Mother's Day 2011

Day to Day

Carter is at the stage right now where he loves to look in the trash can for left-over "yummy" snacks. In general his objective has been to dig through the trash looking for a fruit snack wrapper and then hold it in front of my face making a whining noise, thus communicating that he wants some fruit snacks. He's also discovered a few times how to throw things away in the garbage (i.e. a shoe or other object). Hence the reason that the trash can now sits on top of a chair in my kitchen

My little man, Caleb, is in love with music. He loves to dance to it and listen to it. It's a great independent activity for him which I fully support. This day he was listening to a CD with all the 2011 Primary songs on them just laying down and singing along with all the songs. It was so cute, and I loved his sweet voice singing in the background while I was prepping dinner in the kitchen.

Zoo Field Trip

After spending all month learning about specific zoo animals, the children in my preschool class were so excited to see them all live. We didn't quite make it to all the animals we studied before everyone needed to head out, but we enjoyed what we saw. Now that I have a zoo membership, we will be frequenting the zoo quite a bit this next year.

Here are some monkeys and a lion. (Caleb's on the right.)

Most all of my preschool students (minus 3 girls) sporting their animal masks we made at preschool

Viewing the elephants

Caitlyn, Caleb, and Chloe on the carousel ride

Carter having fun riding and ostrich

Caleb and Dallin in a hippo's mouth

Caitlyn, Dallin, and Caleb daring to touch a rhino :o)

It's crazy to me that preschool is wrapping up at the end of this month. My sister and I have loved taking on this endeavor together and really enjoyed ourselves! We loved splitting the workload and bouncing ideas off each other. We will be teaching different age groups next year, so we're enjoying our last month of team-teaching.

Easter Fun

Caleb on the hunt for Easter eggs during our preschool egg hunt

Matt's mom made these beautiful Easter baskets for the kids and me. I thought this was such a clever idea for an Easter basket! Matt helped her with the beginning stages of wrapping the balloons with string, and he also filled the baskets with candy afterwards.

We got together Sunday night at my parent's house with all the cousins. Caleb, Drew and Dallin anxious to start the egg hunt.

Carter finding eggs too!

Caleb was very serious and very fast!

Watch out! This kid will plow you over to get to an egg! :o)

Carter finding an egg with Grandma's help

Jared, Sam, and Alex finding eggs

The hunt is over and candy is disappearing quickly from the eggs

Alex's cute smile

Dallin and his mommy

Drew with his mommy

Gavin enjoying playing with an egg. He didn't care what was inside.

Carter and Me

Matt didn't get a picture of Lindsey, but she was down this past weekend with her boyfriend Derrick. We enjoyed having them here and playing games and tennis with them. The kiddos all loved playing with Aunt Lindsey as well!

Warm Weather

When the weather warms up, it's time to play in the water. We went to some fountains in the area so the kids could run around in the water. Kids got wet and had fun while Mommies chatted in the sun (I went with my sister and a friend). Carter had fun exploring the water fountains.

Trying to figure out the water shooting out of the hole in the ground.

Caleb having fun.

Helping Carter get wet :o)

Fascination

Gavin, Ariane, Dallin, Caleb, and Samuel

Even though the kids are ready for summer (because summer = constant water fun), I'm enjoying the cooler mornings and nights. I think summer's heading our way though...

Helping Out

My younger sister is doing a school project where she and her partners are trying to see how many people they can get to view this video they created. She even featured me in her video! If you could take a moment to look at it, she'd appreciate the help!

Maybe One Day...

Caleb used to be very afraid of dogs, but recently he's started loving them. For about two weeks straight, Caleb asked every day if he could have a dog. He specifically wanted Brona, our next-door-neighbor's dog. Carter is very taken with dogs as well. As soon as we step outside the front door, he immediately grabs my hand and walks me over to the neighbor's fence where he expects me to lift him up (and hold him up indefinitely) so he can see Brona.

Matt and I have had several serious conversations about getting a dog. I LOVE dogs. I worked at a dog kennel all throughout high school and became very attached to some of the dogs that always frequented the kennel. We had a dog growing up when I lived in Utah. Periwinkle was *my* dog. She slept with me at night, and we were the best of buds. It was so difficult leaving her behind when we moved.

After a few discussions about getting a dog, we finally decided that the time is not right for now. Matt's biggest reason why we shouldn't ever get a dog is because I become too attached. There were a lot of other things...we couldn't make up our minds about small vs. large dog (I'd love a dog that could go running with me), outside vs. inside dog, we would want a dog that didn't shed hair, I'm trying to take good care of our 2-year-old couches and don't want a dog jumping on them, and cleaning up the backyard after a dog isn't necessarily appealing especially when I teach preschool and have kids playing in my backyard constantly. So to answer Caleb's constant question, maybe one day we'll get a dog. For now, our neighbor is kind enough to let us borrow his dog on occasion. We love it when Brona comes over to play!

Completely unrelated to dogs, we love our wisteria in the corner of our backyard. It has completely taken over all 4 corners of the fence. It only blooms for about 2 weeks in the year, so we had to take a picture of it before all the blooms left. (It also attracts a large number of bees and wasps for those two weeks!) It is green all spring and summer so it still looks nice, but we always look forward to the blooming.