Ice skating and Bella is in the news

This year the older two girls wanted to learn to ice skate. Here is Lulu "skating" in her preferred way, with a walker for support.


Lulu loves to turn the walker around because she discovered that it provides her with a nice seat when she needs to rest for a moment.

Ruby took to ice skating enthusiastically right away and is fortunate enough to be assisted by another skater who very patiently helps the older members of the beginner class.

Wow! No walker!

Always smiling!

Bella is a little hard to entertain during the lessons. She would very much like to be out there skating right along with her sisters. Maybe we should have enrolled her also - two of the five skaters in the class are 3 years old.

The caption for this photo of Bella in the local paper could have read "Windmill beats young golfer on the head." After Bella was able to hit her golf ball through the windmill, she happily tried to continue on the path and was subsequently shocked when she was smacked on the head by the turning windmill blade that wasn't there a second ago. She recovered quickly as you can see in the final photo, which displays her triumphant reaction upon putting the ball into the hole.

Daddy's Birthday!!! (and the rest of December)

Surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!! We threw a surprise birthday/graduation party at the church.

He turned a nice shade of red.

While we were singing "Happy Birthday"

I had told him there were a bunch of people getting together to play games (he is holding the food we were supposedly bringing to share). I forgot to take pictures so I am grateful to those who had the presence of mind to capture his surprised reaction.

The amazing cake made by a very talented friend of ours. The largest cake was chocolate/vanilla swirl, the middle sized cake was carrot cake with cream-cheese frosting (the birthday boy's favorite) and the smallest cake was chocolate. I tried all three and they were super-licious!

For our home celebration, we brought out the bubbly! Lulu is always excited when soda is involved!

Ruby and Lulu with our cake-from-a-box carrot cake.

The finished product. (I love how Bella is trying to hold her Dora bowl tilted up like Daddy is tilting the cake plate.)

Wow! This picture makes me feel like I can still smell the smoke!

Should we be alarmed that the smoke detector did NOT go off?

And now for the rest of December (I meant to have a separate post for this but time got away from me and so I had to tack it all on to the birthday post I started a while back):

Lulu on "parent's night" at gymnastics

Lulu with her ribbon. She had an unfortunate run-in (literally) with another young gymnast and was quite upset and embarassed for the remainder of the time.

Ruby demonstrating her balance beam routine.

The amazing gymnasts!

Making Christmas cookies.

Bella loves to try and do as much as she can by herself. She also loves to try and eat the raw dough when no one is looking.

We want cookies for dinner tonight!

What Lulu and Daddy were doing instead of making cookies (Lulu had made some cookies earlier). Lulu can't resist having someone read to her, especially when it's one of the Black Lagoon books.

New jammies from Grandma C.

Monkey see Monkey do :)

Playing on the snow bank outside the elementary school. When it is too cold for outside recess, they ask to play outside for a bit after school (it helps get the wiggles out).

Doing a backward roll.

Fun!

Bella enjoyed Ruby's holiday class presentation (especially the candy bowl).

Merry Christmas!! We can never have enough blankets!

Bella opening a present and her new trike in the background.

A happy Bella (she's in the wear-as-few-clothes-as-possible phase).

Bella's gospel ABC book.

Ruby and her new hip pack for camping!

Lulu excited about getting chocolate chex for Christmas (she had never had them before, was dissapointed that they weren't in all actuality completely made of chocolate so I ended up eating most of her box . . . and Ruby's . . .)

Snow tunnel :)

Lulu sledding down the mound of snow created by the snow plow pushing the snow out of the parking lot.

Once there was a snowman . . . (or snowmound)

We made our gingerbread houses after Christmas (when the kits were half off . . .)

Happy New Year!

Halloween!

I don't remember what I was going to document when I started this post back in October. So since I never got around to posting Halloween pictures . . . here they are at last!

Lulu prefers everything in miniature . . . including pumpkins!


Ruby had a blast carving pumkins. She loves holidays, decorating, and she loves to wear holiday related apparel . . . such as her candy corn shirt and halloween socks.


Bella had no qualms about scooping out the slimy pumpkin seeds.


Lighting the candles in the jack-o-lanterns.


Bella was not fond of her witch hat so I had only seconds to get this picture!

The rest of the three little witches so excited for the trunk or treat and impatiently waiting to go trick or treating.

It's so fun to experiment with baby powder while Mom is busy vaccuuming the rest of the house.

Excited to have curlers in their hair.

This is the only picture we have of my birthday. Maybe next year we will celebrate it separately from Halloween since it just gets lost in the business of the holiday.

Three little monkeys!

Conference October 2009

We all enjoyed conference. These are some pictures Ruby drew of some of the speakers.




Elder Robert D. Hales (the quote balloon says "And he will have love and he will have the love of God . . .")



Elder Dallin H. Oaks (quote says "And the Lord will know that he will . . .")

Elder Jorge F. Zeballos. His talk was shorter and Ruby didn't have time to finish this one completely. His quote is incomplete and says "we will have . . .")

These were all from the afternoon session of conference on Saturday.

July, August, September 2009

Here's a review of the last few months. The pictures are somewhat in order.

Swimming Lessons! Lulu passed level 1; Ruby almost passed level 3 but has to work on her front crawl and one of the other strokes before going to the next level.

Buddha! The girls love to see Buddha outside on nice days.

Safety town! Lulu enjoyed riding the tricycle.

Traffic jam!

Ruby rolling along.

I should have brought a jacket for Bella. It is mid-July in this picture but so windy that it was a little uncomfortable.

Pretending to mail a letter.

Ruby graduating from Saftey Town!

Lulu graduating also.

Playing at the rocket ship park in Texas.

Ruby demonstrating her climbing abilities.

Lulu and Bella journeying into the unknown.

Ice cream! So good after all that swimming. Mmmmmmmm!

Playing at the splash park :)

All the cousins :)



Liberty Jail


This was outside one of the rest stops we visited. It was over a mile down a narrow lane and to our surprise, there was a large group of people inside sitting in a circle listening to someone playing the guitar.

Apple pie :) We have friends who often give us apples from their orchard. Last year after one of my first attempts to make an apple pie, Ruby looked at it and said (rather increduously) something to the effect of, "Wow, mom, that looks like it could be a real apple pie." It's real all right! Even made the crust on the one in the picture!

Lulu before school (forgot the camera on the first day of school so this is either the 2nd or 3rd day)

Ruby before school.

Sisters!

Lulu got to bring home the classroom teddy bear for a weekend. Ruby christened the bear "Foo-f00" and many stuffed animals got to borrow some of Foo-foo's clothing for a few days.

Changing the animals into pajamas after church on Sunday.

Bella looking through the gravel for a rock to carry around.

Happy 5th Birthday Lulu!!!!!

We celebrated Lulu's birthday early this year. Lulu requested a similar cake to the one she had for her 4th birthday - an animal cake - she picked the animals and created a cross between a farm and a zoo.

Lulu was really worried that it would be too windy to light her candles. We were lucky to have a really nice morning for the party (we had it at the same park we had Ruby's party at in April) and the weather was great.

Pulling the animals off the cake.

Mmmmmm! We served the cake and ice cream first because we forgot to bring a cooler to keep the ice cream from melting. We were so lucky that our neighbor stayed and helped keep an eye on Bella.

Next we painted! Lulu was so excited to paint her pony just the way she wanted it. (We used washable paints :))

Bella also really enjoyed painting. She not only painted her pony, but also her hair and her hands.

Ruby enjoyed being creative with colors.

Lulu and her sweet smile.

Time to open presents!!! I think Lulu was most excited to get this packet of M&M's - her favorite!

A new toothbrush and her very own toothpaste in her favorite flavor - bubblegum!! (She requested these when a neighbor asked her what she wanted for her birthday :))

A porcelain tea set from Bella. Lulu saw this when we bought a present for Bella's birthday and asked if she could get the tea set for her birthday. I told her no because the girls already have a plastic tea set and I worried that this would break. Lulu has always been so patient when it is someone else's birthday (meaning she doesn't sulk or whine because she isn't getting presents or attention) and gets so many hand-me-down clothes and toys that I wanted her to get something she really wanted for once. She has loved playing with it - see the pictures below.

Using the tea set to eat the pack of M&M's she got at her party.

Using the tea set to drink water and her own improvised chop sticks to eat zucchini bread. (I think she is imitating something she saw on Sesame Street where a little girl went to a restaurant for her Grandmother's birthday and poured everyone tea and they all ate their food with chop sticks.)


Later in the day we went to the Arts Festival and Ruby got her face painted like a butterfly. Lulu didn't want to get her face painted but really enjoyed playing on the playground and watching the jugglers.

Happy 4th of July!

Lulu riding a pony at the Uncle Sam Jam 4th of July party.




Ruby and her pony.


Ruby and Lulu on their favorite inflatable slide.

Sharing a car for the train ride.

Enjoying the train ride circling the parking lot.

We were in a celebratory mood and went to the store just to buy a bottle of A&W root beer. I even put in 50 cents so the girls could actually ride the little carousel ride.

They just had to pretend on this one like they usually do.

Lulu was tuckered out and started falling asleep in the chair.

Bella was napping while we were out playing so here are a few pictures of her.

Ruby and Bella after a happy July 4th.