Dancing at the Kite Festival

April 21 was the annual Dixie Escalante Kite Festival.  Emily, Colby, and I had a great time at the festival but boy was it hot!  This was really the first day of summer for me.  We even got our first sun tan of the year!  We got to the Festival at around noon and we walked in and out of the vendor booths getting free stuff like balloons and pinwheels.  The kids favorite things were the twisted and shaped balloons.  Emily got a flower and Colby got a dog shaped balloon.  Unfortunately, the heat and grass got to them and the moment we stopped to eat our picnic the balloons popped.  Luckily though, we still had our helium balloons.

After eating our lunch, it was time to fly our kite!  Emily picked out a Cinderella kite in her favorite color, pink.  She loves anything princess.  The kite flew really well as long as Emily was running with it.

Here is Emily running with her kite trying to keep it up in the air.  Too bad there wasn't a lot of wind.  One thing Emily didn't quite understand was that she had to run in a straight line for the kite to fly well.  She kept running in circles so the kite kept crashing every time she turned.  Oh well it was fun.

Then it was time for the real reason we came to the Kite Festival:  Emily's First Dance Performance!

Here Emily is with her dance teacher, Miss Brittany, and all of her dance friends getting ready to go on stage.  Emily loves going to dance every Monday.  She is learning ballet and tap dancing in her little class.

And here she is dancing on stage for the first time!  For this performance, they did a cute tap dance.  The dance was so fun to watch.  I didn't get any pictures of the actual dance because I was video recording it instead.  The girls were so cute and they didn't really know their dance they just followed their teacher's moves as she demonstrated it to them off stage.  It was so cool though.  Emily wanted to be front and center so she seemed to jump the highest and stomp the loudest. She did such a good job.  Emily's favorite tap move is to shoo-shoo backward and they do it twice in this dance.  Emily loves going to dance class and being with her friends.  Her next performance is the big dance company recital in June.  This performance will be themed "Under the Big Top" and Emily's class is going to be popcorn!  I am excited to see how it all turns out.

After Emily's awesome performance, I rewarded her with her very own snow cone while Colby and I shared.  What a great treat for a hot day.  Colby LOVED it and was mad when it was gone.  By the time we got to the car Colby was asleep.  After a long hot day, Emily also fell asleep on the way home.  (I was wishing I could do the same!)

When Russell got home from school, we went out and flew Emily's kite again in our street.

Russell got the kite to work much better this time and it actually stayed in the air longer thanks to a little more wind.  I had forgotten how much fun flying kites is.  We will have to do it more often now.

Colby's First Steps!!!

Colby is WALKING!!!  He has been cruising around the furniture for a little while now and will walk if we hold his hands so we knew he was getting close.  Russell and I started having him try and walk to each of us as we sat on the floor.  Then over the weekend, he started getting brave and would stand up by the couch and then let go and take one step before falling!  We were so excited!  While I was at work on Monday, Russell called me up and said that Colby had walked across the living room all by himself.  Colby had climbed up onto Emily's little rocking chair and then slid off and ran across the room until he fell.  Then he looked at Russell and laughed.  The silly boy!  That is how he walks; he runs to get as far as he can until he falls.  Here are a few videos of his first steps.

I love how he walks with is tongue out or mouth open and his arms straight in the air for balance.  He still prefers to crawl because he can get around much faster but he will walk if we stand him up or if he pulls himself up on some furniture.  He is still wobbly but is getting much better.  

Emily is so funny.  Russell and I were cheering for Colby as he was walking and I think Emily was feeling left out because she told us to watch her.  Mimicking Colby, she walked from Russell to me as wobbly as she could with her arms in the air for balance.  We couldn't help but laugh and cheer for her as well!  She likes cheering for Colby whenever he walks too.  Anytime Colby walks she yells to me "Mom, Colby is walking!!"

Good Job, Colby! Walking at 13 months old!

Annalynn

The newest member of the Farnsworth family is little Annalynn Nicole Stewart.  Annalynn was born on April 14.  Jen and Rick are so excited to have a new little one in their family and especially a baby girl.  Paul and Alex love their little sister and are already very protective of her!

Emily loves her new little cousin and is excited to finally have a girl cousin on the Farnsworth side.  I can already tell they will be good friends.  Annalynn is so cute and has a lot of strawberry blonde hair.

Here are all five of the Farnsworth grand-kids.  Is it just me or did Colby just triple in size compared to little Annalynn?  While I was holding Annalynn, I couldn't believe how big Colby had gotten.  I don't remember him being that small.  In fact he was smaller than her because he was 7 lb 13 oz and Annalynn is 8 lbs 4 oz.  Isn't that sad?  I can't believe how fast kids grow up.  Sometimes I wish I could stop time.  Also while I was holding Annalynn, Colby got really excited and walked over to me and started giving her some of his love taps (which weren't necessarily the softest) so I had to stop him.  Then he got mad that I was holding someone besides him.  Once I gave Annalynn back to Jen, Colby was fine and went back to exploring and getting into everything he could see.  

Aren't babies so fun?  Congrats Jen and Rick on the cute new addition to your family!

Our Garden

We planted our garden a few days ago.  It was a fun Family Home Evening.  Emily and Colby loved digging in the dirt and getting messy.

Russell showed Emily how to dig the holes deep enough and wide enough to put the little plants inside.  He then showed her how to gently put the plants in the holes and bury them.  She had a blast planting the garden.

We planted tomatoes, a green pepper, zucchini, squash, a watermelon, and strawberries.  Earlier we planted peas as well.  I hope everything grows this year because I love home grown vegetables so much better than store bought.  Emily reminds us everyday that we need to water her garden.  Now we just need to keep the bugs and weeds out of the garden and pray everything grows.  Hooray for being self-sufficient!

Easter

Happy Easter!  We had a great Easter this year.  The weather was amazing as always in St. George and perfect for Easter egg hunts and picnics.  The first thing we did to get ready for Easter was color Easter eggs of course:

Paul and Alex came over to our house while their parents were at work and helped Emily and me color eggs.  We colored the eggs a little differently this year.  Instead of vinegar, water and food coloring, we used shaving cream and food coloring.  By swirling different colors in the shaving cream we created a coloring on the eggs that made them look like marble.  They turned out so pretty.

 We had to use a pencil to swirl the egg in the shaving cream so that our hands wouldn't get colored.  The kids were still able to get a few red, blue, and green fingers though.  After taking the eggs out of the shaving cream we had to let them dry before we could wipe the shaving cream off.  The instructions I read said to let them dry over night but we didn't have that much time.  While the eggs dried we played outside in the nice spring weather.  After playing for an hour or so, we cam back in to see how our eggs were doing.  

When we wiped off the shaving cream, we saw how beautiful our eggs turned out.  The kids found my silicone cupcake liners and decided they were the perfect size for little egg houses so they each put their eggs inside so they wouldn't break.

I think the eggs turned out good.  We made three different swirls of colors for our eggs: pink/purple, blue/green, and red/yellow.  Emily wanted all of her eggs in her favorite colors: pink and purple.  Alex wanted all of his eggs in his favorite colors: blue and green. Paul did one egg in each of the colors.  And I colored Colby's eggs in red/yellow and then Emily told me Colby needed a blue/green one because that was a boy color.  I gave Colby his eggs and he discovered that when you squeeze them they break.  He thought that was awesome and kept pushing his thumb into the egg making little holes in the shell.  (He has a thing for sticking his finger in holes.)  Being the mean mom I am, I took the eggs away from him before he totally destroyed them or ate a shell.

On Saturday Morning, Emily and Colby were excited to find out that the Easter Bunny had left them some gifts.

The favorite gift was the bubbles of course.  Blowing bubbles is one of Emily's favorite things to do.  Emily also got a hula hoop but I think Colby has played with it more than she has.  Emily didn't know what to do with a hula hoop so I showed her.  Then she tried and did just about as good as I did (which isn't saying much!) ;(  Then, Colby crawled right into the middle of the hoop and picked it up and tried to hula hoop too. He did better than I did!  It was so cute.

After getting ready for the day, we headed to Emily's first primary activity:

 The primary activity was an ice cream party.  Emily had been asking me for about a month if it was time for her primary ice cream party yet.  She was so excited to go.  At the party the kids made super hero capes for their teachers because they are all "super".  After the ice cream was finished, the primary presidency set up an Easter egg hunt for all of the kids.  

All of the kids had fun looking for the hidden eggs and especially eating the candy inside the eggs.  Here is a picture of Emily and her two little friends, Janessa Mortensen and Gracyn Arnold, from her Sunbeam class.  These three girls had fun helping each other find eggs and then showing each other what was in their eggs.  They were even nice enough to give Colby one of their eggs which made him happy.

After the activity, we met up with Russell after he PASSED his Fire Skills test!  Russell also found out that he passed his Fire I and Fire II written tests he took about a month ago!We were all really excited about him passing his tests.  He now just has HazMat Ops left and he will be an official Fire Fighter!  After meeting up with Russell, we headed to Santa Clara Elementary for our annual Morwood Easter picnic:  

 And we can't forget the annual baseball game!  I think this is the first year I haven't played in the game.  I should have though I don't know why I didn't except maybe because I was chasing Colby around.  Well anyway, we had fun playing on the playground.

Colby thought he was so big and wanted to do everything by himself.  I had to watch him as he climbed up the stairs because I was afraid he would fall.  Emily and Colby love going down the slides and swinging.  Emily loves holding onto Colby and playing train down the slides.

Colby is now 13 months old.  He is getting brave, funnier, more exploratory, and more talkative.  He is also getting stronger and I think he will start walking soon because he walks along the furniture and will walk if we hold his hand.  He loves exploring, taking everything out of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, and banging pots and bowls with spoons.   

We also had a little candy hunt with all of the little cousins 8 and under.  It is amazing to see how my extended family has changed over the years.  We have been having this Easter picnic for so many years I don't even know when we started.  I remember looking forward to this every year since I was Emily's age.  I loved rolling eggs down the dirt hills in Snow Canyon with my cousins and climbing the rocks.  Now it is fun to see the next generation.  I love seeing my kids play with my cousins' kids just like I used to play.  I hope my kids will be as good of friends with their cousins as I am.

Easter Sunday was also fun.  First we went to church and the kids wore their matching Easter clothes.  I made Emily a dress and Colby a matching tie.

 This second picture totally explains my kids attitudes toward pictures.  Emily is posed ready for any glamor shot and Colby is like "Are we done yet?"  So typical!  

After church we rushed over to Traci's Singles Ward to listen to her sing in her Sacrament meeting.  Traci did an amazing job singing her song.  I had no idea she sang until now but she is really good.  I had forgotten how quiet Singles wards are especially during the sacrament!  In our family ward, I wouldn't really care if Emily whispered to herself while she colored or if Colby babbled a little.  In the Singles ward though, we were the only ones with kids and I was so embarrassed how loud my kids seemed to be with all of their little kid noises!

Well after Traci's church, we had another picnic/BBQ with the Farnsworth's.  We had the BBQ at the Bloomington house where Traci is living now.  (PS I still love this house and sometimes wish we still lived there.)  

As part of our contribution to the potluck, I made these colorful deviled eggs.  I thought it would be perfect for an Easter celebration.  They were fun to make because instead of dying the egg shells, you dye the egg whites.  The BBQ was good and it was nice to be with family and relaxing.

After eating, Traci, Tyler, and Traci's friend, Clint, set up another Easter egg hunt for the kids.

The kids had a good time running around finding eggs.  Colby was perfectly content with the few eggs he found on the grass.  He loved opening and closing the eggs as well as shaking the eggs to hear what was inside.  Emily would get so excited when she would find an egg.  She really only liked to find the pink and purple eggs but she did get other colors too.

Here are those four crazy kids showing off their beautiful blue lips from robin egg lipstick.  No Easter would be complete without...

PEEPS!  Well Emily and Colby only ate a couple bites until they realized peeps are actually too sweet to eat and they abandoned the sticky chicks in the grass.  We had a great time and a great Easter.

One thing I did realize this year and it is my fault and I feel bad, is that Emily doesn't really understand the true meaning of Easter.  I asked her if she knew why we celebrate Easter and she told me so we can get eggs and candy and the Easter bunny.  I was shocked.  I realized that I wasn't teaching my kids right.  Easter is about Jesus Christ and the Atoneing sacrifice he did for us.  It is about Chirst rising on the thrid day as a resurected being.  It is becuase of Jesus Christ the we are able to return to our Father in Heaven.  It is through Christ that we can repent of our sins and be clean again.  It is not because of a bunny or eggs or the other commercialized things that I must have been caught up in.  Because of this realization, I put together a Family Home Evening lesson about the true meaning of Easter and it seemed to help Emily better understand what Easter really means.  Next year I hope I will be better and emphasize the true meaning of Easter instead of the commercialized meaning. 

Happy Easter eveyone and may the true meaning of Easter ever me in our hearts.

Fire Testing

St George City Fire fighter Recruit Academy Skills testing day. A day that 15 of us recruits have been looking forward to and at the same time wondering if we were ready for it. The morning started at 0800 on Easter morning. Chief Guard gave us a pep talk and reviewed what we could possibly be tested on. All of us were worried about our knots so we were all tying knots for the first 30 mins. From Thursday till the day of the testing I kept preparing myself mentally and saying to myself, "You have done this kind of testing before and being stressed and having anxiety is not going to help, so just relax and have fun with the test you know what you are doing." That is exactly what I did.

The test begins, they called out about half the class for individual skills while the other half waited inside wondering what we are going to be tested on. Right when I heard the air of the SCBA's I knew, and the rest of the class knew, that we had an SCBA test. When it was my turn with the rest of the class, I treated it like every other class time we put them on. The tester said go and off we went. I turned on my air and said all the words that needed to be said as we turned the air pack on. I threw the air pack over my shoulders and tightened the shoulder straps and buckled my waist strap. The next thing was the air mask; I threw it over my head and tightened both top and bottom straps. I put my nomex hood over my face mask, and clipped the helmet in place. Now it was time to go on air; I made sure to check my exhalation valve before. Last but not least, I threw on my gloves and clapped my hands and I was finished in 46 sec. The instructors told us if they do not say anything it is a good thing and the instructor said nothing. Yes, one down seven to go.

After we got done with the first test, they had us go sit and wait at the front of the station until our names where called. I sat and waited and waited as I saw everyone else get there name called. I was laughing inside and saying to my class mates well I guess they forgot me, but they didn't. They finally called my name and I went back. From there they put me through the last seven skills. As you can see from the pictures, about half were two Fire Fighter skills. They had us simulate cutting off a window of a car, advance a charged hose line up a ladder and lie it off, going from beginning to end on how to apply foam on a fire. One of the funniest skills that my classmate and I did was the catchall with a tarp. We had to make a make shift little pool with a tarp they gave us. At first we were confused because we have trained with a big tarp and they gave us what is call a hall way runner which is about 3' by 12'. We tried to make it work at first , but then we thought we misunderstood so we made a chute with the pike poles which looked like crap because of the small tarp. The instructor stopped us and informed us again he wanted a catchall made. My classmate told the instructor that we are use to a bigger tarp, he just looked and said nothing, so I told Chris just verbalize everything. We started to roll the sides and tuck the corners and of course it looked like crap again. The instructor came over and saw that we were struggling and touched the tarp to show us that we did not let the tarp out all the way, but needless to say the joke was on the instructor because he noticed then that we were not kidding that we had a small tarp. He took that one and went and got a bigger tarp.We asked him if we needed to do it again, he said no you guys know what you are doing.

One of the skills that I almost did not pass was the tool hoist. The easiest skill of the whole thing. I was tying my clove hitch around the axe head and then I tied my half hitch at the top of the handle and was about to clap my hands to finish when I said OH CRAP I forgot to wrap the rope around the axe head. The instructor John Miller said get it done you have time. Off I went to fix it and I made it by the skin of my teeth. WOW I thought to myself I glad that I caught that one.

         The whole testing day was great. Our instructors for the class prepared us well, we were all really nervous about how we were going to do, but I can say this for the whole class, it was a lot easier than they said it was going to be. We finished with the last skill and the testing instructors told us if they saying nothing to us then you passed the skills. Chris and I had passed we were so excited. Chief Guard told us before we went that he would also tell us our scores for the written part. The test got done around one in the afternoon and we had all passed the skills. Now it was time for Chief to hand out the written, I was so nervous I kept praying in my head and hoping I passed. The paper was laid on my desk I flipped it around and the fire one test said pass. YES  I thought, now turn the page for the Fire two, PASSED, YESSSSS. I am Fire one and two certified. What I big relief and an answered prayer. Now I had the rest of the day to spend with my family on Easter and not be bummed that I did not pass. Thank goodness for a loving Heavenly Father who answers prays and Faith on my end to make it happen. Now bring on the Hazmat class.

Baby Shower

Traci threw Jen a really fun baby shower on April 4. Jen's baby is due in a couple of weeks so we all had fun showering her with gifts and PINK! She is having a baby girl and after two boys, Jen needed some girly things. I love sewing baby things so I went to town sewing some fun baby gifts:

I kind of went over board with the gifts but Jen seemed to love everything. I was really surprised at the reaction I got from the other ladies. A few of them even got my phone number and want me to make them some of the baby shoes! I just do this for fun. I have thought about making a business out of it but I always dismiss that thought because I think no one would buy anything I make. After this reaction though, I might give it a second thought. Lacie said that I needed to do one craft fair booth in my life to really know if this business is something I want to get into. If I can get enough projects together by the end of the month, I just might take her up on that and do a booth in her craft fair in Filmore. I guess we will see how busy I am with tax season winding down and with me working longer hours to try and get all of my tax returns done on time.

Any way, back to the shower... We had a lot of fun. We played baby bingo, built diaper towers, and just had fun having a girls night. Oh and Traci made the best pudding cups out of sugar cookie dough. They were so good and such a cute idea.

***The tutorials and more pictures of these gifts can be found here***

Conference Weekend

General Conference was awesome as always. I loved all of the talks and it seemed like the prophets were talking straight to me! I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk about not holding grudges and forgiving others. One of the important lines from his talk was something like if you are holding grudges, or mad at some one, I give you this one piece of prophetic advice..."Stop it!" Simple but so true! We need to forgive those around us and move on with our life. There were also many other amazing talks about forgiving others and loving others. Another amazing talk was by a member of the seventy. I can't remember his name but he talked about the importance of children and those kind of talks always get to me. He said that our children will teach us more than we will every teach them. That is also so true. I learn so much from my kids like patience, love and kindness. I also learn other things from them like how it is impossible to clean puke out of shag carpet. I would never have learned that if I didn't have kids! Okay but seriously I do learn so much from them.

Any way, Russell had to work Conference Weekend but I didn't want that to stop us from our traditional Conference weekend road trip and picnic. I decided to make the trip alone with just me and the kids. I packed a lunch of hot dogs and potato salad and loaded the kids in the truck and headed for Pine Valley. We drove all the way up to Pine Valley only to find out that the picnic and camp ground areas were still closed for the winter! There was a big gate blocking the road up to the lake and the picnic areas. I was so bummed because the kids were hungry for lunch and I had driven all the way up there (with gas been close to $4 a gallon) for nothing! I was not going to let that stop our trip so I decided to drive further up the road to Enterprise instead. When we got there, there was also a gate telling us the campground was closed too! So instead of going home, I loaded up the stroller and we crawled under the fence and walked to one of the campsites and had our picnic:

Yes I even brought the dog. Clifford was so excited to go on a trip and run free. He is a pretty good dog and didn't stray too far and would come when I called him. Emily and Colby had a good time on the picnic. The only bad part was that it was really windy so we had to keep a hold of our plates so they didn't blow away. Other than that it was a beautiful day. It was nice to get away and enjoy nature again. This trip got me really excited for camping this summer.

After eating our lunch, we packed up our stuff and walked around the campground. I brought Emily's trike so she rode it around as I pushed Colby in the stroller. When we walked around the campground, the road back to our truck was up hill so Emily got really tired. I decided to put the dog to some good use and attached his leash to Emily's handle bars and had him pull her up the hill!

It was so hilarious! Emily loved it. Clifford did really well at pulling Emily until we walked passed the bathrooms then he was too interested in all of the smells and wouldn't walk on the road anymore. Finally I got him back on the path and we finished our trek up the hill to our truck. We listened to the Saturday afternoon session of Conference on the way home and the kids fell asleep. It was a good trip and worth every minute. What a great way to spend a beautiful day.