Lately

A few weeks back when it was still cold, we stopped on our way down the canyon to check out the frozen waterfalls.  It was so cool!  We even saw a girl dressed as Elsa having a Frozen photo-shoot.  :)

Natalie won her class spelling bee so she made it to the school-wide one:

She did great!  Man was it nerve-wracking watching her.  I started to forget how to spell things myself.  She got 6th place, and was definitely the youngest left when she got out.  She missed the word "appreciate"--she spelled it "appreiciate". She was so hoping to win.  Maybe next year!  Elizabeth was sad to have gotten second in her class spelling bee after going head-to-head against another girl for 14 rounds and losing on the word "bizarro".  They are both really good spellers.

We had a fun Valentine's Day.

Eli got to do some fun crafts and enjoy a delicious cupcake at playgroup:

After some procrastination and last-minute stress, Elizabeth finished up her science project and ended up getting 3rd place for her grade!  She wrapped bananas in different materials to see which would stay fresh the longest.  She did all of that work herself, although I did end up helping her with her display since it got down to the wire.  I kept trying to convince her to back everything with construction paper, type and print things out instead of hand-writing everything, and to make her title bigger.  She wanted none of that and I finally backed off.  Why does it take me so long to do that sometimes?  

Here she is with her project:

Eli wanted to be in the picture, too:

Nate has become such a wonderful note-writer.  He is often found writing sweet notes to his family members and we all love them.

Here's one where he wanted to write "I love you Eli" in as many different ways as he could.  I helped with the cursive version:

Here's a great family picture he drew in preschool:

I love how Eli is saying "ga-ga".  He really does say that all the time.

I also have to include these awesome signs that have been on the door to the loft for quite awhile.

I love how disco dancing/music is the epitome of weird and funny to my kids. :)

The kids also made this awesome block city one day:

I love when they're creative.

Natalie and Eli dressing up in Dad's and Grandpa Hall's old things:

Natalie on crazy hair day:

Eli, Nate and I having our first picnic outside on a beautiful warm day:

Hooray for spring!

We got to go down to Utah for Archer's blessing.  I only got this one picture of Jon reading to the boys before bed the night before when we stayed at their place:

I thought it was sweet.  

I love this little series I found on my phone that Natalie took of Eli:

 

 And these selfies from Nate:

And to finish it off, the girls had another piano recital tonight:

They did great and we followed it up with some free ice cream cones at Dairy Queen:

(well, not me--I had a blizzard because I'm the mom :)