Everyday Life

Here are just some random pictures of things that have been going on from the middle of February to the middle of March.  Nothing terribly exciting...just everyday life.  

 Bella and Noah playing out in the yard.  They love to be outside.

 This is Noah and his good friend Cooper hanging out at Cooper's house one day, watching their favorite show, "Paw Patrol".

 A couple of days later, Noah just laid down on the couch and ended up falling asleep.  He ended up with a slight fever and a cough--again.  This one wasn't so bad as last time though.  

 I was afraid that he was going to kick himself off the couch in his sleep.  But he never did.  

 Paige teaching a FHE lesson that she made at Activity girls.  Noah and Bella are her helpers. 

 We had an old white table that we have had forever.  Two of the chairs that went with it had broken, so we only had 2 chairs.  We went to a furniture store to try to buy chairs to replace the broken ones.  Turns out that instead of buying 2 chairs, we bought a whole new table and 4 chairs and a bench.  I was really hesitant to get it (not because I didn't like it--because I really like it) but because all we used that table for is art projects and homework.  So far so good though, since I haven't let them paint on it yet.  We'll just have to put down a cheap tablecloth before we begin art projects.  

 Bella celebrated their 100th day of school.  This is her hat she got to wear all day.  

 These are some of the things she did at school that day.  

 Hanging out at grandma and grandpa's one Saturday.  These 3 crazies got in the hot tub even though it was raining.  In the bottom picture--grandpa is spraying them with a hose even though it's hard to see.  

 Maggie is in leadership in her school and she absolutely loves it!  These are some of her leadership buddies.  She gets to do things like speak in assemblies, organize fundraisers, and plans school parties/activities.  

 We got some new shelves in our garage for food storage and Noah was helping Garrett arrange things.  He wanted to be on the ladder without anyone helping him.  

 These are Noah's buddies from church, school and neighborhood.  L to R:  Ethan, Ethan's little brother Trevor, Cooper and Noah.  Noah's superman shirt had gotten too small and I had given it away.  I guess I need to buy a new one.  It was a total coincidence that Cooper had his on the same day as Ethan and Trevor.  

 We had  a couple of weeks of beautiful WARM weather!  We loved it!  We were out almost everyday playing and riding bikes.  Bella had been riding a bike like Noah's--the kind without pedals.  She was just cruising along--so confident.  The bike was getting too small for her, so we had her try the pink one with pedals.  It took her a few days to get used to the pedals, but she just took off after that.  Those little glider bikes are so awesome!!  They both love riding bikes now.  We could probably put Noah on a bike with pedals and he could start riding now too.  Once they get confident with balancing--they've got it!

 Paige is so cute--she was putting on some kind of show with her hula hoop.

 Noah and his jeep.

 Ethan and Noah cruising 

 Another day, Lydia, Paige, Paige's friend Haley and Bella decided to make a lemonade stand.  Instead of charging for the lemonade, they gave it away for free.  It was really cute. They had so much fun!

 This is their cute sign.

 Our stake is involved in a regional dance Festival.  We were involved in one like 6 or 7 years ago and it was awesome.  A lot of work, but really neat.  This is the kids in our stake practicing one Saturday.  The performance is in June.  They are dancing to the Cotton Eyed Joe.  It's a fast and complicated dance.  They started working on it last fall.  

 Maggie's kind of in the middle--a little to the left in a yellow and blue checked shirt.  

 While the weather was nice, we went to grandma and grandpa's for a bbq.  The kids were riding on the tractor to bring the patio furniture out of the barn.  

 Maggie got to drive

 and St. Patrick's Day Dinner Celebration!

More of February

Tuesday the 11th

The day before (Monday) the kids didn't have school because of the snow storm, but they were back the next day.  Paige had a field trip to Portland to see the play, "Charlotte's Web" at a children's theater.  She really enjoyed it!  

That night for Young Women's, we had our New Beginnings program and I was in charge of the decorations.  So I decorated while Noah was at preschool.  We used the movie, "Up" as our inspiration for the decorations and the program.  

 This was the invitation I made.  The theme was "Look UP and come unto Christ."

We gave each of the 5 incoming Beehives the little framed picture of Christ and the 2014 theme (on the table)

 This is where we were going to put the refreshments (root beer floats/sherbet floats and wafer cookies), but we ended up just serving from the kitchen instead.  

Can you believe that Lydia is one of our incoming Beehives?  Not until November of course, but crazy still!  

Garrett was still out of town, so I had Paige babysit the other kids here at church.  

Maggie came home from school on the 13th and told us that she got a 270 on her OAKS Test for reading. (standardized test for Oregon).  Those numbers don't really mean anything to me because I don't know the rating.  She told me though that her teacher was really impressed and that it was the highest score on the reading test that he and the other reading teachers have seen in the last 20 years!  To make it even cooler, her teacher, Mr. Fishback called us the next day to tell us about it.  They even called the people who run the test to see what a perfect score was and I think it was a 290 or 300, but that she only missed one question on the test.  Pretty impressive!  Needless to say, we are pretty proud of her!

February 14th

Valentines Day.  I don't think I was very motivated this year for Valentines Day.  I didn't go all out like I sometimes do.  

 This was the breakfast table I set.  Each kid got some kind of sugary cereal with a little valentine note attached to it.  

Noah woke up late...eating his "Loop Loops".

For their lunches, I usually cut their sandwiches into heart shapes.  This year I also used a cookie cutter that was supposed to be lips, but Lydia turned hers upside down to be a mustache.  

This was Noah's lunch.  Hot dogs shaped as a heart, with a cheese arrow, heart strawberries, pink yogurt and kisses.  

 When the kids got home from school, I had a math activity for them to do if they wanted. 

Paige practicing piano--all decked out in hearts and pink.  Cute!

 We had our usual dinner-- heart shaped pizza and salad.  Garrett brought everyone flowers and chocolates.

Last year, after our dinner we played some "Minute to Win it" games.  That was pretty fun.  So, I planned some games for this year, but I don't think I was that into it this year.  It wasn't as fun.  Coming up with new things to do is hard.  

 This first thing we did was pretty fun.  Earlier in the day, I had most of the kids write a secret message on a white heart with a white crayon.  Then after dinner, I brought out some watercolors and they had to paint over the heart to read the message.  Some worked better than others, but it was fun.  

 

I found this "Candy Relay/Obstacle Course" on pinterest and had to try it.  It was cute, but messy.  They were supposed to blow the contents of the pixie stick out of the circle using the licorice stick as a straw, but that was so messy.  So they ended up licking it off the paper.  Still messy.  Oh well.  

Setting up his candy

 Waiting for the instructions

 Licking up the pixie stick

Eating the M&M's because they couldn't do the math at the end.  Not Garrett--just the younger 2.  It was fun.  My kids were way jacked up on candy by the end of the night.  

Then we did a heart toss.  I also found it on pinterest.

 I made these two hearts out of poster board and Bella volunteered to color them.  Then I hung them over a railing upstairs.  Then I just crumpled up some paper for the kids to throw.  The idea was to get the "balls" through the hearts.  Only the 3 younger ones did this one.  

The, we had a race to see who could get the most hearts in a container the fastest.  Noah loved this one.  He raced against Paige and then against Bella and then they were done.

Our last activity was a conversation heart Bingo.  

 We lost Maggie after the candy relay.  

 Notice the red heart on Noah's shirt that Garrett 'placed' on Noah's shirt without Noah's knowledge.  

After our games, we opened up the Valentines Day package from Grandma and Grandpa Hansen.  They are always so excited to get their packages!

 These monkey's that she sent were such a big hit!  They loved them and are still playing with them today.  Especially Bella!

And then I had forgotten that I got them some stuff, so I pulled those out before we sent them off to bed.  

 This is what was inside their goody bags.  I tend to buy food because we have enough toys--everyone likes little treats, right?  

And this was in Garrett's goody bag.  

Feb. 15th

Maggie had another basketball game. So here are a few pictures.  

 She loves being able to jump for the ball at the beginning.  She usually gets it to her team, too. 

 She has done so much better this year.  She's fast and she's aggressive.  She just needs to work on her shooting.  

Feb. 17th.

We finally got around to getting Paige's birthday pictures taken at the mall.  They turned out really cute.  

 this one is my favorite!

They suggested that I get in the picture, too since we both had stripes on, but I didn't really want to since I had a big ol' red cold sore above my lip.  Oh well! 

Well, this is getting a bit long, so I'll finish the rest of February next time.