3 week catch up

It's hard to believe it's been 3 weeks since I've last blogged.

My only excuse is that we've been busy.

Here are just a few pictures of what we've been up to lately.

Today was my 1st day working as a part time book keeper for a local mechanic shop. I loved it. There are a few things that I will have to learn how to do but for the most part it's what I've been doing for the past 5 years running the books of our own company. The biggest difference and best part between the 2 companies (the mechanics and oursleves) is that I'm getting paid for all my time and effort I put in at the mechanic shop. Kory is still working the night shift for the coal mine and will ask to continue to work nights so that he will be home while I work mid mornings to mid afternoons on monday and friday. I will be leaving for work about the time he wakes up and getting home before he has to leave. By working monday and fridays I still participate in our mother's preschool group and can still volunteer in my kids school classes.

The weather outside has been just beautiful.

We are loving this warmer weather and our roller skates/blades. Grandpa was a great sport at helping Emily on her skates.

Hunter is getting pretty quick on his blades. I have a pair of blades too and so Hunter's favorite thing is to race me up and down the long driveway. He wins most of the time. I guess I'm too scared I'm going to fall and scrape myself up so I don't go to fast.

Then we had preschool.

Our theme for the week was "shapes".

We made our very own shape book. We traced, colored and made a collage of all different kinds of shapes to put in our books.

This past week for the bigger kids they celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday. Each day they celebrated by doing something different. We had a pajama day, patriotic day, silly glasses day, dress as your favorite Dr. Seuss character (didn't do that this year but next time we'll be more prepared) and the kids favorite SILLY HAIR day.

There are some pretty cool ideas out there on the internet to do for Crazy Hair Day. However,I hate to purposely put knotts and tangles into anyones hair knowing how much it hurts brushing them out, Crazy hair day or not. This year Madelyn saw a picture of someone who had put pipe cleaners in their hair for crazy hair day. This was her request.

She loved it.

Hunter chose to do something BORING. All he let me do was spray his hair green with some hair paint we picked up after Halloween for this very purpose. I had purposely not cut his hair for a few weeks so we could have some length for this fun day. I had a few ideas but the one I wanted the most was to put his hair into a mohawk using tiny pony tails. But NOOOOO.... He wouldn't let me cause pony tails are for girls!

Despite the lack of creativity he was quite pleased with his Crazy Hair.

This past week our Elder's Qurom hosted a "Minute to Win It" activity.

We ate homeade chili and corn bread and played lots.

I don't remember the names of most of these events but you'll get the idea.

This is Madelyn flapping a pizza board to make a raw egg roll into a square on the floor.

This game was called "Bottom's Up".

There was a board tied to the hips of 2 contestants with a medal washer hanging down from the middle. Together they moved their hips to get the washer swinging back and forth to knock down a short row of empty cans.

Even Brayden and Emily got into this one.

Good job you two. You did it!

This guy did it!

He was able to stack 3 golf balls on top of each other and make them stay with no help. Apparently the table was crooked. When he tried to do it on the floor he got it so everyone else moved to the floor too. This is Kory and Emily concentrating on their balls.

This next one was Madelyn's favorite.

It was like a hour glass but with gum balls. It was a race to get all the gum balls into the bottom container the fastest.

And now is when my camera died! So we missed out on pictures of the rest of the events.

For instance I had to put an oreo cookie on my forehead and try to move it across my face into my mouth with no hands. Or the one of Kory wearing flippers. He had to put a tortilla on top of one of the swimming flippers (this he was wearing on his foot) and flip the tortilla into the air to catch it with a plate on top of his head. He had to catch 3 tortillas. He did it. He won!

We had a great time. We hope this activity becomes an annual event.

This is Emily being my model.

Next week Madelyn's 1st grade class is putting on a play. Madelyn is Mrs. Butterfly. She is soo excited about her line that she has to say and her song she gets to sing with Mr. Butterfly. When I asked her teacher what I could do to help the Butterfly's costumes were mentioned. So I volunteered to make both butterfly wings.

I stretched metal clothes hangars into the shape I wanted (mush harder than it seems), cut panty hose in half and hot glued around hagars and the spray painted them red. To hide the connectors we wrapped them in fuzzy green and red boa's.

Emily's hoping the wings don't get damaged and Madelyn will be able to bring them home after the play to keep for dress up.

Meet our very loved GG.

My grandma lives across the driveway and so periodically she walks over for a visit. My kids call her GG (great grandma).

This paticular day the girls were being goofy. What a great sport GG is!

So silly!

This next picture is not the best. The lighting could be much better and the girls hair is a mess.

BUT...

it is one we will treasure for many years to come.

GG is suffering from Dementia.

I hope my girls will remember the fun times they are having with their GG.

My sewing machine and I have been getting reaquainted.

A few years ago I started making my kids a special birthday shirt for them to wear on their birthdays. Sometimes it's just the number their turning, sometimes a flower and other times I take the time to be a little more creative and create something that they like in the "right now" moment.

In April Hunter turns 8. He keeps saying he doesn't want a "birthday" shirt. I keep telling him he's deprived as I've never made him one. Apparently he's too old for that kind of thing or maybe it's a boy thing as the girls don't seem to mind. In fact there quite the opposite. Maddie who will be turning 7 in June wants me to make her an early birthday shirt but can't make up her mind what she wants on it.

Brayden also turns "2" in April. He is so into pigs right now I couldn't not make him a piggy shirt. Brayden's cousin Jamie is 13 days younger. My sister and I wanted to throw a birthday bash together last year but do to distance we didn't. So we're going to do it this year instead. We're going with a "car" theme so I decided to make them matching shirts for their joint party.

April is going to be a busy month for us. Besides the 2 birthday's we have my younger brother, Elder Matthew Christensen. that will be returning home from his mission. It's crazy to think that when he left 2 of his sisters along with a sister in law were pregnant. Now 2 years later he's coming home to two little two year old boys, a 20 month old little girl and a 4 month old baby girl. The amount of grandkids have almost doubled since he's been gone.

As I've said we've been quite busy having fun. I hope the warm weather sticks around a little while so we can continue to spend some time outside. This week is our Spring Break. When I asked the kids what they wanted to do these are the replys, a play date, a fun messy project (apparently the more messy means the more fun), go to Zion's to hike, a fun messy project, a trip to the library, a fun messy project, some more roller blade races and a fun messy project. Apparently I've got some "fun messy projects" to come up with for this week. This just might give us some blog worthy projects to post about. Until then...