End of School

First Day of School - 8/26/13                        Last Day of School - 6/5/14

  

  

  

 (Apparently she still really likes this outfit.)

We LOVE Emily & Doug!

For Christmas Uncle Doug and Aunt Emily, who live in Chicago, gave us a promise to visit us some time this spring. Last weekend they paid up! We spent 4 fabulous days together and were so sad when it had to end.

Playing at the park after school on Friday.

I left them all to make a quick run to the store, and this is the happy scene I found when I returned.

We had lots of fun with XBox Kinect games (Ashlyn is one mean boxer!)

All dressed up for our "Ratatouille" movie party.

"She likes the soup!"

As part of the movie party we split into 2 groups and prepared "surprise desserts".
Group 1 made Dirt Cups.

Group 2 got creative with their cinnamon rolls and formed them into "Rat Tails"
(I think Rata-tail-e was the official name).

Doug and Emily are going to have to come back again, if only for Ashlyn's awesome back massages.

They all spent a long time Sunday afternoon writing Secret Admirer notes to one another and hiding them in mysterious places.

We had planned to go swimming on Monday (Memorial Day), but rainy weather meant we had to settle for a visit to Chuck E. Cheese instead.

McKell isn't really old enough for most of the games at Chuck E. Cheese, but she found other interesting things to do while we were there.

The night before Doug & Emily left Brenna informed me that we now had 2 choices - to visit Doug and Emily lots of times, or to let them live with us. :) We sure love them!

Gymnastics Mini-Olympics

Ashlyn started gymnastics in January. She participated in an end-of-year mini-olympics last Saturday. 

She LOVED it and was a little super star. :)

Here are the videos of her routines:

BAR

BALANCE BEAM

FLOOR

This video was too big for Blogger, so here's the youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a0A1iUx06s&feature=youtu.be

And here's Ashlyn with her coach, Miss Jackie.

Oh, Ashlyn

I should have wondered about your odd question regarding when I was planning to use the half pound of sausage in the fridge.

Now the answer is . . . Never.

Eyes, Ears, Mouth & Nose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOUikbiV2Eo&feature=youtu.be

Grandma, Grandpa & Easter Baskets

As was mentioned in my previous post, my parents visited us last weekend. Because they were in town the Saturday and Sunday before Easter, and because Russ was going to be out of town on Easter, we decided to ask the Easter Bunny to deliver his goods to our house 1 week early.

Ashlyn took it upon herself to craft a note to the Bunny and stick it in the mailbox.

Dear Easter Bunny - please bring our Easter stuff one week early.

So, Saturday morning when the girls awoke they found that their grandparents had arrived, AND that the Easter Bunny had visited. Double bonus!

Ashlyn was not very happy to find that growing older means the Easter Bunny hides her eggs in more difficult spots (like inside the paper towel roll). 

McKell, on the other hand, was thrilled to discover that treats would spill out of each egg she found. Her eggs had either Froot Loops or mini M&Ms. Once she found her 1st egg with M&Ms, she just ignored the cereal filled eggs and focused all her energy on the chocolate.

New spring outfits.

After all the Easter basket and egg hunting wrapped up, we walked over to the park to play.

Ashlyn has gotten really good at doing the monkey bars. It amazes me every time, because I have NEVER been able to go all the way across a set of monkey bars. 

The kids spent most of the afternoon in the backyard playing baseball - sort of.

And on Sunday we enjoyed a nice day at home.

Grandpa told Kaylee and Ashlyn one of his famous "Prince Edward and Princess Amelia" stories.

It was a wonderful weekend. :)

Shoes

My parents came to visit for the weekend. Since they were only here 2 days my girls were all pretty sad when it was time to to say good-bye and go to bed last night (my parents were leaving early this morning, so we knew the girls wouldn't be up before they departed).

After Russ and I had gone to our room to get ready for bed my Dad knocked on the door and asked if my Mom had left her church shoes in our room. We looked around but didn't see them. He said she couldn't remember where she had taken them off, but they had been looking all over and were unable to locate them. I helped him look around the house a little more but we didn't see them at all. Jokingly, I told Russ Ashlyn had probably hidden the shoes so my Mom wouldn't be able to leave.

A few minutes later my Mom came to our room and said she would just have to pack up without the shoes and, assuming we would find them some time, asked if I could bring them with me the next time I visit them in Utah (which is early May, so just a few weeks away). I couldn't believe the shoes were really missing, so I came out and started looking around again and asking my Mom questions about when and where she took them off. She had put Brenna down for a nap shortly after we returned from church so I wondered if she had taken them off in the girls' bedroom (we moved Brenna's bed into the room Kaylee and Ashlyn share temporarily so we could use Brenna's room as a guest room for my parents).

The girls were all asleep but I went into their room and crawled around on the floor looking for the shoes. I looked under bean bag chairs and around Brenna's bed, but didn't find anything. Ashlyn's bed usually has a bunch of stuff under it, but when I looked there I thought I could see a pair of shoes clear back by the wall, though they were men's shoes. I pulled them out and immediately started laughing when I discovered they belonged to my Dad. And my Mom's missing shoes were right behind them.

Crazy girl really did hide their shoes so they wouldn't be able to leave.