We Throw Grandma a Surprise Party!

 Grandma is the party master, but we also have a few tricks up our sleeve! We invited Grandma down to "play" and surprised her with a decorated door, homemade pizza, and presents! We had so much fun!

Random

Chris had taken to calling Andrew "the Black Ninja".  On Saturday he dressed him all in black.  I'm not sure if he came up with this new name all on his own, or it is because we have been using our "ninja" blender we got for Christmas all the time.  (by the way, the Ninja Blender is AMAZING!)

While Ben and Kallie were inside swimming we had to take the black ninja outside to run around.  He was not happy being cooped up inside the rec center and not being able to swim.  We went out to the track and he starting RUNNING.  It was so cute!  We walked/ran the whole track once, then he was on to bigger and better things.  Like trying to open any car he could get close enough to before Chris or I headed him off!  

Ben and Kallie's first day of swmming lessons...again.  They are becoming quite the little swimmers!

And lastly, I'm pretty sure she is much to young to be practicing flirting looks!

The Shiner

For the life of me I can't get blogger to do what I want it to do!  So please excuse how all these pictures are out of order!  The picture above is day 3 (and in case there is a question, no, those are NOT Ben's real teeth).  The picture below is day 2.

(The above picture is day 5 of the black eye...it now has a green tint, with a little bit of purple mixed in)

Wednesday night while I was on the phone with my sister Shelley, Kallie came running in and told me Ben had a headache.  To be honest, I didn't think much of it and kept talking to Shel.  I happened to turn around a few minutes later and saw Ben on the couch curled up crying.  I quickly got off the phone with Shel and ran over to Ben, feeling horrible!  When I finally was able to remove his hand from his face, his very swollen, bluish blackish eye was starring back at me.  I grabbed a cold cloth and put it on his head.  It was a doozy!

Since I didn't see what happened, this is according to Kallie with a little Ben mixed in.  Jake and Ben were running around our neighbors new shed when they ran into eachother.  The hit on Ben's eye and Jake's forehead.  Ben got a black eye....and Jake got a goose egg on his forehead.

Ben loved the attention he got at school and from everyone who saw him.  I have to admit I was just praying someone didn't think I had done that to Ben!  When we went to his dentist appointment on friday everyone was looking at his eye, but not bringing it up or asking about it.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore and happened to bring it up in our conversation and had Ben tell the story.  I could see the tension leave and we talked and laughed about it.

Mother Nature has a sense of humor

Last week we had a beautiful day so we had to make the most of it and get out to the park!  It was sunny, beautiful, warmish, and just so refreshing!  The kids had so much fun playing on the playground, especially Andrew and little J.  I'm not sure they can ever remember even playing on the slides last year!  They were all smiles and giggles.

I love these shots of J and little J!  J was spinning with little J and little J was loving it!  It was so adorable!

(The picture is supposed to be one up)

Our park trip came to an end when it started it get a little windy and we felt a few raindrops.  We held out for as long as we could, but finally had to admit defeat and head home.  Apaarently we weren't fast enough because we got caught in some pretty "fun" rain on our walk home.  Poor Andrew, he was crying the whole way home and I didn't take the time to stop and see what was going on.  When we got home and I finally got him out his little hands were ICE cold!  We got all wrapped up in a blanket and snuggled on the couch and a few minutes later he was starting to defrost.  He did take a great nap that day :)

Now, this is what we woke up to the next morning....

I thought for sure we were done with snow.  I was so confident that I actually packed up all our snow stuff and put it all away.  It felts so wonderful to get all that junk out of my closet!  So, of course it had to snow. :)

Before we knew about this amazing storm that was coming our way, I had gotten the kids all excited to go to California to surprise my family for Ahma's big birthday bash!  I had it all worked out with Joy, I was packed, ready to go, car gassed and all.  When I woke up and saw all this white I changed my mind about driving alone 9 hours with 3 kids in a mini van in a storm.  My kids were VERY mad at me!  We missed the party and seeing my side of the family.  Ahma did have a wonderful birthday though and was surrounded by people who loved her...and in the hearts and thoughts of those of us who were a little farther away :)  HAPPY BIRTHDAY AHMA!  WE LOVE YOU TONS AND TONS!

Goodbye 20's...Hello 30's!

It's official. Another ten years and I'll be cresting the hill. The day started out just like any other day. The first sign of something different was that Katie and the kids came to take me out to lunch. That was where the conversation went something like this:

Blah blah blah....

Katie: Well you're the one who said you didn't want to do anything for your birthday!

Me: NO, I just said I didn't want to choose what we did on my birthday. I wanted to be surprised.

Katie: Oh, well that's funny. 

Being the amazing woman she is, she immediately turned that around. By the time I left work, there were enough balloons tied to my car to float me home and we had a really fun party with the kids that night including the family tradition of hanging donuts.

Even on a birthday it takes a lot of shots to get the kids all looking at the camera.

I got cool new nerdy toys.

Katie and the kids filled a bunch of balloons with little lies about how much they love me. 

Andrew managed to snatch two of the donuts off of the chandelier before we could even get started. 

Ben's School Performance

Ben's school put on a musical performance last week that only Al Gore could be proud of.  Ben was so excited to be apart of it.  This is mostly because he was promised "a special treat" if he went to all 3 performances. That's right, they repeated this thing 3 times, mostly in an effort to REALLY tick of the fire marshall. I suppose I should start from the beginning. 

Ben's class practiced and practiced songs for this performance forever. Luckily, rote learning and comprehension seem to be completely separated in the brains of kindergartners because the school program was way overboard on the message. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being a good steward of the planet. And although my views on what that means differs from others, I do not believe that indoctrinating children to think that unless THEY (the children) do something RIGHT NOW life is doomed and global warming will rob them of all hope.  Granted I could only make it through the first 15 minutes of the program (when Ben's part ended) but that seemed to be the overall message. Apparently delivering this message was more important than obeying fire code, because by the time the third performance was in full swing the fire marshall actually stopped it to partially clear out the room. I guess he didn't like that his previous 3 warnings had gone unheralded. Good thing all those school kids made it out of the auditorium okay. Now they can go save the planet.

I look back and wonder what my parents thought of all my school performances growing up and how they survived doing that for 8 kids. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE seeing my kids perform. But can we send all the other kids home? Maybe that's the benefit of home schooling...

Anyway, Ben was SOOOOOOOO excited. He couldn't wait to go and sing in front of everyone.  Grandma, Papa, and Auntie Megan came with us to see him sing.  

I never thought my younger sister would have whiter hair than my parents...

There was a question as to whether or not the planet was still going to exist by the end of the program.

We followed all the instructions, and "made a difference" by vacating some seats for the fire marshall after Ben's portion of the program.

True to the message, things were really heating up in the auditorium, but we found temperatures to be much cooler in the hallway.

The kindergartners did their part to stay the end of the world by at least a year thanks to all the rainbows they posted. 

BYU Basketball Game

We were able to take the kids (and Hailey) to a BYU basketball game.  They LOVED it!  Even Andrew!  It was so fun to watch them watch the game.  Here are some pictures...Enjoy!

The future of Ice Skating....

will most likely not include Kallie.  She was so excited when I asked her if she would like to take lessons.  To be fair, it was while we were watching the Olymipcs. Watching beautiful girls gracefully dancing across the ice.  The lesson started out nice enough...you know, before the whole ice part.

Ben and Kallie were both so excited to get to their lesson.  To be honest, they were driving me crazy all week asking me if it was "hockey" day.  

Kallie's lesson started out really well.  I thought she was really going to love it.    

Then she went down, and down again, and down again.  I have to admit, I probably would have given up long before she did.  She stayed on the ice for about 30 minutes, really giving it her all.  Of the 5 kids in her class, she was number 3 to leave early.  I really wish the teacher would have been better and given the kids something to at lease hang on to.  They were falling like flies!  One after the other they fell, and fell hard!

Ben also spend a fair amount of time on the "ice".  He did fall quite a bit as well, but his teacher was really good about encouraging them....and showing them how to use the toe pick to actually get up.  I think that was the key....she taught them to get back up!

Ben really loved skating and is really looking forward to starting hockey in 8 weeks.  He told me he just might play in the olympics.  It was really cute!

I know this post is a little Kallie heavy in the picture area, but there is a reason.  I won't be able to post any more of her on the ice for another 2 years or so.  She decided to opt out, and try again when she is bigger...you know, 6.  Ben on the other hand loves it and can't wait till Tuesdays every week!  So, many more pictures of him on the ice to come!

And I had to throw this one in there, because these boys are so cute...especially the bearded one :)