Sadie's Getting in the Cougar Spirit!

I just love Sadie's little dance she does! (And her delayed cheer at the end!)

When Brian started at the very beginning of the song, Morgan wouldn't sing. She said, "I'm not a Cougar, Daddy. I don't go to BYU yet." So, it looks like his brainwashing is having a positive influence on the girls...

Oregon

(We've been home for an entire week now, and I've had NO time to post pricures, but I guess the good thing is that I'm finally able to document our trip.)

Last weekend, we (the girls) went to Oregon to visit my brother and his family. They have two adorable little kids.

Mindy took us to a Children's Museum (the Gilbert House) which consisted of a musuem both inside and outside of 3 historical buildings in Salem. I have to say, I was a little skeptical at first (wondering how they would have room to put kid-friendly exhibits in), but it was AMAZING! Next time you visit, make sure you go!

Here, the girls are having "tea".

Sadie liked the giant chess board. Too bad I don't know how to play so she just got to hold the pieces,

Morgan and Elaena loved exploring in the ENORMOUS outdoor playground. Seriously, it's HUGE!

Here's the guys, stopping for a quick smile!

Sadie loved going down the long, long tube slides and I wasn't a big fan over and over and over. So, Brandon was kind enough to squeeze down with her a few times.

Of course, no trip ANYWHERE would be complete if our girls couldn't play with trains. They were in heaven when they found the train room!

Isn't this a cool slide? Sadie must have gone at least a dozen times!

Here's Sadie and Jacob peparing for their great dinosaur dig!

And, here they are again (with Mindy, too!) counting cookies on the wall. It's magnetic, so you put the cookies in and press a button and it punches them all out so you can start over! Pretty cool!

Here's proof that I didn't send my girls on an airplane by themselves! I went to Oregon, too!

Here we are making giant bubbles with the girls. This particular room was very wet and soapy! It seemed like I washed my hands for 5 minutes to get the soap off!

Sadie had so much fun in the bubble room, I could have washed an entire load of laundry using the soap in her shirt! So, Jakey let her borrow his sweatshirt. What a nice guy!

Sadie enjoying her blueberry pancakes. I put A LOT of blueberries in them and they were VERY MESSSY!

Elaena has quite the princess dress up collection and Morgan and Sadie were envious. They loved playing "princess"!

Morgan always offered to help feed Jacob a bottle.

We had lots of fun! Thanks for letting us come visit, Brandon, Mindy, Elaena, and Jacob!

My $3 Project

I first have to give almost all of the credit of my girls' cute room decorations to my mom. She's very talented in many things, especially crafts and decorating. Thanks, mom!

She first painted the flower border in my sister's room (click here to see it) and I stole the sponges to paint my girls' room. She also made these cool curtains for my other sister's room, and when she decided to redecorate, I asked if I could have them.


I've been wanting to put curtains like this in their room ever since we moved in 3 years ago!
So, for $3 (the cost of 2 window valance rods), and about 2 hours of time, I turned the one long curtain into two short valances to go over the 2 windows in their room. Super cute! (Now, if they only had cute furniture, their room would be complete!)

Her Dad Is So Proud!

How ironic that of all 26 letters of the alphabet, Morgan chose to cut out a "Y" at Preschool! Could it be her parents' (mostly her Dad's) influence??? She was so excited to show us when she borught it home!

More Snow!

The girls are in heaven each morning they wake up to a white wonderland. It means shoveling, sledding, and having lots of fun! Here are a few pics of our latest winter excursion to the front yard.

This looks like a nice spot to sit!


If any of you don't believe that Morgan takes her shoveling duties seriously, this should prove otehrwise! She won't stop until the job's done!

Here are the girls--at it again with their shovels and buckets! If all it takes is 2 buckets, 2 shovels, and snow to keep the girls happy, why do I bother with toys?

This is such a precious picture. Daddy and Sadie walking up the snow "hill" to go down on the sled again.

I only wish you could see her grin--ear to ear with giggles, too! She loves sledding!

Morgan loves sledding, too, only she thinks it's going to be scary, so she closes her eyes for the whole ride. Then, she looks surprised when she opens her eyes and she's at the bottom of the hill!

This video is really hard to hear because right when I started recording about a hundred geese flew right over us. Morgan spent a good ten minutes walking around the yard looking for untouched snow to make a snow angel. The best part was her talking to herself: "Is that a snow angel? Sure!" and then she was onto her next spot to make another angel.

Flight of the Bumblebee

Amidst all the chaos of last week, I haven't had much time to post. Morgan's also decided that she no longer takes naps, so that's been adjustment, too. So, while pictures of the family (i.e. kids) will have to wait, here's part of my latest cake creation.

I made fondant bumblebees for a cake that will be posted when completed and Brian said they had to be "in formation" in order to be photo worthy. So, he arranged them to look like they're flying. Thanks, sweetie!

Spotlight on Sadie

A friend at church noticed we were all in red yesterday and took our picture. Can you tell by the girls' faces that it's naptime?

Sadie almost has enough hair to put up in an elastic. She thinks it's enough and insists I put one in. She's getting pretty good at leaving it in all day. It's a good thing, because here's what she looks like when Morgan takes it out! (I posted the picture above for the "before" and "after" of her hair)

And, our cute little Sadie Bug, reading "Bob". Don't you love her stylish reading glasses? (And, yes, they are on upside down)

The ward had a dance on Saturday night. Here's Sadie's version of ballroom dancing:

These Girls are CRAZY!!

For weeks now, Morgan asks us every day "Is it going to snow?" To say she was ecstatic when it snowed Sunday and Monday would be an understatement. Brian had been anticipating shoveling the driveway when he got home from work, but an anonymous neighbor (we're guessing) had already shoveled it for us. What a nice surprise!

For family night, guess what we did?? The picture below should give you a pretty big hint.
That's right! After dinner, in the dark, we played in the snow in the backyard. I found some snow bibs at the outlets a couple weeks ago for the girls so they stayed warm and dry this time! (And, Brian remembered that we had bibs from when we were first married, so he brought those up from the basement. Why didn't we remember that 4 years ago when we moved to Colorado???? I was just glad to also stay warm and dry out in the snow!)

First things first, the girls located their buckets and shovels. Morgan was determined to shovel the walkway and wouldn't let us help with the "real" shovels. The next few pictures show just how effective her method turned out. (The path that is cleared is simply her footprints.)

Here Daddy and the girls raced across the backyard to the fence and back. Well, they made it to the fence (Sadie stopped short), and Morgan fell down on her way back. So, here's their race to the fence.

Best buds posing for the camera. Sadie's bibs are 3t (rolled way up) and Morgan's are size 5-6 (also rolled way up). Boy, do they love to play in the snow!

Brian got out the real snow shovel to clear the sidewalk a bit.

Here's a cute one of Sadie walking through the snow. How cute!

Morgan, hard at work, stops to smile for the camera.

The sidewalk cleared and her work done, Morgan heads outside with her billibo (she's been anxiously waiting for snow so she can try to sled in it). She quickly discovered that it's easiest to sled when you have a hill to go down.
Not interested in "sledding", Sadie continued her snow removal.
My favorite part: At the end of the night (we played for over 1/2 hour!), we all came in, warm and dry! (Actually, my favorite part was the family time first)

*************

This morning, Morgan asked, "Mom, when will the weather lady tell us it's snowman snow? I think she will tell us on Thursday. Then we can build a snowman."

Too bad there's no snow in the rest of this week's forecast!

Bowling

We went bowling over a week ago and I'm just now getting around to posting about it.

We went with our friends, that we've known since before Morgan was born. In fact, we met them in our prenatal class and our kids were born just a week apart. As usual, we had a great time. Here's a recap:

When we first got to the bowling alley, Morgan insisted on being the guard over the bowling balls. Then, when she tried to pick one up, she realized that everyone was better off getting their own. (Ever thought about the ratio between a bowling ball and a small child? Some of them are half their weight!)

Morgan rolling her ball (ever so slowly) down the lane. I think it made it to the pins in about 15 minutes (okay, seconds).

We got a little smarter when it was Sadie's turn and got one of the ramps. She loved being able to push the ball down the ramp and watch it knock over the pins.

Morgan discovered that her success rate was much higher with the ramp as well.

After bowling, we all went to dinner.

Let me first explain a little bit of the background for the picture below.

In the last few weeks, Morgan has been curious as to what different types of birds are called. Sadie refers to them all as "bird" and Morgan is quick to correct her by telling her its proper name. If she doesn't know, she asks me. Fortunately, I've been lucky because all we've seen lately has been LOTS of Canadian geese.
After bowling, we went to Red Robin. Morgan's favorite part about Red Robin USUALLY is getting a balloon. In fact, she was debating whether she wanted a red or purple balloon on the car ride to the restaurant.

But, when we got inside the restaurant, she forgot completely about getting a balloon and exclaimed, "Mom! It's Red! Hi Red! Hi Red!" as she ran over to greet her inanimate friend. She gave the statue a hug and came over to tell me about Red.

(We went home with a purple balloon, in case you were wondering)

Food Storage Calculator

A friend had this posted, so I thought I'd see what it's about. I tried this out and it's nice to have an idea of just "how much" food storage we have. (Plus, who doesn't love free money???)