Marathon Post

Because these last few weeks have felt like a marathon—lots of good stuff happening…. Normally I don’t include all of our events because, well, I would be posting a lot because with all these kiddos we just have a lot of stuff going on. However, I just decided it might be fun to include it all this time. So, here it goes…

Angie had “Wax Museum” last week. Each student picks a person in history to write a report on and then become that person and present in a “museum” their life. She was Mary Todd Lincoln—what a fascinating lady she was! And also very tragic.

We saw many other historical wax figures that night—it was really interesting.

Luckily my sister Mel was in town and she did Angie’s hair for the big night—it looked so beautiful she could have gone to the prom…in six years of course!

This is just a cute shot of my other sister Becky with the little ones before we all went to Wax Museum.

Lots O’ Babies!

Then Logan had his cottage fair this week—they did a musical presentation on..you guessed it…America! Very well done and so nice to see teaching in schools of so many patriotic songs—even the armed forces ones!

The same night of Logan’s cottage fair we went to Sunny’s. In fact, our whole family performed together in it. Alas, I have no pictures of that because my mom took them on her camera and I haven’t gotten them yet. We did a skit about the horny toad and Logan was the horny toad—it was fun, especially the part where Logan squirted fake blood from his eyes to show the special ways a horny toad defends itself. You will just have to imagine the pictures of that one!

Another pic of Logan’s show:

This last Saturday Sunny and Angie performed in Calvacade. This is a special concert where hundreds of students perform—they have twenty pianos on the stage and all the students play at the same time with their different levels. This year they had a special guest—Jon Schmidt. He is a famous piano composer and performer and he was AWESOME.

The pictures are at the practice before the show—I don’t really know why he does the “hang loose” sign, but he is still a great piano player nonetheless.:)

And the school also had a sock hop this last weekend on Friday night—none of us won the hoola hoop contest, but at least they had cake.

Oh, and we got our garden in for the Spring…

And Ella and Conner are still darling…

And now we are sooooo ready for Spring Break!!!

The Babies, and Joyschool

 

Can I tell you how much fun it is to have a toddler and a baby together?  Yes, it can be very demanding on my time and energy and sometimes discouraging when things don’t go the way I would like them to, but those little moments where the two of them connect together or where they are just SO CUTE make it so worth it.

 

Conner is getting to be quite a big boy—rolling all over, sitting up pretty well, and trying SO HARD to get from rocking to crawling.  He has the sweetest disposition and makes the most adorable smiles and little babbling sounds ever. 

 

He still is not much of a champion napper, but thank goodness for the moby wrap!  He is getting better at his naps and will now typically have at least one really good nap and then cat naps the rest of the time.  However, he sleeps great at night so I really can’t complain too much. 

 

 

Then there is the other baby Ella—she is also growing up SO FAST and just such a fun little lady.  She talks very well with complete sentences most of the time.  “Mom, can you get my drink?  It’s on the counter.”  “I need to take that doll to bed” and so forth. 

She has become very interested lately in where people are, and where they are going, and what they are doing.  She always notices if someone in the family is gone and asks me about it.  It’s like she is starting to realize that there is a world that is going on when she isn’t there.  It is the best to get a greeting from her when I come home from something and she is there.

“Mom!  You’re home!!” followed by a huge bear hug.  Of course, Dad gets this every day—such the celebrity!

 

And Conner did this tonight—he can’t even crawl yet but he’s ready to take off!

 

I hope these two little monkeys will stay close forever.  We were worried about little Ella not having a playmate close to her age because Logan is 6 years older than her—what a blessing Conner is to her, and what a blessing she is to him.  Thank goodness he tolerates most of what she puts him through—so far:)

 

These are some pictures from the little joyschool we are doing in our neighborhood.  We have eight children and the school is only once a week for 1 1/2 hours.  Each mom takes a month to have the school at her house and we rotate.  This was my month and it was really fun, but I’m not going to beg the next mom to let me do it again or anything like that;)  I think that by the last week I had finally gotten the schedule down really well and knew what I was doing, but the kids still had a great time no matter what and that’s what matters. 

 

We made flags for President’s Day.

 

 

 

We did free play, a little lesson with books, fingerplays and usually a visual math concept(This was also where we had our snack time—sneaky way to get them to sit still I know), and then a craft.  By that time it was almost parent pick up so we would head out back to jump on the tramp till they got there.  

 

Some physical time activities:  dancing!

 

Making a tunnel—this was the most fun to watch them do!  Each kids took a turn crawling under. 

 

Congrats for reading this whole post—believe it not, I wanted to post more but decided against it for now.  I will just leave with one picture of the rest of our children so as not to neglect them too much: we are so proud of them as well!

Hiking

We’ve been out enjoying this nice weather that is sure to fade quicker than we would like it to.  These are some pics from two hikes we recently did—one at San Tan Regional Park with Kari and Corey and their boys, and another at Papago Park with Logan’s cubscout troupe.  

Sunny at the “top o’ the woods now baby!” (or the desert)

It was windy day with the cubs, but we braved it.

 

Do you think we should contact Boy’s Life and make an offer for this pic?  Me too.

 

 

Helping backs and arms for the little ones

Conner has really enjoyed being outside for these hikes—he even rises to the occasion and puts on the hiking shoes. 

Peace out.

Twelve

 

Yes, little Angie is twelve. (insert gasp here)  Yeah, it’s a hard concept for me to grasp sometimes.  She is now officially in Young Women’s at church, she has pierced ears, and she is only four years away from driving a car—maybe even my car! (insert another gasp here)

It is amazing to see the transformation from little girl to young lady—in so many ways she is very grown up, but luckily she is still retaining many little girl qualities.  For example, Angie now cooks dinner for our family once a week (with some help from Mom of course), but she also enjoys playing kitchen with Sunny, Logan and Ella.  She loves to do her hair and accessorize her outfits, but she is still very willing to run around in a rain storm and not care a bit about her appearance.  She can sometimes give off a bit of a teenager attitude when it comes to getting up in the morning or performing other equally unpleasant tasks, but she still loves for me to tuck her in at night and sing her a lullaby. 

 

This is Angie’s AWESOME new leader at church Sister Ramos—she baked her a cake for her birthday and brought it over—what a wonderful teacher and example she is to our daughter—Angie LOVES her and felt so special when she brought over the cake.

 

Ang also gave her first talk in sacrament meeting on her birthday—I guess that is what happens when you live with the Bishop!  I actually totally forgot about it until Sunday morning when she comes up to me and is like, “Mom, I have my talk all ready.”  So, I had her practice it for me while I am running around the house getting all the last minute stuff ready for church—so, she wrote  it all alone and it was great! 

 

Here she is with some friends at her birthday slumber party.  Jack and I felt like spies sitting around and listening to them talk—it is so fun/funny to hear what these pre-teen girls all say to each other!

  

 

What a lovely young lady she is turning into!  She is such a help to me in so many ways, and I am enjoying watching this transformation happen—she is our oldest, and hence the first to venture into “grownupland,” and I think she is doing it very well!

Here’s a few more pics from the party—those giggly girls had a great time together—and when I went out in the middle of the night to get a bottle for Conner I found Angie and her friend Gracie still going at it-giggling and eating pizza till all hours of the night.  Fun times!

 

Notice our friend Carli in the background with Conner—you can see her like that in pretty much every pic we have of Conner that night—she LOVES babies and wanted to hold him LOTS. 

 

 

 

Alien masquerade?

Carli in heaven—and Jack looking kind of cute in the background there.  (Conner also looks cute, but that goes without saying of course.)

Whatd’ja get?

Here’s one more pic of Ang with her cute Aunt Kirsten—who obviously just got ENGAGED—woo hoo!  (And Ang is very interested in that by the way---hmmmmmm).

Well, Angie, I guess I will allow you to keep on growing up since you are doing it so well.

Just as long as you always want me to sing you a lullaby.:)

Uncle John’s Funeral

Funerals really do create wonderful family reunions.  I so enjoyed visiting with family members before, during, and after my Uncle John’s funeral—some of whom I hadn’t seen for many years.  These are just a few photos in no particular order and mostly meant for the people that were there, but you can also look if you want to.:) (Unless you were there, then you can..look too….yeah.)

 

This picture turned out fuzzy:( but I still like it.

Ella and Etienne bonding

 

This was after the beautiful service of our whole family—except for my brother Steve and Mel’s husband.  What a great service it was—Silly me, I thought since Jack was actually able to sit with our family during a church service (he’s normally up on the stand when we go to church and I am wrestling with the kiddos in the pew below—well, mostly with Ella actually) that we would all be able to sit and enjoy it together.  Well, I didn’t take into account that the service started at 4:00PM and that is a bit late in the day for both Conner and Ella to be in their very best “sit still on a wooden bench for an hour and a half” moods.  So, we both took turns going out with the babies, but this wonderful church actually had a baby room that could see right into the chapel, so I didn’t miss anything at all.  I was also very impressed with the fellowship and all the food provided—great people!

 

Conner and Etienne bonding—Conner wasn’t about to let his older sister outdo him.

 

 

Some beautiful women!

More beautiful people who I all love dearly—yes, I am in there too and I love myself also. (Cause I’m good enough, I’m smart enough…oh, I hope someone gets this joke…)

Fuzzy again—learning our new camera

Just relaxing together

Thanks for the great memories and special time everyone!