Maddy's alter ego....

Maddy went to a birthday party on Friday where they acted out the play "Slurping Beauty". There were only girls, so a few of them had to play the men's roles. Maddy was "Prince Alarming"...which seems so fitting after seeing the makeup below...YIKES! She informed us proudly that she spoke with an English accent during her lines....we then got a full demonstration of her Prince Alarming voice. Nice. I do love that Maddy is willing to do pretty much anything and doesn't often get embarrassed...she certainly didn't get that trait from me. That is all Tim!

Throwback Thursday

So this little game was invented by my cute cousin, Candy (if you haven't checked out her awesome bags, pillows, baby stuff...on and on...scroll down to my "i spy" section). Every Thursday you pull out an old photo, post it, and give a little explanation. So...here goes. This is one of my favorite pictures of Jace. He is about 18 months and we are camping at Mill Hollow (I'm sure all the Edward's cousins have stories about that campground!). I needed this sweet face to offset the one that follows.

This is Jace the same summer at Thanksgiving Point. Two things are very apparent in this picture:
1. Jace is in desperate need of a haircut
2. He is really, REALLY happy about something...thus the major crinkle nose smile that is going on...which by the way, I absolutely love!

things that make me smile

So the weather this week has been beautiful! I spent all day yesterday raking the grass, and sore arms and farmer's tan aside, it felt great to finally be out! Tim bbq-ed hamburgers and we had dinner in the back yard...Tim even put up the hammock (more for himself than the kids). This morning, my first daffodil opened up...appropriate since today is the official start of Spring! Which is the reason for Smile #1.

Smile #2 made me laugh out loud. Laityn brought home her leprechaun paper yesterday. When I first glanced at it I read "I am going to set up a crap. I am going to put in gold". Nice. Of course what she meant was "I am going to set up a trap" (she sounded out trap ch....rap--which if you say it out loud actually sounds right). Yeah....you're sounding out chrap right now and thinking "huh...it really does say trap". Tim and I had a good laugh...this is one paper I'll be saving.

Hope you all enjoy your first day of Spring!

How do you catch a Leprechaun?

With today being St. Patrick's Day, my kids came home from school filled with tales of leprechauns, pots of gold, and rainbows. Carter came looking for a "big bowl" ..."Why?"...."to build a trap and catch a leprechaun!" He enlisted Lady and Jace as his helpers, and they went to work. After nearly 2 hours of work, they called for me to come see.

There is nearly an entire roll of tape holding those straws together, and keeping them stuck to the pan. The plan of catching goes something like this:
1. Arrange straws to prop up pan
2. Run string to various toys/books that will fall and wake you up (to see the leprechaun)

3. Tie string to vial with real gold (Carter panned for this gold during summer camp).

4. If falling books aren't loud enough to alert you, falling Legos will do the trick!

5. Hopefully, you will catch a leprechaun. If not, he should at least leave $5 in the trap to let you know he was there.

They were all so proud of their handiwork. In fact, it was the best stay-in-bed trick ever! I reminded them that if they didn't go right to sleep, they would scare the leprechaun away. They were asleep within minutes...too bad we can't catch leprechauns every night. And although they will not likely find a real little man in their trap, I suspect they will find a shamrock shaped note left by their friendly neighborhood leprechaun, Lenny.

FYI

When I opened the freezer this afternoon, everything in the door had thawed...WHAT!?! We unloaded everything to the big freezer in the basement and started calling. Turns out, some regulator blah, blah, blah had burned up. That was the source of the smell in my previous post. So now I am very curious....Did Jace really put a crayon in the dishwasher? Or did he just know he wasn't supposed to push the buttons and so he went along with all my questions and made up the whole thing? He is sticking to his red crayon story...I'll probably never know for sure...but I tell ya, the constant breaking of everything in my house lately is going to make me crazy!

..crayons are my worst enemy...

Yesterday I came downstairs to help Laityn get a game started on the computer. I left Jace upstairs coloring his paper airplane. I was just getting ready to come back upstairs (it had been about 10 minutes) when Jace came down and said he was done coloring his airplane. As I came upstairs, I started to smell a really strong burning electrical-ish smell. Hmmmm....just slight panic set in. I turned off the heater....no smell in the furnace room. I checked every outlet, light, appliance, vent....trying to find the source of the burning. I opened my doors to see if it was something outside....nope. I brought Jace back upstairs and asked him if he had touched anything while he was coloring. He admitted to pushing some buttons on the dishwasher. Hmmmm....why would my two week old dishwasher make a smell like that? I called my mom to get her opinion and see if she thought my dad should come up and take a look. I requestioned Jace, asking if he had put something in the dishwasher. Bingo! He showed me he had opened the door and put a red crayon down through the holes where the water comes out. Then he had closed the door and pushed every button in order...the last button is the heat/dry button. So now I'm thinking there is melted crayon somewhere inside. Tim pulled the inside apart last night and we found nothing....we are hoping it was chewed up in the built in disposal. When I asked Jace why he put crayon in the dishwasher he said "I was just playing a game". When have we EVER played the lets-put-crayons-in-the-dishwasher game? That boy better be sooo good when he grows up!

Maddy's Locks of Love

Tonight, at approximately 7:05 p.m., Maddy officially cut her hair...10 inches to be exact. She confessed later, "I was kind of nervous to cut my hair and it felt so weird, but good weird." Mads heard about locks of love from a friend at school. She decided last week that she really wanted to do this, and she bugged me every day to please call Trina (she cuts all the hair in our family...Lindsey, Nicole, me, all the cousins...we're keepin' her rich!) I called Trina this morning, and she squeezed Maddy in tonight so she could surprise all her friends at school. Maddy is convinced no one will recognize her.

I think Maddy looks beautiful! And I am so proud that she chose to do something so sweet, all by herself.

a day of dinosaurs...

Today was one of those random Mondays of no school...so I braved the cold and snow (stupid snow!!) and took the kids to Thanksgiving Point. It doesn't matter how often we go to the dino museum...the kids always love it! Jace was old enough to really get excited...especially about the room where it looks like you are surrounded by stars. He kept asking "Hey mom! Can we go back to outer space? I love bein' in outer space...and you cannot fall cause you just can't!"
Sometimes a silly picture is much easier...and much more fun!

Crawlin' throught the tunnels...really not sure what is on Carter's mind...probably something mischevious!

We spent 45 minutes at the sand and water table....and I had to drag Carter and Jace away. If it weren't for the mess, I'd have one of those in my house. Playing in water never gets old!

Even Kenzie joined in...despite the fact that she was "really too old for this mom!"

These are Jace's "sand hands"...he was so in little boy heaven today. Although, he was somewhat confused when we were getting ready to leave. He took one last look at the bone digging pits and then said "but mom, we can't go...we hasn't seen the real dinosaurs yet! When do we see real dinosaurs?" (I smiled!) and then tried my best to explain extinction... What a fun day! And I have to agree with Maddy's comment later during lunch, "Mom, today was the best day. The only thing that would have made it better is if Dad was with us. Then it would be perfect." That's my Maddy.

dance party

Last night Tim brought home some helium balloons leftover from something at school. Lady and Jace decided to make a "dance party" in her room. They brought in all the balloons, made crowns (Jace is sporting his "blue crown just for boys", closed the blinds and turned on a flashlight (I guess they were aiming for that spotlight effect), and turned on the radio (so loud I could hear it while in the shower)....."DANCE PARTY!"

They danced the morning away and it took some serious convincing to get Lady out the door to Kindergarten. Apparently, dance parties are "way more fun than school!"

Officially Twelve!

We celebrated the big 1-2 tonight at Grandma's. Kenzie went to Primary for the last time today...big change for me :( .....and was thrilled to finally be movin' on to Young Women's. She is sure there is nothing more exciting than being a Beehive...she's probably right! I still can't believe that my little girl (the one who used to fall off barstools several times a day and then jump up exclaiming "I'm okay! I'm okay!") is old enough to tag along with Tim to mutual.

After lots of fun presents...thanks to Grandma, Papa, all the cousins/aunts/uncles...we sang Happy Birthday and made wishes. We ate chocolate cheesecake and strawberry cream pie for dessert YUM!

Kenzie is looking forward to lots of "firsts" over the next few months. First Young Women's activity, first baptisms for the dead, first Sunday not in Primary, first girls camp...and I'm looking forward to my first 12 year old and all the new adventures (DRAMA!) that come with this new phase!

...was I this crazy with my friends?...

Friday night, Kenzie had a bunch of girls over to celebrate her soon-to-be-12 birthday. Tim surprised her with her first dozen roses...her face says it all.

After eating pizza, making bracelets, and opening presents....I started to lose all control. I quickly came to the conclusion that no matter what you plan or prepare for, that many girls all under one roof is just constant, neverending, silliness...as you can see.

Kenzie thought it was the best late night ever....it took until almost 11:00 to get everyone home. It's funny how quickly you forget what it was like to be a 12 year old girl. I did discover that some of those quirky things that I thought were just "Kenzie bein' Kenzie" are actually quirky things that all her friends do (nice to know it's not just my daughter!). It was a fun, loud, talk non-stop kind of a night that all the girls seemed to love!