I think this might be encouraging the behavior....

Oh yes, she did it again.

♪♫Everything Today is Thoroughly Modern!♪♫

I have always wanted to go out to Starlight Mountain Theater, and when my friends Maria and Shannon told me they were showing Thoroughly Modern Millie, we knew we had to go. I grew up with the movie and love it, and I guess forced my friends to see at least parts of it in high school, so it became a running joke among us.

We made the hour or so drive up to Garden Valley with the help of Maria's Norwegian-speaking GPS and found a huge sign with the theater's name. We saw the will call booth right off and picked up our tickets and since the GPS showed the theater still a short distance away, we climbed back into the car and took off, pleased with ourselves for arriving early...only to discover that there was soon no sign of civilization (although there was a sign for "neat stuff"). We eventually turned around despite being yelled at in Norwegian by the GPS (and just for the record, there is nothing more creepy than a robotic woman's voice commanding you to turn around in Norwegian) and ended up right at the ticket booth. Then we saw the cars parked about 50 feet down and a theater. We ended up being 20 minutes late. Woops. Fortunately, we usually find ourselves far more entertaining than anything else around us, so we don't feel we missed out on anything. We did have to get a picture of some of the cast because the lead male, "Jimmy" was outside when we finally made it to the theater and made a snide comment and we couldn't be certain that the lead female "Millie" didn't have at least one fake leg the way she was dancing. We discovered she had both limbs intact, but must have been wearing cement shoes for the final disastrous leap (or full body upheaval) into Jimmy's arms. We did get some classic pictures of, well, ourselves. And we laughed like crazy ladies, so I consider it a successful outing.

Summer 2010: Yep, another Mega-Post

All right, summer is coming to an end (already!) and I haven't posted one darn thing. I guess good intentions don't quite do the job...Anyway, summer has been nice and relaxing with a pretty flexible schedule, just what we needed!


Alli and Mary took horseback riding lessons from our good friend Maria. They loved it! Maria was so fun and knows everything there is to know about horses, and she was great-Alli and Mary think she is the coolest. They loved being on their own horse and knew exactly which horse they would be riding the next week and would talk about what they were going to learn next time.


Jack came along and chilled with me, while Hazel was generally all over the place. She loved to walk over to see the ponies in back of the house, look for the cat, and play in the little play house she dubbed the "tiny door".

















For the Fourth of July, our family drove down to Utah to see all of my family for together. It was a super fast trip, but luckily Quinn and I know how to cram in lots on trips. Our first day we all went to the Dinosaur Museum. It was at Thanksgiving Point, where we like to stay in UT.













Since Jack has a dinosaur bedroom, I took some pictures of the dinosaurs for him. We tried to get a picture of him next to one, but with little success. And I had to include this picture of Mary, who was struggling that evening and just wanted to rest.

















The next day was the 4th. We took the kids to the Hogle Zoo which was a lot of fun! Later that evening we met up with my family and did some sparklers in the parking lot at Adam and Melissa's apartment. They were really cool to let all of us come invade for the evening and even entertained kids with paper to color on, which wins my girls over anytime!




















This was one of the big attractions at the zoo: the baby elephant. I have to include a picture because who can resist a baby elephant? Which also leads me to what I wish I could invent if only I knew how to manipulate genes: a tiny elephant for a pet. A lap elephant, if you will. You can laugh, but then you envision it and realize how cool it would be. Still not convinced? Imagine a tiny trumpeting. Now you're sold!













Okay, back on track, July 4th:
























































On our last day in UT, we visited the farm at Thanksgiving Point. There were pony rides, animals to see and feed, and most importantly, this:





















The rest of summer has been pretty low-key. Hazel continues to eat her "pea balls" which are frozen peas. She thinks it's a frozen treat and I'm not about to tell her otherwise!
























Jack started solids




We are finishing up our summer with dance camp and (hopefully) closing on a house!

Can't keep a clean house

This is how I feel this summer with a house full of kids. And yes, I always sing in harmony with myself as I calmly scrub floors by hand. Ask anybody.



Lyrics | Cinderella - Oh Sing Sweet Nightingale lyrics

Summer is Here: The Mega-Post!

The end of school always ends up as blur to me. There is too much to fit in right at the end and everything becomes completely chaotic. So, here's what we've been up to these last couple of months:

Alli was baptized May 1. She did great and it was really nice. She loves being able to go to Activity Days now. The next day Jack was blessed. He didn't make a peep!





Of course, we had to make another trip to the zoo. Hazel is now obsessed with going to see the animals. We met up with Drew and Pyper and so our kids got to play with their cousins Lucy and Kyle at the zoo.
































Alli has been asking to get her ears pierced since kindergarten. We told her we would talk about it when she was at least 8. She held us to that, wanting to get it done for her birthday. Unfortunately, she was in soccer then and couldn't wear earrings for games so she had to wait a little longer. Quinn didn't want her to get her ears pierced because it was an acknowledgement that she's growing up, so he tried to tell her a variety of reason why she couldn't do it: the store exploded, all stores are out of earrings, and so on. She didn't buy it, and although she was nervous, Alli was tough. She didn't flinch, and even said after that it hurt so bad she wanted to cry, but didn't want to cry out at the store! She is so happy to have her ears pierced, and for the first few days she would stop and admire her ears on just about anything that would reflect her image!


Before...














During...













After!












School finally did end, and we are happy to stay up late. Still working on sleeping in...that's okay, the weather is still working on being warm. We're hoping to get it and actually feel like a summer vacation some time soon!



Hazel gets a last-minute snuggle with Alli before a neighbor friend gets her and Mary to walk to school. And yes, Alli is wearing a jacket the last week of school.













Mary's kindergarten class, and her teacher Miss Clegg.
















Alli and some of her buddies on the last day of school.




And that gets us caught up a little for now. More to come, hopefully in smaller, easier to digest chunks!

Camera Thief Srikes Again!!

Mary got the camera again. After deleting countless pictures of random objects in the den (under the desk, the wall, Hazel's feet), I saw these and started laughing out loud. I thought I had better post them, if not just for my own amusement!

Hazel's Giraffes

For the past two weeks, Hazel has been talking about giraffes. I'm not sure what sparked the interest, but suddenly she loves giraffes. Last Saturday, I decided that while Quinn took Alli and Mary to their soccer games, I would take Hazel and Jack to the zoo. Hazel was really excited, and even now four days later, she still is talking about the animals at the zoo. This was Jack's first trip to the zoo. He looked around a bit, took a little from his bottle, and slept.

On the way downtown, I told Hazel I would get her some food to eat at the zoo since it was close to lunchtime. She was very concerned that I meant eat instead of the zoo. That took some explaining, but she finally got it-and was still too excited to eat much. She was fascinated watching giraffes eat and told me over and over again that the giraffes ate snacks! Apparently that was funny to her. We had a fun time, and Hazel is ready to go back, which is good because she has two older sisters who were kind of bummed they missed out. Now I'm trying to use our next trip to the zoo as motivation to start potty-training again....

Alli's 8!

Alli just turned 8, and she has been so excited, because it's a big birthday! Unfortunately, her birthday fell on a Tuesday, so she had to go to school, but after school we went to the mall for dinner and to find a dress for her baptism. Since Quinn had to be out of town on her big day, Alli got a doll from her dad a few days early. I gave her the big 8 year-old present: her own set of scriptures. She was so excited and loved the fact that her name was engraved on them so they were just hers! Not to mention the fact that they came in a little pink carrier... After the mall, we went out to ice cream (good old Delsa's!) with Grandma Cindy.



These are some pictures we took outside our house in Alli's
special dress for her baptism announcements.

Mary is 6!

Mary turned six April 3.  She is quite the character-all she wanted for her birthday was Moon Sand and 10 packs of gum.  She had specific instructions for her birthday cake, too: brownies with six cherries on top.  While she was thrilled to get the Moon Sand (and I was not thrilled about buying it-it is a mess), she loves two presents more than anything: her Zhu-zhu pet and her charm bracelet, both from the grandmas.  We went out to eat and stopped by Pojos for games.

Mary loves to steal my camera and take pictures of herself.  They are always a surprise to me as I'm uploading pictures!  She loves to play on the Wii with her dad, and already acknowledges that I am hopeless at video games.  She still loves her special bear, Cuddly Bear, who she sleeps with every night.  Mary is becoming a real reader; it is fun to have her read books to me.  She is lots of fun-she has a great sense of humor!  She is hilarious to watch wrestle her dad, which she insists they do every day, and she lovingly refers to dinner as "slop".  Life wouldn't be the same without Mary, we're glad we have her!