Grass Shrine

I'll never understand why grass is so much fun, but I remember piling it up as a kid and loving it too. We went to the park to play volleyball and the kids immediately grabbed handfuls of grass and made some sort of shrine out of it with flowers and all. Then they started playing hide and seek. It's pretty funny watching a group of kids play hide and seek in an open field. As long as they couldn't see who was "it", they seemed to think they couldn't be found. Doesn't quite work that way now does it.

Hollywood Connection

Another night of fun with the Pass of All Passes. We took the girls to Hollywood Connection. First we told them we were going rollerskating which they were super excited about until they saw the rides. They wanted to try them out first. Unfortunately they had so much fun on the rides that I think roller skating turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Kali did great, but Sadie and Ashlyn couldn't stay on their feet for the life of them. Someone had to take care of Emma and the obvious choice was me with my torn ligament, so Josh was the lucky one that got to go skating. And oh boy, did he have his hands full! We made the mistake of not renting one of those little push carts to help beginners and I think it took Josh twenty minutes to get around the rink once with Sadie and Ashlyn and there were a lot of tears involved. By then, I had given up and rented the push cart but after only two more times around, everyone was done.

New Favorites

Here are the two most common things I find Emmalyn doing these days--standing up in the middle of the room, or peeking out the window. Our windows are just the right height for her, and trying to get a look at the outside world is much more fun than looking at what's going on inside. As for standing, she is so proud of herself that she can do it on her own. She loves an audience too. As a matter of fact, she'll ham it up and put on a good show for just about anyone.

Future Missionary

Josh prepared a family home evening on missionary work and pulled out a ton of stuff from his mission. He explained what everything was used for and why. He even had some old mission pants and shoes that the girls thought were great. They all had to take turns putting them on in an attempt to look like a missionary. Unfortunately an eight-year-old girl dressed up in an Elder's clothing isn't very missionary-looking, but I'm sure she'll make a fantastic missionary one day.

Puzzle

While Josh was gone at Woodbadge, I had the brilliant idea of putting together a puzzle with the girls. The only problem is that it was a 500 piece puzzle and we started it at 7:30 at night on a school night. At 9:30pm, I finally sent the girls to bed, but I couldn't stop. I've always loved puzzles. By 11:00pm, I was telling myself, "Just one more section and then I'll stop". Still no good. I did, however, give up before finishing the puzzle. But the first thing I did when I woke up was neglect everything else until the puzzle was finished. Thankfully it only took another half an hour. Ashlyn decided to jump in and actually put about five pieces in the right place. Maybe my puzzle-obsessive nature didn't go to waste after all and she'll turn out to be a puzzle pro.

Face Paint

Kali and Sadie got invited to a birthday party and got their faces painted like rainbow tigers. It was some of the coolest face painting I've ever seen.

Glasses

It's official--Kali has glasses. They're so cute nowadays that she was super excited to get them too. They are, however, only reading glasses. She has been complaining for a very long time that her eyes bother her. They go blurry, words move around and even sometimes disappear, and she's always losing her place while reading. But when we took her to see an optometrist last year, he said she didn't need glasses. I decided to try somewhere else this year, and right away the optometrist noticed that she had a problem called convergence deficiency. Her one eye has trouble turning inward when she is looking at things up close and it has caused her depth perception to be half as good as it should be for someone her age. The first treatment he recommended is reading glasses. If her troubles don't improve in three or four months, they recommend eye therapy.

Ankle Problems

While walking down our steps in the back, I somehow managed to role my ankle. The only problem is that it's the same ankle I broke fifteen years ago and on which I had two subsequent surgeries. I went to Instacare and was told that they could see irregularities in the talar dome as well as some bone chips near the fibula, but the radiologist couldn't tell if they were new or if they were from my old injury. I was put in a walking boot and told to see an orthopedic specialist. Thankfully I was able to locate the surgeon that performed my second ankle surgery and scheduled an appointment with him. Now it's just a waiting game.

The Park Again

In between conference sessions Josh tried to help Kali fly her kite because it was windy, but they just didn't have enough room to get it up high without running into trees, houses, or light poles. I decided that it would be fun to head to a big open park after conference. Unfortunately, the wind had died down. We were able to get the kite up as long as Kali kept running, but the girls spent most of their time on the playground instead. They loved this park because we've only been to one other time so the toys were new and fun.

Runners

I'm so excited because I have two little runners in training. I have loved running for several years now but always struggle finding an outside running partner. Well, this year Kali set the goal of running a 1K and started going on runs with me. Obviously it's much shorter than I would like to be running, but I see a wonderful future. Then Sadie started begging to run with us too. I didn't know if she would be able to keep up but remembered how much she likes running when we're at my aerobics classes. I decided to let her have a go at it, and she ran the whole way. It was fantastic!

The Park

This week is Spring Break, but I filled it with doctor, dentist and eye appointments. So I decided it was time to let the girls have a little fun and took them to the park. It was a gorgeous day too, a little cool but perfect for enjoying yourself while playing hard. We stayed for a couple of hours. I love this picture because we had to commandeer the entire swing set in order for all the girls to be in the picture.