Grandpa and Grandma

My dad and step mom come down every so often with their 5th wheel and stay for a while. We had a fun time with them being here for 2 whole months. We have gone down to visit in their 'little house' to go swimming and just hanging out. They also made the journey up to visit us for Sunday dinner a few times as well. They stayed down in Mesa just a few miles East of the Temple. We thought it was funny that the South side of Main Street there were RV and Motorhome dealers and the North side was all the retirement parks. lol

We also met up with them at the Botanical Gardens when they had their free Tuesday. The girls had fun showing grandma and grandpa all the plants and flowers they liked. And we got to go into the butterfly exhibit too. This is the second year in a row for us to go in the spring time and Savannah tried desperately to get a butterfly to land on her, and no such luck...TWO YEARS IN A ROW! She was very sad since they landed on everyone else. Next time we will have to squeeze an orange on her skin to attract them I guess.

All in all we had a great time and I wish I took more pictures. Grandpa and Grandma are gonna head back North to Idaho and hope that spring is on its way up there.

Hello from Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

When I was at Walt Disney World back in February I got a little message to send back to my girls from two of their favorite characters from the new movie Tangled.

They both LOVE it, and Charlotte was excited that they know her name!!

Follow the link to view the little video. I couldn't get it to post on here.

HELLO FROM TANGLED

Girl Scouts

Troop 1460 at their first meeting at the beginning of the year

I think a few people got extra sick of me posting things about girl scout cookies on Facebook, so I think I will come back to my blog to write things. Then it isn't jamming up peoples main feed there.

Savannah officially sold her last box of cookies today. Chad took the remaining 8 with him to the orthodontist and they bought them all. Hooray! She sold a total of 237. She really wanted to get to 250 to get the next prize but oh well. Maybe I should be a good mom and buy another 13 boxes to hit it, but I don't need the extra dimples and my waist line is getting thicker from the 10 I already bought.

Girl Scouts have all sorts of prizes they get from selling cookies. So she earned, a cookie patch for her vest, a bandana, a kangaroo stuffed animal (they do a different one each year), a little clutch type purse, a tee shirt and a reusable grocery type bag to deliver cookies in. The next prize she wanted was a journal set. I am okay with her not getting it since she already has 3 different journals.

Two weeks ago her troop had a daddy daughter dance. A few of the mom's pitched it to get two limos so the girls could ride in style there. She was so excited and the limo was a surprise to the girls. They had a great time. They had a dance contest with the dad's and they would get tapped out. Well Chad made it to the final 3, then they brought the girls to dance with them. Chad started to swing dance with Savannah and they were crowned King and Princess of the Night. They did a victory dance to 'Butterfly Kisses', which Chad said was hard to not get emotional dancing too. They also got free pictures too. (I don't have them back yet).

Then they did a raffle. The tickets were $.50 a piece so Chad bought 10. There were 7 baskets to be won. They won 2 of them! One had a variety of past years cookie prizes and the other was a love sort of one, with chocolates, candles, etc.

With her Bestie Alexis

Savannah thought it was the best night EVER! I think for her it was too.

We are alive

Well it has been FOREVER since I posted last. Savannah is in the 1st grade and loving it. She is also a a girl scout and just finishing up selling cookies. She sold 237! She has had so much fun. Charlotte keeps saying she wants to be a daisy scout too. All in good time she will be as well.

Chad started a new job last month with Wells Fargo. He is a business banker at the Scottsdale branch. So if you need a loan, new account or whatever go to him :) He just finished up 4 weeks of training and will do 2 more at the end of the month. Chad has been going back to school online for almost a year now. Time to get that degree to help out with the job market. Better late than never right?

I have been busy with making aprons and also doing glitter toes. And of course being a mom. Charlotte is such a funny kid and keeps me on my toes during the day. I am also going to start the journey of finishing my degree as well. I have always had a nagging feeling that I need to finish. With only 30 credits away, it is so close I can almost spit on it. lol. So since Chad is going, I can actually get a grant to finish off mine. I should be able to finish off in 9 months. Once I take the introductory class I will be able to take 2 classes at once. They are 6 weeks each so I will be busy.

Here are a few pics we had taken in January, you probably all saw them on FB but I love em so I will put them here too.

Cousins and Big Trucks.

When we were up in Utah we tried to go and see things on an extremely TIGHT budget. We stayed with my brother John and had a great time. Savannah became the 'chicken whisperer' and LOVED to collect the eggs, talk to and hold the chickens. Here are just a few pictures of cousins and we also took my two nephews Kade & Boston up to Kennecott Copper Mine to look at the big trucks and look down in the largest open pit mine in the world. The kids had fun learning about all the things that we use in our home that come out of that mine.


Charlotte the photographer
Uncle John, Aunt Mel, Ashley & Grandma


Charlie getting ready to go.


Aunt Mel and Boston


Chad and Charlotte mowing the lawn. Charlie fell asleep while mowing. Aw... the days of mowing a 1/2 acre.


Charlotte & Boston. They got along SO well together.


Next to the Huge truck tires at Kennecott.





For us Arizonians it sure was chilly up there.

Challenger Space Center

Once a month the Challenger Space Center pulls out some of their HUGE telescopes for everyone to look it. It was lots of fun. We went with some new friends the Warmoths. We had a great time. We could see all sorts of plants and saw the bright star in the sky that we learned was Venus. Lacey told her oldest daughter, Halle (who is 12) that (meaning Venus) is where women are from. Halle said 'Really?' Lacey, 'yeah and men are from Mars.' Halle had a total shocked look on her face. Then Lacey told her she was teasing. I can't wait til my girls get older that I can tease them like that.


Savannah looking through the big telescope.








A future here????



Charlotte grabbed the telescope the first time and the guy had to realign it.



Pretty impressive of the moon for my little camera huh?

Just Keep Swimming ....

We are full blown into our week of swim lessons. Julianne is an amazing teacher, as usual!!

Charlotte is a little fish. She is so fun to watch swim. She is finally not whimpering and kick..kick's her little legs to get to the side. Even being dropped off the diving board she takes the longer route to get to the side instead of just turning quick to the side.







Savannah is having all her previous lessons come back to her memory. She is swimming all over the pool and is working on her diving.

There are some videos of the girls on facebook. For the life of me I can't get video's to load on blogger.

Sedona

This past week I was able to go to Sedona Tuesday - Friday with the Young Women in the ward. They were challenged at the beginning of the school year to read the Book of Mormon during the year. As a reward to those who finished we took them up to Sedona. A wonderful sister in the ward donated 5 2-room condo's from their timeshare at the Wyndham Resort!! It was WONDERFUL! On the way up there I had the laurels in my van. As they were channel surfing for some music I told them of the cd's I had in the changer. One of them was Les Miserables. One of the girls had read the book but not seen the play and none of the others had read/seen it. So the two of us got to give them a little synopsis of what was going on. It brought back memories from my first youth conference trip when we were listening to Les Mis on our way to Flaming Gorge and it was my first time hearing the play and my leader was telling us about it.

I had such a great time getting to know the girls a little better, and also some of our leaders as well. We had such great entertainment from the 'Ric' since the Bishop was unable to make it up the first night. But they came as Hoss and Slim. We did a cowboy dinner and they came with stories and songs and a great spiritual testimony meeting afterwards. We had fun on our little excursions and playing at the resort, plus the weather was gorgeous. I'm glad I had the opportunity to come and enjoy this time with the girls. I love my calling and all of the girls are amazing and have such a strong testimony making it all worth while.

Chad was wonderful and stayed behind as 'Mr. Mom' and entertained the girls. I don't think they went to bed until 11:30p every night but the house was clean and the girls were happy when I came home so I'm not complaining.

Savannah's art work today

Savannah's art. Mom & Savannah in the middle. Daddy on the right in the sun. Then there is Charlotte in the rain. At least she drew her an umbrella. Ya think she loves her sister?....

Chad and I just started chuckling when she showed it to us. She is so funny.

Seussical Jr - The Musical - All about Savannah

Savannah was in her first ever school play. She was so excited and after months AND MONTHS ... of practice the show finally came. She did such a good job and we are SO proud of her. I asked her if there is another play next year if she wanted to do it and she said, "Maybe they will do the Magic School Bus and I can be Miss Frizzle." Needless to say she wants to do another one. She did get pretty tired through all the rehearsals but the end result was worth it to her. I was there almost all day Thursday and half the day on Friday doing hair. It was fun though. Here are a few pictures.


Mom and Dad and our little star. Her Music teacher Ms Nowak



Snuck one in of Charlie. This is how I did the fish's hair on the second night.








Savannah and a few of the other fish





Happy 6th Birthday! Didn't get too many pictures. We did a Wizard of Oz party. We borrowed a projector from a friend and watched it in the backyard. Glad all the popcorn was in my backyard for the birds and dog to clean up than in my house.




Savannah, Layla & Cole




Alexis and Savannah


Savannah and Pierce Savannah & Charlie


The last week of Savannah being a Kindergartner