Easter Festivities

On Friday we went to an Easter Play group at the church. They made these bunnies.

Then the kids went on an easter egg hunt. (As you can see, it was hard to find the eggs.)

The girls enjoyed their candy and a snack.

On Saturday we dyed easter eggs.

Here is Alyssa with the finished eggs.

On Easter morning the girls were excited to wake up and see all the prizes that the easter bunny left for them.

They hunted for easter eggs that were left all over the house. We had to convince Alyssa to leave some for Ashley since Ashley insisted on opening up every egg and tasting the candy before moving on to another egg.

Here is Alyssa with one of the two baskets that she filled up with eggs.

We enjoyed a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and eggs as we discussed the reason we celebrate Easter. We loved listening to General Conference. Alyssa even sat with us off and on for three of the sessions. For dinner, I roasted a whole chicken for the first time ever. Overall it was a very nice Easter weekend.

Washing Daddy's Truck

We had summer temperatures last week so Alyssa, Ashley and I washed the car. I put on the girls swimming suits so they wouldn't get their clothes all wet and soapy and they had so much fun playing in the bubbles. After washing the car, they wanted to play in the sprinkler too. Later that night after Danny got home Alyssa asked him if they could wash his truck too. He agreed and they had just as much fun washing his truck. Alyssa was still in her swimming suit, but Ashley ended up washing his truck in her clothes. She ended up with very wet and soapy clothes. Here are the pictures I took of them washing the truck.
I love Ashley's expression in this picture.

Alyssa always wanted to be the one to spray the cars off. Sometimes she wanted to spray her family too.

Washing the cars and putting on the girls swimming suits got me, and I'm sure them, excited for the summer. We have also been enjoying daily walks outside and the park.

Alyssa's First Soccer Season

Alyssa had her first soccer game on Saturday. She is in an all girls league and there are 5 or 6 other girls on her team. She is one of the youngest and smallest on her team. They play on a small field with three girls on each team at a time and no goalie. Here she is all dressed and ready to go to her game.
Here she is warming up before the game.

We get the worst parents of the year award for not putting a warmer shirt on under her uniform. We had no idea it was going to be so cold out there. Here she is shivering before the game.

Fortunately, we at least had a sweatshirt that we put on under her jersey shortly after this picture was taken. She was a little bit warmer then, but we were all glad to see the end of the game come so we could warm up. Hopefully none of the other games end up with weather like that.

Here is a short video of Alyssa in action.

As you can see, she is still figuring out how to play. She sometimes forgets what she is supposed to be doing but after yelling her name, she'll snap back into it. We have also noticed that she is not very aggressive in going after the ball, but that may just be because she is one of the younger girls. So far she is enjoying it.

One on One's

I've been meaning to write about this since January when we started doing it, but we never took pictures to post. So before we went out this month, I made sure that we took pictures.

A few months ago, we noticed that Ashley was getting really defensive of her toys whenever Alyssa would come near her, especially when either of us (the parents) were playing with her. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that it might be good to give the girls a chance to have one on one attention from us each month and time away from each other. So we decided that the third Saturday of each month would be a day for us to have a one on one date. We swap girls each month and it has been a lot of fun for all of us so far.

This month, Ashley went with Mommy...

and Alyssa went with Daddy.

Ashley got to go ride the carousel at one of the malls in the area. We don't usually go to this mall, so she enjoyed the play area as well. We ended the date at a Mexican Restaurant that didn't even compare to California mexican food. Ashley enjoyed dipping the chips in salsa and playing with her drink.
Alyssa went to a place called the City Museum. It's in a big warehouse and has all kinds of things to climb on and through. There was a 10 story spiral slide that they went down. Her favorite things were the little train she got to ride on and the ball pit. Alyssa got to enjoy a very late lunch at Jack in the Box.

I included this picture because I thought it was cute. Alyssa was jealous that Mommy was taking a picture with Ashley and not her so she wouldn't be happy until she got a picture with Mommy too. And that is one of the many reasons why we do the one on one's.

Ode to my 20's

I saw a friend of mine do this on her blog and I thought it was cute, so I am copying the idea. As I celebrated my 30th birthday yesterday, I thought back on the big events in my life over the last decade.

20 - Graduated from Ricks and started at BYU-Provo.

21 - Went on a mission to the Brazil, Campinas mission.

22 - Worked hard as a missionary and returned home just before the end of the year.

23 - Met my wonderful husband and got married.

24 - Followed my husband to Kansas City so that he could do an internship for the summer.

25 - Both of us Graduated from BYU, went on our first cruise, moved to Des Moines for his first job, and then had our first baby on Christmas day. This was a big year for us.

26 - Bought our first home and our first dog.

27 - Joined a book club and found a new love for books/reading.

28 - Had another little girl at the beginning of the year and moved to the St. Louis area at the end of the year.

29 - Sold our first home, thankfully, and started getting into the best shape I've ever been in.

My 20's were really great. The happiest moments of my life have happpened in the last decade of my life. I look forward to whatever the next ten years of my life will bring.

Here are some shots from my very low key birthday. Unfortunately, Danny and I were both sick and spent a good part of the day laying on the couch. We did get up to open presents...

and enjoy the ice cream cake that I requested. It was peanut butter cup, my favorite, and very good.

I appreciate all of the calls, gifts, cards, and facebook birthday wishes that I recieved. Thank you to everyone who remembered me on my birthday.

Like Big Sister, Like Little Sister

The other day while I was doing dishes, Alyssa says "Mommy, come take a picture! Ashley is lining up the crayons." Sure enough, I go look and see this.
Anyone remember this picture from last May?
Do all kids do this? I don't know. But both of our girls do.

Swim Lessons

I know that the pictures are all really dark so I hope that you can still see what is going on in them. Alyssa started the "Learn to Swim" program at our local rec center this month. She has four other kids in her class and she loves going to swim. In this picture they are playing the monkeys teasing Mr. Alligator game.
Her favorite game that they play is the Easter egg hunt in the shallow end. She is in the "Turtle" level so each of the eggs have a little turtle in them.

They got to go down the slide for the first time in her lesson this week and she loved it.

Shortly after swim finishes, she will start soccer which she is also excited for. We hope to fit in the next level of swim classes after that and before swim season starts for the summer. It is making for some busy months ahead.

Happy Valentines Day

This is the first time that we've done this and Alyssa had lots of fun. I've never been a big fan of Valentines Day, even with the wonderful Valentine that I have every year, but I found some cookie cutters and sprinkles at the dollar spot at Target, so I thought it would be fun to make some cookies with Alyssa. I let her start rolling the dough out.

And then I stepped in to help out a little. We both cut the cookies out.

I frosted the cookies and Alyssa put the sprinkles on. She loved doing that and as a result some of the cookies had more sprinkles on them then frosting.

Here is the finished product. I just wish we could think of more people to give them away to.