Spring Break

This week was spring break. Unfortunately is was rainy and cold for the first four days of the week. We did attend some fun library activities, and we went to the Imagine Nation children's museum in Bristol. The kids loved the museum! There was lots to do, and everyone found a favorite thing to do. Emi loved pretending in the store/kitchen/restaurant, Clara loved the climbing wall and jungle gym, and James loved the sandbox and water table. I loved that everyone was happily entertained!!

James also enjoyed the woodworking room at the museum. I love this shot....it's so boy!

Clara on the slide

The kids also had fun pretending to be news reporters....they enjoyed seeing themselves on "tv"



I think mother nature knew that I just couldn't handle one more day of cold, drizzly, depressing weather, because Friday was lovely and Sat. and Sun. were simply fantastic with 90 degree temperatures and blue skies. The weekend brought an ice cream outing to J. Fosters with some of our favorite "CT grandparents", a Saturday bike ride on the trail and the first BBQ party of the season with great friends. Hooray for spring break :)

Daffodils

After a very long Connecticut winter, there is nothing more welcoming than the first signs of spring. After church today, we went on a drive up to Litchfield to see the daffodils. It was beautiful! The rolling hills, the ancient stone walls, the lake and thousands of daffodils!

Utah Trip

(Sorry, this is a lengthy post!)

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Utah. We went for General Conference and for my birthday. It was so much fun, but the time went by sooo quickly! Although we were only there four days, we were able to see a lot of family and friends. It was wonderful!

All of my children LOVE to travel. Seriously, they ask me every single day when our "next trip on the airplane" will be. Clara was especially excited for this trip because it was the first time she was able to use her rolling barbie luggage. (She got it for Christmas). She looked so cute rolling this around the airport!

We got a tip about a great place for kids in North Salt Lake.......The Kangaroo Zoo. (Thanks Alan and Lindsay) It's a giant warehouse that's filled with inflatable jump toys! The kids bounced, climbed and slid to their hearts content. To make it even better, my cousin Laurie and my dear friend Stephanie came with their kids to join in the fun. It was awesome!

On Friday, after running some morning errands, we decided to try our luck and see if Grandpa Monson or Grandma Ann happened to be in their offices. Seeing as it was the day before conference, and both of them were swamped with meetings, it was a total miracle that we caught both of them! We always love to visit Grandpa Monsons office. The kids love to twirl in the big chair, and Grandpa loves to show them the treasures of his office. This time we saw (and heard) his actual bugle - yes, like a trumpet, from when he was in the third grade! Next, onto the YW offices. The presidency was having a lunch break in Sister Dalton's office, so we were able to catch my Mom. Sister Dalton had Emi and Clara try on a beautiful crown (see pic). She said "the thing I love about this crown, is that it's small and delicate, so in order to keep it from falling when you wear it, you have to stand tall and walk like princess!" It was true! She also had Emi, Clara and James stand at her office window, which overlooks the SLC temple, and they sang "I Love to See the Temple."

We spent two nights in Fruit Heights staying with Brent, Angela, Tag and Talmage. (Jim's brother and fam) Brent and Ang graciously offered to watch our kids while Jim and I went to conference. James was in heaven. Not only does this Steele household have an adorable dog, but they have awesome boy toys!!!! Jim and I drove up to the house after Sat. morning session to see James driving down the street in this tractor! He loves tractors! The kids loved spending time with their cousins and Jim and I loved staying up until 2 o'clock in the morning talking with Brent and Ang!


On our return trip, we were sitting on the runway in SLC and we heard this announcement "We seem to have a small mechanical problem, the wing de-icer gauge is broken. We can't fly to Detroit as planned, because it's snowing there, so we're going to fly this plane to Minneapolis instead" WHAT!? Not only is the plane broken (didn't a plane just crash last month due to ice on the wings?), but now they're flying us to a completely different city and we'll miss our connecting flight to Connecticut! To make a long story a bit shorter, we had to spend the night at a hotel in Minneapolis and catch a plane to CT the next morning. Oh, the joys of traveling! Highlights of this little diversion? Emi: Loved the 'volcano cookie sundae' dessert at Chili's that night. She's still talking about how delicious it was. James: Got to sleep in a 'big bed' at the hotel. And best of all, James: Got to 'ride a motorcycle'. There's a Harley-Davidson shop at the Minneapolis airport!

Hearts, Criss-Cross and Wreaths

One of the many, many awesome things about having girls... is doing hair! Ever since I was about 8 or 9 Ive been practicing hair styles on my Cabbage Patch dolls and Barbies. Emi and Clara have been trained from a young age to 'play beauty parlor'. I love to do my girls' hair! This morning Clara chose Criss-Crosses and Emi wanted a Wreath. One of my favorites is the Heart (which we did quite a bit during Feb). We took a picture of James getting ready for church too - he wanted to wear Jim's shoes to church!

Okay, so I better add a front facing picture to go with all of these 'back-head' shots! Their faces are this MOST beautiful part of all!!!!

The Sound of Music

About twice each year, all the sisters in our ward get to go to Relief Society together and the men take over the responsibilities in Primary and Young Women's. Today was one of those days, and Jim was asked to be the music leader in Primary. Jim goes all out in preparation - and this was no exception. He took a duffel bag of unusual instruments to primary. I think one of the favorites was the Stonelaphone (how do you even spell that!?) It's like playing a marimba, but with pieces of stone! Jim is quite remarkable at it - he can play all the primary songs on it. James loved helping Jim 'prepare' the stone songs and the girls both loved playing songs on their auto harps. Between the stones, the harps, the piano and the rain stick....we had quite the 'musical' house this morning :) The kids loved it, and it was a great was to pass a Sunday morning.

Kit Twins

Emi loves American Girl Dolls! She loves to play pretend with Kit (her doll)....she and Clara spend hours playing with their dolls. Yesterday, Emi and I went to a local childrens consignment store to shop for dance shoes. (The consignment stores in CT are fabulous!) They didn't have her size in shoes, but we did find this American Girl Kit outfit! Emi was thrilled!

Ice Skating

New Englad and ice skating just go hand in hand. The girls have enjoyed many ice skating outings this year! Last night we went ice skating at Simsbury Farms. It was a super fun family activity and to make it even better, some of our wonderful neighbor friends came too! Six adults, SEVEN little girls and James :) Emi was flying around on the ice! I was absolutely amazed at how good/fast of a skater she has become. She and her friends were playing ice tag. Clara began the evening by skating with an 'ice walker' (it's a metal frame that looks kind of like a walker....to help beginners learn to skate). She and her friends were having races. By the end of the night, she was skating on her own, and doing a fantastic job! It was cute to see how proud she was of herself.....skating on her own without any help. James did pretty well, considering he's two. His little skates were adorable. Jim's back is a bit sore....from leaning over to help support James as he 'skated'. We all had such a fun time!