Mother's Day Weekend!

What a fun Mother's Day weekend!

We started out the weekend with recitals!

Friday night, I got to go help with all the little girls who are not Aubrey in their recital.  It was so adorable!  I got to help in the dressing room, they were so fun to listen to, and so fun to dress up.

My kiddos wanted to come with me and watch the recital, so they sat in the audience and they were perfect!  I seriously could not ask for better kids!  I love them so much.

Then Saturday it was Aubrey's turn to do her stuff!

She was so excited!  She has never performed on a stage before, so she was so nervous and excited, I loved talking to her about it that day.

Nana and Grandpa were able to come up for her performance.

She was so glad they came, the first thing she asked me that morning was if they were going to come.  She about jumped out of her skin when I told her they were coming!

They took us to McDonalds before the big show.

This is a big, huge deal to Aubrey!  Plus they have Spiderman toys right now, and she has a crush on Spiderman right now (it is the cutest, most innocent little crush in the world-I think it's actually a crush on Lego Spiderman) so it all worked out really well for her.

Here's Nana and Aubs.

 And Grandpa and Aubs.

Here's Aubrey's whole class right before they went out on stage.

Most of this class has never taken dance before, or been on a stage before, so they were really nervous and really excited and REALLY giggly.  It was so precious.

They did a great job on their Enchanted dance.

 And then it was time for Splish Splash.

It is Aubrey's happy dance.  Too bad I couldn't even see her from the parent's seats!  

She had a great time though and she was so brave, no tears, no fuss, no tantrums.  She just purely enjoyed herself.

 And here she is after the dance.  I love that she has no shoes on in this picture.

She is so funny, she cannot seem to look at me when I take pictures of her, she always looks to the side, or something.  It cracks me up.

See?

What is she looking at?

Here she is after all her dances, and taking her bows.

She wanted flowers in the worst way, so Cris told me to make sure I got her some flowers from him (since he had to work darn it), and then Nana and Grandpa got her some flowers too!  She was beside herself.  I had to get her the flower lalaloopsy she wanted, yes I did!  She did such a good job practicing, and I am not above bribery no siree!

I just love this picture.

It makes my heart melt a little.  Aubrey adores Grandma Diane, and the feeling is mutual.

After all the hugging and pictures, we went and got some ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  I haven't been there in forever!  We weren't the only ones with this big idea!  The place was packed and there was only one poor girl behind the counter.  She did awesome though, and had such a good attitude about it.

Thank you for the yummy treat Nana and Grandpa!

Aubrey found some dance friends, so they decided to be friends and have their ice cream together.  They all had the same thing too!  Cotton candy ice cream.

Then, it was time for Nana and Grandpa to get home.  

We were so glad they came up for Aubrey's big night!

 MOTHERS DAY

This was a fun day.  Poor Cris had to work Saturday night, so he was sleeping Sunday so the kids and I went to church together. 

It was nice to just sit with my sweet kiddos, and neither of the talks were about moms so I didn't end up bawling all through sacrament meeting which was really nice!  I hate doing that!!!  

I loved hearing my kids sing to me, and I loved all the treats the bishopric and primary did for us, it was just a nice day.

Cris went and bought a roast for us to have for dinner, and Beth, from Cris' work, brought me some shrimp!  How nice is that?  She is the nicest lady!  And she knew I was the only one who would eat it, so yay for me!!!

After church, we went to the Edwards to visit Diane for Mother's Day.

Aubrey went straight to their play room and made me such a great mothers day present!

There were birds.

 And she made a tea party for me!

 This was my favorite surprise, a chocolate inside a heart.

 Then, she said, "Here's the grand finale mom."

She squeezed each bird one at a time until they were all chirping a beautiful mother's day song to me.

I felt very special.

 London came in to giggle a little with me.

I told her she had to come see these birds all lined up, and she and I had a good little giggle together.

I love my kids.

 We had to get some kind of picture with Ethan right?

Look at how well London takes pictures!

I love these sweet people!  They have been such a blessing in our lives, they make it so much more bearable to not have my parents around.

 When we got home, we were all pretty hungry so Ethan said, "Don't worry mom, I got this."

He made lunch for Aubrey, and then he told me to just hang on.

A few minutes later, he came upstairs with this.

I love how he served it on a cookie sheet, and that he drank half the diet coke.

I really do love that kid.  I am such a lucky, blessed mommy.

 I also got flowers from Nana and Grandpa!  

It was so sweet, I got home from a crazy errand laden day, and found a box in the entry way from pro flowers!  It was such a nice surprise!  

There were chocolates in there too!  And they were kind of delicious!  

Thank you again to Nana and Grandpa!

It was such a nice Mother's Day.

I loved spending it with my sweet family

Mother/Daughter Night!

London and I got to have a mothers and daughters night together for Activity Days!

It was adorable.

We had to bring some things that describe London to display on the table.  I let her pick, and here's what she came up with.  Her stuffed animal dragon, her origami dragons, her art/stencil book, her owl and flamingo, a picture of her and I on a beach in Washington when she was a baby, and then she wanted to keep her bag on the table because there is an owl and birds on it too.

These things describe London and her interests.

 Each of the girls got to get up and talk a little bit about themselves while we had yummy treats.

When it was our turn, I went up with London and got to talk about her.  I told everyone how she loves to make people laugh, and that she loves to laugh.  She loves to make everyone feel included and does not like to hurt peoples' feelings.  She is very interested in art, and is quite good at it, she loves to read, and she is obsessed with dragons, and birds, and sea creatures.

There was a little questionnaire at our table, and I found out London's favorite Disney character is Elliot from Pete's Dragon (big surprise), her favorite color is gold, if she could be any animal, she would be a sea dragon, not a flying one because she can see all the things that fly, but if she were a sea dragon she could see all the creatures that live way beneath the water.  She is such a thinker.

 After all the girls talked about who they were and explained their table items, we had a photo booth.

I love this silly silly girl of mine.

 There was quite a lot of giggling going on during this particular picture.

We have some really sweet girls in our ward, and they have become really good friends with my London and I am so thankful for that.

London is such a wonderful daughter.  I love getting to know her more as she grows and as we become friends.  It was the first time I have ever done a mother daughter thing and I really loved it!  I look forward to a lot more of these types of things!

Bits & Pieces

Just a few of the things we have been up to over the last couple weeks.

I love it when we finally sit down to read scriptures before bed and the family decides to be good.  I caught this sweet little picture of Cris and Aubrey snuggling up together to listen.

It's kind of gross how cute they are huh.

Aubrey and I got to help out our sweet friend Heather by watching her girls so she could knit and catch up on her orders.  She has an awesome internet business and she always makes a killing when she opens her shop, so much that she cannot keep up with it.  Lucky for us!  That means we get to watch her baby Malia and Aubrey gets to play with Maya!

Malia decided that she likes me.

I was gushing at this moment!

We discovered that Aubrey LOVES Chicken and Stars noodle soup!  We ate it at our friends house the other day and Aubrey couldn't get enough, she asks for it like every other day!

Where has this been all her life???

Speaking of Aubrey, she had her very first performance!

They performed at a retirement home and it was adorable!

Here we are getting ready!  I love love love these curlers, and Aubrey loves loves loves makeup, so it was not torture getting her ready.

Hello eyelashes!!!

Here she is all ready to perform!  This is her very own pose that she almost always does when I tell her she can pose.

And here's all the girls!  They were so ready, and so wiggly, like a bunch of puppies!  I was amazed we got this picture!

After the performance, we went to Dairy Queen.

Can I just say how much I love these little jack-o-lantern smiles my kids have right now?  It makes me ridiculously happy!

I just wanted a picture of E, and here's what he gave me.

Oh well, you take what you can get huh.

It just so happened that Maya's family decided to come to Dairy Queen after the performance as well.

Aubrey and Maya sat on the stools and talked and giggled and at their treats like they were the oldest of friends!

It was precious!

And if this isn't so exciting!  E-man can mow the lawn now!  Hallelujah!  And he is really good at it too!  He has done it twice now and I am impressed! 

He also has 3 customers lined up for this summer!  He is going to be rolling in the dough!

Bird Watching!

For FHE, we went bird watching with the Edwards!

It was amazing, I have never been to this place, but they go all the time, they love to bird watch.  Grandpa Dan knows the names of so many birds, and some of them he can tell just by how they sing.

He is adorable to sit with because he will just listen and tell you, then he will get out his binoculars and find them.  He even finds them in the really good hiding places.

Birds are amazing.

And and and

Ethan has his piano recital!  

He is getting really really good!  

I am so glad he is sticking with it.  It has been a bit of a fight, but ultimately this boy loves music too much to give up on piano!

I am so grateful.

Nana and Aunt Dani showed up for the recital as well and totally surprised the kids!

It was so cute!  We saw Aunt Dani outside and Aubrey didn't recognize her at first, but once she did, she ran inside to find Liberty! 

Liberty and Aubrey are thick as thieves!  Those girls love each other to pieces!

Here is cute little Moroni with Nana!  Such a cute baby!

And sssshhhh, this is Taylor.

I snuck this picture because she is Ethan's crush, or she has been for quite a while, he may have moved on, but I needed to document this!  

She's so cute huh.

Last but not least, Aubrey and her fairy lands.

This has been the story of her life lately, she sets up everything for the fairies.  I love her little button trails she makes, and she makes sure they have a slide and something to eat, and some things to play with.  She cannot wait to plant our fairy gardens!

This is a fairy water slide....because it goes into a pool

And the block is to help them if they are stuck in the grass.

And believe you me, there is always more to come!

I love our crazy non-stop life.

Easter!

Finally, I am getting around to Easter!  

We started off the weekend going to a big Easter egg hunt at our friend's neighborhood.

Don't they all look way too excited to be there?  Especially Ethan?!

Ethan didn't bring an Easter basket, but never fear!  They had an arts and crafts table where Aubrey made him his very own Easter basket paper bag!  Does he not look absolutely thrilled?

Aubrey, on the other hand, was quite pleased with herself.

London sat down to create an Easter egg masterpiece and help herself to a balloon.

So, Aubrey and I went to have her face painted.

They had all kinds of fun little booths going on here!

Now that she has her most beautiful flower on her beautiful face, we are ready to go get us some eggs!

Just a side note, why do they call these Easter egg hunts?  Seriously?  They are not hunting for anything at all! It is Easter egg survival of the fittest!

But the kids have fun and love them, so enough of that.

Here she is waiting at the starting line.

And London decided she really had to go the bathroom at this point (I think it was just nerves)

And there's the Easter bunny himself.

And they're off!!!

They each got to pick up 12 eggs, there were so many eggs out there, and London later told me that one of the kids out there pushed her out of the way, so she pushed him back...that's right, HIM!  And she got the egg!  I would be lying if I said I wasn't just teeny bit proud of her, but then I told her to always be nice, and maybe not to push kids especially at a fun Easter egg activity...but the pride was still there.

Then, they all got a balloon sword, and we were off to the next egg hunt!

This one was at the park right by our house.  You've got to support your own 'hood, so we had to go!

We got there just in time!  In fact, Garron (our cute Sorenson neighbor) saw us when we got there, and he saw where Aubrey needed to go which was waaaaay down the line, so he picked her up and ran her down there!  How cute is that?  I love that kid!

She got there and got tons of eggs and had so much fun, they were all giggling and it was totally precious, no fighting at all! 

London was more calm too.  No body checking this time.

When all the easter egg hunt fun was over, we came home and started boiling eggs, and man does that make your house stink!  But they are totally worth it as we ALL love deviled eggs!

We dyed like 32 eggs!  

My kids love to dye eggs, they could have kept going too!

We had a package of marble egg dye and a sparkle package of egg dye, so we had to do both!

And there's a nice shot of our eggs all finished!

That night, I decorated the house, and Cris came out to iron a shirt and saw me and just said, "Aren't you just decorating your decorations?"

I laughed and told him that if I die before him, he was going to miss that I do this stuff.  He told me he would open a museum of all my decorations, from the good stuff to just the party streamers and such.

You know I believe he would.

No matter what it looked so cute and festive and happy!!!

Our Easter bunny came!

And he makes art out of the jelly beans which the kids LOVE!!!

They were careful not to step on it, and admired it for quite a while until I couldn't stand it and gave them a candy dish to put it all in!

Here they are after church.

Yep, our church is early, so I told them they had to leave all the eggs where they were even if they could see them, and get ready for church and when we got home, they could go to town!!!

But first, I had to get pictures.  

It was killing them.

Look how cute they are though!

They are so pretty and handsome!

Aubrey was pretty sure that all the pictures were supposed to be silly ones.  Ugh.

Couldn't you just squish them?

And here's my man in his new Easter suit!

Doesn't he look dapper?

He was too too serious to smile at me for a picture, but he looks so so handsome!  He even got a pocket square!  Woo wee!

Enough pictures!

The hunt is on!
We have an actual hunt at our house, our Easter bunny makes these kids work!  Then they all have to bring their eggs to one big basket so we can all share the candy.

Aubrey got a wand and a crown, the Easter Lalaloopsy and the new Tinker Bell movie in her Easter basket, she could not believe it!

And an adorable owl shirt from Grammy!  Thank you Grammy!!!  And all the kids got books about Jesus that Grammy made for them, they are so awesome and the kids love them!

London got the same shirt as Aubrey in her basket and she got the new Rayman video game which she freaked out about, well done Dad.

And also, she loved her shirt too, so thank you so much Grammy!!!

And Ethan (who would not pose for a picture) got a CTR ring which he loves!

We spent the rest of the day watching Tinker Bell, playing Rayman, eating Easter treats and had a yummy Easter dinner.

I really do love this holiday!