End of Preschool

 Sarah had such a great year in preschool this year.  These are few pictures of her year-end picnic.  The whole family got to come and they had face painting and games for everyone.  We enjoyed all the yummy food too!

This is Sarah and her classmates singing all their mom's a song on Mother's Day.  They were pretty cute!!

Sarah had a fun graduation ceremony too.  The kids looked so cute!!

Buns!

 Grace and Anna love going to Activity Day's, and today we had it at our house.  Their leaders asked if I would teach the girls how to make buns.  There are only four girls -- two of which are mine -- and so they just came to our house.  Their mom's got to come too and while the buns were cooking the mom's got to talk about a talent that they learned when they were young that helps them now as a mom.  It was a fun activity and the girls really enjoyed it.

Of course Becky was so excited to join in too!  She can hardly wait until she can be a part of things too.

Storage Room Makeover

               When we first moved into our house, the storage room in the basement looked like this:

After a weekend of long hard work, it now is looking a little different! 

Brendan helped out painting the shelves.

We had a friend come over and put in new lighting and I was able to clean things up a bit with some new drywall and shelving that spanned the whole 18 foot wall! 

With additional shelving on the shorter wall as well. 

I have since laid down the remnant pieces of carpet that the previous owners left behind and have made a space for a table for sewing and doing crafts.  It has made such a difference to be able to put things where I can see them and to know where things are.  I have unpacked every single box from moving and gotten rid of a lot of stuff that we just didn't use or need anymore.  I love being organized!!

Locks of Love

 Anna has been growing her hair out for quite a while, and it was starting to get in the way and harder and harder to keep clean and brushed.  She decided (with a lot of mom's persuasion) that it was time to get it cut.  Her hair was long enough that she was able to donate 9 inches to locks of love to be made into a wig for those going through cancer treatments!  We are super proud of her for making this decision and her hair is so much easier to take care of now!

May Long Weekend Camping Trip

 We went camping up in Waterton for 2 nights on the May long weekend this year with some friends from our ward and some of their family and other friends as well.  Brendan comandeered the camera the first afternoon and then the battery died.  At least he got some nice pictures of the scenery!

And you can see a tiny corner of our tent too!  The kids all had a blast, and even though it wasn't the best weather, they still jumped into the freezing river!  BRRRR!!

What are the odds?

It has been a long time since I have blogged anything and part of the reason why is that I have misplaced my camera - again - and I really like adding pictures to my posts.  But, on top of missing the pictures, I am also missing the posts, so I guess half is better than none.  I will try to catch up on a few things soon, especially Anna's baptism last month.  She was super excited and I had my sister take some pictures that I will try to get on here soon.

This week I just had to write down so I could remember how crazy it has been.  The lights on our car have been flickering and surging for the last couple of months and we had it checked out, and it seemed to get a little better, but on Monday I took Brendan to seminary and on my way home the radio and all my gauges died and I just made it into our driveway and then it wouldn't start again.  Tuesday, I tried to start it and it started right up, so I decided to take it to drive Brendan to seminary again.  I know - DUH!!!  Of course it died just coming out of the church parking lot and Matt had to come and rescue me.  We left the car in the church parking lot and Matt found a place to get it checked out and found out the alternator and the battery were completely dead. 

Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, I noticed that the battery light was on in the van.  I mentioned it to Matt that night and we figured we had better get that checked out too.  Wednesday afternoon I drove the van to a battery shop and asked them to check the battery and they told me it wasn't the battery, but that it was the alternator.  Seriously!! 

Thursday was our big day with both vehicles in the shop.  Luckily, Matt had a work car he was able to use for a couple of days, and the shop I had the van in had free shuttle service to get me back and forth.  They fixed the van so quickly -- I dropped it off at 10am and I was picking it up by 4pm.  The owner, and his wife who did the shuttling, were so nice.  I will definitely be taking my vehicles back to them whenever I need any work done. 

So, $950.00 later, we have two brand new alternators - and a new battery and an oil change for the car too.  What are the odds of that anyway???  If I'm that lucky, maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket -- it could help pay for it!! ;)

A little fun with a cell phone

 I had to take the kids to the doctor's office one afternoon, and so we had a little fun on the way there and then in the doctor's office having fun with the cell phone.  What a couple of crazy kids!!

Just good practise for the doctor -- open wide!!