Happy Birthday H3!

My baby just turned 7 yesterday! She is such a sweet girl and lights up our home with her terrific personality. Today in the car she was telling me that there's no job she'd rather have when she grows up than to be a mother. She loves and cares for her baby dolls and is very sensitive to the feelings of the people around her. I admire her faith. She is always the one that is willing to say a prayer, remind us to have Family Home Evening, or recommend that her brother or sister get a blessing when they are sick.

She got a camera (it's a piece of scrud, but she likes it), a styling head, a baby doll (of course), and a Happy Napper.

We also had a little birthday party for her. She had a Rapunzel cake:

The kids played with Fazoodles:

and she got some really fun gifts. It was a great, and exhausting, day for her.

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to St. Louis to visit my family. Boy, it was hot! We had a great time though. We went to Purina Farms where the girls tried milking a cow:

And we saw a really, really, weird looking duck:

We also took a trip to Liberty, MO to visit my brother and his family. We were going to take a train, but because of complications due to flooding, we ended up taking a bus instead. It was still fun.

We had dinner at Buca de Beppe in Kansas City and played in the fountain.

We also got to go the Magic House (it's like a big Children's Museum). There was a big "beanstalk" connecting the floors of the museum that the kids could climb up and down on:

Their favorite room was the bubble room. H1 made the biggest bubble of anyone!

That's pretty much all that's new for us around here lately!

Is It Spring Yet?? Please??

Winter weather seems to be dragging on forever and I am so thankful for the few-and-far-between fair weather days that we have had. We've had fun though!

January brought us a visit from Nanna. We were lucky to get to stay in a cabin up in the mountains once again. It was warm and cuddly inside and beautifully winter-y outside. We had fun going sledding together, everyone taking turns hiking up the hill and sledding back down again.

Nanna and H1:

H3 was remarkably brave!

All bundled up!

There were some amazing ice formations on the cabin and along the river.

At night we enjoyed a fire, watching TV, and cuddling.

The next day I had big plans to stop for BBQ on the way home. Not even a mile down the road, we ran into a road closure. There had been some avalanches that needed to be cleaned up before we could go anywhere. I tried to go back to the cabin, but the roads were too slick and we ended up stuck for a bit. We ended up having an overpriced but memorable lunch while we waited for the snow to be cleared. The kids were pretty bored, so I let them take some random pictures of our experience.

Our Smuckers had to have another surgery. His knee ligament broke (like the other one did a year ago) and he had to have it fixed. The kids were so precious with him. He is a very pampered pooch!

Do you like his gangsta bling?

Spring Break came along just in time to give me a much needed break. Things were extra busy at work and I was also trying to get my volunteer hours in so that I could choose the kids' teachers for next year. I did 23 hours of sewing during the month of March. Whew!

My parents came for a visit and we had a great time. The weather wasn't great, but we had a lot of fun regardless. The first thing H1 wanted to do with Grandpa was play some video games. We opted for Raving Rabbids, and Grandpa did pretty good!

H3 was a little cuddle bug!

H3 was very excited to have another loose tooth and decided that she really, really wanted it to come out while her Grandparents were here. She got her wish! While we were up at the cabin, her Grandpa pulled it out for her!

On their last night here, the girls played a hidden object game with Grandma and then watched Get Smart with Grandpa.

During that same time, a lot of our extended family was gone on a cruise, so we got to dog-sit Dixie. She was a welcome member of our household.

H3 has been practicing with a musical group from school for a couple of months now. She had her performance on Thursday night and she did so well!

We had our Easter party today and it was so fun! The weather was even nice enough to have an outdoor Easter egg hunt. First was the kids' egg hunt:

And the adults had eggs to find too. Each egg had a number in it. There were 7 prizes, some better than others. Our cousin J won the adult egg hunt again this year and got $20. There were also Hershey bars, $5, an old phone, and an old pinewood derby car (so it was kind of like a white elephant thing too).

Happy Easter everyone!