Preschool Graduation

After 8 months of classes, Chris graduated from preschool last Thursday. It was at the same time as Ben's pack meeting, so Bryce took Ben, Alex, and Daniel to pack meeting and I took Chris and Abby to the graduation. That's how Chris wanted it. He can be pretty silly sometimes.

It was actually pretty entertaining for a graduation like that. She kept it short, so the kids actually paid attention and seemed to have fun. I think Chris' favorite part was the dvd slideshow she made and gave to everyone. He will watch it 3 or 4 times in a row and wants to show it to everyone who comes over.

Here's Chris marching in with his class. I could tell they had practiced a little bit.


In this picture, he's leading the class in naming all the months of the year. They started out really well, but started having problems around September. :)


Here they are watching the dvd slideshow.


After every class, they would end with a class hug, so at graduation they did one last group hug. Chris didn't want to join in, but in this picture, he looks like he was sad to be left out. Nope, that's just him.


Here he is with the gift bag his teacher provided. There was a picture of the class, a school t-shirt in his favorite color, and the dvd.


They sang two songs for us all at the graduation. I recorded them both, but the one I was going to post was taking too long to upload, so I gave up. Chris cracked me up because he wasn't really singing, but was mouthing the words with exaggeration. So funny.

Congratulations on your preschool graduation, Chris!

Trying Red

For a long time, I've wished I had the courage to try to dye my hair red, just to see what it would look like. And I could never get the courage to do it. I've done highlights before and liked those, and I'm usually pretty brave when it comes to trying new hair styles, but for some reason I haven't been brave with going red.

The other night I was telling Bryce about that, how I've always kind of wanted to try red. He said, "You should get some red hair color and buy a box of brown too, then if you don't like the red, you can just color it back to brown." Seriously, it had never occurred to me to do that. I knew I could color it back if I didn't like it, but I always kind of thought I'd have to go to the store with my ugly color on my head to buy a new box to fix it.

Anyway, yesterday I was at the store with my 3 youngest kids, and since I was over by that section anyway, I stopped to look at the hair color. I picked up the box of red and asked them if I should color my hair red. Daniel got really excited and said I should, so I decided I could go ahead and buy a box. I picked up a box of brown too, just in case.

Then I got home and debated for a couple of hours if I really wanted to try it. I don't know why it made me so nervous to try. Maybe it's because I've never colored my own hair, and red is a bolder color and isn't quite the same thing as highlights, where most of my hair is still its original color.

Then I finally decided to jump in and do it. My kids were fascinated watching me, and kept coming back to check on me and see what was going on. So far I like it. It's not that much different, so more subtle. Ben and Alex didn't even notice until I asked them if they thought my hair looked different.

So anyway, here are a few pictures I took to show what my hair looks like:

Easter and changes

We've had an interesting week with lots of sickies in the house, including me. I prefer the times when the kids get sick and don't share it. But I will admit that it was fun to be 5 pounds lighter the next day, even if it didn't last.

The day I was feeling better, I was also feeling pretty ambitious, so I moved all the furniture in my bedroom to make room for a large entertainment center some friends had given us, then I moved that into our room and set it up. It makes my bedroom look a little smaller, but since my bedroom is at least as big as our living room in our last house, we've still got plenty of room in there.

Here are a few pictures:




And this one cracks me up, but it's one of Abby's favorite things to do lately. She climbs in one of the cabinets and then yells at me, "Mom, shut the doors! I'm hiding from you!"


And because Abby started climbing out of her crib this week, I decided to move the toddler bed into her room so she could start sleeping on that. All of her brothers had moved out of the crib at an earlier age, but since she's our youngest, I was keeping her in it as long as she'd stay. So far she's actually been really good about staying in bed when we put her there at bedtime. Last night wasn't as fun when she decided she needed to be awake from midnight until about 3:30 (and I finally got her to go to sleep in my bed), but she's been good other times.

With as cold and wet as this spring has been, it's nice to have some reminders at times that it actually is springtime. That's one reason I love the tulips I planted last fall. Here are a few pictures of my youngest 3 checking them out and smelling them:




The Easter Bunny came to our house on Saturday morning. The boys were very excited and couldn't wait to be able to go down and see what he brought them, but were pretty patient waiting for everyone to wake up. And Abby was very excited to go down when her brothers told her there would be candy there. The Easter Bunny morning always seems to be a bit of a let-down to me because it takes about 10 minutes for the kids to check out all their stuff and then find all the eggs hidden in the house. They do seem to enjoy it while it lasts though.

Here are a few pictures of the kids checking out their Easter goodies:




Saturday was a busy day though. Alex and I had to leave for his soccer game right after they were finished looking for eggs (they lost, but they usually do). Then I had to take Ben and Alex to the store to get a present for their friend Kyle, who had invited them to his birthday party. I totally get my mom's frustrations with kids who can't make up their minds after that trip. It took them forever to pick something out for him. Chris was feeling a little left out because he hadn't been invited to the party, so after they left, I took him on a mother/son date and we did his favorite thing to do on an outing like that; we went bowling. It is pretty entertaining to watch him bowl. But I need to remember not to pre-pay for 3 games and just stick to 2. He started getting a little bored halfway through the 3rd. But that was party because he really wanted to try his luck at the claw machine and try to get the yellow dolphin he saw there. I decided to let him try, figuring I could show him how those machines really just waste your money, then he actually won the dolphin. I think that was his favorite part of the whole day.

Here's Chris bowling:


Chris just had a busy weekend. He was really excited when on Sunday he lost his first tooth! He didn't even wait until bedtime before he put his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. And he's been carrying his money around with him all morning today.

Here he is without his tooth, and holding the tooth in a bag:



So there are a few pictures of our week. Thrilling life, I know. :)

Finally more pictures

We finally got our new computer. Yay! It's amazingly fast and boot up in seconds, so I'm really enjoying it so far.

But now that we have it, I can actually put on some of the pictures I promised to put on before. I know you're thrilled beyond belief. So without further ado, here they are:

First, here are some pictures from Christmas:







After Christmas, Bryce's parents came to visit for a couple of days. Here are a couple of shots with them and our kids, but first is one of Chris being silly while they were here. You'll notice in the others how well the kids sit and smile for pictures:





Next up is Alex's birthday. He turned 7 this year. He is such a smart, nice, funny kid. He can be such a tease, but he's always been our one to make sure he shares with everyone else and will even still give his mom hugs in front of the other kids at the bus stop.





I was going to try to post a video again, this time of us singing happy birthday to Alex, but it appears to not want to work, so you just get to miss out on that.

Then life went on as normal for us, with not too much exciting happening, except I was busy with practices for The Ten Virgins play I was in. Here's a picture after our performance of our cast and crew:


Ben started going to the G/T program at school (Gifted and Talented) recently, and their first project was a country report. He started it when there were 2 or 3 weeks left to do the project, so they had told him he didn't need to do all of it, but he didn't tell us that, and we had him do it all. He originally chose to do his report on Russia, but since Bryce served his mission in India, we talked him into switching and doing it on India. Here's what his display board and report looked like:


After the play and Ben's report, our next big thing was when we went to Utah during Spring Break so we could go to Mom and Dad T's missionary farewell. I'm still SO excited for them to be able to go to the same place I served my mission!

While I was there, my mom was really nice and paid for me to get a haircut from Oscar. He does a great job and it's been a few years since I've gone to him. Cindy also went to him on the same day. Here's a picture of the two of us together after our new haircuts:


Here's a picture of Rachel, Cindy's baby, while we were there.


Abby still thinks it's hilarious to call me Cindy. She will laugh and laugh and laugh as she looks at me and says, "Hi Cindy."

After we got back from Utah, our big thing was Abby's second birthday. She was very excited for her birthday. When she first woke up and I told her happy birthday, she said, "Cake!" She definitely has a sweet tooth like her mom. Here are some pictures from her birthday:




These ones made me laugh. They were how Abby responded when Bryce told her to pose for a picture. And if you know Abby, you know she's really good at spilling on herself, which is why the front of her shirt is pink:



After Abby's birthday, it was my birthday, but we didn't take any pictures of that. Thanks, Bryce! :)

So that's basically everything up to our new computer. If you're friends with Bryce on facebook, you can see pictures of it. If you want to know what kind it is, here's what he said about the computer when he commented on the album: Silverstone FT02B, MSI P67A-GD53-B3, i5-2500K, 8 GB DDR3-1600, MSI Radeon 6970, Scythe Yasya CPU Cooler, Mushkin Joule 1200 Watt Modular PSU, Sabrent 65 in 1 Card Reader, LG 10x Blu-Ray Multi-Burner (Blu-Ray/DVD/CD), Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD, Crucial C-300 128 GB SSD boot disk. I like it. I don't think that Stacey will ever let me use it though, I think she likes it more than I do... So if that makes sense to you, then you know what kind we got. If it doesn't, it's really fast, has a lot of memory (a hard drive and a solid state drive), and is really cool and actually really quiet.

More to come

I was going to be posting pictures today, but my slow computer seems to be having issues. It's a darn good thing we're getting a new one this week. It's on its way as I type this. Thursday won't come soon enough, I think. When it gets here and we get it all set up, I will post pictures. And hopefully they'll load a lot faster than they have in the past.

Have you ever wondered if your kids ever really pay attention to the things you teach them and the things you do? Every night when we have t he kids sit together for family scripture study, I always wonder if it's worth the struggle and the fighting. Then every once in a while, they will say or do something that makes me think that they do pay attention sometimes. For example, the other day Abby was sitting on our couch holding the worn-out copy of the Book of Mormon that we use when we do our family study. She was fliping through the pages a little bit and Daniel saw was she was doing. He said to her, "Abby, you're supposed to read it. You say, 'And it came to pass that he was baptized.'" I tried not to laugh out loud too much as I listened to him because I didn't want him to feel like he was doing something wrong. But maybe he does listen occasionally.

Today my in-laws are going to the MTC to begin their latest mission. I am so excited for them, even more so because they're going to the same mission I went to 15 years ago. It's changed a bit since then, but I'm sure it's still going to be a great one. They get to live right by the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith actually saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. I wish them well on their mission and know they will receive great blessings. And I must admit, I'm looking forward to the blessings that we'll get from their service. We'll miss seeing them, even though we don't get to see them very often, but it will be possibly the whole 18 months before we get to see them again. I'm hoping we'll be able to get the chance to go out and visit them, but who knows if that will happen?

It's amazing sometimes how quickly things change and kids grow up. I look forward to seeing what's waiting to come for our family in the future.