Dailynn

I love Mrs. Candland!  She is such an awesome teacher that has such great ideas for the students to learn and grow.  At the start of the year she gave every student a sight words book and said that if they finished all 48 lists of 25 words or groups of words by the end of the year they would get to go to a bowling party.  When it was time for parent teacher conference in march we realized that we had only done about 7 of those lists.  We worked real hard for the next month and a half and got it done!!!!  It was a huge accomplishment for both of us!  The bowling party was so much fun.  Watching these 7-8 yr old kids trying the throw bowling balls down the alley and hit the pins was a blast!!

The other awesome thing is that the whole first grade got to go to the zoo for a field trip.  Before they went they had to do a research paper on an animal at the zoo.  Dailynn chose the Giraffe (I'm real good at spelling that now that we have worked on the project so much).  We spent a Saturday writing and rewriting the paper to turn it in.  Then the next week we got to make a poster with pictures and facts from the paper.  After going to the zoo, they then got to present their own zoo.  Each kid got to dress up like their animal and present their facts to the spectators (the parents and students from the rest of the school)  I was totally stumped on how to make a Giraffe costume for her, and slowly the ideas came to me.  I wanted to do a paper bag with yellow paint, but then realized I didn't have any paper bags, and was running out of time to go get one since there is only one store here that uses them.  I was wandering the isles at wal-mart and came across felt squares that were just about the right color.  I bought a few and glued them together to make the shirt.  I had an extra that I was able to make the mask from.  I'm not super excited about the mask, but it still looks good enough.  Dailynn had a blast painting the pattern on it and was so excited to go be in the zoo.  I have to say that was the cutest zoo I have ever been to!

just pics

So Nathan is really into disc golf lately, and one sat he let us tag along, kinda.  We went up to Taylorsville to a park that had a disc golf course that he and some friends from work wanted to try out.  We went and played at the playground while he played his game.  A short time later the girls decided they were done with the playground so to entertain them for a little longer we pulled out the camera (I know shocking I actually had a camera on me at the time)  and took some pictures.  Avi decided that she didn't want to cooperate, and Jeslyn had her moments as well.  This is what we get.

Oh and this is Nathan actually playing,

Can you see the disc and the basket.  I thought this was a great action shot for me to have actually gotten.

Phew

Has life slowed down yet?  Well since it is snowing today it sure feels like it.  I have been wanting to do this post for weeks, but with some absolutely wonderful weather and a house that has been slightly destroyed, I have had other things going on.

Keila is growing like a weed.  She is a little shy of 4 months old, and has finally decided that life is a little easier than she thought it was.

 Here is the blanket that my mom made for her.  She likes it don't you think.

 This is how she spent the time at La Sal if she wasn't in my arms.  The stinker didn't like anyone!

 We blessed Keila while we were down in La Sal.  Because it was Easter we had to have an Easter Bunny.

 

This is 3 mo. old wearing the outfit she came home from the hospital in.  she has grown a little you think?

 My friend Janina decided she doesn't like Utah weather anymore and ran away to Arizona.  We got together as friends to go for dinner and ice cream.  We miss them sooo much!

 Avi has some crooked teeth, so in order to keep them healthy and strong, she got braces put on the top.

Our trip to La  Sal for spring break, Easter, and time with cousins.

 "That's me in the picture"

 How many Easter Bunnies does it take to put Easter together?

 Who can pass up a tractor ride?

 What's a trip to La Sal without a jeep ride?

 As usual, Jeslyn can't stay awake on a jeep trip.

 Swimming with Grammy!  We love going to visit her and the pool.

 Fun at City Creek after swimming.

So I survived tax season.  I started working again when Keila was about 2 weeks old.  I only did it because it was peek and not only did I want to get in there to get my fair share of returns, but they needed me to help out as well.  The first month was a doosey and threatened to do me in, but once Keila started calming down a bit it was a little easier to think and focus on what I was doing.  All of my clients loved seeing her either in person or in the picture on my desk.  The last week of work was crazy!!!  I spent so much time in the office and did a lot of returns.  I ended up leaving work at 9:30 on the 15th because Keila was in desperate need of me, but then I found out the next day that the rest didn't leave until midnight.  Yuck.  Since then I have been cleaning my house.  I have found that I can't keep up with it, but I can keep it up to a descent level. 
The weather has been so wonderful lately that we have started our yard projects.  If you have been to my house you have seen the weed gardens that I have on the west of our driveway.  Nathan was looking at the street view of our house on google maps and was disgusted by it, so now we are in the process of changing it.  We have dug out most of the bricks and cinder blocks that have made up barriers and retaining walls.  Once we get the rest of the blocks up we will till the ground and start leveling to plant grass.  It is going to look so much better, and I can't wait for the grass to come up!
Projects on the summer schedule...
finish the tree house
revamp the garden
clean the basement
build a shed
fill a shed
bake sale
bake sale
bake sale
The girls believe they are going to save up enough money to buy a nexus so they are convinced that is going to happen by doing bake sales all summer.  I guess I will be teaching them about inventory, supplies, baking, pricing, etc. 
My other project this year is to finally fit into those size 12 shorts I bought 10 years ago.  Luckily I have breast feeding on my side to help with that.  I have been able to shed 12 lbs in 6 weeks, and am on track to keep up the pace if I just keep going.  Wish me luck!

Driving and laughing

On Thursday I was driving home from morning work and Jeslyn was being cute.  She stated that she wanted to drive and it was her turn.  I informed her that she had to be 16 to drive. I then asked how old she was knowing that she always answers this with "3".  Instead she said, "I'm 16.  It goes 1, 2, 3, 16.  I'm 16."  She sure is smart.

I went to night work that night, and took Dai and Keila with me knowing that no one was on the schedule.  Daily was there to read, we were desperately behind on her reading and I figured 3 hours stuck in a boring office might help her read.  Luckily it worked, we got 9 books read, wahoo!  After a few books, she was getting tired.  I am always tired so I started pretend snoring for her.  Keila looked up at me and started laughing with each fake snore.  It was so sweet to see her so happy! 

The night before I looked at her neck and and saw that her creases were quite red, so when I tried cleaning them out they started bleeding.  It made me so sad, and she was screaming from it.  A lucky call to the Dr. On Thur., they had the night clinic that night, and found out how to help it.  It looks better, but its still really sore.  The poor girl.  Now we both have colds, so we are being shut-ins this weekend.

Milk

So this morning we got to talking about different types of milk.  They were asking how different milks came about.  I told them about almond milk just being ground up almonds and then they started on about rice and coconut milk.  Avi then asked about the white stuff in a coconut and why its there.  I told her that was the fruit part of it and she was really confused.  With a little more conversation and a bag of coconut in the freezer she finally got it.  I pulled out as pinch for each girl to try (they have had coconut before, its just been a while) and they all 3 decided they didn't like it.  Nor questions followed about who likes it.  Rt he funny girls thought it would be hereditary to like it.  After assuring them that both my parents like it, and that I thought that Nathans mom likes it, they started asking about grand parents.  Sorry grand parents I don't know if you like coconut or not.  Strangely enough this lead to conversations about step parents and blood line.  Nathans grandma is a step grandma, and I don't think they understand that there grandpa is Nathan's step dad.  It's fun to follow conversations and see whether they go.

sleep

Oh how I miss getting sleep!  Since the begining of November (I think) I haven't gotten a descent nights sleep.  Back then it was just my hips causing me pain that kept me up.  The funny thing is I was just wishing to be done being pregnant so I could sleep.  I knew that I would be waking up to feed the baby, and that would have been better than the tossing each hour to relieve some pain.  What I didn't expect was the waking every 10-20 minutes or having a squirmy baby on my chest from 2:00 on each morning.  I still get my 6-8 hours between feedings at night, but the joy of them is greatly diminished.

On another note, yesterday I started seeing the change in look from the new born to baby.  It makes me excited to see the change, but sad that she's growing up.

I bought a sling to carry her in about a year ago, and until yesterday I hadn't been able to use it in a way that I was comfortable.  I was trying to clean a little and Keila wanted to be held, so I pulled out the sling, figured out how she fit in it, and went to work.  She fell asleep all snuggled in next to me.