School Stuff

A couple weeks ago was our elementary school's Math and Science Night. Brennan was so excited to go! If you look closely, you'll see his hair sticking up from the static ball - or whatever it's called. 

Resting on the bed of nails. Comfy!

 My nephew Eric won the gold medal in the 2nd grade math Olympics competition. Yay!

 As members of student council, Dallin and Peter ran one of the science stations.

They were still able to go around all the stations. Here's Dallin's gumdrop molecule. I didn't take pictures, but they also made slime (Brennan's favorite) and a marshmallow gun (I'm sure they didn't use that word) with a cup and a balloon. 

The middle school recently had spirit week. One day was "dress as you favorite teacher" day. Tyler chose his history teacher, Mr. Donaldson. He loves doing impersonations!

Look who's turning 2!

 Chloe turns TWO tomorrow. Can you believe it? 

Her hair is getting long and beautiful, and I've had fun playing with it. She always pulls everything out, though. I love how elegant she looks in this picture. 

 I even did 2 french braids one night after a bath.

 Which made her hair really wavy the next day. It was super cute.

She loves to play with Levi. Mostly they like to eat snacks together. Whenever he gets something to eat, he gets one for her too. You can't help but adore someone like that.

Outside is her favorite. I especially love to watch the big boys play with her.

She loves to "GO," which reminds me of me when I was little. Sometimes she gets sad when someone leaves her behind, but we appease her by telling her to say "bye" at the window. It actually sounds more like "Die!" when she says it. The other day I was having a relief society meeting, and when she was ready for the ladies to leave, she waved to them and said, "Die!"

She's gone back to loving baths again. Now she throws fits when it's time to get out. She asks to take a "baff!" about three times a day, but I think once a day is plenty. We are having a drought, after all.  

She loves "helping," especially cleaning. I have to keep her wipes out of reach or else she will take them all out of the package and wipe down the whole house. She also loves to clean her babies, put diapers on them, wrap them in blankets and put them down for a nap. It is so stinkin' cute! When she is too tired to go to bed, I talk to one of her babies about her. Chloe stops crying, stares at her baby, and answers when I talk to her through the baby. It sounds ridiculous, but I learned about it in the book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" when Tyler was 2, and it is such a great way to help an out-of-control toddler.

Chloe loves her daddy. She is sad when he goes to work (thank goodness for the window "die" thing), yells, "My daddy home!" whenever she hears the garage door open, and literally squeals with delight and jumps up and down when he walks through the door. 

There is just something special between these two. I've heard the phrase "daddy's girl" before, but I didn't really understand it until we had Chloe. I can't help but think that this is boosting her self-image and preparing her to choose a good man who will treat her like a queen one day.

Valencia Peak

After we hiked Cerro Alto, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. So when Spencer did another big hike with the scouts, we wanted to do it too. He warned us that it was long and steep, but we knew we could do it! 

Right away, Levi found a geocache. 

I didn't think it was as hard as Cerro Alto. It's slightly shorter and less steep. We climbed 1200 ft instead of 1600 ft. Plus it was nice and cool from the ocean breeze, which was perfect for hiking. It's at Montana de Oro, and the view was amazing the whole time. 

After an initial steep ascent, it flattens out for awhile. Then there's another big climb at the end.

I'd like to do this hike again after the drought ends. I've heard it's even prettier after it rains. 

No one got poison oak, so that's a huge plus.

We made it to the top! It was almost 2 miles up, and I think it took us about an hour and a half. Of course we hiked down a lot faster. 

Spencer hid a geogache on the side of the cliff when he went with the scouts. We thought it was a tad too hard/dangerous, so he moved it closer to the top.

I was so impressed with Brennan and Levi this time. They didn't complain, and Brennan even ran up several steep shortcuts with the big boys.

My camera battery died right after this, so I was very happy I got some good pictures.

Valentine's Day

I don't want to wait until I'm caught up on blogs to do Valentine's day. 

We started off our day with heart-shaped one-eyed monsters. I figured we needed a non-sweet breakfast, since there would be plenty of sugar as the day went on.

The night before Valentine's day, Spencer had the idea of giving our neighbors a "heart attack." It's where you make lots of hearts and sneakily cover someone's door with them. Spencer cut out all the hearts, the boys colored some and wrote "We Love You Andy" and "We love you Heidi" on them. They left some on the ground because some little people had a hard time being quiet and this was stressing the older ones out. They thought for sure they would get caught. But our neighbors didn't hear a thing and were thoroughly surprised and happy to find this in the morning. 

Dallin made sugar cookies for his classroom party. It was his first time making these, and all I did was help roll out the dough. Good job, Dallin!

For our valentines this year we made mustache and lip lollipops. They were cheap, quick and cute. Even Spencer and Tyler wanted to hand them out at school. They were a big hit.

I love them! They gave the lips to the girls and mustaches to the boys.

Tyler said that Valentine's day is a lot different in middle school than elementary school. Instead of little store-bought valentines, it's flowers and boxes of chocolate. 

I woke up to roses and a card from Dave. 

I couldn't find any cards I liked for Dave. They were all so mushy - not my thing. Actually, I found one I kinda liked, but it was $8. That's ridiculous. So I found a free printable card on Pinterest. That's more my style! 

At least Chloe ate a sandwich before Levi got home from preschool (heart-shaped, of course), because she ate a lot of candy after that! She likes this holiday.

 How cute are those?!

These are the valentines I made for the kids. Probably their favorite candy bar is Heath, so I wrapped them in these minion printables. They were made for short push pops, so I had to tweak the size and add a fun caption. How did we manage Valentine's day before Pinterest?

Park day

Chloe had so much fun at a park recently that I decided I need to take her there more often. She especially likes slides!

We went on a non-preschool day and invited Luke to come along. 

These two have so much fun together!

Static hair!

Chloe spent the whole time climbing up and sliding down. She was in heaven!

I love that Levi is so photogenic. Whenever I get out my camera, he stops, looks at me and gives me a perfect smile. He's so thoughtful!

We went to the dragon park. Although it's super close to our house, we rarely go there. Luke and Levi acted like they'd never seen it before (they have, it's just been awhile).

We stayed almost an hour (which is about my limit for playing at the park) and left right after snack. Levi saw me working on this blog and said, "That was fun! Let's go there tomorrow and eat the same snack."