Ashlie's Open House

Last night was open house for Ashlie! She was kind of sad because Sari was at Scicon (an outdoor school of science 6th graders go to for 5 days), Craig had to work and then had his final for class, so it was just Tyler, Ashlie, and I! So off we went with camera in hand to document all of her hard work.

This is a picture of Ashlie standing in front of her 3d shapes.

This is a picture of Ashlie's Ravioli's.













Ashlie wrote a poem/story about herself!












Here is her story :)











More school work!












Tyler posing in front of Ashlie's school work :)












Ashlie had to do a report/project on an endangered species. She chose the jaguar.












Ashlie's watch!

Sari's Music Festival

I'm an awful mom and I forgot the camera at home :( Doesn't that irritate you when you do silly things like that? So Sari had her music festival last night. She's been working on it for several weeks during music class in school. Evidently our school district is one out of only a small handful of districts in the state of CA that do a music festival for the primary grades each year. This was Sari's third year and she sure had fun. They did a small portion of probably about 20 different songs from the 90's complete with dance moves and singing. Along with all of the singing and dancing the elementary school band played and the junior high band played as well as the choir from the junior high. Sari's group was the only group of the night to get a standing ovation and they deserved it! The best part was the kids were smiling and laughing the whole performance!!! You could tell they were having sooo much fun! Good job Sari!!!

T-Ball

Tyler is playing T-Ball!!! I guess I still didn't have enough on my plate so I decided it would be fun to sign Tyler up for T-ball! Actually, it's kind of silly but ever since I found out I was pregnant with Tyler and that he was a boy I have been waiting for him to play sports. The girls have never really been that into baseball or football. Ash played baseball one year but that was it. So I've been excited for Tyler to start doing it. So, we made it to T-ball. He isn't entirely sure about playing yet. He seems to have a good time. The hardest part though is the fact that we discovered he is left handed. It took me almost 2 weeks to find the right size glove for him. I was beginning to think he was the only left handed 3 year old that ever wanted to play baseball. So, now we have the glove and we are set. We bought a little tee for home so that we can practice his batting. He does just about as well as every other 3 year old out there. There games are so funny. Usually, after they bat and they are supposed to be running to first base, they run after their ball instead. I just roll laughing at how cute they all are. There is a lot of parent participation at this age. We go out on the field with him every inning and tell him what to do. He's starting to really catch on now though, when they hit the ball, run fast and get it. The very first ball of the first inning of the first game of the season, the kids all dog piled trying to get to the ball and the bottom kid came up with a bloody nose. I thought this was a no-contact sport??? So Tyler has been having lots of fun. He gets kind of irritated with his hat though because it messes up his spiky hair. Who does that remind you of???

Track Season

So Ashlie decided she wanted to go out for the track team!!! I guess she thought I had too much spare time :) I'm glad she wants to do all of these different activities. I like that she enjoys being active and learning new things. At this point I'm letting her do most of the things she wants, I think that by letting her try out a few different things she'll be able to pick one or two things that she enjoys the most and then we can just focus on those. At least that is what I'm hoping for :) So for about the past 6 weeks she's been practicing and she's had two meets so far. She has competed in the 400 meter dash, the 1600 meter, and the long jump. She has had a great time and this has really made her push herself further than she thought she could go. The first time she ran the 1600 she came in last place. She was very tired and by the end she thought she was going to die, she was crying as she crossed the finish line! We told her how proud of her we were and what a good job she did! As we watched the next group of kids (5th & 6th graders) run the 1600 meter we realized that about 1/4 of the kids quit the race on their 3rd time around. They never even finished it. So we really tried to reinforce that even though she came in last she finished it and that was important! So her second track meet she competed in the 1600 again. At the end of this race she still thought she was going to die, she still came across the finish line crying, but this time she wasn't last!!! She was next to last :) She still has one more track meet to go this Friday night. It was supposed to be last week but we got rained out. So, one more chance to see what she has in her :) I don't know if she is going to go out for track next year :)

A Name Change

I forgot to mention something in the previous Disneyland post. The Thursday morning we were at Disneyland Tyler woke up and decided he would like to change his name. Normally when Tyler changes his name he changes it to Sirductor. Interesting I know :) He came upon that name because the Conductors name on Thomas is Sir Topham Hatt. So he puts Sir and Conductor together and comes up with Sirductor. So we are accustomed to calling him Sirductor at times instead of Tyler. However, Thursday morning Sirductor would not do. He changed his name to "Water"! Yep, that's right, Water. He would respond to nothing other than Water. And if we tried calling him a different name he would remind us his name was Water, or else he just wouldn't respond until we called him Water and then he was very attentive. That actually lasted most of the day and it wasn't until late afternoon that he decided he would go back to Sirductor. We just had to chuckle! How in the world did he come up with Water?!?

Easter

We got back from Disneyland just in time for Easter. The Easter Bunny must have known that we were tired from Disneyland because he decided to keep things easy and small. On Saturday night the Ashlie and Tyler decorated eggs. Sari decided this year that she was too old to decorate eggs and so she was in charge of the camera. She was not however to old for an Easter Basket :)

We had a wonderful Easter morning. The kids woke to Easter Baskets with a bit of candy. Thank goodness there wasn't too much in there because Tyler ate all of his for breakfast. The Easter Bunny has made it tradition to also leave them each a new toothbrush. After Tyler had eaten all of his candy he took all of the plastic Easter Eggs the Easter Bunny had given him and stacked them all together and created a "Stripey Butterfly". We included a picture. He kept it long enough to even show Grandma the next day.

The previous week during Family Night we had a lesson on Easter and the Resurrection. The girls seemed to really enjoy the lesson. Tyler pretty much enjoys causing disruption during our lessons so it was nice that they were still able to get something out of it.

After church we went over to my sister's house for an Easter Dinner with the family. After eat way too much yummy food we had an Easter Egg hung. Sari once again was too old to do the hunting but was thrilled to do the hiding. Papa had helped with the egg coloring at our house and had made a special egg that was worth $5 to whomever found it! Ashlie spotted the egg first and received the $5 prize! Tyler just enjoyed running around grabbing the eggs and chucking them (literally) into his basket. Ashlie ended up with 26 eggs and Tyler ended up with 24 cracked eggs. They all had a good time.

I was thankful that we were able to remember Christ during the Easter season. Unfortunately, Easter is becoming a lot like the retailer's Christmas season. There are a ton of different Easter Egg hunts and spending crazy amounts of money on Easter Baskets. I think it is so sad that most people don't even get the reason why we celebrate Easter. It is just another way to celebrate and spend money. I am thankful that I was able to help celebrate Easter this year with my family in a way that honored Christ and all that he has done for us and for me.

Our Disneyland Trip

During the week of Spring Break we snuck out of town for a couple of days and headed to Disneyland. We had so much fun. The girls have been several times and so they had their rides all mapped out before we even got there. Tyler was there about a year ago but he didn't really remember the magic of Disneyland.

Even if you have never been to Disneyland I am sure you can relate to the long lines, demanding people, and those who feel like they are entitled to something better than the rest of us. I find that I get frustrated easily at these types of people, then my family suffers through my frustration. So I decided this time around was going to be different. We were going for no other reason than to have fun. We were on no time schedules, we went with just our immediate family so we had no other schedules to conform to, and there was no set agenda we had to adhere to. I decided that I was going to have a good time regardless of what the rest of the Disneyland population was doing. And it worked! We all had a great time :) Craig helped by designating each day to a different theme, like one day was the day of love, another the day of kindness. We had to make sure that everything we did or said followed that days theme. It really helped keep us from getting grumpy when we got tired or bored from standing in line.









Ashlie discovered roller coasters this year. She had gone on a couple last year but wasn't quite sure if she really liked it or not. Well this year was entirely different! Even Sari bailed out of going on Tower of Terror but not Ashlie! She went on it and loved it! She hit every roller coaster there was and a couple of them she got to do twice. It was so cute to see her so grown up. Sari still loved the roller coasters but she was a little more cautious. Tyler loved the trains. I bet you couldn't guess that could you :) Everywhere we went in Disneyland we caught the train to do it. Even if it was closer to walk we would go back to the train station and ride the train. He was a little upset because he wanted to ride Thunder Mountain Railroad but was too short. We had hoped that he would meet the height requirement of 40" because the majority of the rides have that as their minimum. But his head just slid under the mark. We even tried spiking his hair just a bit straighter but they said spikey hair didn't count! Oh well, Craig and I took turns with the girls and Tyler. It all worked out and we all had lots of fun. And there were several rides we still all got to do together.









Usually when we go to Disneyland we spend all of our time riding rides. This time though we took some time and went to some of the shows. The first night we made a point to get a good spot on Main Street and watch the firework show. We always see them but we rarely make a point to actually watch the whole show. It was really good and the girls loved Tinkerbell. The second day we hit two different shows. First we went and saw 3D Muppet Show. They gave us all 3D glasses to wear and Tyler wasn't too sure about that. He watched the first couple of minutes without them on and then I kind of forced them on his head and he was amazed. He watched the majority of it with them on. Occasionally he would take them off and look around and then put them back on. At the end of the show it looks like they blew a hole in the side of the building. All the way out of the auditorium Tyler kept saying that they needed to fix the building. After the Muppet Show we went and watched a production of Aladdin! Wow! That was amazing. If you make it to Disneyland while they are doing it you should definitely see it! Tyler was completely captivated which says a lot! And the girls were going crazy. Sari loved the personality of the Genie and of course Ashlie loved Jasmine!













We all had a great time. We upgraded out tickets to an annual pass so we are already scheduling our next trip. Here are a few pictures. Between Craig, Sari, and me we had tons of pictures so here are just a few of the better ones.

Catching Up!!!

So it doesn't really seem like it has been THAT long since I last posted but so much fun stuff has happened. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of much of it so I just stuck a couple of older pictures on just for fun.

The last week of March Craig's parents made a trip from Idaho out to see us. We had soooo much fun!!! We ate at In-N-Out for lunch 3 different times :) We spent time at the mall, reading, napping, and of course Facebooking! Jeri and I also made it to get a pedicure! Very fun stuff! Ashlie was so excited to Grandma & Grandpa she could hardly wait. She had been counting down the days for almost 3 weeks. Tyler taught Grandpa how to play trains so they had lots of fun together! This is a picture of Grandma & Grandpa with the kids last summer when we went to Idaho.

While Grandma & Grandpa were here visiting Sari got an award at the school assembly. Her award was in Language Arts! It was probably one of the most pleasant school assemblies I've been to in a while. That would be because Grandma & Grandpa stayed home with Tyler and Craig and I got to go by ourselves :)

It was amazing how quickly our time passed with Grandma & Grandpa here. Before we knew it, it was time to take them back to the airport and say goodbye! We were sad to see them go so soon but we know we get to see them in just a couple of months. Craig was able to take several days off while his parents were here so it was really nice to actually be able to relax a little and enjoy each others company too! However, with the house back to ourselves our regular routine quickly took over once again and everyone was back to work and school and all of the other wonderful things we do each day.

On Friday, Tyler's preschool took a field trip to the zoo! We were learning about the letter "z" and what better way than a trip to the zoo. He loved seeing all of the different animals but his favorite was the Lemur. You are probably wondering why in the world he liked the lemurs!!! He has discovered the show Zaboomafoo on Sprout TV and one of the main characters is a lemur named Zaboo! Tyler instantly spotted Zaboo the lemur at the zoo and ran crazy for several minutes all around the lemur area screaming about Zaboo. The trip was made completely worthwhile with this one exhibit :)

After we made it back from the zoo, Ashlie had her first track meet of the season. She decided about 2 months ago to join the track team at school and so she has been practicing for quite some time. Our school was hosting so I went to help be a timer. Being our first track meet, neither of us had any idea how intense this was going to be. Luckily I had decided it best to leave Sari & Tyler at home since Craig was working. I couldn't even keep up with Ashlie and her events let alone try to watch Tyler & Sari too. Luckily Craig was able to come over after he got work and helped with Ashlie. Ashlie competed in the 100 meter dash, the long jump, and the 1600 meter run. She did very well in both the 100 meter dash and the long jump. The 1600 meter run was a bit more difficult for her! All of the kids went off to quickly in this run and they soon started paying for it! Ashlie came in last in the race however, she did finish it! In the older group some of the kids quit before they even finished the race! We were very proud of her and her willingness to give it everything she had! She was a great sport!!! She is already gearing up for her next track meet in 2 weeks!

So besides all of our many comings and goings we do sometimes stay at home! Sometimes!!! Over the past few days Tyler has made a few little funny comments I've been chuckling about so I thought I would share. One day this past week Craig, Tyler, & I were out and about running some errands and while we were driving around we turned down a street that Tyler didn't think we should go down and so he told me, "You're going down the wrong aisle! This is not the right aisle to go down!" So funny, I had not heard him use that term before but Craig said that he says it quite often. So now I am on the look out for him to use that phrase. When he plays with his trains he always says, "They applied the brakes!" So funny, what 3 years old talks about applying the brakes??? And then just tonight, of course while playing trains he says, "They went through a beautiful meadow!" I was just waiting for him to say they applied their brakes in the beautiful meadow!!!

Kids are so funny!!! So now I find myself constantly listening to every word to see what funny new phrases he'll come up with :)

Another fun conversation I got to have was with Sari. After watching the 2nd session of conference I asked her what was one thing that she had learned from conference so far? She thought for a few minutes so I told her about one of the talks that had stood out to me. He said, "We do all of these wonderful fun activities with our kids all of the time but if we don't teach them about faith and how to gain a testimony then we have failed." That really made me think because we do tons of stuff, but am I teaching them enough about building a testimony and having faith? So then Sari told me that she had been really touched by the talk about living your life so that you can return to your Heavenly Father and see all of your family. Then she told me, "There is so much in my life that I could differently so that I could return to Heavenly Father. Like, I don't HAVE to fight with Ashlie as much as I do!" So cute, just like she forces herself to fight with Ashlie because that is her job or something. It made me feel really good to know that she had gotten so much out of it and that maybe I am doing something right with my kids.

Sari's Science Fair Project

This last week was the Tulare County Science Fair. Sari's project had been picked as 1 of 3 from her school to compete at the county level. We had to do some more work to fix her project up since we discovered that glue stick and elmers glue do not stick very well to vinyl :) She did her project on how much lemon juice it would take to keep her sliced apple from turning brown. The original project took about 10 hours to complete and then we put in another 6 hours getting it ready for the county competition. We found out this week that she did not make it to state but neither of us are too saddened by that :) She had a lot of fun and learned some too! This is a picture of her with her project and the ribbons she got from competing at the county level.

The Rockin' Party

So Sari had a blast at her birthday party. She was a little tired after playing in the snow all morning but after a shower and a little bit of rest she was ready to go! Her request for dinner was hot dogs (I really don't know why!) so we got some chili and cheese and did chili dogs! Evidently other people like chili dogs because 60 hot dogs were inhaled in about 10 minutes :) After we ate we played some Rock Band with every one getting a turn. Only 3 can play at a time so we had a waiting list most of the time.

After we played Rock Band for a while we took a break and opened presents. Sari was spoiled as usual and ended up with lots of fun goodies and quite a bit of cash to go shopping with! I'm wondering what she is going to purchase??? The last present she opened was from us, we got her another guitar for Rock Band so 4 people can play at a time. It is very cool pink with black skulls and in the shape of a heart!

After presents we did cake and ice cream. We tricked her with magical relighting candles :) That was fun watching her try to get the candles to stay out. Everyone wanted to eat one of the people off the cake. Most everyone liked the fondant but there were a couple who didn't really like it. After they were done eating they went back to Rock Band this time with 4 instruments going and had a blast. Here are some pictures of her opening presents, the cake, and a video of some of the Rock Stars :)

She had lots of fun partying and now is ready for bed! Thank goodness you only turn 12 once :)

Happy 12th Birthday Sari!!!

Today is Sari's 12th birthday! It is so hard for me to believe that she is 12 already. The number 12 birthday is big for us because it means that Sari now gets to participate in all of the youth activities in Young Women's instead of being in primary with all of the children. It's a little scary for me to let her go be with all of the big girls but I know she will do well. This post is a tribute to Sari :)

Sari came to this world 2 weeks early weighing in at a teeny 5lbs 13ozs. I had been very sick throughout my entire pregnancy with her and her low birth weight was a result of that. That didn't hold her down though, she quickly began gaining weight and by her 2 month checkup was already in the 95th percentile in weight and height. Sari was the sweetest little baby. I didn't realize how good she was until Ashlie came along :) I learned very quickly how well tempered Sari had been. She developed a stranger phobia very early (about 4 months old) and wouldn't let hardly anyone near her except Craig and I, my parents, and my sister. (We had moved to California by then.) That only lasted a few months and then she began to be a little more pleasant with strangers.

Sari grew, and grew, and grew some more :) Sari has always been big for her age and because of that many people expected her to act older (including us at times). We would have to remind ourselves, she is only 2 or 3 or whatever, we can't expect her to act like a 5 or 6 year old even though she looks that big. Sari was always happy and loved to watch tv. Her favorites were Barney and Teletubbies. Ugh!!! We got soooo tired of those shows! For her 2nd birthday we even hired Barney himself to come to the party and she loved that.

Sari is an excellent student in school. Her teachers have always raved about her and how good she does and how sweet she is. We recently found out that her Science Fair Project was selected to be judged in the County Science Fair in one week. We are very pleased that she worked so hard and did such a good job to be chosen. There were only 3 projects selected from her school to go. She is a kind friend and loves to please others. She has always been a leader with her peers looking up to her. Sari is a great example to follow and helps keep us on the straight and narrow. She always makes good choices and is kind to others.

Sari's hobbies include horse back riding, reading, swimming, playing Rock Band, and watching tv. We recently got her started in riding lessons which she dearly loves. She also plays the piano (she's in her 5th year) and is doing great. We love to listen to her play.

If we were to pick one word to describe Sari it would be "sweet". Sari is a sweetheart and we are so blessed to have her in our family. Of course she is the typical pre-teen girl with her typical attitude, but we wouldn't trade her for the world. We love having her in our home and love the spirit she carries with her. We love to give her kisses and hugs and call her Sari-bo-Bari or Banana Fana, which she is liking less and less :( Can you guess where her nickname came from??? Sari Sari bo bari, banana fana fo fairi, me mi mo mari, Sari!!! That is our most favorite theme song of our family :)

So our Sari is 12 and has already ditched us for the Young Women's! She was invited to attend the snow trip that just so happened to land on her birthday :) What a lucky girl! So she should be home pretty soon, just in time to shower and get ready for a Rockin' party (we're doing RockBand). So to our Sari, we love you and are so happy you are part of our family :) Happy 12th Birthday!

Awards Assembly

Last Friday I went to the girls awards assemblies. Ashlie got her award for being more self motivated to get her assignments turned in both during class and at home. Ashlie has always been an excellent student but this year she is in a 3rd-4th combo and she is a 3rd grader, so she has had to be a lot more self motivated to get her assignments completed and that has taken some discipline on her part. She is doing great in school and loves her teacher. Sari was recognized as Student of the Month. In some school they have 2 or 3 per month from each class so that each child gets an opportunity to be student of the month, but at Mineral King only 1 child per class is selected so it really is an honor to be chosen as Student of the Month. Sari got to go to breakfast with her teacher and the other 5th & 6th grade Student of the Month's on Friday morning before school started. She also was recognized at the assembly for her Science Fair Project and received a 2nd place Ribbon. Her project was on "How Much Lemon Juice Do I Need to Keep 5 Apple Slices From Turning Brown". She worked very hard on her project and as a result it has been selected to compete in the Tulare County Science Fair! We are very proud of her and her hard work. The Science Fair is in a couple of weeks so we'll post pictures of the project and awards for all to see. We are very proud of both of our girls and their dedication to education and learning.