Alex-isms

Sometimes he just says the funniest things, like:

"Does anyone wants some vitamin C in their face?" (his hands were covered in orange juice)

"We need to be careful when crossing the street or a car will hit us in the head. Then we'll have to get a band-aid."

Mommy asked "Alex, do you want to go to the game with Daddy and Zach or play dress-up with the girls?"
Alex replied, "Stay with the girls...they'll need a prince."

He also always says he's going to "pop his nickles", loves to eat "broccomoli" (guacamole), and also loves to ring the "dingy-ding dong" (door bell). Gotta love that kid!

If I had a billion dollars, I would:

We started a "dinner jar" a couple of months ago and the kids LOVE picking questions out of it every night while we eat. Here's the question of the night:

Zachary:
1. Become an FBI agent.
2. Go to Hawaii with my family.
3. Buy a Wii and every Lego set ever made.
4. Give $100 to the church. (He's so generous!)
5. Buy a cherry red corvette.

Camilla:
1. Buy a Wii.
2. Buy a D.S.
3. Give enough money to build temples wherever people need one.
4. Buy food storage. (Maybe I've been over-emphasizing this?!?)

Alex:
1. Buy a huge nerf gun.
2. Buy a dump truck for every one in my family. (You just can't ever have too many of those, right?!)
3. Buy a big trampoline.

Emma:
1. Pay for a maid, a cook, a shuttle driver, a gardener, and anything else my mommy needs so that she can devote every waking minute to me! (she didn't actually say that, but we all knew what she was thinking...)

Preschool Trip to the Farm

One of the moms set up a fun interactive trip to a nearby farm this week. And this was definitely the best time of the year to go...they saw the piglets, baby chicks, calves (they LOVED watching them drink from their bottles), and lambs. Emma was so excited about the animals, she had to have her face pressed up against everything to get as close as possible. Equally as exciting as the animals was a puddle she found with her little friend!

Lemons Galore

We brought back lemons from our trip and a friend brought up back even more lemons from her trip...so, it's been lemons galore at our house! Lemon bars, lemon cookies, lemon pasta, lemonade, etc. My mom explained that we could just juice them and freeze the juice so we didn't feel obligated to go overboard all at once...probably a good idea! But with faces like that, going overboard can't be too bad of a thing, right?!?

Over-ambitious

For our Primary Activitywe planned an afternoon for the children to explore some new talents. We offered classes in: baking, art, karate, magic, crochet, and sign language. I was teaching how to make pretzels in one of the baking classes and thought it would be a great idea to make enough homemade pretzels for all the children and the teachers (note: I had never actually made pretzels before...). After making five dozen pretzels I decided it wasn't all that great of an idea! But I've acquired a new talent...I can make a dozen homemade pretzels in less than 30 min. That's got to be some sort of record, right?

My Jogging Buddies

I used to love exercising by myself - it was my time to be alone and think and I LOVED it! But these days, I'm lucky to have a few minutes in morning to read and pray by myself before the kids come and snuggle up with me on the couch (which is not actually a bad thing!). So, recently I've started exercising with the little kids after the big kids leave for school. And I LOVE it even more than by myself! They are quite the two-some!

The Backyard Massacre

I suggested to Noall that if we cut off a few lower branches from the trees in our backyard that we might get some more sun and I wouldn't CONSTANTLY be sweeping leaves off the path. Here's what was left of the trees...I think Noall had a little too much fun with the saw!

What did we do for the REST of Spring Break???

Hang out with friends at the beach, gobble up fresh food from the Farmer's Market (Emma is a huge fan of the peas), watch movies, drink milk (yes...this is random, but even more random is the fact that this is POWDERED milk. Zach has recently decided that he LOVES powdered milk so much that every couple of days he make a new pitcher of it to drink),and read some great books (how much do I LOVE watching my kids read spontaneously, all together, on my bed?!?!). Party's over tomorrow, though...it's back to school! Can you tell that Emma has started posing for pictures? The one with the peas is too funny!

Last stop...

We broke up the travel home by spending the night in Bakersfield and visiting the Tar Pits outside of Los Angeles. Very Cool!

EASTER!

Next stop...Grandma and Grandpa's! We loved visiting with everyone, playing with cousins, watching conference, coloring eggs, hunting for eggs, and (of course) wearing Grandma's Christmas antlers!

Visiting Friends

We decided to take advantage of our friend's moving to Monterrey and spent a couple of days at their house. All the kids PLAYED and PLAYED and PLAYED!!! We had fun hiking around at Pinnacles National Monument and just hanging out! The highlights of the hike for the kids were the HUGE pine cones and beautiful wildflowers (and, of course, the going through cave that required flashlights)!

Driving along the coast...

Noall planned a pit stop along the way Madonna Inn. Although it has a lot of interesting history and innovative guest rooms, what it's most famous for are the urinals in the men's bathroom. Zach's standing in front of it...kind of like a small little cave. A waterfall comes down over the upper ledge that is "motion-activated". Nice, huh?