Evening of the Arts

 Tonight I took the girls to Faith's school for their Evening of the Arts.  We didn't stay very long, but we had to do the Mona Lisa pose.

 We went to the book fair then looked at Faith's class exhibit.  Faith was pretty excited to show me; she said it would blow me away.

 Faith's butterfly.

How excited were we to see the first grade hall and their Aussie art?!!!  I have a feeling Faith's first grade teacher is going to know more than she ever wanted to know about Australia after Faith gets done with her.  We are really looking forward to first grade!

What They Love

 My girls love the park.  I'm so thankful for the warm weather again.

 My girls love to dance.  Spencer started taking guitar lessons a few months ago.  He is pretty good and the girls dance while he plays.

 My girls love to draw.  At a recent birthday party, they were in heaven just sitting down to draw.

I'm glad that Faith has not lost her Aussie/Kiwi English.  At the birthday party they had a pinata.  After the candy was dumped out the kids gathered it all up and Faith yelled, "Lolly Scramble!"

Awards

 This week I went to the boys' school to see them recognized for being on the A/B Honor Roll.

 I have to pretend I'm taking pictures of another kid when I take pictures of Spencer.  This is as good as it gets.

 Tonight we saw the boys get awards with their scout troop. James earned his Tenderfoot and the Music Merit Badge.

 Spencer also earned his Tenderfoot and the Salesmanship Merit Badge.

Way to go Boys!

Lacrosse

 James decided to play lacrosse for the first time ever this spring.  We have gone to three games, and the first game was so cold I thought my face would freeze off. It felt like Rexburg in January.  Luckily, the weather has been beautiful for the rest of the games and today was even hot.  James is number 23.  I really don't know how to play lacrosse.

I don't know that we love it like rugby yet, but anything with a helmet and hitting people with sticks was right up James' alley.

Who Knew?

 Tonight the girls were outside doing sidewalk chalk while I was making dinner.  Next thing I knew Faith was screaming and there was blood all over our porch.  Who knew sidewalk chalk could be so bloody?  The story I got out of the girls was they found a big rock and it somehow ended up fracturing Faith's thumb and sending blood everywhere.  Faith had to wait until 7:00 until I could take her to Urgent Care.  They x-rayed it and found she had fractured her thumb.  They didn't want to touch it.  They sent us to the hospital tonight so a plastic surgeon who specializes in hands could sew her up.  That hospital was 30 minutes away so it made for a big adventure and a very late night for us.  We didn't get home until after midnight.

 She was so brave and only cried a little when they gave her the shot to numb her thumb.  She lost her thumb nail, but they sewed it back on to act as a splint for her fractured thumb bones.

 Happy girl with her slushy!

And this is what happens if you do sidewalk chalk with a huge rock.  Who knew?

Open House

 We moved to Northern Virginia in 2001.  At the time we had to drive about 30 minutes one-way to go to church.  When we got back to Virginia after living in Long Beach, we had to travel 20 minutes to church to our stake center.  In 2010 our town was made a branch and we got to attend a new building about 15 minutes away.  We are in our fourth church building for our town and we are so proud of our new building that is only six minutes away.  We are here to stay!  Today we held an open house for our neighbors and friends in our community to see our new church.  The girls sang in the primary choir.  I don't think I'm allowed to take pictures in the chapel, but I did anyway.

 Doug worked today as an official tour guide for our building, and our kids worked at eating all the refreshments.

 Our favorite part of the day was watching the missionaries build a contraption to get a balloon down.  They ended up sucking it down with the vacuum.

The kids were SO excited when they got it!

Welcome Baby Chance

 Tonight I helped throw a baby shower for my dear friend Shellie who just had baby Chance.  Shellie's girls Annmarie and Karly did a lot of work and all of the decorating, I just made some food.  I really meant to take more pictures, but I guess I was too busy visiting and eating.  The girls did such a great job it looked like something right of the pages of Pinterest.

 Struves, Ann, Charlene, Stacy and Shellie

 Tiffany and Christy

I love this huge anchor.  Faith said it was part of the photo booth so we had to take her picture.

Preschool Field Trip

 This week was my last time teaching preschool for the year for Hope's little group of preschool friends.  I decided I needed to take them on a field trip today because I'm hosting a baby shower tonight.  I tried several places for a field trip with no luck, and I finally called the Home Depot.  They were so great and took us with very little notice.

 They took the girls on a tour of the store.

 Their most favorite thing was the pink duck tape.

 Our preschool plus Faith.

 And then it got really good.  The girls got to go back to their conference room and build a bird house.  They loved it!  They especially loved that they each got their own apron they could write their name on.

 Proud girls with their bird houses.

 We had some time to kill before their moms came so I walked them to the grocery store across the car park and let them pick out a doughnut.

Hope's BFFs Phebe and Ella.

This was my favorite day of teaching preschool!