New Cut on an Old Gal

I have been itching to cut my hair for a few months now, but decided that I would let it grow more so that I could still pull it back if I was sick.  Now that my morning sickness has pretty much gone, I decided it was time for a summer cut.  I decided to have my new do on my birthday.

 Pre-cut

 Gotta have a belly shot too :)  (currently 18 weeks along)

 The cut.  I was able to donate 10 inches to Locks of Love!  It's been a while since I've done that and it felt great!  I'm glad my excess can help someone else feel good in their time of need.  As a bonus, the salon gave me my haircut for FREE!  Happy Birthday to me!  The stylist commented on my pregnancy and asked how many kids I had.  I told her this would be #5.  She just gawked at me and said "You don't look old enough to have 5 kids, do you mind telling me your age?"  So I told her I was turning 33 today.  It was also pretty sweet having her tell me I didn't look that old.  :)

And of course I got spoiled with nice things and a fun dinner and a yummy four layer chocolate cake with strawberry filling and choco fudge icing (thank you Dan!).  The day couldn't have been any better!

Yarrrr Matey! The Pirate Pinata

At the beginning of the school year, Mrs. Back (Elliott's kindergarten teacher) was impressed by Elliott's homemade paper mache monkey bank and requested that we make a pirate pinata for the end of the year party.  Dan used to make creative creations with paper mache all through his school years in OM (Odyssey of the Mind) so he was elected to figure out a pirate.  We knew it had to be big because it was for all 100 kindergarteners to take a wack at and spill candy out of.

 Dan made a frame out of chicken wire (you can faintly see) because it needed to withstand heavy candy inside. Of course there are some weak points in it so that there's hope of getting the candy out of it.  :)  We knew it would be heavy once it was filled, so Dan attached door handles to be able to hold it up.

 Then the paper mache work began in the garage.

 The head

 Mr. Jeremy Jacob (love those pirate books by David Shannon!) in the preliminary round.

 I helped too!  I was able to attach all the facial hair, color in his features and gave him long hair to put in a pony tail.

 We gave him nice vibrant colors for his wardrobe.

 The headless pirate (with curly chest hair!)

Dan's finished pirate!  Dan did an awesome job.  His final measurement was 6 ft. 8in!  When Dan took him to school, the teachers and kids were in awe.  They get to take a wack at him this week during the last week of school.  I hope to see the pirate take a plunge after my dr. appt. and get some good pictures!

Camera Fun

Here's some random pictures that were on my phone that didn't really belong anywhere else but I wanted to remember.

 Donovan's letter to me from school reads:  Dear Mommy, You are the best person I know that plays Mario Kart.  Love, Donovan. 

There was a while when I wanted to conquer the darn game and played a lot I guess.  The sad thing is he has me captured nicely in my recliner chair playing.  I guess I was a junkie for a bit.  Don't worry, not anymore.

 Avery loves to dress up, can you tell?

 Avery was laughing so hard I had to capture her giggle face.  Gappy toothed goodness!

 The girl learns from her brothers and parents that books are great!  She took a play rug and made herself a bed and snuggled up with a book.

 Licking her plate clean.  I think you can see her tongue if you zoom it out.  Crazy girl!  It must have been good food!

We had chocolate cake.  Can you tell.  This is her reaction when Daddy told her no when she wanted second helpings.  :)  She loves food!

I guess I take a lot of pictures of Avery.  I guess she always makes me laugh.



E-I E-I Oops! Musical 5-17-12

Donovan's 2nd grades and the 1st grades at his school put on a fun musical for all the families.  They put a lot of hard work into practices and we've had the CD playing so often in our home to practice that I'm glad he can finally rest with it.  We taped the whole show, which is really cute and funny about a cow that won't moo on Old McDonald's farm.  We told the grandparents that we would post it all, but if anyone else wants to watch that's fine too, but it is 30 min. long.  Dono's speaking part is I believe between 4:30 and 5:00.  He is the cowboy in a red shirt.  Enjoy! Again, sorry about the coloring!

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Nama Elliott's Visit and Birthday April 2012

My mom needed a vacation, so she came out by herself to spend some time with us.  The boys ran and gave her hugs right away and Avery figured that must be what she should do too, so she ran to give her a hug too.  After that Avery would have nothing to do with mommy, she would call for "Nam" although she shouted it everytime.  It was so funny.  "NAM!"

Read to us Nama!  We don't want to go to bed yet! 

We just relaxed while she was here.  Although we did take a day where Dan watched the kids and we drove to Shipshewana, Indiana to visit their swap meet and surrounding shops.  Mom really wanted to see the Amish made stuff because it is by an Amish community.  We spent all day there.  It was nice being with my mom.

 While here, Mom turned the big 60!  It was nice being able to celebrate it with her!  We had seen a Paula Deen cooking show and she made this cake.  Mom thought it looked good, so I tried it out.  It is a coconut lemon curd cake. (I left a section un-coconutted because I detest coconut.)  It turned out really yummy!  Good choice Mom!

 Happy Birthday!

 My mom does so much for everybody else when she's at home, I'm glad she wanted to spend her vacation with us!  Come back soon!

Donovan's 1st Piano Recital 4-21-12

We started Donovan with piano lessons at the beginning of January.  My friend Heather is a very talented musician (and her husband just got his doctorate in piano performance) and agreed to teach Donovan.  He is learning so much and catches on quick.  He has a natural talent for music and besides some grumbles does very well.

This is Donovan playing two songs for his first piano recital:

Ode To Joy and Russian Folk Song

We are sad that the McKays will be moving to Florida in July.  We will miss them!  We will also be on the search for another teacher.  :(  Sorry about the coloring!  I can't figure out why it is transferring that way.  It's normal when I play it straight from the file on the computer but colors funny when doing this.  Hopefully someday I'll figure it out.

More Critters? Really??

It seems that every year since we moved into our house we have had an experience with some new critter in our yard.  Welcome to Michigan!  We have had ground hog infestations, chipmunks that steal our fruit plants, moles, and now...

 Bunnies!

Occasionally we will get a wild bunny that will find a hole in the fence and hop around in the yard until Dan chases it away.  This bunny was found in our garden (we haven't planted it yet and it's full of weeds).

A few days later we found out WHY the bunny was so attracted to the garden.

Babies!  After Dan scared the Mommy away, we didn't see her for a few days but found 4 babies in a little nest dug into our garden.  Dan was about to rototill the garden, we're glad he didn't!  We called a local rescue center to see what we should do.  They told us to pick up a baby and turn it over to see if it looked fed or emaciated.  They informed us that bunnies don't neglect their babies with human scent, fyi- they also said that baby birds are the same way, mommies will still care for their babies even if they have a human scent.  They looked well fed, so momma was still sneaking in.  But in the process of checking a baby, the whole group of bunnies fled and couldn't be caught.  They never came back.  :(  Oh well, now we can plant our garden.  We just have to find and fill the fence holes.

Fast forward a week.

Dan is mowing the FRONT yard and as he is mowing around our pine tree, all of a sudden baby bunnies start hi-tailing it all over the yard.  He ran over yet another nest of babies in the front this time!  I thought maybe it could be just a migrated nest.  But no, this nest had 5 babies! (All safely got away.)  My goodness!  It would be so nice to not have some kind of critter in our yard that destroys what we're trying to grow!  We have a fenced yard!  Take that as a sign to keep out!



Science Fair 2012

This year we had twice the fun in doing projects for the school Science Fair.  Dan loves to do this stuff, so I gladly hand over the reigns to him in helping the boys pick and do their projects.

 Donovan chose to do something with running because he loves to run.  His question was Will you slow down when you add weights to running laps.  So he ran without weights first and ran so many laps in a certain amount of time.

 After a decent rest period, he added 5 lbs of weight in his backpack and ran laps.

 After another rest period, he added a total of 10 lbs into his backpack and ran laps.  His hypothesis that he would slow down was indeed correct.

Elliott chose to run a ball in a circular plate with a wedge cut out.  He wondered if the ball would continue in a circular course or go straight.  His hypothesis of it going in a circular pattern was incorrect.  After 15 tries, it went straight every time.

Good job boys!



Easter 2012

The Saturday before Easter we had our annual Primary Easter breakfast/egg hunt.

The kids had so much fun finding eggs with candy in them.  I had to search to find them and take a picture this year.  They are getting too fast!

 Ross

 Avery had so much fun finding the eggs this year!

 Donovan in blue.

 Elliott in the back in brown.

My Easter Sweethearts in their nice Sunday clothes.

Our Spring Break in NY 4/2-4/6/2012

We decided that for Spring Break this year we would continue the tradition and visit a history site for our Church but add a few more stops on the way.  We decided to go to New York and drive through Canada to get there (Dan and I had been to all these spots years ago, but thought that it would be fun to see again and a great experience for the kids).  Dan and I planned ahead and got our passports (kids under 16 only need a birth cert. for land travels) and planned a great trip.  The kids were excited to go to Canada to see if they really talk as funny as Daddy says and to taste Canadian food.

 The border.  Getting into Canada was no problem at all.  Although the guard was a little cheeky and asked why we couldn't drive around to NY instead of going through Canada.  Ummm...an extra 2-3 hours of drive time?  I don't think so!

 Dan was determined to fine a Harvey's burger joint in Canada to make sure he got to have poutine (french fries with cheese curds covered in gravy).  I think that was the only decent thing that was eaten.  Maybe my prego stomach just wasn't agreeing with any food that day.  But overall the kids gave Canadian food a thumbs down. (It really is pretty much the same as American food, we're just not fast food eaters.) The kids were also a little disappointed that Canada still looks like Michigan.

 We settled into our home base in Palmyra, NY and visited our first site that 1st day.  This is the frame house that the Smith family built when they moved to NY.

It was still a pretty cold 'spring' so the leaves were barely growing on the trees in the Sacred Grove.  This is where the young boy Joseph Smith prayed to know what church he should join and received his Heavenly answer that changed everything.

We then at dinner at The Yellow Mill Diner which might have been the better food on the whole trip and nicely priced too.  Our kids are usually very well behaved in restaurants, but it had been a long day.  The waitresses were VERY kind, even after our 5th cup of spilled milk.  :)

The next day we went down the road to the Hill Cumorah, where the sacred scriptures were buried and waiting until Joseph was ready to receive them to translate them.  It is a VERY steep hill!  The kids had fun racing up.



 The family on the top (minus me).  We decided to rest a bit (I wasn't feeling the best), and afterwards while the little ones napped Dan took the older boys to the Palmyra historical museum.

 Day 3 we decided to do some family history and drove to Owego, NY and on to Harmony, Pennsylvania and Little Meadows, Pennsylvania.  On the way we saw this gem in someone's front yard.  We found out family history-wise that the floods from the previous September had possibly destroyed the geneological records that were kept in the basement.  Only time can tell if Dan's family records were able to be preserved.  So all we could do was travel to the cemetaries to search for headstones.  We found a few family members, so it wasn't fruitless.

The banks of the Susquehanna River where John the Baptist appeared and restored the priesthood keys to the earth once more.

 Day 4 took us to more sites in Palmyra where we took a tour at the Grandin Press where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed after they were translated and where the local newspapers were printed.

 The print shop store recreation.

 The cases of letters for printing (the upper case and lower case)

 The press where the papers were printed.

 Roswell amongst the book making tools.

 The Sister missionary showing us how the books were made back in the early 1800's.

 Dan and I had planned to a session in the Palmyra temple, but they were closed for maintenance while we were there.  :(  But we did get to walk around and visit the grounds.  It's a very beautiful temple.

 We could see one of the windows which showed a tree.  With the lights inside shining through it looked like the tree of life.  It was beautiful!

 For our final night we saw some movies shown in the Hill Cumorah visitor center.  Then we let the kids make one more run up the hill (with Dad) while the sun was setting.  This was a great view of the Christus as we were leaving.

 On the way back home, we stopped to see Niagara Falls.  Dan and I must have been in a hurry on our first trip, because there was so much that we saw this time that we didn't before.  The falls are really beautiful!

 Me and my boys.

 A kind lady took our picture, but Avery wasn't keeping still and ducked behind Dan.

 We took a trolley to the goat islands to see the Canadian falls.  (There are American falls and Canadian falls all within Niagara.  I think there are a total of 5 waterfalls that meet in the Niagara River.)

 The tour was fun and very informative.  The gist was if you fall in the river before the falls, kiss your hiney goodbye - you only have a few seconds to get to safety before the currents will suck you up and drive you into the rocks below the falls.  It made me hold the kids a little tighter.

 Part of the horseshoe falls.

 Avery was very happy to be with her Daddy.

 A beautiful rainbow.

 More Avery fun.

The rest of the ride home (at least for a while).  I think the kids were quite worn out!  Dono was asleep on the other side of Avery too.  It was a nice trip.  We learned a lot and had a lot of fun too.  :)