Memorial Weekend

Never in the 9 years that we have lived here have we had such low temperatures for Memorial Weekend. All this last week it has been cool and we have had actual rain! Several times in the same day even. Anyway, this is the first time we didn't have swimming as a major part of this particular weekend. On Sat. I took Keddi to get her 7 year old portrait taken. As you can see, they turned out beautiful. Tersa went to a birthday party and after that she, Mardi and I went to a pottery place to make some gifts for teachers. Upon returning home, we ordered pizza and had a movie night together. On Monday we went to a 10:00 showing of "Prince Caspian" and enjoyed it quite well. We went to lunch together and then came home for some lounging around. Joel bar-b-qued some ribs for dinner and since we weren't that hungry still, all we had were ribs and cold watermelon.

Preschool Graduation

I am so glad that I enrolled Shinara into preschool this year.

Preschool was low key and only lasted for 1 1/2 hours three days a week. But she thoroughly enjoyed it and was very sad when I told her it was over last week.
The little guy in the red shirt is Radley. She thought for a long time that his name was Riley but we got it now. They were good buds and didn't like leaving each other without a hug. I met his mother because Shinara wants to have play dates with him and invite him to her birthday party this summer.

Shar was all smiles until I took this picture. She told me that the boy behind her said that it said "baby" on her certificate. That made her mad. It took a few tries to convince her that he doesn't know how to read and it did not say "baby" anywhere on her certificate!


This is Mrs. Zimet. She is the lady that supervises all of the teenage teachers and helps them organize their lessons and activities for the children. Shinara loved all of her teachers but got her picture with a few of her favorites.

I always enjoy hearing about or seeing that people enjoy my children and when we were about to leave, several of the teachers wanted hugs. After hugging only three of them, Shinara turned to me and said "Mom, I have to get my tears out." And she wiped her eyes. She is such a sweet girl and didn't like having to say goodbye. She went around the room though and one of the teachers that liked her best carried her around for a bit and then outside to say goodbye.

Keddi's Birthday

Keddi had a family birthday party this year (which always includes the Wilson's because by now, they're family!!) She got to choose her cake and ice cream. She told me that she wanted white cake with blueberries. So, I baked two white round cakes, put some cream cheese frosting (very thin layer) and blueberry pie filling (strained of a lot of the "gel") in the middle and covered the rest with Cool Whip. The pink sprinkles were added at the last moment (probably because for Keddi there just wasn't enough bling!)
She got a hula hoop (that I know Sarah Hahn would have wanted to try immediately), Sharpay Barbie doll (High School Musical) and a Littlest Pet Shop set with a Pony. From the Wilson's she received a Pocahontas Barbie (because I would only buy one Barbie and Mandy always picks up my slack!! ;) I love her!)
Keddi also received cards from Grandmas and Grandpas and is looking to spend it on My Little Pony or Princess coloring books.
Thanks to Lindsay's family for calling and to all who sent birthday wishes. She got to take cookies to her friends in her school class and she is the spotlight this week so we made a fun poster for her to display in her room and tell the other children about. It was a great day for her.

Swuimsuit line-up

Last weekend we saw three digit highs so we broke out the swim gear and went to the pool on Fri. after school and again on Sat. It has cooled all of the sudden yesturday and today and we won't see 90's until next week sometime. The girls have been chomping at the bit to go to the pool but I am glad for the return of cooler weather . Air conditioner is off and the windows are open again until the heat returns.
(Just in case you are wondering, Shinara's suit has one of those flotation devices sewn in. She calls it her "fat" suit and last year it made her a little self concious. She hasn't said anything about it yet this season.)

Happy 7th Keddi!!

It isn't that time passes so quickly now, it's just that when you look back it hardly seems possible that so much time has gone by already!
As I reflect on Keddi it is interesting to me how many of her baby traits are still present. And how much you just don't know about them when they are babies. Keddi was a grumpy baby at times and didn't like people she didn't know to get too close. She is still grumpy often and is shy around strangers but not quite so leary of them. Of course, that's when I'm around.
Keddi has grown into a very smart little girl who
is aware of others, tries to help out anyone she can and includes those who are left out. She is quite popular with children her age especially the boys. She is concious of how she looks and looking pretty matters to her. Surprisingly she likes to play alone sometimes because she likes things just so.
We are proud of her and enjoy her playful nature, the affection she readily gives us and that she enjoys subtle attention .

Twinkle little star

Tersa just came up from breakfast and told me some were singing "Twinkle, Twinkle little star." When there was a pause, Keddi said she knew what that song is about. Joel asked her what and she said "The star of Bethlehem."

Highlights

Not a great picture I'll admit. The lighting was bad and she wasn't situated right but we were trying to hurry because she needed to leave for school. Anyway, it shows her highlights and the extreme contrast they are to her natural color. (The highlights were something else I was not pleased with after our second hair appointment but they have grown on me.) Though I prefer natural looking highlights and probably won't allow this again (gotta talk to Joel), they are kinda fun!

More Facial hair

For some reason, Joel wanted everyone to have their picture taken with the facial hair. (I wouldn't. Remember when I said I was getting my hair cut? Not happy!!!)

Back to work

Joel is not interested in posting (or taking) any pictures of his scar so you'll have to settle for facial hair. This is what grew over the last seven weeks. He likes to grow this out and we girls just don't appreciate it poking us in the lips when we kiss him! But he had an excuse to grow it out and no drop in kiss ratio was worth shaving it off until he had to! (Of course everyone was being so careful around him that the kiss ratio would have dropped anyway.)
The girls were so good at watching out for him and now we don't have to be quite so careful. No driving still for 6 more weeks, but as you can see with Keddi sitting in his lap, hugs and affection giving are returning to normal.

Happy Mother's Day!

I imagine lots of the moms I know won't post today. Too busy. (Hopefully being pampered a bit.) But I love to blog and wanted to get these up today because this is what I did for Mother's Day. (Yesturday of course.)

Joel offered for us to go out to eat but I didn't want to leave the girls. Time away is great and often necesary for coming back and staying.
But I just felt that we should be together.
Not too far from our house they put up an outside carousel and it is beautiful. I've always been drawn to these and though it is getting expensive to ride them, we had the girls take a ride.

I think I should have gotten on too. Maybe next time.




Happy Mother's Day mom! Have fun in Utah.

Happy Mother's Day Lolly! We sure appreciate you.

Happy Mother's Day Mary! Thanks for all you do.

Happy Mother's Day C.C! Enjoy your day.

Keddi's Field Day

The kindergarten teachers were too lazy last year to do a Field Day (too bad for the kindergarteners.) I usually take pictures of field day in the girls kindergarten year but since I didn't have any of Keddi's I went to take some today!

We weren't there for all of the events and they had the kids rotating through activities for 1 1/2 hours! But here are some that we got to see her do.

They were put into teams and Keddi was with her friend McKenzie so both girls were happy. No one in the whole class seemed to be terribly competitive. I never once heard "we won" or anything.

Mission Call

A couple of years ago my mother decided she wanted to go on a mission. This year she got serious about it and last Friday she received a call to the Brisbane, Australia mission!

She is incredibly excited and Mardi is trying to figure out how to get to the Provo Mission Training Center around September or so in order to hide in mom's luggage!

This is a picture of Brisbane.She reports to the MTC at the begining of August if I remember correctly. So, it seems that she will begin fall and head out to Australia for their Spring/Summer. (However that works out there.) She will finish summer there before returning home and will be able to enjoy another summer when she gets home. We aren't sure what winters are like out there, but my mother hates being cold. So, only one winter in a year and a half sounds great to her!

Haircuts-II

My girls always think they want long hair. But after a certain length, they stop bothering with it beyond combing through it (if I catch them before they can get off to school) and putting it up in a clip or something.

But in my opinion, Tersa just looks too cute with shorter hair!! She got layers and......bangs! I know, I should have warned you. But Joel has never cared much for bangs until his oldest daughter walked in to show him her new "do" and he thinks it is very cute. Bangs and all.

Tersa isn't done yet because we just didn't have enough time that day for the highlights she bought with birthday money last fall. So, we will go back this week to finish her and get my hair cut!

Haircuts-part I

Usually, it's pretty in hot in Vegas by now. But this year has been cooler and we just got around to the first round of haircuts.
Shinara has only had trims because we were afraid we would end up cutting off the curls and they'd be gone for good. But when a child cries every morning for the 15 minutes it takes to comb through the knots in her hair and asks to get it cut, after five years, I guess you should conceed. (Try to convince Joel of that!) Anyway, she told Joel that she wanted it cut to her shoulder and he turned away and pretended to cry. (With some real tears mixed in I think.) Her eyes immediately welled up and she felt bad she had made her daddy sad!

After trying to convince her that Joel would be o.k. and that maybe we wouldn't cut that much off, we went with just to the middle of her shoulder blades. It doesn't look like much in these pictures, but it make a difference in grooming and that was really the point.