Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Too cute for words


I know I already did a ballet post, but I was just sent these pics and I HAD to include them - they may make my all-time favorite list. And I don't even like pink. But I just love these girls! Just don't look too closely at Jells' saggy, wrinkly old woman tights (they're like 3 sizes too big ... she'll grow into them, right?).

Sunday, December 13, 2009

First Dance Recital

For months the girls have been taking dance lessons from a friend of ours in the ward who has always been into dance. There are 5 of them who dance together, and they love it.


This week was their first dance recital, which they have been very excited for for weeks.



We stuck a couple of highlights together here for your viewing pleasure. Sorry for the low quality--any higher and they took forever to load, or wouldn't load at all. But Meri and Jenelle are the ones closest to the camera, of course. In the finale, Meri was a step or two behind everyone throughout. Which wasn't a problem, for the most part. Until.

With the second bit, we just wanted to show you the curtsies. I hate to sell Jenelle short, because her curtsies are flawless--really, perfect form. But if you're only going to watch the video once, keep your eye on Meri for this part. She's developed a rather distinct curtsy that we can't get enough of. Hopefully you won't either.



And then, for family members or bored friends, we included the video of the entire recital. Enjoy!!!

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

My kids are SO weird

We have NO clue what the bear did to deserve this treatment!! Was he being preserved for future generations? Possibly a time capsule? Bottled bear meat? Solitary confinement? Science experiment?

I found it much creepier the next day when we discovered this:
Meri came out looking like this when we said "Go get your jammies on please."

And this was "get ready for scripture reading time":
And "time for family prayer":


Yes, we are totally failing.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

What an insult ...

Cooper sent me this in an email to make sure he wouldn't forget to tell me when I got home from work:

The girls were fighting over who got to be the girl half of the
two-headed dragon on Dragon Tales, and I told them that if they kept
fighting I'd call them both boys.

About 10 minutes later they started arguing and I heard Jenelle say,
"Meri, I don't want to disagree. Remember what daddy said? If we
disagree, we'll both be boys."

Thought that was funny.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

I think they must have listened in on my life...

That's my dad for you

He was convinced it would help him do better. Later, he also got out his gloves and face mask. And he wonders why we were embarrassed as teenagers!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Just an accident

This morning in the bath, Jell swallowed the bathtub knob-thingy that you pull out to turn the shower on. Swallowed it. When asked why it was in her mouth in the first place, she cried, "I don't know. It was maybe an accident."
5 minutes after getting over the trauma, washing up, and getting out of the bath, Jell shut Meri's hand in a closet door. Instead of re-opening it and relieving her sister, she ran to us, exclaiming, "I just did something on accident. I just did something on accident." About then Meri found her voice and started screaming her head off. With her hand still closed in the closet door.
It's that kind of morning.
(They're both okay. Meri's hand is a bit bruised, but she says it'll be all better later when she goes to Grammy's house. Jell was pretty traumatized and feels uncomfortably like something large just went down her throat but the nurse said since it wasn't a magnet or a battery, and was small enough to go down, it's small enough to come out.)
Oh boy.

Friday, November 13, 2009

"Would I be called a fire girl?"

What we learned from our field trip to the Fire Station:
1. Don't pull any levers. In the front room where they display the antique fire truck, before the firemen were even there to talk to us, one of our kids (Meri got blamed but who knows) pulled a small lever on a pipe and suddenly there was water spraying across the room. None of the moms had seen what happened so we didn't really know how to stop it. Needless to say, the floor got very wet before anybody came to help. Oops.

2. Jell learned "they drive in the fire truck." Here's the girls giving it a try (lots of the kids were very disappointed that they didn't actually get to drive the truck. I don't think they trusted them anywhere near all those levers ... with good reason.)

3. Firemen with their masks on sound like Darth Vader and make Jell nervous. She finally did get brave and went up and knocked on his face mask, but she spent most of the time with her hands over her ears (what she does when she's nervous about anything) a safe distance away.

4. Meri claims to have only learned that "we get a hat" when we go to the station on a field trip. Which is pretty neat. And a sticker.

5. I listened and learned a lot of cool stuff, but I'm not so sure about the girls. My first clue was when they were jumping around dancing throughout some of his demonstrations. My second clue was when they were trying to climb the basketball pole and slide down during his explanations. My third clue was when it was apparent that it was more important to them who they were standing by than whether or not there was even a fireman in the room. My fourth clue was when I asked them what they learned when we got home and Jell said, "Um... um... well, you were there mom."

Monday, November 09, 2009

More hugs and kisses please

Me: Jell, you're putting that on backwards.
Jell: Oops! Sorry, sorry.
Me: It's okay (as I help her fix it).
Jell: Do you still love me?
Me: What?! Yes, of course I still love you silly.
Jell: Good.

Ah! I guess you never can tell them enough times, huh?

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Leaves galore

And while Jell swam her heart out (see new post below) Meri chilled with daddy, watching him work hard from inside the ever-growing pile of leaves. Cutie!
It's just too bad that raking leaves isn't as fun as jumping in them!

Our Swimming Penguin

Loving swim class! She's finally putting her face under the water for bobs and while kicking. Hooray!

And yes, she has an oddly double-jointed thumb that makes her "thumbs up" a little silly. But she's still cute! And she never even complained about being the only girl, which is big for her. :)

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Happy Halloweenie!

So sometimes I'm guilty of including way too many pictures in a post. This would be one of those times - but Halloween is just too fun and dressing them up is too cute! Somehow, despite talking about which princess they were going to be for Halloween ever since the 4th of July, they ended up being a frog and a rather glamorous bat (which she chose to be when Jell decided she liked the hand-me-down frog costume. She said, "Jell will be a frog and I will be a bat" as if there were some logical connection between the two). They ended up very happy with the arrangement.

Then, as I have been told, Coop and I chose to be the nerdiest thing we could've possibly chosen to be. I won't insult your intelligence by assuming you need an explanation. If you're still wondering, notice his ear, or the place that used to be his ear is bandaged.
Some of the fun of Halloween is that we get to go show our costumes to lots of grandparents and Aunt Patti and Uncle Jim. Here's a few pics with them:

Friday, October 30, 2009

It's that time again ...

They've only been wanting to dig into our pumpkins for like three weeks now. We finally did the other night while Daddy was in class.
Jell refused to ever touch the stuff, only willing to scoop it out with a spoon. Meri, on the other hand, got nice and dirty - I love how she's up to her elbow in one of our smaller pumpkins!
I think it's tradition now - we had it out and glowing for the Blazers' opening night again this year and it helped them to a win :) Course it was lit last night too, but we won't talk about that.
Then Jell absolutely insisted we make one into a witch, and after her not liking any designs we could find online, I made up this one while she slept and she loved it in the morning:
I can't take the credit here, this one did come from the internet, but it was so funny (Jell didn't stop laughing hysterically for like a minute straight) that we had to have our own Cannibal monster pumpkin. "Poor, poor baby pumpkin" she kept saying after she stopped laughing.
Now we're finally ready for Halloween, come rain or shine! And from all indications, come rain it is!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Hindight Being 20/20 and All...

So chalk this up to unforeseen circumstances I really should have foreseen. After yesterday's feet/hand painting ghost project (see previous post), I should have seen today's announcement from Meri coming a mile away:

"Mama, I'm going to paint my feet now."

Both Cooper and I were busy and not paying attention, so she continued to say it 5 or 6 times, until suddenly it dawned on us what she was saying. We quickly stopped her, of course, which she expected--which is why she was making sure we heard her announcement before she proceeded. Now if only she'd tell me before she did anything that was bad....

Oh, and by the way, when I finally dragged myself out of bed this morning because I suddenly realized that I had been hearing the girls make noise for a while, I found them lying side by side on the couch, nicely snuggled under a blanket they were sharing, watching Dinosaur Train. Sigh. They grow up so quickly and learn how to turn on the tv, change it to their favorite channel, and turn the volume down so as not to bother mom and dad (which she told me she'd done).

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Pretend ghosts

As we've been seeing Halloween decorations everywhere, we've had quite a lot of discussions about what's real and what's pretend, and how pretend things aren't scary. They're just for fun and often silly. So here's our pretend hands/feet ghosts! We love the end product, and they loved the process, however mom was a little stressed about keeping the white paint from getting everywhere!! I'm giving myself a pat on the back for being a good sport and letting them do it in the first place :)

And that was the end of the sprinkles

Jell dumped basically the whole sprinkle jar onto one cookie. Oh well, right? Maybe she was trying to make him feel better after she busted his arm off ... before she ate him.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Witches Ball

Ready to go party!
The whole witchey crew
Witches in trainingMama Witches - even Moms have fun dressing up now and then

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Miracle at the Pumpkin Patch

It didn't rain on us!!! I'd been so worried about the potential of a very soggy field trip, but the clouds even parted for a bit and we saw the sun! We went to the Flower Farmer pumpkin patch to check out their Phoenix & Holly Railroad. It was great fun! Although, as can be seen, Meri wasn't all that comfortable with the idea at the start:
But she did warm up and by the third time we got on the train, was laughing her head off. Jell even sat by us for a couple minutes before ditching us for all her friends :)
And surprise, surprise - look who got all brave all the sudden!
Also a bit surprising, look at who wasn't brave. She did get some of the food, but each time the goat turned it's head toward her, she chucked the food at it. Catch!
And somehow, nobody fell down this! There were a dozen constantly climbing on and in this - what fun!
Buddies!
Cute girls!
The preschool group happy to have pumpkins!