The school year is winding down, now, with only days left to go.  Leiden's grade took a walking field trip to a local park, today, and parents were invited to join in.  Leiden definitely wanted me to come, so we joined up with them and walked to the park.  The other girls got to play, too, and were even so lucky as to get popsicles when the teachers had some extra.

The luau is tomorrow, so I made cupcakes today and frosted them this evening.  Add cute little cocktail umbrellas, and we've got some awesome treats! 

Tomorrow is a big day...Gavin gets baptized in the morning, in addition to Leiden's party in the afternoon.  Busy day!

Pudding Pops!

Made pudding pops today.  I was going to make good old chocolate ones, but when I went to the store, they had strawberry pudding, which I've never seen before!  Had to try it.  When I filled the popsicle mold, I tasted a bit, and it tastes just like strawberry milk.  Yum!

Preparations

Spent some time at the shop today, spray painting and assembling things for the upcoming baptism party.  It's a rainy day, and Mimi had a great time jumping the puddles outside the bay door.

I got this idea from a blog...found an old chandelier on KSL, removed electrical bits, and add wooden discs to each of the arms for a giant cupcake stand.  Next up is spray painting.

Not only is the baptism coming up, but this Saturday is Leiden's friend birthday party.  Today I cut what seemed like billions of tulle squares that will be used to decorate flip flops.

Plans are coming along...will we be ready in time?!

Medium Well

Fired up the grill...literally...today for steaks!  We made the critical mistake of not turning the heat down from high after the meat was on there.  Realized it a little bit late, and there was quite the conflagration under the hood!  I love Madison holding the spray bottle.  It's very funny.

8 is Great!

We started a bit of a new tradition this birthday...make a face pancakes for breakfast!  The kids love them at IHOP, so I thought we'd try it.  Giant pancakes are harder to cook than you would think!  Flipping them is the part that gets you in trouble.

There were blueberries, yogurt, whipped cream, bananas, chocolate chips, and giant pancakes. 

Mimi's didn't even remotely resemble a face, but she had fun. 

After breakfast came presents. 

 

My parents got her a new bigger bike.  Her little knees were knocking the handlebars of the old one.  I managed to catch her face just as she saw the bike. 

She is very excited, although when she tried it she realized she's going to need a little practice to get used to it being bigger than the old one. 

This little girl is 8! 

She left this afternoon to go with her dad to Grandma's house, where there was a party and more presents!  She got clothes, a nice acrylic paint set with canvases, a scooter, and more.  The girls are heading down to Moab with their dad this weekend for a little trip.

Happy Birthday Leiden!  I can't believe it's been 8 years!

We were invited to a little friend's birthday party, where we played lawn games.  Mimi was just as big as the 5 year olds.

The spinach is growing!  I am very excited about this.  I plan to use them all for delicious salads and smoothies. 

And finally, today, this little one only has one more night of being 7.  She is so sweet, and is very excited about her birthday tomorrow! 

Mac's Last Day of Preschool--Ever!

It's Mac's last day of school!  She has LOVED being able to go to school here, and tells Mimi all the time about 'their' school.  Mimi is so excited to attend in the fall.  So, it's her last day, and what do I decide to do at the last minute?  (And by last minute I mean the morning of...)  I decided to have Mac take little goodbye treats to school for her teachers and all the kids.  Yeah.  So we raced to the store, got gummi worms, and I quickly printed out these little labels.

She's very excited to hand them out.  She wrote her name on all of them, and put all the gummi worms in the bags. 

She had a little circus show at school that I was unable to attend...her class were the monkeys in the circus.  So cute.  When we picked her up the teachers gave her a balloon.  Miss Dee was dressed up like a clown for the kids.  What a send off!  And for Mac, it's summer!

My visiting teachers came this morning, and they were so kind and brought bubbles and wands for all three girls, as well as a treat for me!  The girls were thrilled at the butterfly wands. 

Even Mimi was able to make them work. 

That is, until she poured out about 3/4 of the jug onto the court.  Sigh.

Mac took the speed approach.  She usually does. 

Mac gave this card to Leiden, today.  It says 'Happy Birthday'.  Significant in that it's the first time Mac has written anything but her name without asking for help. 

Writing

Mac has been showing a lot more interest in writing this last while.  She wanted to do some practice, so I asked her what she wanted to write, wrote it down on a separate sheet, and she 'copied' the letters. 

I asked her to write a simple set of words without help...Mac the cat.

She's doing well, and we'll work on this this summer before Kindergarten.

Mimi and I went to a store today to look at dresses for me to wear to the baptism in a couple weeks.  She needed to use the bathroom while we were there.  We went to get the key from the front desk, and they handed us this monster!  She wanted to carry it and see if it would fit in the lock.  She also wanted to wear my sunglasses.  In the store.

The older two were happy this afternoon to create cages for their heads.  They figured it was the best option to use the giant collapsible ball.  While it's big, stick your head in, and then let it collapse around it. 

Perfect. 

Mimi was enthralled with the function on my phone that allows you to take pictures from both the front and the back.  Self portraiture is much more simple.  So are silly faces.

You're Invited to a Luau!

Leiden has a birthday coming up, and that means a party coming up!  She has several little friends from school she wants to invite, and there are three little girls from church that are on the guest list.  Today after church Leiden filled out all her little invitations.  They are so cute.

Then we went on a quick little delivery trip to the kids in the ward.  And then it started raining. 

We still had two invitations to walk to houses, so we got pretty wet.  But it was nice to get out and move around...even if it was raining. 

Leiden's party is going to be very fun.  Little girls in grass skirts, making leis and decorating flip-flops.  Super fun!

Pierced Ears!

The big day!  Ear Piercing day!  She's been looking forward to it for months.  Once there, she was a little nervous.  The big chair made it all so real!

The marking of the spots on her ears.  Took some working it.  Finally got them looking right.

And the first one is done!  There were a few tears, but she wanted to do the second one!

And we are newly pierced!  She's a little shaky, emotionally, not sure if she's really going to like this, but smiling.

And now we're off to Gavin and Max's birthday party!  I totally miscalculated timing, so in addition to purchasing presents, I also had to purchase wrapping paper, tape, and scissors.  Then I had to wrap them in the back of the car.  So organized.

The girls were excited to try pale orange cauliflower with dinner tonight.  I've also seen purple and green, but they chose orange.  Fun.

Library

Leiden has been wanting to go to the library and see the see-through elevators.  We went this morning and she got to check them out.

Mac and I read together and made silly faces together.  (This is one of many pictures.) 

And then the girls picked out books.  Way more books than I wanted to take home.  So we narrowed it down and called it a day.  I'm glad they love books.  Mimi went through a long period where she just wasn't interested in sitting on my lap with a book, and now she loves to read stories.  She's starting to learn her letters, and is happy to tell anyone who will listen that her name is spelled, M-I-M-I.  Yay!

Sweet little Mac made this darling little mixed media drawing today.  She found some little plastic stakes that you label plants with, colored them like flower petals, then glued them to a drawing.

She's a sweet one.

Mimi always puts safety first.  Even while eating lunch.

Mac was SO proud after school today.  She passed off all her letters and numbers, upper and lower case, and was then declared an alphabet star.  Crown and all. 

Only kind of a hot day...not hot enough for sprinklers, in my opinion, but then I'm not the one running in them.  The grass in the yard up here is vicious, though.  So the girls put on socks to run through the sprinklers.  My idea, actually, and it was pretty funny.  Mac prefers her knee length crews. 

Mimi goes in for ankle socks.  Really funny. 

We couldn't get her to stop fiddling with the sprinkler, though.  I'll need to find a simple 'flower' sprinkler with no moving parts.

Funny little girls and their funny little quirks.