It has become a tradition for my parents to take my kids to Cornbellys in the Fall! We went there last week when it was so cold, but the kids still had a ton of fun! My parents only have 3 grandkids, and those 3 grandkids all belong to me so they do a great job of doing fun things with them!!
Last week, Riley performed in his first concert with his new teacher, Ramona Stirling {My old teacher, as well as all of my sisters old teacher}. It was neat to see him perform downtown at Peter Prior Recital Hall after he has worked hard for the past 2 months with a new teacher. He is getting a lot better, and I think the reason is because I am not teaching him anymore. It got to be too hard to be the mom, the practicer and the teacher all in one so now I am having him go in my opinion to the best teacher in Utah. It is worth the money and the drive time!
Last night, I took Riley and Sunny to see the Utah Symphony Halloween Concert! I was so proud of myself for driving downtown, finding a place to park and finding my way home! {For those of you who know me well, this can be a hard thing for me at times because of my lack of direction even though I have lived in Utah my whole life}
It was a fun evening for the 3 of us. The kids dressed up in their costumes, as did the rest of the audience and the whole symphony. I think I was one of the few not dressed up-oops! We sat on the very first row and had a marvelous time watching the symphony play up close!! Riley's favorite was the last piece where a story teller came to tell the story of Rumplestilskin while the Symphony played. I am glad that my kids are getting exposure this early to the arts and to the beautiful sounds of the symphony!
{Sunny is closing her eyes in the picture with her and Riley because the guy sitting next to me was dressed like a vampire and was pretty scaring looking so that was her way of not being scared and taking a picture at the same time!}
Riley's Kindergarten Class put on an 'unusual pet show' for the parents last week. The parents sang a song with the class called TUTTI TA, and if any of you know it, you will understand why Regan looks so wierd in the photo! You have to put your bum out, thumbs out, tongue out and sing the tutti ta song while walking in a circle. Regan looked hilarious as he was doing it with pride!
Riley's pet was called Doctor Spider for some odd reason. He painted a styrophome ball 10 colors and it took 3 days to dry! Then he wanted to make it look like a spider. We love Riley's teacher and as a former teacher, I am so thankful that Riley got such a great teacher! He is working on his sight words {words to know instantly like: the, to, and, that} and blend words {p ot=pot} He loves going to school and even gets mad when he has to miss a day {like last week when he missed 2 days from being so sick!}
We met Regan's mom at the Scarecrow Festival in Thanksgiving Point on the prettiest Fall day ever! Riley and Sunny were SO excited to get their faces painted, jump on the many inflatables, and play tons of games! Today was the best fall day! I made the kids pose by a pirate set up, and Sunny was So scared that she sat as far away from the dead pirates as was possible.
She will hate these pictures someday, but how in the world can I resist taking pictures of a little girl falling asleep in her chair? I love these pictures because it accents her chubby cheeks-one of her wonderful features! AHHH-this girl is just SO CUTE!!!
Here is a cute video to show what cute little girls I have! Sunny has really gotten into being the big sister to Elle. She even went as far as putting her in her dolly stroller and strolled her around the circle. Don't worry, I was by them the whole way thinking Elle would fall out at any moment.
It started out fun...but then the girls had had enough with the pictures-Regan too for that matter. The question is, how am I suppossed to preserve all of our family memories with no pictures? It is so difficult to have smiling faces when it is picture time. I will not let go of my quest though!
On to the Pumpkin Night. For FHE, we decided to go to a pumpkin patch by our house and veer away from Farmer Rasmussen's where we have gone since I was a kid. This place was a pleasant surprise. They had tractor rides, tractors for the kids to pretend to drive, corn mazes, and TONS and TONS of pumpkins to choose from! We had a fun night at this new pumpkin patch in Riverton! As we were waiting for the tractor ride, we looked over at Sunny. She found a corn cob on the ground and was eating it like it was the most delicious thing ever! Gross-but picture worthy!
Highlights of Conference Weekend:
*Taking the kids to BYU and playing a round of Bowling {my score was 150, Riley's was 100 and Sunny's was 68-3 strikes for me!}
*Eating lunch outside by the Museum of Art
*Going through the museum of art
*Going to the BYU bookstore
*For Riley-playing donkey Kong with Ashley, Angie and Chrissy {whoever would play him}
*Eating my mom's yummy food
*Watching 2 days of conference
*Playing the old school Barbie board game with my sisters and mom while the boys were at priesthood.
*Watching movies with my girls in my arms
*Helping my mom make Young Women in Excellence plaque's
*Crosstitching while listening to conference!
What a great weekend!
We stayed at my parents cabin last weekend for Fall Break and Conference weekend and it was so much fun! In between conference sessions on Saturday, we took the kids to climb the Y! The last time I did this was when Regan and I were dating and he made me get on his back and he climbed up 3/4 of the way up until I told him I really can walk by myself {plus I had his sweat all over me!} but I think he wanted to prove how strong he was!
I totally forgot how steep it is to get up to the Y! Wow-it is pretty much straight up and Regan thought that he could push our stroller with Riley and Sunny in it! Let's just say we convinced him to ditch the stroller 1/2 way up because it was so hard! Once we got up there, it was beautiful and the kids loved being on the white washed rocks. On the way up, we saw a trantula and Regan of course tried to pick it up but all but 2 of its legs went up in the air in attack mode!
The night before, Regan and I went with my parents to the BYU vs. Utah State Football game and it was so awesome! I wore my brothers old school BYU coat since it was cold that night! Too bad the colors are now navy blue instead of bright blue! I guess people just knew that I was a true Cougar Fan by wearing that sweet 1990's coat!
I cannot even believe that Elle turned 1 today! Didn't I just bring her home from the hospital yesterday? Didn't Ashley just get married and I pretended that my water broke at her wedding last week? WOW, I think my philosophy is that when you are pregnant, life goes SO SLOW! When you have your baby here, life goes way too fast!
Elle is the best little baby ever! So easy going and happy! She even tolerates her sister picking her up and cuddling her a little too hard! We are so blessed to have her in our family and we love her SO much! I still kiss her at least 300 times a day-just can't help myself because those cheeks are irrisitable!
Happy Birthday Baby ELLE!
{By the way, we call her ELLIE, but I am hoping that by spelling it ELLE, the E will not be silent at the end and will act as a long vowel!}
We had a Family Party for Elle's Birthday and it was FUN! Thanks to everyone who came! We had finger foods in honor of Elle since that is mostly what she eats nowadays!
I thought and though about what we should do for Elle's birthday, and finally I thought, Elle LOVES to swing, so we took her to the park with a picnic. After we ate, we swung her forever, and when I thought she had enough, I got her out and she got so mad because she wanted to keep on going! I love Riley and Elle's hair once they went down the slide--Static!
When we came home, Elle was SO SLEEPY and fell asleep on the chair! The Birthday Girls can do whatever she wants on her birthday-she is QUEEN for a day!
So I felt like I needed to redeem myself after creating a barbie cake disaster for Sunny's birthday in May! I put the whole barbie body in the cake instead of half of the body--it totally cracked in half!
So, this year, I was inspired to make a fondant cake after watching the Food Network's Cake Challenge Show! They make the most amazing cakes and the judges would have ripped apart my cake for sure-but that's okay, I still think it is cool!
I made a homemade Vanilla and Chocolate cake that was super soft and moist, iced it, then put white fondant on top of it and decorated it with a bunch of colorful dots! Riley & Sunny had a ton of fun helping me with the dots, kind of like play dough!
Regan came home from work while we were making it and wanted to help, so I put him in charge of the letters and the little girl! I think he did a great job creating a girl with fondant!
I even made Elle her very own little cake to dig into, but for some reason none of my kids ever want to do that! Elle just lightly put her finger in the frosting and licked her finger-no diving in for this dainty girl!
After this experience, I would love to take a cake decorating class and get better at it because it is fun to make a Cool birthday Cake! Riley is already planning what he wants his birthday cake to look like, and his birthday isn't until March!
