It's time

It's time for a big girl bed.  For several nights after stories Emmie has tried to tuck herself into this:

She climbs on, covers herself up, of course takes a book along, and says "good night".  

This same adorable girl loves to have her hair done.  How many two year olds how still for this kind of a hairdo? 

She is growing up!

Honorable Mention

Hannah's short story won the Reflections contest at the district and region levels, and she received Honorable Mention this past week at state.  We are surprised, but then again not really - this girl is loaded with talent and writing is a strong point for her.  Here she is receiving her award.  

 I kept trying to get her to smile but the picture above is the closest that she got.  She mostly looked like she was about to cry.  She said it was terrifying standing up there but she thought she was smiling really big.  Um, not quite.  See below.

Later in the lobby a PTA official said to me, "Congratulations, Mom."  She probably meant well but this was all Hannah - no credit on my part.  I was grateful for a chance to get to explore the Salt Lake City Public Library.  It's amazing!  

We faced our fear of heights and got on one of these elevators just because we could.  We did okay until the fourth floor and got kind of panicky.

We walked to the fifth floor and were delighted to find beehives on the roof!

 

A view of the atrium and study areas.

A scared Hannah waiting for our elevator to arrive to take us back down.  I felt a little ridiculous when we first approached the elevators and I couldn't figure out how to summon one.  We waited until we saw how someone else did it.

Level 1 shops and stores.

Fun artwork

The coolest hanging sculpture.  Hannah was the one to spot that it was a human head.

In the words of the Lego movie song, "Everything was awesome" - loved having a wonderful afternoon out with my girl!

Spirit Week

This week was Spirit Week at the Elementary School.  Favorite days were 

Crazy Hat Day

 but since it wasn't crazy outfit day I suggested that Drew stick with one plaid item and go solid on another.  He did.  Also, after seeing himself in the mirror Jacob decided to play it safe and wear a baseball cap instead.

Crazy Hair Day

By request, the boys wanted spikes.  By the time school was out, so were the rubber bands - they hurt after awhile!  Here we have our cute carpool posing with us.  Emmie LOVES these girls.

A Happy Easter

This Easter we did something special.  On Saturday, we went to see the art exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art, "Sacred Gifts".  We went through as a family and talked about the artwork displaying the Savior's life, particularly his final week, with the younger children, and then wonderful Lisa took the younger crowd on a walk and the oldest 4 of us took time to ourselves to sit and contemplate on the Savior.  It was a beautiful way to spend time at Easter.

We waited to color eggs until Emmie went to bed.  She got to have fun a few days later smashing and peeling the eggs.  The colored-egg spread included Mike Wiczowski, a globe, color faded eggs, chicks, a moustache, plastic wrapped eggs, melted wax eggs, and my favorites...

Big Sad Puppy (by Tyler) and Olaf from Frozen (by Jacob).  Very clever, folks.

 

Here we have our little angel hunting in her favorite thing to wear...Minnie Mouse Christmas pajamas.  She screams whenever we take them off.

She loved hunting but only put eggs that rattled into her bag.

Andrew the dapper egg hunter (he LOVES his new purple plaid bow tie) and Camden - usually I can see a little bit of method to the madness of wearing a helmet (riding in Dad's race car, playing on the swing set, etc.), but an Easter egg hunt?

 

My "little boy blue" isn't very little anymore

I always like watching the kids spreading out their loot.  Drew was only interested in keeping the bubble gum and Jacob preferred jelly beans so Callie ended up with a lot of chocolate cadbury eggs during the trading process.  Everyone was happy.

"Thanks, Easter Bunny, for remembering to bring lots of jelly beans," say Hannah and Emmie.

After church there were cousins from the Y to eat dinner with us.  They posed for a photo and then I realized that I didn't have a battery in my camera.  Oops!  They stayed in form just long enough...

But then it was time to go goofy.

I love it that Drew wanted to do the splits.

I love these people!

There was lots of fun with bubbles, too.  It was a beautiful day.

 

Basement Peeks

When we were early on in the stages of our basement finish I imagined coming in under budget and having enough leftover cash for a little furniture or decorations.  I imagined getting it all finished but also decorated.

HA!  We did not fly across the finish line, we limped.  Sort of.  But about a month ago through Tyler's tireless efforts we got a straggler of a contractor to come and finish up our built-ins.  I was so excited I took pictures after throwing a few things on it.

Decorations will come in time, now here are a couple peeks at some of my basement favorites.

Hannah's Bookcase:  I said the smaller bedroom would get built-ins, but they turned out really pricey and we came out over budget once everything in our house started breaking.  We took our dated, oak bookcase that we were going to give away and turned it into this for her room:

She bought beadboard for the new backing, and new molding for the top, and together we worked to paint and prime it.  It turned out awesome - I'd steal it from her if she'd let me!

The Bathroom:  I spent so much time on this one.  I saw a theme in the many inspiration photos I liked and went with blue and white.  I found the perfect shower curtain and accidentally happened upon the floor mats (and then I only got one.  It wasn't until a few weeks later that I realized we'd want two, and I felt a prompting to stop at the store so I did - there was one left on clearance.  Heavenly Father really does care enough about us to care about the little things!)  I wasn't sure how it was all coming together but trusted my gut instinct as I separately picked out the flooring, cabinetry and counter top.  I was really nervous about the whole picture until the mirror went up (yard sale find - $5 and a coat of paint) and it turned out just how I wanted.  Hooray!  In the mirror you can just barely see the batten board on the opposite wall.  It is super cute but I don't know that I would ever install it again unless someone else is caulking and painting it - I did NOT know what I was getting myself into.

 

Built-in Bookcases:  These are going to be a lot of fun as we dress them up - I can still hardly believe they are really installed!  Did I mention they were a little late in doing them...as in over 5 months late?

The Playhouse Door:  This little blue door is one of my favorite things about our basement.  Camden is rather possessive about "his" playhouse; about a year ago when he had enough of Mom the General Contractor we would go get little stools and sit in the future playhouse and I would tell him about how much fun we were going to have there.  That has come to pass.  I love seeing the cupboard above it now instead of a hole with duct work and framing.  

Ta Da!  At the rate we are going, that is as much of a reveal as we are going to get.  But we are enjoying every inch of our new living space and can hardly remember what it was like to live without it.

Camilla's Wedding

To kick off our spring break, we had a very nice trip down to be with Tyler's family for Camilla's wedding.  It was wonderful to see Camilla and Trevor be sealed, wonderful to celebrate with them, wonderful to be with family, and wonderful to see the beautiful new Gilbert Arizona temple.

When we weren't doing this...

(and sometimes even when we were), we were chasing Emilie, who loved to be as far away from the picture taking as possible.  She is another young one in our family who doesn't ever seem to walk - running suits her better.

 

There was also lots of sitting around, getting reacquainted with cousins.  Most of the 4 and up boys:

 Me and my big girls:

 The teen girls, minus Keslee:

We took the time afterwards to walk around the beautiful grounds.  This temple is stunning in every way.

I would have loved to have gotten pictures of the beautiful outdoor reception - Camilla worked so hard to put it all together, and with all of the on-site help it was lovely in every way.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died when some girls were having a little bit of fun...

...so this is the only glimpse from the reception that I have.

Or for the rest of the weekend, for that matter.  Beware to the girls behind the camera, and those in front of it modeling - if it ends up on my camera it could end up on my blog.  The iPad captured these:

 Sweet Miriam LOVES to brush Grandma's hair, and did it several times while we were there.  So cute.

Two cousins, munching on leftover "Chex and Cheerios" in front of General Conference.  

Of course whenever family gets together someone always ends up sick.  We brought home a feverish Emmie and I knew she was really sick when I got distracted for a few minutes, and came back to check on her and found this:

 Poor, tuckered girl.  My kids are like their dad - afraid that they are going to miss out on something by sleeping - so I have never been able to successfully move them and keep them asleep.  They always wake up enough to know that life is going on around them and even if it was for only 3 minutes, nap time is over.  So, I just shifted her a little and she napped on the couch that day.