March Madness

March flew by! I can't believe that the month is over and I have only posted once... a lot happened, and maybe that is why I didn't post. Dave and I went on Trek with our stake mid month, and it seemed to consume a lot of the month. I will post about Trek separately, once I sort through all the pictures taken by the "photographers".
This month brought a lot of fun family time and school things. Chloe's 4th grade choir performed a song for their school...


Ciera's band classes all played songs at the "Celebrate The Arts" festival...


Chloe had a piece of her artwork in the art display at the "Celebrate the Arts" too! I didn't get a picture of it (Bad me!), but I will when we get it back so you can see her skills!!
Brooke and Autumn have been having fun, being crazy kids. They keep me on my toes, always getting into things and making messes. That has seemed to be their pattern since they were little girls!Dave, Autumn, and I found a little baby turtle on a walk one day, and Autumn named it Franklin. She wanted to keep it, but understood that we needed to let it go after we showed her sisters. It was so little and cute I would have liked to keep it too, but that just wasn't fair to the little turtle, so we let it go!We had a fun March, and look forward to a fun April as well!

WHAT's growing WHERE??

It is always fun having a scientist in the family. A few weeks ago, Dave brought home a petri dish to see what was growing in our carpet. It turned out that there is A LOT growing in our carpet. It was disgusting! That got the scientist wheels turning. If there was stuff growing in our carpet, where else was there nasty stuff growing? I will give you four guesses.
Dave came home the next week with petri dishes for each girl. They were each labeled "mouth", "nose", "ear", and "hair". For our family activity that night, we used swabs to collect samples from around each girl's nose, behind their ears, and in their hair. We collected from inside Ciera and Chloe's mouths, but Brooke and Autumn didn't want to do in their mouths, so they did their belly buttons instead.
A week later we looked at the results. Let me just say... Yikes. It turns out that they are regular breeding grounds for bacteria. Sometimes I think it is better not to know... you know, ignorance is bliss and all that. Oh well... all in the name of science.

Brooke's Birthday

We had a lot of fun on Brooke's birthday. Dave and I took her out to dinner for her birthday on Friday evening. She chose Cici's Pizza. It was fun to spend the time with just her. On Saturday, she opened her gifts, we had cinnamon rolls, we spent the day having fun together, we rode bikes (she got a new one for her birthday and Autumn just learned how to ride without training wheels), and then we had our ward Young Women Camp Fundraiser dinner on Saturday night.
We love Brooke, and are so glad to have her as our daughter! Happy Birthday Brooke!!

Beautiful Birthday Girl Brooke

My sweet Brooke is 7 today. I can hardly believe that she is that big already. She is such a sweetheart, and we love having her in our family. She is beautiful inside and out, and we are so glad to call her ours!!
I love you Brooke. Happy Birthday!!

Mardi Gras fun!

In honor of Mardi Gras, we had a fun filled evening of New Orleans style food and fun! I made not-so-dirty "dirty rice" (I omitted any animal organ meats... yuck!), and beignets for dessert (a really delightful deep fried sweet bread dough... heavenly). We watched "The Princess and the Frog" while we ate. It was really fun... a tradition that I am really enjoying!

Brooke Anne- Toothless Wonder

Brooke lost another tooth, and now has a large gap in the front of her mouth. She looks really cute! (And of course Autumn couldn't resist...)

Saying goodbye is hard to do...

I am feeling a little sad today. A little sad. And happy. And relieved. Dave and I sent the final document to our Realtor today after the sale of our home in Utah. We signed the closing documents last week, and the papers were received by the Title Company Monday, and recorded this week.
We listed our fabulous Logan, Utah home with a Realtor in June 2010, right after we found out we were going to be moving. In August, we moved... still having no buyer willing to pay enough for our home. It has been a long, difficult, trying road for the last 1 year and 9 months... but it is finally past us.
I loved our home in Logan. I loved our neighborhood. I loved the community in which we lived. We put a lot of ourselves into that home. We put blood, sweat, and tears into each home improvement and rennovation. We made it ours. So, I am sad that we no longer have a home there to go back to if we ever wanted to. But, I know that the Lord has other things in store for our family, and I am grateful that we were able to finally sell our home and move on.
So... today I am sad. But tomorrow the happiness will come, I am sure of it.