February & March

Joe and I went on some fun double dates with the Allreds. We're sure going to miss them when they move this summer. They took us to this spicy Chinese place. Check out all those red peppers:

A quick picture I took of our YW for one who moved to Utah:

I love those girls.

Date night at Fenton's:

I was volunteering in Eli's kindergarten class one day and noticed this scene during their snack:

He has always gotten along so well with girls. 

Speaking of Eli, one night he was working so hard to read a Magic Treehouse book. He has improved so much in his reading!

We had YW at our friends' the Weston's and got to meet their adorable new lab puppy Jogger that they are training to be a guide dog.  Natalie loves him so much.

Eli got to bring home his class stuffed bear and I loved this picture we took of him playing Wii with him:

Nate did his science project on Misty (testing whether she would eat more food if there was more food available) and took this pictures of her:

Sadly, she died only about a week after that. We're hoping we didn't put any stress on her. She was almost 2 which is pretty old for a hamster.

We got the kids a new hamster that they named Hazelnut, or Hazel for short.

She is a lot more active but does make a really weird hissing sound sometimes when she doesn't like something.

I think Eli took these pictures of the neighborhood kids playing:

I did a lesson on origami for my math class and thought this tower of truncated cubes was cool and fun to make:

We had a pi day activity and tested Buffon's needles experiment and sure enough--it worked!

Ann and I taught yoga at the multi-stake youth conference and then treated ourselves to hot pot after. The conference was fun and we got tons of kids to come to our classes. Mark Rober was even there giving a talk! 

After the shootings at mosques in New Zealand, we found out about a candlelight vigil at Lake Elizabeth and decided to go. It was a beautiful meeting and I loved seeing them pray at sunset. It was powerful to watch.

The girls and I went on a youth temple trip to Sacramento.

Natalie and Joe had a fun one-on-one date to go watch the BYU women's basketball team play Stanford in the tournament. They even got on TV! They also sat right by Steve Young and Tom Holmoe.

(That was where Steve Young was sitting :)

At the end of March, we drove up to Greenwood for one last chance to see the snow. We'd planned on taking the kids skiing but when Chris and Regina had some free time open up we invited them and they came! We surprised the kids and I think they were OK skipping skiing to spend time with cousins. We had a blast playing with them all weekend.

The older kids were outside building snow tunnels and playing.

We went up above Donner Lake:

We loved playing games, doing puzzles and just hanging out. We also took them out for their first time to an Indian restaurant and they all seemed to like it! It was a great weekend.

Elizabeth is 14!

Joe happened to out of town on Elizabeth's birthday this year so we celebrated a couple of days later when he got back. It was a pretty low-key celebration but a good day. She picked bread bowl soup (as we call it) for dinner and that was delicious. She made her cake herself which turned out amazing. The homemade chocolate frosting was way better than anything I've made. 

It's always tricky to shop for Lizzie but she seemed happy with what she got. Natalie made her this awesome wood plaque with a design from one of her favorite book series:

She also got her bow and arrow set! That was really the only thing she asked for.

We finally got to try it out at a park recently and had a blast. 

Elizabeth's had a great year. She officially passed me up in height! She grew so fast that people always comment on how tall she is. It's still pretty crazy for both of us. People sometimes think she is older than she is. She loved it when she didn't have to take a swim test over the summer but James did, even though he is older. :)

She is still doing great in school. She's been in a super tough advanced math class in 8th grade and has risen to the challenge. She does well in all her classes, even with missing school when she gets a migraine every month or two. We're still working on figuring out how to best handle those. She still loves English and is working on writing a bunch of novels. She loves to listen to music and write. She is talking about being an English teacher or a writer in the future now. She still enjoys Science too. She's taking French as an elective and is picking it up really quickly.

We're still working on finding her a physical activity that she enjoys. She is an expert at deflecting our efforts in this area. :) She did take intramural golf for half the year. She also loves riding her bike and going on walks while listening to music. She still loves climbing. We went to Rock City here and she was climbing all over everything. She loves to swim, too, but doesn't like swimming laps.

She loves music of all kinds and is writing amazing songs on the piano. She reads and reads, of course, and has gotten into Dickens. She loves making herself some cheesy potatoes to eat or a huge bowl of fruit. She still doesn't spend her money much, except on books. She's making a lot of money lately babysitting so she actually has a lot saved up. She's a really great babysitter and a wonderful big sister.

We sure love our Lizzie.