This Week

I have nothing new and exciting to post....but it's been two weeks, so I need to update! During the past two weeks, I have been absolutely obsessed with trying to find the right paint color to paint the exterior of our home. The people at Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore seriously know me on a first name basis and they just laugh when I walk in the door of their store! I have 10 quarts of sample paint in my garage and every surface of the shed in my yard is painted in all 10 of those colors! The good news is that I'm really close to finding the perfect color! The new windows go in this Tuesday and the painter is scheduled to begin after that.....I'm so nervous! I hope it turns out okay!

Here are just a couple of pics from this past week. Hopefully we'll have a few more sunny days this week! To quote James "It's not a beautiful day.....again!"

James and Clara pretending. Here, they were making a 'secret little house' under the bathroom counter. Another favorite pretending game is airport!

Emi's second grade class hosted an 'author's tea' this week. All the parents come for tea - or lemonade :), cookies, finger sandwiches and most importantly, to listen to the kids read their original work! Very cute.

Our neighbor passed this little bike down to James. I went and bought a set of training wheels and now James is on his way! He's very excited about his big boy bike.

Dance Recital

This week has been all about dancing. Emi has been taking a jazz class this year, and Clara has been taking tap at Terpsichore Dance Studio in Simsbury. Both of the girls have loved their dance classes and have been eagerly anticipating the year-end recital. We have spent many hours this week at dance classes, dress rehearsals and two weekend performances. The show was held at Kingswood Oxford (a private school in West Hartford). Emi and Clara both did an awesome job! They were so cute and they had so much fun! Emi commented that she could hardly wait for dance to start again in the fall, and Clara exclaimed that she loved to dance with all of her new friends! (The cute thing is that "all of her new friends" are teenagers!) The "big girls" are sooo great about watching over and helping all of the little dancers. Several of the girls have really taken to Clara, and they are all now buddies!

The girls had to be "on stage" about two hours before the actual performance began. So after dropping them off, Jim and I took advantage of being across the street from Blue Back Square and we grabbed dinner (and dessert!) at one of my favorite spots....The Cheesecake Factory. There's nothing better than date-night dinner AND afterwards watching your kids perform on stage. What a fun night!

Below are a few pics from Friday and Saturday night. This video is really poor quality (it's just from my camera...which was low on batteries) but it shows the first part of Clara's dance. Clara is the platinum blonde :) wearing a blue shirt and pink skirt. I love her poses!

Emi and Clara striking a pose on stage during intermission.

Pre-show prep. Riding scooters with curlers in their hair! Just a little tip....don't try to apply mascara to your five year olds eye lashes. It's not worth the drama! :)

It's very tricky to get a somewhat clear pic when dancers are moving all about on the stage! Emi's in the middle about to do a hop of some sort!

The girls posing during intermission with Piglet - one of the main characters of the show and one of their dearest friends!

Happy Memorial Day!

I can definitely say that living in Connecticut has heightened my awareness of patriotism. It's New England, the birthplace of the American Revolution and CT is known as the "Constitution State". People here are very patriotic and there is a great respect and reverence for veterans and the brave men and women who are currently in the armed forces.

Memorial Day is a big deal! There are picnics (complete with historical and patriotic programs), lots of little league baseball games and many towns have parades. Simsbury is no exception. The veterans, firemen, police force, brownie troops, cheerleaders, HS band and little league teams all march in the parade. There are old restored cars too. The people line either side of historic main street and wave flags and cheer as the parade passes by. Our town puts on a GREAT parade every Memorial day.

Waiting for the parade to begin.....it was a beautiful sun-shiny day! James and Clara were both happy to spot both of their preschool teachers marching in the parade!

James loved the "fife and drum corps"! For the rest of the day he was saying "Me play drums!"

Emi is in the middle waving. This is her brownie troop marching in the parade. She looks forward to it every year!

Mothers Day

My kids were so excited for Mothers Day, it was just too cute! I must say it was a wonderful day from start to finish. The goodies were amazing! Jim and the kids baked homemade cinnamon rolls and eggs for breakfast and the day ended with a homemade hot fudge ice cream pie....made by my awesome husband! I came downstairs this morning to find the dining room decorated with flowers, cards and lots of cute pictures drawn by my little artists. The girls loved going out with Dad to shop for little Mothers Day gifts and James loved helping me open the gifts :) I've included a pic of James and his tow-truck. He's enjoyed many happy hours recently playing with trucks and diggers!

After church this afternoon, we as a family delivered these Mothers Day gifts to a local nursing home. Throughout the week, Emi, Clara and I made these pretty tissue paper flowers. It was a really neat experience to deliver them today. The kids were wonderful about talking with all the different "grandmas". It was so sweet to see these cute old ladies just light up when the kids walked in their room and give them a flower. It was a highlight of the day!

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!