Dinosaur Rock

The second grade classes put on a darling music program on Tuesday. The theme was...you guessed it dinosaurs. I first I was a little puzzled on how their entire concert could revolve around these extinct animals but alas I underestimated the teacher's ability to tie random songs into a dinosaur theme. Each song tied into dinosaurs and most were accompanied by hand moves, dancing, or some other type of "choreography". The songs were tied to each other by speakers telling a story to lead into each song. One of my favorite songs was about bats. The students made some strange noise that eerily resembled the sound of a colony of bats. They had funny motions too. (For those of you who aren't grandmas, aunts, etc and don't want to use all your daylight hours watching videos of my daughter, I'd suggest the second video.)

My favorite things

These are a few of my favorite things...

When the rain falls, When the wind blows, When I'm feeling sad,

I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad

Watershed Nature Center

Alexandra's class went to the watershed nature center last Friday. Since the class was staying together, I was permitted to bring the little two along with me as I "chaperoned". I can't really call it chaperoning since there was almost as many adults as students and we basically just walked along the trail. It is very hard to see wildlife with 20+ excited to be outside children. It was a gorgeous day for a hike and we had a nice time.

Xandy and her good friend Layne

Bella and Jacob (it was nap time and he was trying very hard to stay awake)

Cheer clinic

For years we've been disappointing our deprived girls of expensive cheer clinics. We must be the worst parents in the world (at least our girls thought so). Then one day a flier for yet another cheer clinic came home in the backpacks. This time, jaded from previous disappointments, the girls didn't even put up a fight. As I headed straight for the recycle bin with the fliers I noticed the price. I could send both the older girls (Bella was too young) for $25 total and that included a snack and T-shirt. I kept a flier out and showed it to Jared after they were in bed. He decided to let them go so they couldn't keep using the "but we've never get to go" argument. I filled out the form and sent in the check, but didn't tell the girls. They were so excited on Friday when I finally told them. It was only two hours, but hopefully it will help get the cheer longing out of their system and fill them with gratitude for their wonderful parents. Nah, who am I kidding? At least they got to go once though.

Xandy is in the back row of the frist video with a pink headband and blue sweats. Katy is in the front row of her group with back pants and a purple headband.

Talent Show

Our ward had a talent show combined with the Glen Carbon ward on Friday night. Katy played "My Bonnie lies over the Ocean" on the piano(Grandma Sharpe would've been soo proud!) and she played a duet with me out of one of her books. She did very well despite getting soo nervous I though she would lose her dinner. She gets that from me. The girls also sang and danced to "You are the music in me" with their friend Shannon. Or rather, they just danced. A case of stage fright struck and the only one that was really moving it was little Bella (the one we didn't think would dance to begin with). She got up there and was singing and swinging her hips having a grand ol' time. It was great fun regardless, and the evening was topped off with a trip to Bobby's for yummy custard with Shannon and her mom. Then it was home to watch the Buckeyes lose :( We should've called it a night after the custard!


(Notice Xandy hiding in the back)

March Madness

I am blog stealing this picture from my cool sister-in-law Natalie. Jared has always wanted to go to a NCAA tournament game. When Kevin lived in Indiana, one year when some of the games were in Indianapolis and Jared contemplated going. Then, last year when some games were at Cleveland State it killed him that he didn't get tickets. This year, when BYU was playing in Philadelphia, my brother, who lives in Philly, and Jared started to conspire. My brother found some tickets, and Jared booked a surprisingly decent plane ticket, and off they went. In the words of my brother, it was something on their "bucket list". Despite the less than desirable outcome of the BYU game and the less than exciting U-Conn game where U-Conn scored triple digits and massacred their opponent, they had a fun time. They really were excited to go, despite their faces in the picture. I think they were not too excited to have their picture taken since they knew the pictured would inevitably end up on two blogs. Hey, they have their NCAA fun and we have our own blogging fun! (I think they got the better end of that deal though)

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite Holidays. Although, who are we kidding? I'm pretty much a cheesy decorating freak when it comes to most holidays, but I do hold a special excitement for the Irish holiday. My grandpa was Irish, and before my hair went gray and I had to start coloring it, I used to have pretty red streaks during the summer months. Coupled with my pale freckled skin I sometimes actually looked a little Irish. My mom always made a special meal: the traditional corn beef and cabbage, Belfast biscuits and Shannon cakes. It is a tradition I've continued with my family. Although since my family demands that I double the Shannon cake batch, the meal takes a good portion of the day to prepare. This year, since all the girls have swim lessons on Tuesday evening, we had our meal a day early. Our friends, the Pearsons, came over and shared in the fun. After the meal, the kids played Hot potato (to Irish music of course!), and Leprechaun, Leprechaun, who has the Gold?

Before the girls went to bed, I heard them whispering to each other in worried voices. They were concerned that the Leprechauns would make a mess of the house and play mean tricks. The Leprechauns did not disappoint. There were silly tricks played throughout the house marked by a shamrock on each spot. The kids had laid out their clothes, the Leprechauns switched them around. Toothbrushes were hanging upside down in the holder. Pictures were turned sideways and upside down. A baby blanket was hanging from the ceiling fan. The older girls comforters were switched while they were sleeping under them. The milk was turned green, and later enjoyed with a bowl of lucky charms! It was a crazy morning, but the kids had fun finding all the shamrocks and fixing the tricks. Since the day ended up being in the 80's it was nice to enjoy leftover corn beef and cabbage for lunch and spend the afternoon outside (not in the kitchen!)


While I was preparing the meal on Monday Jacob was napping and Bella was playing dress-up. I noticed that I hadn't heard her in awhile and went to investigate. This is what I found....

The kids plus Baylea (our neighbor) in their St. Patty's garb. I love Jacob's hat it reads "Mommy's lucky charm". My girls all have shamrocks on their shirts even if you can't see them. Jacob's shirt says "Kiss me, I'm cute"

The Little Blue Dress

Disclaimer: This is a true story, any similarities to actual people or events was intentional. This really is a true story! I'm not joking.

Once upon a time there was a young lady living in the Gateway to the West. She was looking forward to her brother's upcoming wedding. This was the first time she would not be pregnant at the wedding of a sibling and she was determined to look good. She had been training hard for two months to get in shape, and she still had two months left to work towards her goal. She had looked on-line and found a dress she liked, but it was not the right color blue to coordinate with the wedding colors and a little more than she had wanted to spend. She called her sister-in-law, who lived in the City of Brotherly Love, and told her about the dress and her dilemma. Her sister-in-law said she had a similar dilemma. They discussed the situation without ever describing the dresses they had found.

One week-end, the young lady went to visit her Mom. Her mom suggested they go shopping for dresses to wear to the wedding, and the young lady eagerly agreed. Off they went. The first stop was the Dress Barn (since it was across the street from Costco and they HAD to do some shopping there). As they entered the store, they were both immediately drawn to a particular dress. It was a cute little dress, and although it wasn't quite the right color it was closer than anything they had seen yet. All thoughts of the first dress quickly fled as she gazed upon the new dress. The mom graciously agreed to let the young lady have first dibs on the dress and found another one to try on herself. When the young lady tried on the dress, she fell in love. She found some matching jewelry, paid for her purchases and left the store in high spirits.

Later that day, the sister-in-law called the mother. She was at the store looking at the dress she had orginally found. She wasn't sure if the color was a close enough match and she called to get her mother-in-law's opinion. As she started to describe the dress, it didn't take long for the mother to discover it was the same dress her daughter had purchased early that same day!

That now made 2 weddings in six months that they had found the same dress for. This tells us one of 2 things : 1) these two young ladies and the mother have uncanny similarity in tastes or 2) there are not many modest dresses to choose from. Or, maybe its a combination of them both

Learning Fair

The girls had a "Learning Fair" at school. Its is similar to a science fair. Students could choose whether or not to participate. Then they choose a topic of interest to them. They could conduct an experiment, demonstration, or simply research the topic. They then created a board and wrote a report. Last night all the projects were on display for families to view. It was interesting to see the different ideas students had. I thought it was a worthwhile "extra" learning enrichment. And hey, its never too early to start teaching your kids the scientific method, right? Good thing I took a picture the day they finished their boards cause of course I forgot to take my camera last night. Katy took three types of paper, turned the strips into pulp and then made recycled paper. She compared the quality of the three different types of the recycled paper. Xandy blindfolded 5 people and had them taste 4 mystery items first with their nose plugged, and then with their nose unplugged to see if smell affected taste.

Bella is 4!

My little Bella turned 4 last week. Its was actually last Thursday, but I haven't been in the blogging mood. We had a chocolate pie and went swimming at the YMCA. Over the week-end we went to Ohio. Bella loves going to Ohio to see Mima and Pop Pop. Alex was in his last musical so we went to watch. Of course the fact that it was High School Musical made it even more exciting for the girls. We celebrated Bella's B-day with a cake. Last year I made a Dora cake but wasn't up to spending my week-end trip in the kitchen. Bella insisted that she wanted a Dora cake, and we couldn't persuade her otherwise. I had meant to take some of her Dora figurines to place ontop of a Costco cake, hoping that would be good enough. I realized after we got to my parents that I had left those behind. But the B-day girl's Dad saved the day. Jared ran out to Drug Mart (man, I miss that store, it really is one stop shopping!) and came home with a cheap set of Dora Princess figurines. We placed them on top of the cake and she was tickled pink.




Yummy chocolate pie!

The Dora cake

Waiting for the show to start

Alex on the left hand side #19

The Gabriella look alike

Overheard at the Dinner table

Xandy: I don't EVER want to get married
Me: Why not? Heavenly Father wants us to.
Xandy: I'll have to like........kiss a boy or something!

New looks

I got my hair cut and some new candlesticks for the mantle.

(Sorry for the funny picture but I took it myself)