March Little Things

Jonah has been asking to try out karate since the summer. I thought it would be the perfect winter activity for him, since it's indoors. We have spent every Friday the past few months at his karate class and it couldn't be cuter. He has been practicing his kata everyday and is enjoying learning this new skill!

Our friend Katie Kirkham came to visit and to ski. It was so fun to see her and she left each of the kids a little toy. I think the greatest tribute to her was that when they see a picture of her they always say, "there's our friend Katie, mom!" She's not just my friend. She is their friend too. I love it! Sadly I am so lousy at taking pictures that I didn't take one of all of us with Katie.

I hosted a waffle breakfast for the YW and watched the Face to Face Broadcast. I had a lovely group at our house that morning.

Another fun thing was Olivia and I were invited to the RS birthday celebration. This year marks the 175 anniversary of Relief Society. I am so grateful to be a part of this wonderful organization. Olivia and all the Activity Day girls were helping to serve food to all the sisters who attended. They were each gifted a darling apron to wear. It was a fun night for the two of us to spend together. Here she is looking all adorable in her new apron.

These answers from Owen's homework made me laugh. :)

A tree was cut down across the street! Which makes us happy because it blocked our view.

 Charlotte is just adorable and loves My Little Ponies right now. One Sunday morning she brought them all to my bed and fed them carrots.

 We went to the library for FHE. Charlotte loves the little couches and the millions of board books.

 We had a combined YM/YW activity where they were divided into groups and had to make a delicious meal to be judged. This was my little group and they did a fantastic job!

St. Patrick's Day isn't a big celebration at our house, but we do have Lucky Charms for breakfast. My cute friend Jami brought by these delicious cookies (must remember to be more thoughtful like her!) and this year we even made a pesto shamrock pizza. We are so fancy.

Jonah was the VIP in his class this month! Which means he was first in line to EVERYTHING ALL WEEK LONG. Which is a very big deal in the 1st grade. We had a lot of fun making this poster all about our awesome 6 year old boy! I snapped a photo of it when I went in to volunteer in his classroom that week. Everytime I go and volunteer, as soon as he hears my voice he runs over to me and gives me a huge hug. I love it! Also it was Dr. Seuss' birthday this month and Jonah's class celebrated with some pretty awesome hats!

Women's Conference. I was so excited and it turned out to be such a bungle, darn it! I was able to get tickets to watch conference downtown, so Olivia and I invited Sammy and Ella to go with us. Well we are first timers attending downtown and we didn't know you have to arrive at least an hour early to be able to get a seat, even if you have a ticket. So we waited out in the rain, and finally made it to a seat in the over flow theater just as the last speaker stood up. We had battled traffic and walked all over downtown and missed so much of it that we sat for 3 minutes and then decided to leave before getting stuck in traffic all over again. We took the girls to get dinner at McDonalds. How is that for a spiritual experience? Well we are now all the wiser and will listen to it at home this year instead! It did make for a fun adventure though.

Here's a cute one of Charlotte at the library. She and I try to make it there on Tuesday afternoons after we volunteer in Jonah's class. She loves to go to the library storytime and then we go sit in the children's section and read books. Sometimes we get to see the Fullmers there too! One day this month we met up with the Fullmers at Granite Park and they brought kites which was all sorts of exciting!

We had a family party at our house one Sunday to celebrate Amy Rees' birthday. I forgot to take any pictures at the party. But here is the invitation we made for her!

Well I think that about catches us up for March. It was a fun month!

This Month's Art: March

We have so much fun art coming home and being created around here right now I want to remember it!
Owen took these photos from our back porch one evening and entered them into the school art contest. So pretty!

And this cool dragon:

Jonah had some really great stuff this month! Check out all these gems:

 This is from St. Patrick's Day. It says I feel lucky because I get to go to Crown Brgr. This boy is like his daddy.

 He loves using the color black in his art. I am fascinated by that.

 This is a Meet the Masters piece, featuring the art of Faith Ringgold:

Lunch Dates with the Kids

One thing Nate and I have started doing with the kids is having a "one on one" lunch with each kid. It's actually "one on three" because it's Nate and I and Charlotte. We let the kids choose where we go to lunch and I pick them up from school and Nate meets us at the restaurant of their choice. We sit and eat and chat and I pull out their journals that I bring along and we talk and write. We ask questions and then write the answers in their journals. Right now the questions are: 1. What are you most excited about right now? and 2. What are you most anxious or worried about right now? I write down the answers to those questions in their journals and we talk about each one as they think of them. It's fun to hear what is important for them right now. They don't seem to be worried about much, but this gives them the opportunity to talk to us about things. We do lunch on each kid's "day" of the month (the day of their birthday). After we write in their journals we do finger talents. We ask them what they are good at and write a letter or little picture on each of their fingers that represents that talent. We let them come up with what they are good at and we whole-heartedly agree and we help them out when they get stumped. It's so fun to see how this touches their little hearts and makes them feel loved.

This month Owen chose Crown Burger:

Olivia chose Chick-fil-a:

Jonah chose Crown Burger:

And Charlotte gets lots of lunch dates with Nate and I and talent fingers at almost every kid lunch date.

I sure do love the crazy bunch and I'm so grateful they are mine forever!

School House Rock!

This year Olivia is in 3rd Grade and at Granite Elementary that means you get to do the School House Rock production which is a very big deal. It is so fun to watch and they work so hard on their parts and all their songs.

Olivia was great! She had lines and "starring" roles in several of the songs and she did a great job remembering her lines and her actions for all the songs. It was really fun to see her shine.

Her teacher is Mrs. Hamann and she is just wonderful. Her personality is perfect for Olivia and Olivia has had such a great experience this year.

We loved watching the production. The whole school comes to the production and the kids all love it!