Spring Break 2013

As Jason was talking to his brother Jared, a Spring Break plan started to form. 

Come down for a Jazz game..and a family BBQ..and Easter. 

Ok.

We left Thursday, after retrieving Rylee from her choir tour bus. She had been traveling back from San Fransisco, CA with her Cantus choir group all night. She had just spent 11+ hours on the bus and then got to spend 4+ hours more in our van. Luck her. She traveled through 5 states that day! :)

 Friday morning, we went to the Hill Aerospace Museum. 

Rylee-Taylee-Jordyn-Treyson-Jade-Colton

Abree-Emma-Carson

Lynley

We found the airplane that our Grandpa Smullin had worked on.

Inside there was all sorts of airplanes..and airplane history.

Rylee

Taylee

Treyson

Abree

A nice employee took our group aside and did fun experiments with the kids. They played with an electricity globe (can't remember the real name).

For the final experiment, he had the kids link pinkie fingers. He charged them up and then touched the electric globe. It sent a shock through the line, making the kids YELP and drop to their knees.

We ate a pizza lunch in a park, close to Grandpa Smullin and Uncle Fred's work. They came over and said Hi!

That evening, Jared had planned a family BBQ at Grandma/Grandpa Smullin's house. (Thanks Jared. That was awesome!) Everyone was there except Jeff/Amy and family. I jokingly called it the Cousin Party..and was so glad it was over with..not having to worry about it for this summer. They didn't go for it..guess the Cousin Party is still on at our house, this summer.  :)

After the BBQ, Teresa had planned a candy hunt. 

A candy hunt is the same as an egg hunt, but without having to fill hundreds of little plastic eggs...genius!!!

Cathy and I hid candy in the back yard for the big kids. While Teresa and company hid candy in the front yard for the younger kids.

Grandma Smullin and Frankie (their new dog).

Jessica-Catie-Ethel

Joshua

Lynley

Christian

Savannah

Jak

It was a fun day and so nice to be with everyone. 

Thanks everyone for hanging out with us!

PS- That night, Melissa, Juila and I went to the movie, "The Host". Melissa and I enjoyed it, but Julia was NOT impressed. 

Yay, for late-night girl time!

Maliah turns 4!

While Karen was on a work trip to LasVegas (and Tim was at work) we had their girls over. It was a day after Maliah's birthday, so we headed over to her house to party.

Audrey, Abree, Katelyn

Sydney & Maliah

We partied HELLO KITTY style.

  Isn't her cake sooo cute?

Good job Tawnya.

They crafted...

and crafted

..and had an egg hunt.

How old are you Mia?

HELLO KITTY slippers from her Daddy.

The girl's were having to much fun, I stayed and chatted with Tawnya for several hours. 

When serving cake and ice cream, I told the girl's that this was their lunch..I was sorta kidding, but not really. We had a VERY late lunch when we finally got back home..late as in almost dinner time. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweet Maliah!

Brace Face!

We had promised braces for Rylee's 16th birthday...and even did her first ortho consultation that very day. 

But HOLY SMOKES was I unprepared for the cost! 

To get the best deal and make the most informed decision, we decided to get several consultations (5 to be exact). I wanted to weigh the pros/cons, benefits and costs of each. I had saved up a good chunk of money for a down payment, but it didn't seem like enough, so we decided to wait for our tax return as well.

It was hard for Rylee to be patient. She was SO EXCITED to get them on!

The consultation process took weeks and a lot of getting out of school (poor kid), but it was good. By our 5th consult, we felt like experts..or that we could make a good decision about treatment at least. We narrowed it down to 2 doctors and had a final consult with each, about the nitty-gritty...money.

We had anticipated the cost of a cleaning, but had to pay for fillings and sealants too. Lucky us. (Another big bill I didn't think about when promising braces.)

After getting a recommendation from our dentist, we decided to go with Dr. Kelson. He was the one Rylee liked the very best and he was willing to work with us on cost. We paid in full, to avoid adding money to our already-tight monthly bottom-line. Whew!

It took 3+ months to get here... but here she is, all decked out in her new tin grin.

Here are "BEFORE" pictures...stay tuned for the "AFTER"(in approximately 20 months).

Moral of the story:  Assume it's going to cost you more than you think, expect there will be unexpected costs and 5 consultations is A LOT..you could probably get away with 4 and be just fine. :)

St. Patrick's Day

For my St. Patrick's decor, I was just going to flip over my heart banner and glue shamrocks onto the other side, but the shamrocks were a little bigger and hung over the edge. This would have been fine for St. Patrick's Day, but not for Valentine's Day. (I didn't want to see the edges of the shamrocks peeking out when showing the heart side). Sooo.. I cut up more book pages and made a separate banner.

Same idea, but if it ain't broke..don't try and fix it, right? :)

I truly feel BLESSED..not lucky.

I had a bunch of gold coins from different occasions (primary sharing time, Chinese New Year's party, etc.), so I incorporated them into the decor..you know, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can find the printable sign here.

My kids forgot to set out milk, so I guess the naughty leprechaun passed us by. No green milk here...which is fine with me. :) 

We celebrated Grandpa Waite's birthday that evening, with pies/treats galore.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Primary Beanbags

At the beginning of the year, my presidency and I decided to have a teacher in-service in Primary.

I wanted to give the teachers something they could use in their classes. Using some of the fabric I inherited from Grandma Ison, I decided to make beanbags. Lots and lots of beanbags. (I think I ended up making around 30!)

I also gave them a handout of ideas on how to use the beanbags during class time.

We can't thank our teachers enough. I hope they know how much we love and appreciate them. They make our Primary great!

FHE

An idea for a FHE had been stirring around in my head for weeks. I knew it would take a while, probably longer than a usual FHE, so when the kids had a Monday off of school we decided to do it.

When borrowing Karen's Cricut a while back, I cut each person's name out of colored cardstock. I also gathered a box full of magazines, glue and scissors and then we got to work.

We ripped, snipped and glued anything that we loved or represented us in some way.

My plan was to have a lesson about us being individual and unique children of God, but we ended up just sharing our posters and talking about why we chose what we chose. It was more fun, than spiritual, but still worth the time and effort.

We also noticed that the placement of our pictures kinda matched our personalities as well... random and scattered or lined up and planned out. 

Jason and I shared a posterboard...we had to be creative and edit quite a bit to make everything fit.

I'd like to have a follow up FHE or do something with our posters. Any suggestions?