My Kindergartener

Oh my, the time has come.

My sweet Aubrey is going to Kindergarten this fall.  I have no idea how I feel about this.  I'm so excited for her because she just loves life and people and she is ready to go to the "big kid" school.  I'm also really sad because she has been my little partner for the last 4 years, and I feel like I'm losing her.

 Here she is doing all her testing so they will know which class to put her in, she did awesome!  She went from station to station, she was not shy at all, and she did exactly what she was supposed to do.  They had the alphabet all jumbled up and asked her to identify the letters, she only missed 2 G and J, but come on, they are tricky.

 She got a book all about Kindergarten from Ares.  He is a HUGE adorable husky (you can see him in the background in the first picture).  He is a reading therapy dog.  Some kids won't read to an adult, so they bring in Ares and the kids will sit with him in a room alone and they will read to him and hug him, he is such an amazing dog!  There were kids passing by loving on him the whole time and he just sits patiently with them.  Aubrey was so excited for her turn with Ares, and she thanked him for the book and told him he was a good boy.

 Oh, she has no idea what's coming in this picture.  Look how happily she sits on the doctor's table...

She did NOT love getting Kindergarten shots

We had to do this the very next day, it is the final step of registering for Kindergarten, and it is not fun!

She did such a good job though, she got a sucker and a sticker and I got her an Icee drink.  That seemed to help things.  Poor baby.

 She started feeling kind of lousy after her shots, and that night before Cris went to work, he read her a story, and it wasn't long before she was fast asleep.  This is how we know Aubrey doesn't feel good, because normally she is all over the place dancing and running and skipping.

 I don't think her daddy minded though, he stayed right there until he had to go to work.

 And she stayed right by the fire for a little while.  Then, she got up and went straight to bed and slept the whole night, didn't even go to dance the next morning, which was really strange for her.  She LOVES dance.

By the afternoon, she felt better, so we went to Barnes and Noble to return books and we played and read in the kids area.  She loves the stage area, and it doesn't hurt that the animals look like the ones from "Guess How Much I Love You".  That is her favorite right now.

 Love her little poses.

She never was sick again.  

Weird how shots can wipe out these littles.

She will be all ready for Spring Break though!

RS Birthday Party

And finally!

After all our hard work, and scrapped ideas and banner making!

Our Relief Society Birthday party night!

I was so happy with how it all turned out!  I love a good birthday party though.  Look at those cute, happy banners!

 Here's our cupcake table, we put the most beautiful fake gem rings in them.  It was actually really cute how everyone wore their rings when they got their cupcake.

And check out the Princess Laundry!  I found that on my Silhouette cutter just a few hours before the party and we had to have it.  It is now in the girls' room.  And one of our girls makes these flowers out of gift tissue, so she decorated our cupcake table with them!  They are so awesome!

 And there's Sister Wharton and Sister Chen!  They came early and helped us set up, even though Sister Chen was totally sick, she never stops smiling, I love her!

They are by the Frozen inspired table.

 This was our Cinderella table.

 And the Tangled table.

 And Sleeping Beauty.

We also had Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Belle, but all those turned out blurry.  Oh well.

 We made cute necklaces, and played Prophet or Princess, when I was making that game, I discovered that President Uchtdorf talks a lot like a princess!  I had the ladies stumped quite a few times!  

It was a good night and everyone had a good time, and Angie and I ate way too much frosting making those cupcakes!

Luckily, next month will be low key and we will discuss things like budgets, and how to make home made tortillas.

But I might still bring the banners....  

St. Patty's!

Now, I know there is a whole article out there about taking the holidays down a notch, and that is fine for everyone who doesn't like to have fun.  But we are not those people.  And it's not like I go crazy for St. Patrick's Day, but I think it's fun!  And how long are my babies going to believe in leprechauns?  Or anything magical?  Not long.  So I say, live it up while you can!!!

 This year, we had a nice leprechaun, so that meant she must have been a girl (says Aubrey).  And the morning of St. Patrick's Day it was suuuuuper windy!  And my vent behind the microwave was blowing around, so when London got up, she was sure there was a leprechaun stuck in our wall (talk about a perfect little coincidence).  I had to finally convince her that the leprechaun just left the latch open and ran away!  So she would quit trying to find a way into the wall.

 She left everyone a treat in the shoes that are always left on the floor anyway.  She's too small to do anything too amazing!  And she left everyone a shamrock tattoo, or 5.

 London was so funny.  When she saw her gold coins she said, "I know these are chocolate because a real leprechaun would never give away their actual gold!"

 She left us some Lucky Charms too!  But she must have gotten hungry and had some, and spilled them because she is small and it's hard to get in and out of the box.

I love my kids' imaginations!

They were so hilarious, they were looking around the whole house saying things like, "I didn't leave that door open, it must have been the leprechaun!"  etc. etc.

I didn't even do anything else to make it look leprechaunish, that was all them.

 Our cute friends the Watts' sent us some green mustaches to wear for the day and my kids were soooo excited to wear them!  It was hard to save them for the big day!  But when they finally got to bust them open, they were glad they waited.

London didn't even wait until she was done with her Lucky Charms, she smacked that mustache on her face and even ate without getting milk on it!

 AAAAND, can we talk about this picture???

I was laughing so hard!  

She is trying to wink with this mustache on her face and it isn't so easy.

I love how this mustache makes her look like a completely different kid, it doesn't even look like Aubrey, it cracks me up every time.

And here they are.  All ready for St. Patty's day!

 And, if you can believe it, they hadn't even discovered their treats yet!  I told them to go get their shoes on (I thought for sure they had seen them) and they came out just screaming!  They were so excited!!!  This is as big as you can smile though with a mustache stuck to your face.

 Aubrey made this amazing hat at preschool and they had a good old leprechaun party.  It was so funny because even though it was really windy, she insisted on wearing this all the way to the car, and all the way home.

Then we went and had lunch at Cafe Rio because it is the Irish thing to do.

 Before London got home from school Ethan and I had our fun with the mustaches too.

 He looks like he knows a thing or two about plumbing huh.

 That night for dinner we made Irish Soda Bread and potato soup.

London helped me cut the X in the top of the bread.

 It was delicious!  It is Aubrey's favorite dinner.

So, she had to invite her teeny little friends to dine with us.

Until next year!

We really hope we get another nice leprechaun....

Making Parties!

So, we spent last weekend finishing up the RS Birthday party and we had some really cute helpers!

Our Sister Missionaries are the sweetest gals around!  And they have been doing all sorts of service for the ward members.  They are so adorable.  We have Sister Chen who is from Taiwan, and Sister Wharton who is from Texas, and they were so awesome helping us make these banners for the party!

 We made some super fun banners!  We made some from little paper doilies, and then we made some from cupcake wrappers and coffee filters!  They were my absolute favorite and I made 5!  I have already had people asking me if they can use them for other parties and stuff!  So, that's how cute they are.

Isn't that about the funnest mess you have ever seen?

And here on my couch is the finished product.

I could hang these up all over my house, but Cris is not nearly as excited as I am (on the outside...I bet inside, he agrees that they are the cutest thing around.)

Aubrey saw the first one and asked who this giant necklace is for.

 And this was the last errand Angie and I had to run and we had to take all the girls with us!  

It happened to be a beautiful day, so the girls rolled down all the windows and were nothing but giggles!  I love it when they're like that!

I love Sophie's little photo bomb in this one!

 She knows she's a puppy.

 And Matti!  I thought she was going to choke on her hair, we were having some good laughs.

 London had her head all the way out the window at one point, but I missed it!

 The girls were pretty good sports, but everywhere we went, you could hear us coming!  We were a bundle of hair and giggles and skipping and girls needing the bathroom!  At one point I just looked at Angie and said, "this is what summer is going to be like."  And it will!  And it will be a ton of fun!

When we finished our errands, the girls took turns on the teeter totter at Angies house.

 I love these pictures because it means the weather really is getting warmer and summer is coming!!!

Family stuff!

 I love it when Aubrey is in full costume/character mode.

I hate that this picture is blurry, but I love her little pose so much that I couldn't leave it, or delete it.

And here is her princess selfie.

 And my princess taking her time at dinner.

She was sitting there by herself for another 1/2 an hour!  It was so hilarious, when she was finished, she told Ethan she was done so he could clear her place.

Very princess of her.

And her big brother was very kind and actually did clear it for her.

 London and math are not getting along so well, and I am realizing I really need to use my other camera!  But my dang husband keeps putting it away!  Doesn't he know I need these things out and at my finger tips if we are going to get good, non blurry pictures???

Anyway, London has not had very good luck with math, so I got her an abacus, and it has made such a difference!  She does so much better when she can see what 4x7 looks like, and when math is more hands on, so this has been an awesome help for her!

 And she has been helping with scripture reading.  We are reading the New Testament right now and it is hilarious to hear how my kids pronounce and sound out some of the words in there.  It's not an easy book for me to read!  So it's awesome that my kids want to take turns reading it!  Aubrey cannot wait until she can read so she can have a turn.

 And!  We took the kids to see the Lego movie!  I know it looks like we are at the Muppets, but we are not.

Our theater was having $5 Tuesday, so we loaded up the family and snuck in a bunch of candy and had ourselves a good old time at the Lego movie!

It was adorable, I laughed so many times, I have to watch it again because I'm sure my big dumb laugh made me miss lots of other funny things.  That night, and all the next day, the kids were singing , "Everything is awesome..."

And maybe I sang it too.

 It was a lot of fun, we don't go out and do that very much as a whole family because Cris is always working, so it was nice that the theater did this on a Tuesday night so we could go all together.

I love how Aubrey looks like a mime in this picture!  It was all the flash I promise I did not paint her face!  Cris was dying over this picture.  I guess sometimes stuff just hits you right and this picture did that for him, he laughed his head off.

Ethan would not cooperate with pictures, he is getting way too cool for school if you ask me.

I love hanging out with my family!