Daniel's Birthday

Daniel is 4 years old! We went to Burger King on his birthday--his choice! The kids had fun eating and playing on the slides.



He wanted an Island of Sodor (Thomas) cake, of course.

Here he is in his new pajamas. I think Daniel gets too many hand-me-downs. He asked me, "Where did my pajamas come from?" I said, "From Papa and Nana." Then he asked, "But who in Papa and Nana's family didn't want them anymore?" I made sure he understood that his new clothes came from the store and that they are just for him. Now I'm especially grateful that he got new clothes for his birthday!

This is the other outfit he got from Papa and Nana. They got him a Thomas video, too. :-) (That's not what's playing in the background, though--that's Max and Ruby.)

Happy Birthday, sweet boy! You amaze me with your insightful questions and your sense of humor every day. I love you, Daniel!

May Family Fun

May is a crazy/busy month for us. It's recital season and there are many events at the schools as the year comes to a close. I love it, but it sure is hectic.


Emily received an award for writing a song for the PTA Reflections contest earlier this year. Here she is being recognized with all of the other winners from the district.



Here is Andrew at the Mother's Day program at his school. They sang the cutest songs for us!

After the program, I got to visit Andrew's classroom where he gave me many wonderful handmade gifts.

On this day, Michael was up north helping with the tornado clean up. The kids and I were on our way to the YMCA, but I had noticed the day before that the local Geico office near us was collecting donations for tornado victims so we dropped off our boxes. The kids were so excited to get their picture taken with the gecko.

Mom's Morning Out is now over for Daniel (and me!). On the last day, he had a field trip to the zoo. They love to ride the train!

Here is Daniel with his teacher and his class. I know he will miss everyone. Not to worry, though, since we know most of the children from church!

Here is Nathaniel at his bridging ceremony where he received his Arrow of Light and officially became a Boy Scout. He is super excited about it. He went to day camp on Saturday.

Since Nathaniel was at Scout Day Camp, he missed the piano recital. He hadn't ever missed one in the five years he's been playing. Emily performed, however, and she did a wonderful job!

Here are the boys, waiting to cheer on their sister at her dance recital.

My beautiful girl, after the recital.

This has been her fifth dance recital! Every year she gets this same picture with her Daddy.

It's not over yet! Emily still has her Gymnastics/Baton/Jazz recital next week!

Fun times

Apparently, we can't get enough Disney these days. Here are the kids at Disney on Ice. I didn't tell the boys until we got there that it was "Princess Dreams." Emily was pretty excited. Don't the boys look thrilled? They really did enjoy it. The characters did some cool tricks that we all liked. We were in the front row of the balcony, so the seats were perfect for us. It was so much fun!

Daniel must have thought that I didn't do a good enough job cutting his hair. He found some scissors and made an adjustment. I thought about giving him a buzz cut, but he cut it so close to the scalp that a shorter cut would make it even more obvious.

Andrew likes to make "projects" these days. This was his idea for an Easter basket that he can wear. At least this one didn't include glitter.

Here is Jonathan doing what he does best--looking cute and melting my heart with that smile!

Emily's Baptism

Emily was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on March 5. It was such a wonderful day. Michael's parents and his sister, Erin, were able to be there and they all spoke. We also had many wonderful friends there, including Emily's piano teacher. I am so grateful to have Emily as my daughter. She is an example to me in many ways.

The dress she wore is very special to me. My mother had it made for me by a family friend when I was little. I wore it when my mother married my stepfather, and then again a year later when I was baptized. Watching Emily be baptized in the same dress was very special to me. I am so grateful to my Grandma and Grandpa Horsfall for finding it for me. I didn't realize it had been in the closet in their house all these years, but I was extremely grateful that it was!

Small changes and big fun

OK, let's start with teeth. Nathaniel had to have three baby teeth pulled to make room for permanent teeth. I didn't take any pictures; I know he is grateful for that. :-) Andrew had what I thought was a blister in his mouth. It kept getting worse, though, and so I finally touched it to see and I was shocked to find out that it was a tooth! I got him in to the dentist right away and they pulled his two front bottom baby teeth.

Emily needed some early-stage orthodontic work for her overbite. She got a Schwartz appliance. It's like a retainer.

This is the beginning of a week of illnesses. Emily and Andrew were really sick with a stomach virus. Thankfully, they are OK now.

Medieval intrument of torture? Nope--it's Jonathan's "gait trainer." Please walk soon, baby! I'm begging you!

Morning bed head

Nathaniel wanted to go see Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules for his birthday and to go to Stevi Bs for dinner. Here he is with his friend. They had a great time!

We spent the day Saturday working on TWO science fair projects. I'm so relieved to be done with them. I think I'm more relieved than the kids are. They both had the same idea and used the same data, but the projects are very different. We took pulse rates to decide which ride at Disney World was the most exciting. For Emily, it was between Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, and Splash Mountain won. For Nathaniel, it was between Space, Splash, and Big Thunder Mountains and Big Thunder Mountain won. Well, you know that 97% of statistics are made up, right?

Andrew was sharing a room downstairs with Jonathan. He liked being across the hall from us, but now he wants to be upstairs so he has moved in with Daniel. It's going fine so far. Jonathan decided to crawl upstairs the other day. Within a day, he was an expert in crawling back down, too, and he loves it up there! There was a while today that all five kids were playing happily upstairs. The playroom is a wreck, but it was worth it.

Daniel shows off his moves to Princess Aurora

As Nathaniel said about watching this clip, "This never gets old."

The Big Kiss

There is no introduction. This one speaks for itself. ;)