Art Fair

During the Art Fair at school, the kids got to display a lot of their talents.  Emily even discovered some new talents.  She was able to be in the stage crew for the Elementary's first school play "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The play was really good and Emily had a blast helping with it.  We were totally in Willy Wonka mode after watching the play 4 times in a row!  We loved the Oompa Loompas.  

After watching the play one last time during Night of the Arts festival, we walked through the halls of the school and saw all of the awesome art projects the kids made.  Colby drew a picture of a rocket and then also put together a display of his Legos.  He was so proud of his work.

Emily put together a paper art project of Laura Ingalls Wilder and also entered the piano piece she composed herself.  The kids were so excited to display their projects.  There were a lot of cool art project at the school.  It was fun to see them all.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!  This was such a busy and fun day for us.  

Russell had to work on Valentine's Day so before he left for work, he left me this awesome bouquet of candy and a great card.  I love it and I love you too!

At school the kids both had Valentine parties that I got to help with.  Logan and Charlotte tagged along too so they got to enjoy the fun as well.  First we helped with a game in Emily's class.  We played "Don't Eat Cupid!"  The kids had a lot of fun picking cupid and then yelling "Don't Eat Cupid!" when someone tried to eat him.  Unfortunately all the kids were high on sugar and really crazy but it was fun anyway.  Sorry Mrs. Nielsen...

Then we headed over to Colby's class where we provided the treats for their Valentine Tea.  All of the kids dressed up in their Sunday best clothes and tried to use the best manners they could for this tea.  I thought Colby's Valentine Tea was going to be like Emily's Valentine Tea last year where the kids were paired up and it was kind of like a date and the boys treated the girls and the girls were polite and said thank you.  I told Colby about this and he was so worried about it.  He did not want to be paired up with a girl.  That morning before school he came up to me and said, "Mom I'm kind of worried about this date thing.  I don't know what to do."  I told him all he had to do was treat the girl nicely, let her hold his arm as they walked, pull out her chair and have her sit down and then get her some snacks and just be nice.  We walked through what he should do and he felt a little better.  Then when we got to school and had the Tea, it turned out that it was nothing like Emily's Tea Party and the kids in Colby's class just got to sit at their own tables and were not paired off.  You should have seen the relief on Colby's face!  He told me "Mom, you lied!  We don't have to have dates!!"  He was so happy.  What a boy!!  After the Tea, the kids handed out their Valentine's to their class and they all had a good time looking at and eating all of their treats.  

After school we took Colby to music class while Emily was at play practice.  Then when both of those things were done,  we headed over to the fire station to have a Valentine dinner with Russell.  When we got there, he was in the middle of a fire station tour with some scouts so we had to wait for a while.  That was okay though because the kids just joined in with the tour and got to see all of the fire trucks too.  They love that stuff.  We had a good time having dinner with Dad at the fire station and luckily, for the first time, a call didn't go out while we were there!  Russell enjoyed having us there and he loved the Valentine's we brought and the Heart Attack we did to his truck!

Finally we came home and got ready for bed.  Luckily the kids didn't have any homework because it would not have gotten done!  

Before the day was over, I snapped a few pictures of Charlotte in her Valentine's Day clothes.  Here are a few:

Isn't she the cutest thing ever!!!  She loved sucking on the heart sucker she got for Valentine's Day even if I wouldn't take it out of the wrapper.  Can you believe Emily used to be this small and wore these same clothes on her first Valentine's Day?  

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

5 Months

This 5 month old little cutie is growing up!  Charlotte is all smiles and such a happy baby. 

Charlotte is now 16 1/2 pounds and 25.5 inches.  She still loves to hear her own voice and has a lot to say all the time.  At church we can hardly make it through Relief Society without her squawking her own opinion.  I try to keep her quiet but then she just squeals louder.  All of the ladies think it is so cute.  

Charlotte loves he brothers and sister.  She laughs and laughs at them especially Colby.  

Charlotte loves to put everything in her mouth.  If it is in her hands, it is in her mouth.  It is so funny; it's like her hands have a magnetic connection to her mouth.

We had Charlotte try her first apple the other day.  She loved it and just gnawed on it for awhile.  We have not started cereal or food yet with her but we will probably do that soon because she is totally ready.  We have just been lazy parents probably.  

Here are a few flashback pictures of the kids for comparison.  First a collage of all four kids eating apples for the first time at this age. Can you tell which kid is which?  

And here is a picture of Emily in these same clothes Charlotte is wearing.  Don't they look like they could be twins?  It is crazy to see the resemblance in all of the kids but especially the girls.  

Happy 4th Birthday Logan!

Look at this grown up boy!! 

I can't believe this little knot head is 4 years old!  

Logan is such a fun little boy.  He is a smart kid as well.  There is nothing he can't do and tries everything.  Logan has recently started home preschool with a couple friends and is loving going to school.  He knows all of his letters and their sounds.  He is also learning his numbers too.  We are working on writing his name but needs a bit more practice.  Logan is a fun loving kid that just wants to have a good time.  He is very friendly and will say "Hi!" to anyone he meets.  He also likes to include everyone.  

Logan had a really fun birthday.  The week before his birthday he was a sick little boy with the croup so we were so happy he was doing much better by his birthday.  He got a lot of fun presents from us:

His fun gifts included a new skateboard, shaving kit (he was kind of confused about this), some Legos (a train and a boat), Hulk action figure, and some new clothes.  He loved them all.  For his birthday dinner, Logan wanted to go to Pizza Pie Cafe.  While we were there, we got a visit from Belle.  I just happened to be a Disney Princess day at Pizza Pie so it was fun to have Belle sing Happy Birthday to Logan.  He liked it and he loved the birthday Monster Cookie Pie he got.  

Emily especially loved seeing Belle.  We had to get a picture of Belle and the girls.  Colby on the other hand wanted nothing to do with a "princess" so he hid under the table.  Maybe because we kept teasing him that she was going to come kiss him so he was hiding from her.  He was funny.  

For his birthday party with friends, we went sledding on Saturday.  The great thing about it was that we just went sledding on the hills in our backyard.  After digging the basements for the houses around us, the workers made these big dirt hills in the back.  They turned out to be the perfect sledding hills for these kids.

We had a blast with the Halligans sledding and having snowball fights.  The nice thing about it was it was a pretty warm day in the 40s so we were not freezing in the snow.  After we had had a lot of fun and our suits were wet, we decided to come in and have hot chocolate and cake and ice cream.

Logan wanted a Spiderman birthday and a Spiderman birthday cake.  He even helped me make it.  He loved how it turned out and so did I.

Here are all of his birthday buddies.

Logan got to cut us each a piece of his birthday cake after blowing out the 4 candles.  He loved serving everyone.  We all had a good time at his birthday party.  

Happy birthday Logie Lou Lou!  He love you buddy.