Kindergarten

Sign ups for kindergarten start this week. I just can't believe my baby will be in kindergarten so soon. We are trying to decide if we should do full day, or half day classes. I think the only reason that it's such a hard decision is that I'm not ready for her to be gone all day. She will most likely get a better education in full day with smaller class sizes, and more time in school, but it's still a tough decision for me. There are so many factors to think about. I hate making these kinds of decisions as a parent.

She asked me yesterday if it was time to go to kindergarten, and I said she had to be able to write all her ABC's first. She quickly sat down with a piece of paper and did her very best to write them all in order. I love that girl!

This is the outfit Micah came home to last night. Amazingly her dance outfit still fits, and she was insistent on wearing it. She is one styling girl.

Flagstaff

Over President's Day weekend we were able to go to Flagstaff to see Micah's brother Dan, our sister in-law Mikaela, and their son Shad. They moved to Flagstaff for school a few months back, and we were excited to be able to go see their new home. I think it's always fun to see new places, and especially fun to just go somewhere rather than always staying home. We rented a hotel (which the kids always love) and headed to AZ for the weekend.

It just happened to be Shad's birthday that weekend, so we were able to celebrate with them. They had a cute party for him Saturday night, and my girls enjoyed being able to see him open his presents and eat lots of yummy chocolate cake.

We spent one afternoon at the rec. center pool which was fun. The next day we went exploring indian ruins, and a volcano.

Abbie took this amazing picture above. I love it! It snowed a lot while we were there. It was fun to see the snow, but it was sure cold. Thank you for a fun weekend Dan, Mikaela and Shad!

Abbie turns 11

On February 9th, Abbie turned eleven years old. Despite having to go to school, she had a great day.

One fun thing about living away from family is that you receive fun packages in the mail the whole week leading up to your birthday. All three of my kids get so excited when the mailman brings a package or card just for them. We are so lucky to have such wonderful family who go the extra mile to send gifts.

I love her expression in the picture above. She seemed to love everything, and with all her gift cards and money she has purchased stuff to do some redecorating her room, and is saving the rest to buy a kindle.

Her request this year was to have apple pie instead of cake. I have only made pie very few times in my life so I was just glad it turned out.

The Saturday after her birthday we had her friend birthday party at a rock climbing center here in Henderson. Abbie came up with the idea of rock climbing all by herself, and I do have to say that it was a wonderful idea. Every one of the girls seemed to have a great time.

They had instructors that stayed with the girls to make sure they completely understood how to work the equipment, and then just let them loose to climb all over the place. For a while I wasn't sure how I was going to get these girls to come down when the party was over because they were having so much fun, but luckily they were all exhausted after two hours of climbing.

Abbie is a very creative, fun, smart and beautiful daughter. We are so very blessed to have her in our family. I just keep thinking that next year she will be entering Young Women's, and it blows me away that she is getting so big. She is wonderful, and we love her very much.

Valentines 2012

Valentines Day this year was a lot of fun. Each of our girls had wonderful parities in their school classes, and each of them brought home a ton of treats which they loved.

They looked so cute in their Valentine's shirts.

Aliza and I spent a whole afternoon making these cute Valentine's for her preschool class and cousins. It was a fun little project that we loved doing together.

I think they turned out pretty cute.

Abbie really wanted to make her own valentines to pass out this year which I thought was great. It took her a long time to make 30 of these for her classmates because she wanted each of them to be different. They turned out cute.

Pinterest has so many cute ideas that I had to copy this idea along with the crayons. It was fun putting each of our thumbs above our names to send to some family members.

Avery had a contest in her class to make the best valentine box. She decided to make an ipod that had love songs on the menu. Her whole class voted on the best one, and she won! She was so excited and couldn't wait to eat this entire candy bar that was her prize.

Micah and I wanted to surprise our girls with a heart attack when they woke up on Valentines day. We spent quite a bit of time cutting out lots of hearts and taping them to their ceiling the night before. I think they were excited, and enjoyed reading our little notes to them. We ended the day with making heart shaped pizza to eat by candle light. Right before our dinner was over our cute neighbor Lex brought over boxes of chocolates for our girls. He is such a wonderful neighbor that is always surprising us with fun little gifts. It was a wonderful Valentines Day!

Booster Seat

Aliza weighs herself often to see if she is 30 lbs. It seems like it has been a very long time that she stayed in that 28-29lb range, but she finally made it all the way to 30 lbs. She was beyond excited because she knew that she could finally get out of her car seat and move to a booster chair. We made a special trip to Target to pick out her seat, and she was just beaming.

It was kind of sad to see that car seat go out in the trash, but also a huge milestone for our family. She is still getting the hang of buckling herself, but once she masters that we will have all our kids buckling and unbuckling by themselves. Wow! Considering she will be in Kindergarten in the Fall, I suppose it was time to make the switch. These kids grow up way too fast.

Writing Contest

Abbie entered the Southern Nevada Writing Contest for the Clark County School District a few months back. She wrote an essay about racing in the famous race in Alaska, the Jr. Iditerod. We got a phone call late one night announcing that she had won 2nd place for the whole fifth grade in the district. She received a fun package full of books and certificates as her prize, and they wrote about her in the school newsletter that goes out every Monday to the whole school. We are very proud of her.

Writing is something that comes very naturally to Abbie. When I was asking her about what she wanted to do for her electives in 6th grade next year, she mentioned that all she wants to do is write for the school paper. She is always writing us stories, and working on plays for her and her friends to perform. In fact they are having their 5th grade writing exams next week, and it's nice to not even be worried about it. I know she will pass with flying colors.

Abbie took this picture to make sure everyone could read it. :)

Last week, we were babysitting our friend's kids while they went out on a date, and this is a cute picture I took of Abbie and Kate's creation that night. They made this stage out of a chip box, and then did a performance for the younger kids. I love their creativity!

Thriller

My mom was in town yesterday for a conference she had to attend, and we were able to see her for dinner and a little shopping. It was great to see her, and it reminded me that I never posted anything about our date over Christmas break to see the Michael Jackson Cirque show. She has a birthday right at the beginning of January, so shopping for her can be hard with it being right after Christmas. I had this great idea that we should go see this show while she was in town visiting for Christmas as a early birthday gift.
I have a vivid memory of her when I was younger doing her Saturday morning cleaning, and singing to Michael Jackson. The CD would be blaring, and we would know that mom was cleaning. It was a fun date to see the show together, and we had a good laugh all the way home about some of the dances that were just cheesy and stupid. But the music was fun to hear again, and there were a lot of amazing things in the show too.

After the show I have been turning on Michael Jackson sometimes while getting ready in the mornings. Aliza has now fallen in love with the song Thriller. She calls it "the Halloween song" or "the scary song", and asks for it over and over again. I catch her ever once in awhile blurting out the words "thriller, thriller now." She may be our next generation of Michael Jackson fans.

Swimming Lessons

Aliza's New Years Resolution this year is to learn how to swim without a lifejacket/floaties etc. I figured while her sisters are in school, she may as well work towards her goal. She started her first session of swimming lessons a few weeks ago, and is doing really well. Our hope is that by Summer time she is swimming a lot more comfortably by herself, and we won't have to worry as much about her being by the pool.

She was really excited to get her certificate saying she passed off everything for her class. We get a few weeks off while they do pool maintenance, and then we will be back for more lessons.