First Day of Kindergarten (For Hannah)

Today my little banana started kindergarten.  A lot like last year with Addison, it started off as a kind of rough morning!  Addison is on our district's "Early Bird" schedule, which means she goes to school over an hour before the morning kindergarten starts.  Hannah was not happy about that, so she was kind of moping when we went out to take these pictures.

Fortunately I'm an incredibly funny person...yes that was sarcasm...and after a few jokes, I got them all smiling. ;)

Addison is so sweet.  She has been SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited for Hannah to start kindergarten.  She picked the shirt she was wearing specifically so that she'd match Hannah on her first day.  After I took pictures of all the girls together, Addison timidly asked if I could take a picture of just Hannah and her.  I was happy to agree to the request.  :)

My alarm to take Addison to school went off so we dropped her off, and when we got home, the groaning about it not being time to go to kindergarten resumed.  So I decided we would walk....very slowly.  I posted a few pictures on Instragram, but I didn't get my big camera out for the actual walk. 

When we finally made it to school, we were still SUPER early, so I convinced Hannah that we needed some pictures in front of the school.

(She wasn't especially happy about it.)

Then Maya asked if she could get a picture with just her and Hannah (they were super cute holding hands for a lot of the walk to school).

We wasted a little more time at the photo booth.

And in the hall outside her classroom.

And finally I decided it was close enough to start time that we could go and bother her teacher (Miss Williams) for a picture.

She had a couple more things to do so she sent us to the play yard where they had cookies for all the new kindergartners (and tissues for the weepy moms), so Hannah played out there for a little bit. 

And finally, it was time for class to start.  Her teacher showed her where to put her backpack and folder.

Then she found her name tag.

And settled right in at a table.

And from that point on I think she was just wondering why the heck I was still there.

And, after telling her I was leaving only to return and take more pictures about seven times, I FINALLY left the room, and snapped this shot on my way out.

I think she's not going to have any problem adjusting to kindergarten.

As Promised

The second we got home from Parent Teacher Conferences, Addison asked if we could set off her volcano.  Unfortunately for her, the sink had dishes in it, so I told her we couldn't do it until the dishes were out of the sink.  Over the next few days there managed to be dishes in the sink non stop.  Addison kept asking and I kept telling her not while there were dishes in the sink.

Finally (a few days later) we actually had room in the dishwasher for every single dish, so I got them all out of the sink, and then with a completely empty sink in front of me I felt inspired to clean it.  No sooner had I finished polishing the last water spot off the faucet than Addison was at my side saying, "YAY! Now can we set off my Volcano???

So, the girls gathered around and Addison FINALLY got to set off her volcano.

And then I made her do it a few more times. It's still just as exciting as when I did it in elementary school.  Does watching baking soda and vinegar erupt from a volcano ever get old???

Birkay Girl

This little lady was on cloud nine today.  I took her with me to run some errands and she kept telling everyone, "It's my Birkay!"  She was so cute.  :)



Here are some other highlights from the day.







And this little lady may have found her calling in life.  All she wanted to do today was play doctor.



I love you my little Banana, I can't believe you're already four!!!

A Style All Her Own

So I pretty much let Addison and Hannah pick out their own clothes.  Most of the time anyway.  I do give occasional advice, "Usually people don't wear tights as pants." And sometimes I force them to change clothes, "No, you may not wear flip flops.  There's four inches of snow out there!"  (Sometimes I think being a Californian may be hereditary).    And every so often...mostly when I actually have some sort of formal picture plans for the day...I will choose an outfit for them.  But really, about 95% of the time, I just let them wear whatever the heck they choose to put on.

I have several reasons for this.  First of all, when I was a kid, I always hated when people made me wear something.  Whether I liked the outfit or not, I hated being told what to wear.  So I try to interfere as little as possible.

Also, I'm lazy.  Usually I just tell the girls to go down stairs and get dressed, and pray that they don't find the flip flops I hid when it began snowing.  I am busy enough getting the twins ready in the morning, the more the older girls can do for themselves the better.

And finally, I really enjoy seeing what outfits my kids come up with.  Some times I find it humorous, sometimes impressive, and sometimes mind boggling.

Lately I have especially enjoyed seeing the outfits Hannah has come up with.  Bart calls her Punky Brewster.  He loves the crazy quirky ensembles she comes up with. Her latest trend is wearing swimsuits over top of her clothes.  It happened several times before spring break, and then again this morning.  But today, at bedtime, when she came up with last year's swim suit over top of her warm winter pajamas, I decided it was time to take a picture.

As Bart pointed out (between hysterical fits of laughter), "At least nobody's going to think we're the ones who dress her."

Her First Scripture in Primary

Since Hannah is turning four this year, at our church, for Sunday school, she now attends primary.  In primary the kids begin to take part in each week's program.  Every Sunday, children say the prayers, share scriptures, share articles of faith, and give talks in front of the rest of the primary children.  This week Hannah got to participate for the first time.  She shared a scripture.

The theme for Primary this week was, "Jesus Christ taught the gospel, and set an example for us."  The scripture she shared was 3 Nephi 12:48, "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."

For those of you familiar with the Bible, that probably sounds a lot like Matthew 5:48.  As Latter-day Saints, one of our beliefs is that after the Savior left the people of Jerusalem, and ascended to Heaven he actually visited the Americas and taught the people there his gospel too.  His visit to the ancient Americas is found in the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi, Chapters 11-18.  In those chapters, he teaches the people of ancient America many of the same things he taught the people of Jerusalem (sometimes verbatim).  So a lot of what is found in those verses is also found in the Bible.

To be honest with you, I debated which verse to have her share. I love the Book of Mormon, but there really is a special place in my heart for the New Testament.  I really gained my testimony for the first time while I was reading it for seminary.  It finally came down to one thing: Hannah's little Book of Mormon.

When Hannah was in nursery, her nursery leaders gave each of the kids a little Book of Mormon.  Now, whenever we read scriptures as a family, she gets so excited and asks if she can "read" too.  (a.k.a. have someone tell her what the scripture says and then repeat it).

When I told her she would be sharing a scripture in primary, her eyes just lit up.  She jumped up and ran to get her little Book of Mormon and wanted me to help her pick out a scripture right then and there.  I couldn't bare the thought of telling her the scripture she was going to share was in a different book of scripture, so 3 Nephi 12:48 it was.  And she did a great job.  She wasn't afraid or nervous at all.  She spoke loudly and clearly, and sat reverently until it was her turn to share.  I was really proud of my little banana.

Now we just need to get her a little bible so she can have a complete set of scriptures for next time.  :)

Close Up Portraiture

Last year I joined group of photographers who chose a theme to photograph, and then share on our blogs each month.  Most of my group dropped out after the first few months, and there were some months that I was definitely not as into it as others, but I decided to do it again this year for one main reason:  It kept me blogging.  And not just on the themes from our group either. 

There were a lot of months when the time to post on our theme was coming up and I realized I hadn't posted anything since the last theme. I didn't want the theme posts to be the only thing on my blog, so I'd dig through the pictures I had taken over the month and choose something to blog about.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am at it again.  But I am excited.  This year's themes are more open ended.  Although, let's face it, that can be a good or bad thing.  Open ended means you have to think more doesn't it?  ;)  But regardless, I think it will be good for me.  (And if nothing more, it will keep me blogging).

So, this month's theme is Close Up Portraiture.  I confess I really struggled with this one.  I don't have a macro lens.  In fact, the longest focal length I have is a 50mm, and you can only get so close with that.

But for a long time I had wanted to photograph my kids eyes, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  Bart and I have nearly the exact same eye color, so it's no surprise that all of our kids have blue eyes too.  But, despite the nearly identical color, it's fascinating how different the eyes of each of my kids look. I only got pictures of Lilly and Hannah's eyes, but I'm going to work on getting Maya's and Addison's too.  Maybe I'll even share it in another post.  :)

Here's Lilly's:

And here's Hannah's

They were taken at different times of the day in different lighting conditions, so the color isn't as close as it is in real life, but compare the irises.  They are just so different!  It's awesome!  I love it!

Now go ahead and check out Catherine's take on this month's theme.

Anything She Wanted

Seriously, this kid marches to the beat of her own little drum.  On Saturday Addison went to a princess party.  She had been talking about it for days (ever since she received the invitation).  

Thursday night we went through our closets and chose a princess dress for Addison to wear to the party...along with a bow and shoes (yes, she is very much a girly girl).  Of course she had to try everything on to make sure it was perfect, which meant Hannah also needed a dress to try on.  And for the rest of the week the girls were running around in their princess dresses talking about the party.

This actually made me a little nervous.  Hannah wasn't invited to the party, but she was just as excited as Addison.  I finally decided I would take her out on a little Hannah mommy date after I dropped off Addison.

So, the morning of the party, I dressed the two girls in their princess dresses and explained to Hannah that she hadn't been invited to the party, but we were going to drop Addison off, and then mommy would take her somewhere to get a special treat.  I had a friend watch the twins (Bart was out of town at the NAEA conference) and headed off to the party.  We dropped Addison off and I took Hannah to Macey's.

For those of you not from Utah, Macey's is a local grocery store.  Our Macey's just happens to have a little soft serve ice cream counter, and a bulk candy section.  As we were walking in from the parking lot I told Hannah she could have anything she wanted in the store, ice cream, candy...whatever she wanted, she could get.  I imagined this would be any two-year-old's dream, and her reaction confirmed my thoughts.  Her eyes lit up as she said, "Okay!" and quickened her step.

She walked in the door and right up to one of the giant car shopping carts...you know, the ones EVERYONE dreads.  Parents hate them because their kids are always asking for them and they're insanely hard to maneuver.  And everyone else in the store hates them because people using them are either blocking the way or bumping into other people because they're so dang hard to maneuver!

I told Hannah we didn't need a shopping cart.  We were just going to go in and get her a little treat.  She insisted on getting one, and after some arguing, I finally told her she couldn't have a treat if she didn't leave the shopping cart.  (Yeah, I really won't be winning mom of the year any time soon).  She sadly left the cart behind and I led her to the bulk candy isle.

I knelt down so I was eye to eye will my melancholy little two-year-old and explained to her that she could have anything she wanted, any of this candy, or ice cream at the ice cream counter (that we could see from the candy isle)...anything in the whole store.  Her eyes lit up and she asked, "Anything?!?!"  This was more like how I envisioned our little outing.  I smiled and said, "Yes, anything."  She took off running back toward the grocery carts.  I ran after her.  She reached her beloved car cart and said, "I want this."

Seriously, I just laughed.  I picked her up, put her in the driver seat, and pushed her around the store.  And you know what, she was as happy as could be.

My silly little Hannah. Not a day goes by that you don't make me laugh.

I'm a mean mom

In a recent email to a dear friend I sent this picture with the following message...I have attached a picture I took today of my youngest having a rather hard time filling her diaper. I fully intend on including this in her wedding video montage one day.

His response: Motherhood has made you twisted and dark.

7 months

Now that she's almost 8 months I should probably post Hannah's 7 month photos. (Admittedly, the Minnie picture was only taken last week, so she was more like 7.5 months than 7 months, but we were in California without Minnie when she turned 7 months, and I forgot when we got home..until last week).

Hannah Happenings at 7 months:

-Forgot how to take a bottle (and fortunately re-learned how to before our 10 hour road trip to California)

-Began talking to herself before and after she takes naps (Addison also did this)

-Had her first solids

-Had formula for the first time

-Began pinching things with her thumb and forefinger

-Is able to sit alone for short periods of time

-Said her first word (Dada. She said it on 12/21, the day BEFORE Bart came back to Cali. He hadn't even been there for the week before and she said his name first. Moms never get a break.) ;o)

The Minnie pictures are getting a bit trickier. She's now aware of Minnie, so I can't get a picture of her looking at the camera. Oh well. You can still see how she's grown.

Also, the reason she's on a towel is because she was puking for a week. Not this past Monday, but the Monday before, as I went to Hannah's well baby visit I thought, "It's so nice to have Everyone in our family Healthy finally."

That night, Hannah started throwing up. Wednesday night Addison and I started throwing up, and Monday Bart felt sick. I will never think anything like that again. I jinxed myself.

I must take a break from my holiday posting

And show you this picture of my youngest.I have been trying to capture this face of hers for quite a while, and finally was able to do so. I absolutely love it. I can't believe how well she is able to COMPLETELY hide her lips! It reminds me of a "bitter beer face" post card I saw in Germany on my study abroad...in fact, I think I might have sent it to Bart. I'll have to ask him.

Anyway, Addison used to attempt to do this, but was never quite as effective in completely hiding her lips. She also pulled her chin down more which resulted in a look I affectionately called her "piggy face." Ahhh...I love my babies.
Speaking of baby Addison, check out the cheeks on that girl!

I keep telling people Addison's cheeks were even bigger than Hannah's, but I must confess, lately I was starting to doubt. This picture cleared up any doubt I had.