fun

I made these birthday party "momentoes" to send out with Isabella's thank you cards. You may recall that it was a princess party, so I "dressed" all these people up as royalty. It was a very fun project! I have been waiting until I got them all mailed so that I could post them. I have confirmation that the ones mailed last have been recived, so I'm hoping that means they all have!








I think this one is my favorite, I love the dragon riding baby!!







I did not have to add the earrings to this picture! Grandad was dressing up with the girls.


Ok, this one might be my favorite, I can't decide. I thought about putting "King of Pop" but decided not to, in case I was the only one who thought that was funny : )


Faron designed this card, and I did the putting it together part. At our princess party, when asked where his princess costume was Grandpa said he was still in the frog stage. So for his card Faron transformed him from a frog into a prince.

Arianna is 3 months old!

Ari is growing a lot! She now rolls over a lot, and she even enjoys her tummy time these days! The cutest thing she does is all the cooing and talking that she does. If you talk straight to her she will coo right back for a long time, it is so sweet!

Trying to fall asleep on my bed


look at her holding her pacifier



cute little face!

Good enough

Every couple months I get this inkling that I need to make sure my priorities and my family priorities are right. Specifically in the material realm. I really desire to be minimalistic, and I think in some ways we do pretty well with that. But sometimes I look around and think, I am surrounded by stuff that doesn't matter. Any little thing my heart desires, I could get if I really wanted to (or really wanted to go into debt for), but do I really NEED any of it?

Do I want my kids to grow up looking for and collecting things, possessions? No, I want them to know what really matters. We try to keep it in check, we limit their toys, don't buy new clothes all the time, stuff like that, but is that enough? I don' think there is anything wrong with toys and things, but I think that my kids get stuff so often that they think that is what special occasions are all about, getting presents. I know that is normal, and natural, but I also want them to learn to appreciate family and friends, people and occasions, even when they don't come baring gifts.

We didn't get Isabella anything for her birthday. Faron and I decided that we would try to give her experiences in stead of presents. So we did lots of fun things, we ate at the Rainforest Cafe (and didn't buy any keepsakes), we went to the gymnastics thing, we made a birthday cake together, she had a fun party with lots of activities, etc. I always get to the edge of making a decision like that and then I start second guessing it. Will she grow up feeling deprived if she doesn't get a lot of stuff? Will they think, we don't have many toys like every body else does? Faron assures me that this is not the case, but you know moms, we are sure every decision we make will ruin our kids lives.

Anyway, I am on this kick again right now. I heard some statistics at church Sunday, you know the ones, we've all heard them before. America is rich, we have a very small percentage of the world's population, but we consume a much larger percentage of the world resources. Only 8% of the world's population owns cars... Like I said, I've heard it before, I know we are rich compared to the rest of the world, but it is like Rob Bell said, we get so caught up in our own world, that we start thinking that it is the whole world, but it is not.

So yes, we give money, we donate things, but could I do more? Do we need to spend the extra money to get organic food? Would regular, healthy, food be good enough? Could that extra money go to an orphanage in Haiti? I think we could eat regular food if it meant that a child in a third world country was going to get to eat, period.

Then that mom thing rises up again, thinking organic food would be so much better for my kids, you know, pesticides, and hormones, those are real things that are not good for you.

But when is good enough, good enough?

The Easter Song

I wanted to post this on Easter, but I couldn't get it to work. Well, I figured it out so, better late than never right? This is the song that we woke up to every Easter morning when I was a kid, and now my kids wake up to it.

Vera Needs

I got this off my friend Sara's blog and it was pretty fun. I did a google search on "Vera Needs" and these are the results (aside from the Aloe Vera results I waded through)

1. Vera needs no justification. Like all great art, the act of seeing is enough. (fabulous!)
2. Now Vera needs your help. We need to raise $1.5 million (I'll send you my address)
3. i have said it for a long time: vera needs to figure out how to be more self-sustainable. (I don't think this applies ;)
4. Vera needs to drop down to Light Heavyweight. (no comment)
5. Since Vera needs a reliable car, she asks her bank about auto loan rates. (I like my car, thanks though)
6. VERA needs to upgrade the. existing Mitaka correlator for domestic observations (I'll get right on that)
7. Vera needs to be put to eternal rest. (not yet please)
8. VERA needs to develop an effective. mechanism for gathering learning;. assimilating that learning and sharing. between projects (gotcha)
9. Vera needs to fight, (well, sometimes it just has to happen)
10. Vera needs to be down a few minutes (if that is lying down I'm all for it)
11. Vera needs to contact the relevant local sections for the Landmarks (this sounds too much like school for me)
12. all Vera needs is some warmth and acknowledgement (there you go, I think that sums it up)
13. Vera needs oxygen around her to fire ( I find that Oxygen is always a helpful resource.)
14. When Vera was ill, Frankie took care of her by doing her chores for her (thanks Frankie, come back over any time)
15. I mean, it’s not like Vera needs the money, right? ( I beg to differ)

Easter pictures

Finally got some updated pictures of the 4 of them, too bad Ari was in a bad mood, but they are cute anyway!




Coming soon to a baby fashion magazine near you...Alexander the stud

Birthday Party!!!

Yesterday was Isabella's birthday party! She had a princess party which was just lots of fun!


Part of the group of kids, the cousin part.



Here are the kids making thier first craft, a treasure box. They got to decorate them, and later when they found thier treasure they got to put it into the box.



The girls are wearing their second craft, the crowns. Each of the kids got to decorate thier crowns and wear them for the
rest of the party.



I just love Isabella's face in this picture.




Isabella's least favorite part of her birthday is the blowing out of the candles. All eyes are on her, and she is expected to do something. And she does not. We had all the kids blow out the candles together, it took the pressure off. I still don't think she blew even a little.



and here is the cake. I had to include this picture because I think the cake turned out well! It was fun to make, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull it off.



Opening presents...




and presents...




our treasure hunt! This turned out to be a lot of fun, but it was another thing I was wondering if I could pull off! All the kids were under 5 so I couldn't really make a map, or have written directions. I took pictures of various objects in our house and those were the clues. The had to find the real object that the picture was of, for example, the piano. So when they got the clue that was a picture of the piano they had to go to the piano, and there find thier next clue. It worked out well in the end and the kids really enjoyed it.




Thier final clue led them to this "chest" which contained the treasure, bags of candy.
This is our frined Michael getting his treasure. I think he enjoyed the treasure hunt the most! He was very into finding the next clue. Once he found his treasure he went back and did the hunt again.



Isabella's party was also the first time that my Grandad got to meet his newest great granddaughter, Arianna.

Isabella turns 5

Today was Isabella's 5th birthday! Yesterday Faron took us out to the Rainforest Cafe, which was lots of fun! The restraunt looks like a rainforest, with vines and trees and animals all over the place. Every once in a while there were some Elephants . Apes, and a lepoard that would start moving around and making noise. It was really a neat birthday dinner. I didn't take my camera in with us (gasp) so I only have pictures I took on Faron's phone and I have no idea how to download those, so that will have to wait.

So, today we took the day off of school and had a fun day. Faron took Isabella out for breakfasst, then she came home and opened a couple presents, one of which was a bath toy, so then she and Phia took a bath. After that we played outside for a while before we went off to our "special surprise". We went to open gym time at a gymnastics studio. The kids had SO much fun, they got to run around and play on all the equiptment. I had Arianna in the baby wrap and chased all the other kids all around for 2 hours! Alexander loved it, he could climb and jump and climb!


There was a smaller area where Alexander got to climb up this slanted rock climbing wall thing, then he got to jump into a pit of foam squares. I tried over and over to get a picture of him flinging himself into that pit, but he was too quick every time. He would run straight across the plateform and just bellyflop/free fall into that pit. I think it was his dream come true.



Isabella was so brave with all the climbing, I was surprised and very proud of her, she did so much! She swung from the rope, climbed across the course, and even dropped off the high bars into the foam pit!
This is her swinging off a plateform on the rope.


This is the bar that she climbed out onto and dropped into the foam pit. The first time she got up there to try I was terrified! I was very relieved when she got scared and came back down. But she went back up a few minutes later and I had to swollow my fear as much as she did! She got up there to try again and grabbed the bar. She was afraid to drop off, but at that point she had to and she did a great job. She hesitated for a second and then did it. After that she did it about a hundred time! You can't tell just how high it is in this picture, but it was a REALLY big drop.



This was the pit of foam she dropped into. Alexander's favorite part! After we got home he was still saying "blocks! blocks!"



Sophia stayed a little closer to the ground. She had lots of fun running around and playing with Alexander. She did get into the big foam pit, but she didn't jump off anything into it. She had fun on the trampoline, she did even swing on the rope once.



Here's her cake we made tonight, the big deal cake happens at her party.


Grammy and Pop stopped by tonight since they were in town and they brought Isabella this present. A prelude of presents to come.