Ava slept over

Emma's best friend is Ava Bair. They are more like sisters than close friends. They love to dress alike and they play with each other so well that I don't mind them being together for long periods of time. When Emma asked if Ava could spend the night at our house I was totally fine with it. Emma counted down the days and stayed awake at night planning what her and Ava would do at their little slumber party. She decided that they would wear their matching Ariel nightgowns, watch The Little Mermaid, and snuggle stuffed animals all night long. I didn't think that they would actually do it, but that is pretty much what happened. As soon as Ava got here, they changed into their jammies. Emma had a hard time picking out what stuffed animal she was going to sleep with but finally decided on her "baby bear" that Grandma Mary made her before she was born. Ava had her "Bear Bair" and a stuffed seal from 6 flags.


After dinner, they snuggled right down to watch Little Mermaid. Miraculously, I didn't hear anything else from them the rest of the night!



They are so cute together, I only wish we lived close enough to play together everyday. We will miss Ava so much when she moves to Utah next year. At least we have her for little while longer....we need to get in a few more sleepovers before she is really WAY too far away!

Rainy Day

At what point in life do puddles change from an alluring ocean to an annoying wet spot you have to manuver around to keep your new shoes clean??

6 Flags Discovery Kingdom

We are lucky enough to have friends with season passes who had a free friend pass over spring break.  Nothin' like free tickets to start the day off right!  We had so much fun!  Thanks Brandy and Ava!

Oden the tiger

Waiting for the show

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Doing the YMCA

Best friends

Easter

Easter came upon us WAY too fast this year. We always celebrate the holiday on Saturday instead of Sunday so that we can focus more on the true meaning of Easter on the sabbath. It seems like the religious holidays today are more about the commercial aspect than about Christ. We want Emma to have fun celebrating both the "fun" part and the "church" part as she calls it.
On Friday night we dyed Easter eggs which is always Emma's favorite part. We did 24 eggs this year, but could have done twice that many. We love decorating them, but eating them later isn't always as fun. I need to find a good recipe to use up all the eggs. I don't mind a boiled egg now and then, but I don't want to eat 24 of them!

CHEESE!! GEEZ!!

The Easter Bunny visited our house on Saturday morning to hide the eggs and fill Emma's basket. He brought her a new Easter dress, a barbie coloring book with a magic marker that reveals hidden pictures, some new sidewalk chalk and of course some candy.


Tracing Daddy with her new chalks.



After she looked over her loot we went to a neighborhood park for the annual Easter Egg Hunt and ta visit with the "real" Easter Bunny. We got there early and had to kill about 25 minutes before the egg hunt started. When the whistle finally blew to signal the start, Emma was off and running. There were tons of children there, but she managed to collect her limit of 10 eggs in only 10 minutes. She ended up with 3 smarties, 4 tootsie rolls, 2 sweet tarts and 1 gummy bunny, well worth the wait. Sorry I don't have any photos of her basket at home or at the park....better luck with that next year!


Crafts.....YAY!!! Her FAVORITE thing in the whole world!

Take my picture PLEASE!!!

Why do little children always pick the most inconvenient times to be so cute. Its like they know when you have to go searching for the camera because you can't remember where you put it although you know you put it someplace that you would for sure remember. And then when you find the camera in the bag on the back of your bike, it has no memory space left. So you take 20 minutes to dump the existing photos on the computer and then another 10 minutes deleting the photos off the camera because your camera doesn't support the delete function of your downloading software. And then when you are finally ready to take the picture, they aren't being so cute anymore. You can try to recreate the moment, but it just isn't the same. The point??? Always keep the camera in the same spot and dump the photos before its too late!







This is a stool that Dan's Grandpa George made. Dan said he remembers when he used to fit under there too.


I am glad that I have a digital camera. And even though it is small enough to get lost and most of the time it doesn't have enough memory space to take the picture the instant that I want it to, at least I don't have to wait a whole 3 days to see the pictures like my parents did when they were using 35mm cameras. I can see my photos instantly....that is IF the computer is being nice enough to cooperate!