But he wanted to marry one."

Kate's Valentine

So, Kate saw my letter to Rob, and needed to make one for her daddy too.

I think it turned out pretty cute. What do you think?

Valentine's Day Traditions

Every year for Valentine's Day, I write a letter to my husband using Conversation Hearts. I started doing this when we were dating, and I've done it every year since. It's kind of fun trying to come up with ways to use the conversation hearts. Anyways, here's this year's letter.

So You Think You Can Dance?

This morning at breakfast, Kate requested I turn on some music. So, I opened Windows Media Player on the computer and hit the shuffle button. As it played songs in random order, "Barbie Girl" came on. I don't think Kate and Andie had ever heard this song before, but it was an instant hit!

Kate would randomly get up and start dancing and then return to eat more of her toast. Andie was riveted to the swirling stars on the computer screen (from her booster seat), and was dancing up a storm! It was so cute, I just had to post the video. Enjoy!

Bath Time Surprise

This morning when Andie was in the bathtub, the phone rang. I went into my bedroom to answer the phone. When I returned, this is what I found.

Looks pretty innocent, right?

Look a little closer and you'll see this:

A whole container of hair elastics (Kate calls them "plastics.") floating in the bathtub (which Andie calls the "tubtub").

So, out came my strainer. You'd think I'd learn that I can't leave these kids alone even for a minute without them recking some kind of havoc.

Guess, some lessons you just have to learn the hard way...

It's Official...

I just signed Kate up to play soccer this spring!

My neghibor signed her daughter, Addie, up too. We've requested that our girls be on the same team. That way, we can carpool, and we'll have someone to talk to during games. It should be fun.

I'm excited, and Rob is too. He'll finally have little soccer player!

Sisters

"Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters..."

The girls have been getting a little crazy since we've been cooped up in the house the last couple of days (besides out venture to Doughnut World). This morning I found some music for them to dance to on youtube. They had fun dancing together.

Until it turned into this:

Notice that Kate tries to "dip" Andie. I LOVE IT!!! Kate tries so hard to be a good big sister. But sometimes she just doesn't get it that Andie might not want to do exactly what Kate wants her to.

We Love Doughnut World

Yesterday the girls and I braved the snow storm and went to Doughnut World. You might remember that Doughnut World is actually the Provo Bakery. Anyways, the girls were going crazy from being stuck in the house for the last few days, so I thought we'd go some place I like we all like.

Kate picked a doughnut with white icing and red and pink sprinkles. She also picked a glazed doughnut for Andie. Then I picked some sugar cookies to bribe them with give to them later.

Kate and Andie made short work of their doughnuts after lunch. Then it was naptime for Andie and quiet time for Kate. (Kate has to play quietly in her room.)

Kate ate her sugar cookie before bed as her bedtime snack. This left the cookie I had purchased for Andie. This morning Kate kept trying to swipe Andie's cookie without me knowing. She's a sneaky little devil booger.

So, after Andie finished her yogurt for breakfast, I let her go to town with her cookie.

I think she liked it!

P.S. My favorite pictures are the last two!

Mommy Daughter Date Night

Tonight I took Kate out on a date. Several of the young women I worked with were in a production of:


So Kate and I went to watch. It was fun, and everyone did a good job. About half way through the performance Kate leaned over to me and whispered, "I want to go up there and be in the play!" She didn't quite understand why she couldn't go be on stage with her two favorite babysitters.

Here Kate is with one of her favorite babysitters.

And again with her other favorite babysitter. We were sad that we didn't get to see Maddie as Miss Adelaide. They had 2 Miss Adelaide's and it just so happened that it was the "other" Miss Adelaide's night to perform. :(

This is Kate with Maddie's sister, Kate. Yes, two Kate's in one picture. Double trouble!

Tonight was the last night, so I'm glad we didn't miss the boat. (Pun intended!)

"I wear my sunglasses at night..."

"so I can, so I can..."

Does anyone else remember this classic '80's song by Corey Hart?
Check out the music video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXw4qqQqTrY.

I've always sworn that I was born 10 years late. I love '80's music. I have very few really good friends that are my age. Most of my friends are older...about 10 years older. Anyways, when I saw these pictures I couldn't stop mentally singing the lyrics to this song.






When I took these pictures of Andie, I didn't know how cute they would actually be. I mean, I knew they would be cute because they're of Andie.



But I had no idea they'd be THIS stinkin' cute!

I guess that's that happens when you have cute kids. You get dang cute pictures!

Love those shades, Andie Rae!