Grandma Ivins' and the zoo

Last Friday we got to go to the cemetery with some of Doug's family to celebrate Grandma Ivins' birthday. Here's the girls cleaning the headstone.Here's a note Sophia wrote for her.Balloons from Doug's mom.

Everyone attached a little note to their balloons and then we let them off.Notes headed to Grandma.Grandpa watching our notes soar higher.That night we asked Sophia if she thought the letters got to Grandma. She was pretty sure that she was reading them right then. She still prays every night that Grandma got our notes. After that Doug's parents were nice enough to watch my girls while I went to Salt Lake (alone!) to celebrate my SIL Lexie's birthday. It was a lot of fun and nice to have some peace and quiet. The girls also loved having alone with with Grandpa and Grandma and enjoyed a yummy snackand books with Grandpa. His head makes the best foot rest.

On Saturday we were crazy enough to venture to the zoo with Tonya and Sam! It was pretty cold but still a lot of fun.

Of course the highlight was riding the carousel

Mabel enjoyed it too. The best part was that Doug joined us! We loved spending the day with him.

Afterward we stopped by Doug's parents house for a minute. Mabel loves this book end and is pretty sure it's a chair. If only she could figure out how to sit in it.

Here's a Lincoln Log house Sophia built while we were there. She hid this little bear inside.

Today Lilly and I went to "From Van Gogh to Play dough" at the BYU Museum of Art. We talked about families and looked at paintings of people in a family. Then the kids got to paint/color their own set of family paper dolls. It was a lot of fun. She loved it!

Here she is stamping with a toilet paper roll onto the mom's dress.

Wales and Hair

With a holiday on Monday we thought it would be fun to go to Wales for the weekend. Unfortunately the snow hampered our plans a little so we thought of fun things to do at home on Sunday and then headed to Wales on Monday.

We played with white mud. had a visit from a cute doctorand made a yummy almond coconut chocolate cake.

(we enjoyed it too).

We finally headed to Wales on Monday and were lucky enough to have some cousins join us. Until they got there we passed the time by playing TwisterI love how Mabel got in on the action. What a cute bum!

and enjoyed some cookies at the bar.

When our cousins got there we took them out for a quick Gator (or as Sam called it "gater-ater") ride.

We wanted to go to the fish hatchery too but it was closed so we settled for shakes in Mt. Pleasant.

After the cold ride we came back and snuggled in front of a fire.

Then we headed over to the park to play a little. Here's the cute sliding Sam.

This girl enjoyed the slide too.

Cousins swinging with their awesome grandpa (love Ben's transition lenses - he's right. They're pretty cool).

Mabel also had fun switching between these two little chairs

Overall it was such a fun day! Thank you grandpa, Sam and Ben for joining us!

Here's another quick thing from this week. Since I can't go anywhere without hearing about this show I decided it was finally time to watch it and see what it was all about. My awesome SIL had both seasons on DVD that she let me borrow. I pretty much spent all day yesterday watching it. I did get my children dressed and fed and managed to get one of them to preschool (and I went to Zumba that morning so it wasn't like I was completely lazy!) Anyway, apparently one of them was a little starved for attention so she decided to give herself a little haircut.Luckily it wasn't too bad and we went to our hairdresser (that we love!) and she fixed it up nicely. I think this was her subtle way of telling me she wanted a cut.

We're a third of the way through tax season! Wish us luck (and no more last minute trips to the hair salon!)

12 Days

The other night Sophia presented me with this beauty. I guess it was supposed to be for Christmas but it took her a little while to finish. I love it though! Better late than never right? Especially for a Christmas present!

I collect 12 Days of Christmas books and so she made me one to add to my collection. I seriously love it. Here are a few of my favorite pages. 3 Silly Sisters

and Four Grandparents. These 2 pages made me laugh out loud. Six Lilly Junks. She's not being rude. Just referring to the fact that Lilly likes to eat a lot of treats. That's me on the computer while Lilly is sneaking into the treat cupboard.I loved this one too. Eleven Fingers. For some reason the fingers cracked me up.Thank you Sophia! I love it and it will go great with my collection!

Before and Afters & Aquarium

We've been going a little stir crazy as we try to get through tax season and the February blahs and so I've taken on a few projects. This one I have been meaning to do for years. We scored these hutches at a garage sale for $15 a piece a few years ago. I love them and how much storage space they have but I don't love how you can see everything and it's not so much organized all of the time. I thought about putting some kind of fabric curtain over the bottom half or something but decided wood doors would be best. Here's the brown one before and after. I was actually surprised at how closely I was able to match the stain (thanks to the guy at our local hardware store). I'm not sure it's really an improvement but I'm also not sure it's any worse.

Here's the black one before.and after.

Just don't look too close. The doors don't so much close all the way but that will be an after tax season project for Doug and it does the job for now. Overall I'm glad I did it but was kind of annoyed that they don't close very well and that it cost way more than I was planning on (hardware is expensive!). Oh well. I've learned my lesson. Wait until I have Doug's help for things like this!

We've been doins Super Surprise Saturdays to keep us entertained as well and so yesterday I took the girls to the aquarium. We were so excited to see the river otters. They were way cute! Here' Sophia (and her kind of creepy face) by the exhibit.One of the cute otters. They were so playful and active. It was awesome. The exhibit was really cool too. They had this window thing in part of the exhibit (kind of like at the prairie dog exhibit at the zoo) where you could put head up and be in the middle of the otter action. It was pretty fun.

Sophia's favorite part of the aquarium. Touching all the crabs and starfishes.

The girls on the boat.

We discovered a room full of interactive things that they loved too.

To top off the fun weekend we woke up to about 4 inches of snow this morning! Looks like we will get winter after all. We enjoyed some homemade hot chocolate, this (they were pretty tasty), and these beauties (so glad I got them out to rise last night). They were huge! That's six of them on a regular sized baking sheet. Rhode's sure does know how to make a good cinnamon roll!