A K party and Christmas

Kirsten decided she wanted a "K" like Jannika's J party so I tried to come up with K things to do but it just wasn't as easy so it ended up being a Hello Kitty/Princess party. The girls made wands and crowns and we had a K cupcake cake.

We did the nativity for our ward party and Claire kept telling me that she didn't want to be an angel or a shepherd; she wanted to be a sheep. Well, luckily someone brought some sheep costumes for this girl and her cousin. They were the cutest little sheep:)

This is Jannika's school program. They did really well singing and dancing to "Up on the Housetop." There is pic of Claire's school program at the bottom. We were so proud of her doing her parts since she doesn't really love to perform.

Here is Christmas day after Church. We had a great Christmas and we hope you did too!

A broken arm and Conference packets

My poor little babe broke her arm last Friday. She fell in one of our window wells and Kyle and I were standing right there but we weren't able to catch her before she fell. Kyle jumped down in the window well and picked her up and we knew immediately it was broken. She cried for a while but then was calm and even smiling. She was so good at the hospital even though we had to wait 5 hours before they could set it because they needed to put her out but she had eaten too recently. We are so glad that it wasn't worse and that she didn't hit her head or need pins in her arm etc. We are so blessed!

We went to the dinosaur museum the next day so here she is in her temporary cast and sling. The kids all loved the museum especially digging in the sand for bones:)

Last, I have a conference idea from Sugardoodle.net. Make conference packets, one for each of the 12 and the first presidency and put a picture on each bag. When that person is speaking your kids can do that activity or eat that snack. I organized a bunch of my friends so that we will put the bags together and each of us will bring an activity and a snack for each of the kids in the group:

7 moms in the group

15 kids (not including kids under age 2)

Each mom brings 15 ziploc bags (one for each of the 12 and first presidency)

Each mom also brings 15 snacks and 15 activities (I will do an extra one of each because that only makes 14)

Anywho, you could still organize this if you wanted to or just make 15 bags yourself.

Claire's first day and a recipe

My babe had her first day of preschool. She rides the bus like a champ and loves school! Some things about this girl: She still likes yellow but also has other favorite colors, she loves macaroni cheese and going to the library. She has also learned to do puzzles really well. There's a puzzle at my mom's that she will sit and do over and over again! She is such a sweet girl:)

Fruit Salad

1 banana

1 apple

1 white nectarine

Grapes, blueberries or whatever you have

1 container vanilla yogurt

Cut and mix.

I have been making this salad a lot lately and we all love it!

There she goes

My number 2 is off to kindergarten! She was sooo ready for school and sooooooooo excited for it! Her teacher is Mrs. Story and she goes in the afternoon. She has loved picking out her clothes for each day and of course always picks a skirt:) She started on Monday and after school she said it was a good day but, "they are teaching things I already know like my letters and my numbers"! Then last night she said our family prayer and was going along saying, "we're thankful for... and for... and that I don't care if my teacher teaches stuff I already know"!! What a funny girl!

Some things about my Kirsten:

She taught herself how to read and loves to read everything she sees
She gave a great talk in Primary last week about her favorite scripture story: David and Goliath

She loves to wear skirts
She loves stuffed animals and has to sleep with ALL of them

She is very caring and considerate

We love her so much!

Hanging on to Summer!

I guess I better do an update of our whole summer because I haven't posted since school ended and I can't believe it's already time for school again! We had lots of fun this summer. This was our fourth of July camping trip. The kids really like fishing with Kyle, especially Jannika.

Fourth of July parade and riding the train at the park.

We also played a lot with friends and cousins and had a visit from our good friends that live in Wisconsin. So glad we got to see you guys!

Claire and her friend, Slade who lives next door. My kids spent tons of time playing with Slade and his brothers outside riding bikes and playing in the DIRT and MUD. I guess that's what summer's for!

Jan started 3rd grade this morning. She was so excited; she came into our room at 5:45 this morning wondering if she could start getting ready!

May Happenings

I got started posting pictures and realized that a lot of stuff happened in May! On the 3rd, my lovely Jannika turned 8. This is her flower cake (the easiest cake ever)! She, of course, had a flower themed party where everyone had to wear as many flowered things that they had. I had some activities planned for them but mostly they wanted to jump on the trampoline since it was such a nice day. Incidentally, it was the one of maybe 3 nice days in May so that was lucky! Some random things about Jannika: she loves to read and draw, especially dress designs and horses. She is Kyle's right-hand kid. She goes with him everywhere, to put up flags with the scouts, to do ward service projects, fathers and sons outings, etc. She is a wonderful girl!

Claire had her end of the year program and actually got up and performed with the other kids! I was so proud of her.

Next was Kirsten's program where she was given a jump rope for being the most excited-jumping-up-and-down kid. She does tend to jump around a lot especially when she's excited:)

Jannika and her cousin, Kaylee got to be on the same soccer team this year. Good thing their teams weren't super competitive because these girls were pretty laid back about the whole thing...but it was a good experience for them:)

Then came Jannika's end of the year program. She was a dragonfly and did very well with her memorized line.

The best part of May was Jannika's baptism. We planned a program with her cousin, Kaylee and it worked out really nicely. Thanks family and friends who attended! It was a wonderful day.

A Birthday and a House

Our new kitchen. Yay! More house pics are at the end of this post.

Claire's birthday was on the 5th. She has been so excited for her birthday and wanted a Dora castle cake. She has always loved yellow and so I shouldn't have needed to ask her what color she wanted it because of course she wanted "yeyyow"! This girl is getting so big. She is talking so much now and finally mimics things that we say. She started preschool last week. We had her tested becuase of her language delay and they accepted her into the school district preschool. She is supposed to ride the bus but only rode it one day when I rode with her. But she does love school and does really well there. They had picture day today and when the guy showed her her picture on the computer screen she said, "wow, me pretty!" She is also starting to get potty trained. We made a chart for her and she has really wanted to go to the swimming pool so we made that her reward for filling out her chart. Her favorite things right now are the pool, yogurt, fish crackers, polka dots and yellow.

This is a before and after of some signs I made for our house. I found them on clearance at our local grocery store and I love how they turned out!

Now some more pics of the house. We got to move in the week of March 20th and it is so nice to be moved in. One of my friends said that when she moved into her new house it felt weird like it didn't feel like home. I think just the opposite. This felt exactly like home to me. (Maybe it's because I can see my family's old junk yard from my back window;)

House Update

Well, our house is coming along and we just can't wait to move in! All of the exterior is done and the interior painting, trim doors etc are done. The only things left are tile, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, carpet and fixtures! The picture above is the archway into our front room. The one below is the kitchen (with a corner pantry) and the dining room. We are hoping to be in by mid- March!