A Couple Celebrations to Blog About

Today, April 29, is International Dance Day.
Here's a picture of my beautiful ballerina.

She had her last dance class of the season yesterday so we got to go watch her and her class dance.  She's really grown a lot this year as a dancer.  Her teacher says she should really continue ballet.  She's got the talent for it.  I love it.  It's fun to see her and say, "She's actually doing ballet." 

Yesterday, April 28, was also Terry Pratchett's Birthday.  We turned on the movie, Going Postal, and I fell asleep on the couch.  I've been tired lately.  It doesn't help that I'm up this late writing a blog post.  Silly me.  I should go to bed.
Good Night.

Tender Hearts

I can talk about this now because Jeremy had a root canal this morning and is no longer in pain.
Before it, in the past few weeks, he had some really bad toothaches.  One night I had a meeting and came home to find him in so much pain.  My poor husband.  The kids were doing what they could to try to make him feel better.  A couple of the kids made "get well" notes for him.

Nichole let me know that on this one she made the "o"s into "I-V profen."  He's been taking a lot of ibuprofen lately to help with the pain.

 
Lucky was trying to give him hugs.
Jr. Jr. did his dance for him since his dance makes the world a better place.
Sweet sweet children.  Such blessings.
I am so grateful for their tender little hearts.  They saw that he was having trouble and did what they could for him.  I'm also grateful that the dentist did what he could for him, a more permanent solution.
Besides my children, I'm grateful for all the people who prayed for him and gave him priesthood blessings, and offered advice on what things relieve some of the pain.  You are all blessings to us.  Thank you.

KAT's Meow

Mommy: Sometimes fish swim under the water.
Jeremy started laughing at me.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my sentence until Jeremy pointed out that fish swim through the water.



Jr.:  What?  Just because I have a secret language to talk to the TV doesn't mean I'm crazy.



I got off the phone with Jeremy.
Mommy:  That was Daddy.
Jr.:  That was your fault.
Mommy:  No.
Jr.:  If you weren't here, Daddy wouldn't have called.

Happy Jelly Bean Day

April 22 is Jelly Bean Day.

All we had left were the black ones.  Go figure.

Celebrating Differently

It's April 18.  Today is National Animal Crackers Day.  It is also the birthday of Hayley Mills.
Nichole wanted to watch The Parent Trap but we didn't make it to the library.  We also didn't pick up any animal crackers while we were at the store.
We did watch The Pirates of Penzance and ate a variation of buckbean burgers and homemade french fries.

Oh well.

Yet Another Finally

We finally got around to breaking the wishbone from our Thanksgiving turkey.  Yeah.  I figured I needed a picture for the blog today so I made sure to have the boys do it.

I couldn't really get a picture for how we celebrated Blah, Blah, Blah, Day, April 17.  Throughout the day, we tried to get Lucky to say, "Blah blah blah."  It's really cute when a baby says it.  He did it several times for us.  So cute.

Charlie Chaplin's Birthday

April 16 is Charlie Chaplin's Birthday.
The kids and I brainstormed ideas for a silent movie to make together later.  Nichole had to prepare herself to get in the Hollywood creative spirit.

After most of the kids went to bed, I sat down to start watching a Charlie Chaplin film.  Lucky came up and wanted to sit on my lap.  It was so cute. 

We got some Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton films a few (more than 10) years ago and I finally got around to opening the packaging on the Charlie Chaplin movies tonight.  One thing about silent films, you just can't multi-task while watching them.  I can't work on a craft or sort socks when I can't hear the dialogue to tell me what's going on.  Sigh.

Bunny Blondies

You know I like to try out recipes and crafts from FamilyFun Magazine.  A while ago I made "Bunny Blondies" from the September 2012 issue.  I completely forgot to take pictures and they didn't last long because they were so good.
Well, I made them again.  Correction- Jr. Jr. and I made them today.  We got some Mommy-Jr. Jr. bonding time.  It was great.
And they tasted so good again.  I made sure to get a picture this time.

And the recipe is online so you can make them, too.  Although, they don't call them Bunny Blondies.  They call them "Carrot Cake Blondies." 

Windy Day in Utah

Doing research (on the internet, :because that's the best source for information you can find- ha!), I've seen some people claim that Look Up at the Sky Day is always on April 12 and some people claim that Look Up at the Sky Day is always on April 14.
For me, I put them both on the calendar so Look Up at the Sky Day is always on April 12 and April 14 and I celebrate whichever day works best that year.
So today, April 14, I started to celebrate Look Up at the Sky Day by looking out the kitchen window while I was doing dishes before everyone else woke up.  Lovely clouds, so I took the camera outside and took a picture.

Later, the wind started and it got windier and it got windier.  And it got windier.

I did some more looking up at the sky today, partly to keep an eye on the debris floating in the dust storm while driving Nichole to dance class.  I didn't know dust could have so many different shades- tan, brown, dark brown.
To make a long story short, by the time we got home after dance class, it was snowing.  Yep, snow to see in the sky.

Sorry.  I'm not a photographer, so just pretend you can see the snow.

You can click on the picture to see it larger if you want.

I didn't realize I would be celebrating this way when I got up this morning.

 And here's a little video to show the wind.

Another Finally

We finally did our Easter Egg hunt.

It went so fast, I didn't get very good pictures.  But it was Lucky's first time being able to hunt eggs.  He kept trying to put the ones he found in other people's bags.  Or just play with the ones he found instead of looking for more.

Finally

We finally got around to coloring eggs.  We used crayons and crayon shavings again.  It seems like we only do that every other year.  2 years ago and 2 years before that.

Now we finally need to get around to having an Easter Egg hunt.

Tulip Festival Opening Weekend

Opening weekend for the Tulip Festival at the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point.  I took the kids.  I survived.  They did, too.  Here are some pictures of how it felt.
Sometimes it was great.

Sometimes it wasn't as easy.

It was very busy- opening weekend- and we went at a busy time of day.  It's a lot easier to get in with a membership, though.  Shorter lines.
Overall I think we had fun.  We saw flowers and waterfalls.  The kids got to feed the koi.  Lucky enjoyed watching them while Jr. Jr. was throwing fish food in.

It was good spending time with the kids on this final thing for Spring Break.

Spring Break Trip to Antelope Island

I'm exhausted.  We spent the day at Antelope Island (well, the afternoon and evening- we didn't get out as early as planned) and it was great.  Except for the biting gnats.  Jeremy had been checking the website to see if there was any problem with the biting gnats (we decided not to go last Summer because apparently they were so bad).  When we went during Fall Break there was no problem with bugs.  Jeremy didn't check the website this morning (not until we got home tonight).  Apparently they mentioned on there that the biting gnats had hatched.
Luckily they were only bad in certain parts of the island, like where we were first going to go hiking and where we were later going to go to the beach.  Yeah, that wasn't pleasant.  But there wasn't a problem on the other side of the island where we took a little hike and by the ranch we visited again.

It was still a great trip.  We saw lots of different animals- more than last time we were there.
We were able to sing, "Home on the Range," because we saw bison (buffalo), pronghorns (antelope), and deer.

We also saw rabbits.
And lots of different birds including a few we need to identify (too tired to look them up tonight).  We saw one running down the road and how it moved made me think of Compsognathus from Jurassic Park. 

Several birds posed nicely for us.
We saw plenty of bugs.
We even saw a coyote on our way back along the causeway.  I couldn't get a still picture but was able to get a video of it.
We also saw lots and lots of horses.  Several people riding horses passed us as we were hiking.  And passed the bison that were coming down the hill as we were eating lunch in the van.  That was fun to watch the bison as they got closer to us while we were sitting safely in the van.  Our timing was good, too, because as we were about to drive off from that spot, we saw a bison walking along the trail we had been on a little while before.
It was a great day on the island but we won't be going again too soon... because of the biting gnats.

Name Yourself Day 2015

Name Yourself Day is April 9.
Nichole had an idea for a video to make about a superhero who can't decide on a name/costume.
We had time for it today so that's what we spent the morning on.  It was fun.

We'll put it up on YouTube soon.

*Update*  The video is on YouTube now.  Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzg_dPTVucg

Spring Break Means Break From Spring?

For Draw a Picture of a Bird Day, April 8, the kids and I decided to do some bird watching (and bird drawing).  It was quite the weather as we set out.  By the time we reached the spot where we were going to bird watch, it had finally stopped raining and snowing, but it was cold and windy.  We went out for a little walk anyway.  We saw seagulls, grebes, Canadian geese, ducks, shore swallows, and some other birds.  But it was cold and windy so we didn't stay that long.

After that we headed to another spot where we could stay in the van but still watch ducks.  A couple of the kids didn't want to stay in the van, though, so they got out to jump around in the precipitation for a few minutes.

We stopped home for a pit stop then headed on to the library to pick up a hold and get some books.  I checked out a few books about birds in case anyone wanted to look at pictures to draw them.

On the way home we stopped by Hill Park because the lighting on the lake was so pretty I wanted to take a picture.  It wasn't raining or snowing so we also took a few turns around the park.

It was a pleasant day even if it was cold and windy.  We had fun.
And here are pictures of birds that were drawn on this day.

Jr.:

Jr. Jr.:

Nichole:

It's fun to compare them to pictures drawn of birds last year on this holiday.