Random fun

 March was full of exciting things for our family.  Here are just a few.

First Emily started playing Young Women basketball with our ward.  Since there were only a few girls in our ward that wanted to play, we combine with the 12 ward.  This was a good experience for Emily.  She loves playing sports and she was able to meet new girls on her team as well.

These games were fun to watch because everyone was so friendly.  Yes there were some competitive girls but, for the most part, everyone was just there to have fun.  No one really cared whether they won or lost.  It was also so fun to see the look on some of the girls' faces when they made a basket. They were so proud of themselves.

Emily also had another Band Concert.  She is getting so good at her instruments.  

She plays percussion and she is not scared at all to play loudly especially when she has a solo.  This really makes me feel good when I listen to her play.  I was always really shy and afraid to play loudly so I am glad she's not that way.

Another exciting thing that happened to Emily is that she was selected to participate in the Young Writer's Fest at USU.  She wrote an awesome story and was able to read 5 minutes of it in front of the judges.  The judges loved her story and gave her some great feedback on her strengths and pointers on how to keep writing and getting better.

Emily also learned to sew a pillowcase.  Her friend Hahna loves Harry Potter so, for her birthday, Emily made her a Harry Potter pillow case.  It turned out really cute and her friend loved it.

Colby has also been doing some fun academic things.  During Literacy Night at the elementary, he was part of a Readers' Theater play.  His story was a silly poem about riding the bus and stepping in something stinky.  It was pretty funny.

During Literacy week, Colby and Logan dressed up as their favorite book characters.  Colby dressed up as Brian Robeson from the book Hatchet.  Logan dressed up as Starflight a dragon from the Wings of Fire series.  

Colby's artwork was selected to be displayed at the district's Night of Arts.

I didn't even know his art work was going to be on display until his art teacher text me and asked me if it would be okay.  She said she had sent home a note about a week ago but hadn't gotten it back yet. Colby never even told me about it!  When I asked him, he just said "Oh yeah..."  Well we thought it was pretty important that, of all his grade, his was the one selected so we went to the art show to see it on display.  Crazy kid.

Over Christmas break we binge watched a show on Netflix called "Blown Away."  It is a show where these 10 amazing glassblowers compete in challenges to create things made completely out of glass in hopes of winning $60,000.  The show was amazing and the sculptures these people created were awesome.  But the coolest part was watching the process of how glass is made and blown.  It is mind-blowing.  Anyway, the other night, Charlotte and Logan started pretending they were on that show and were working together to blow this pretend glass and make things out of glass.

They were blowing and rolling glass, they were rushing it to the furnace and annealing oven.  Then they would use other toys and things to create a display and then describe their creations to Russell and me for judging.  It was so funny to watch them do the exact moves and use the terminology the glass blowers used in the show.  

Another great thing Charlotte was able to do this month is learn how to ride her bike without training wheels!

This was a struggle for her because she was so afraid of crashing.  She finally did it though.  Charlotte is still a little leery about riding without someone there to help her but she is getting it.  When she can ride from our house to the stop sign without falling, she is so happy and proud of herself. Way to go Char!

I have also been riding my bike a lot.

I am training for a 50 mile bike ride on June 4th.  It has been kind of hard to train for so far though because it has been so cold.  I hate riding inside on the trainer though so I brave the cold as much as I dare.  Hopefully it gets warmer soon.

We are so busy but we still have a lot of fun.

Piano recital

One more year of AIM down!  These kids have been working really hard in their piano lessons in order to pass off all of the required material for their levels in AIM (Achievement in Music).  This is not an easy thing, there were many tears shed and frustrations but they did it!  Their latest recital was to show off their AIM Performance pieces.

Emily is in level 5 this year.  This was a hard level for her especially the theory and chord inversions.  Her performance song, "The Great Smoky Mountains," was one of her favorite pieces to learn though.  She loves playing it.  Colby passed of Level 3 this year.  His hardest part was sight reading.  He is a perfectionist player so when he misses a note, he likes to go back and fix it.  Unfortunately this is marked down on the sight reading test.  They really want you to just keep playing without fixing.  Oh well he still passed.  His song "On the Move" was a really fun upbeat song.  He memorized it pretty easily.  Logan was in level 1.  This was his first year doing AIM and he did really well.  Logan is a play by ear piano player.  Sometimes it is hard for him to learn new songs until he has heard it played a few times.  This was the case with his performance piece "The Locomotive."  This song sounded so fun to play because it sounded like a train.  The bad thing was after hearing it played, Logan tried to play it by ear and go as quick as he could. I had to keep telling him to slow down and actually read the notes. Finally he got it and his judge said he played it with great feeling!

All three of them were able to pass of their levels with high marks and received their completion medals. I love seeing and hearing them progress.  Good job kids! You are all so talented!

Blue Man Group

For Christmas, Russell gave me tickets to the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas.  I have always wanted to see the Blue Man group since I was in high school.  We decided to make a weekend out of it and leave the kids at Grandma's while we went to Las Vegas.  Like I said in the last post, Brooklyn and Grandma may never forgive us for that.  Oh well, we had a good time.

We stayed in the Luxor casino during our trip.  This is the hotel/casino that looks like a pyramid.  This was a cool hotel because instead of the elevators going up and down, they went sideways at a 45 degree angle up the side of the pyramid.  It was a really weird feeling going sideways in an elevator when you are used to going up and down.  Our room was pretty nice too and had a huge hot tub.

Since the Blue Man show was at night, we spent the day being tourists on the Las Vegas Strip.  It was so crazy seeing all of the half naked show girls walking up and down, smelling the smoking marijuana, and all of the bling and fancy cars.

We spent most of our time in the fun shops like the M&M factory, the Coke Factory, and Hershey's Chocolate World.  At the M&M Factory we saw all of the different colors and types of M&Ms.  We even made our own personalized M&Ms with our faces on them.  We took a picture in a booth and somehow they were able to print our faces on the M&Ms.  They looked so awesome!

At the Coke factory we saw every type of Coke swag there was.  There were things like, t-shirts, plates, chap-stick, tic tacs, cups, plates, basketballs, and every other thing you can think of.  In the Hershey Chocolate World, there was everything chocolate.  Like in the M&M Factory, there were bins and bins of every type of Hershey's candy like Reese's, Kisses, Nuggets, and much more.  There was also a ton of swag.  In the middle of the store was a little bakery stand selling all sorts of chocolate cakes, brownies, cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, and all things delicious. We just stood there drooling over everything.

Finally it was time to head back to the Luxor to get ready for the Blue Man show.  Our tickets were front row so they gave us rain ponchos just in case paint splattered all over us.  With our ponchos on, we were ready for the show.

Like I said before I had been wanting to go to this show for a very long time.  Well I will tell you this, the Blue Man Group did not disappoint.  The show was epic!  Not only was the music so upbeat and amazing, but it was so funny as well.  We laughed the whole time.  It turns out we didn't need the ponchos though because we didn't get any paint on us.

If you don't know what the Blue Man Group is, it is a percussion group that makes awesome music using all sorts of things as instruments.  They also use paint and black lights to add to the visual show.  They three Blue Men never say a single word the whole show but their expressions and staring eyes say it all.  We were engaged the whole show and when it was over, we were wanting more.  It was amazing. I really think the kids would have loved to see this show too.  We will have to save up our money so we can take the kids next time.  I am so glad we were able to go.

This weekend was so fun and a much needed get away for us.  We were happy to be leaving Las Vegas though because it is not the best atmosphere. Take me back to my Utah bubble please.  The kids, especially Brooklyn, were happy to see us when we got back.  This was a fun trip!

11 Months Old

Brooklyn is 11 months old!  Almost a year!  This girl is the cutest thing ever.  She is also so fun to have around.  Everyone loves her so much.

Just look at all of her funny faces.  This month she has started getting her first tooth.  It hasn't quite popped through but you can hear it when you tap it with a spoon.  She is also crawling all over.  She speed crawls to everything she can.  She will stand next to the couch but hasn't dared take a step yet.  

Brooklyn loves being outside.  It is finally getting a little warmer (well the snow has melted at least) so we were able to go to the park for the first time in her life.  This was the best day ever she thought.  The swings were her favorite.

She laughed and laughed and just had a great time swinging away.  She did not want to leave even though her hands were ice cubes.  Brooklyn cried and screamed when we took her out of the swing.  We will definitely have to go to the park more often when summer comes.

Another milestone Brookie went through this month was spending the weekend at Grandma's without Mom.  She and Grandma may never forgive me for that but they both survived so it is what it is.  Brooklyn is definitely a Mama's Girl and did not like not being able to see me.  Luckily Emily, the second mom, was there to cling to.  When Russell and I got back from our trip, Brooklyn just flew into my arms and clung to me.  She would not let me out of her sight.  It was kind of funny. 

Happy 11 months Baby Brooks!

Colby's 11th Birthday 🎉

 Happy Birthday Colby! 11 years old I can't believe it.  Colby is growing up so fast. He is a really independent kid and likes to do things on his own. He loves playing sports especially football, basketball, and baseball. At recess everyday you will find him with his friends playing some sport or another. He is also pretty popular in his class. Whenever I go to his class, all of the kids are trying to get his attention. I don't know if he really notices though. Colby does really well in school. He never has homework which makes me kind of nervous but at all of parent teacher conferences his teachers say he is a great student and his grades are good. So I guess I shouldn't worry.

For his birthday Colby wanted to go ice skating with his friends.  He invited a few friends and we all headed to the Eccles Ice Arena for some fun.

Colby is a natural athlete so ice skating comes pretty easy for him.  All of the kids had a great time.  At first they were just skating around the rink but by the end, they were trying different tricks.  They were speed skating, doing twirls, skating backwards and playing tag.  It was a great time.

Skating is so entertaining.  Even Brooklyn loved rolling around on the ice in her stroller.  Charlotte would go all over the ice as long as she had her walker.  She did get a little brave toward the end and would let go of the walker and skate on her own.

When everyone got tired, we took a break and opened presents.

Colby loved all of the gifts from his friends.  He received some fun Lego sets, and binoculars. Colby had a really good time ice skating with his friends.

At home he was able to open a few more presents from us.  He received new shoes, clothes, a mini remote control car, and a fun card game about state facts he can use to help him memorize all of the US states for school.  

That night we had cake and ice cream.  This year Colby wanted an ice cream cake so we had both cake and ice cream combine into one!

I have never made an ice cream cake before but I had to try.  It was actually pretty easy and it turned out so good.  Colby's favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip so we combine that with chocolate cake and it was delicious.  I will definitely be making these ice cream cake rolls again.

Happy Birthday Colby!  I hope you know how much we love you!