Lashes for DAYS

Can you believe my little girl's lashes??

On Saturday she got to be all dolled up for her dance recital dress rehearsal and pictures.  Afterwards, I took her outside for a couple quick shots because knowing me, I wouldn't get around to on the night of.

The theme for the night is TV shows.  So her 3-4 year old class is dancing to the theme song from Gunsmoke.  There are a couple of boys in there, so they are cowboys, a few girls are cowgirls, and there are just a couple little "cow Belles".  Scarlett is one of those!

She loved the red lipstick the best, I think.

 

She's in a Tap/Ballet class, but their dance is a tap number for the recital.  She's been practicing it a lot.  I was a little surprised at how much she knew on her own without watching her teacher.  It's really cute.

Here are a couple pictures I took at the dress rehearsal...

Both taken with the iPhone... I love the Hipstamatic app for pics.  That's what I used for the first one.  

Scarlett ran into her friend, Janice, from preschool there.  We didn't even know she danced there!  Her dance is a Rainbow Bright one... cute, right? 

It's going to be a long couple of weeks until Scarlett can just wear her costume to dress up in. It's kind of torturous for her to have to stare at it in the bag waiting until her recital. ;)

Easter 2011

I think we've been over run this year with Easter egg hunts and candy.  My sweet Cohen who used to beg for a banana for a snack is now asking for "tweats" (aka treats) non-stop.  It's far too difficult for me to keep even myself out of the candy, so I may have to just toss it soon before I go crazy.

Despite the excess of Easter treats, we had a wonderful holiday weekend.  I didn't have my camera on me for most of it, but I did enjoy it.

We had a little Easter party with Steve's brother and his family on Friday.  The kids loved playing with their cousins... they really are such good friends.  Then, we had an egg hunt/breakfast on Saturday morning for a church activity at our park in the neighborhood.  It's just too bad the weather has been so crummy still.  It was a little bit of a swampy egg hunt in 46 degree weather.  Where is Spring???  We colored eggs that evening.

 

I laugh when I see this picture and Kelan's expression... we colored one little green egg for him and of course he decided to taste it first.  I must have alarmed him when I said "eww, yucky!" because I got this deer in the headlights (and a little cross-eyed!) look when I snapped the photo.  

 

I'm not sure what Cohen did, but I asked him if he wanted to go on timeout... I snapped this photo mid-answer.  I like that he's giving me this innocent pleading look as he says "no". ;)  He is such a little charmer when he wants to be.

 

Then Sunday, we attended church and had a great Easter dinner with wonderful friends and family.  I ate entirely too much turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, jello, veggies, etc.  It was just all too good!

I should have gotten a picture of everyone when they were sitting down and eating, but that didn't happen.  It's a little chaotic with 6 kids needing to be fed too... but here is the table before people and food.

 

My friend, Jen, motivated me to try growing my own wheat grass this year.  I have wanted to, but just never got what I needed in time.  It turned out so cute!  I have harvested a bit of it and Steve is going to toss it in a smoothie and see how it tastes.  ;)

Here are the kids just before we left for church that morning.

 

Don't they all look sweet?  Even Cohen.  But, don't let that fool you.  Mid-way through our Sacrament meeting that day (a short 30-45 minutes after this photo was taken), a chain of events led to me chasing Cohen outside and into the parking lot.  To top it off, I was in heels AND carrying Kelan at the same time.   Good times...  He ended up face planting it right there on the asphalt.  Now there is a lovely little scuff mark on his nice suit pants to remind me of this very incident.  Luckily his face was spared.  He certainly makes life interesting!

Me and my monkeys. I didn't plan to match them... but once I realized that I did, I made Steve wear a purple tie too.  :P  No time to figure out a family photo though and still make it to church on time... too bad.

 

After church, the kids went on an Easter egg hunt in our house.  We let Cohen go first because he's the youngest and he only made it half-way down the stairs.  He found an egg on the stairs and decided to open it and eat all of it's contents before continuing.  By the time he finished it, the older two had found all the eggs.  He didn't seem to care though as long as he had his candy.

Aren't the two boys hilarious?  The shed their white shirts and ties within seconds of being home.  That Easter egg hunting is serious business!

  

Next year, this little guy will be running with the rest of them!  It will be so fun.  :)

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter... It always seems hard to keep the focus on what the holiday is truly about when you have children.  My sister-in-law gave me the cutest thing that definitely helped my kids this year.  You can check it out here or easily make your own!

Happy Birthday, Scarlett!

Can you believe that this baby girl...

Is now this little 4 year old girl??? *sniff*

It's killing me how fast she is growing up.  I just want time to stop right here with her.  Steve even told me on her birthday that he expects Kanyon to grow up because he's the oldest, but now Scarlett is growing up too and it's throwing him off.  I totally get that.

She had a definite opinion on her party... from the cake to who she was inviting.  I really had to cut the list down because I could not have that many little kids over for a party.  I guess she's my little social butterfly with all these friends.

Here is the invite that I sent out...

 
I saw this idea here.  I had to try it because it just looked so fun!  It turned out really cute, except that some didn't work so well (Destiny!) and others worked too well (my friend, Michelle, opened it in her car... oops!!).  Basically, it's one of those spring-loaded confetti bursts.  But, I replaced their lame confetti for my own and included an invitation that popped out too.  I had Kanyon video Scarlett and I opening an extra one, but I haven't got the video uploaded yet.  Check back, I'll try and get it soon.  That one on video worked really well!  I was a little nervous giving these to girls who's parents I didn't know because I didn't want to make them mad with the mess they made!  Oh well... no one complained.  ;)

Scarlett picked this "Barbie" cake for me to do... and when she saw it she said... "Ohmygoodness!  She's SO beautiful!"  That made all the effort worth it.  I remember my mom made a similar one for one of my birthdays.  The only part that isn't cake is the actual doll.

A first at using fondant too, so that was an adventure.  Not as hard as I thought it would be, however!  Thankfully this cake didn't really require that "smooth" look, as I'm sure that would have been much harder.

This little girl was ready for her party!  I made the party hat and she loved it.

 

Some party favors...

 

One of the games... "Pin the 4 on Scarlett".

I wish I could have pictures of the actual party, aside from the blowing out the candles stuff... but I'm usually running the show and it's easier to do without the camera in my hands.  And with my camera... it's a little hard to just hand it over for anyone to work it.

Scarlett talking to Jen and Paityn.  She sure missed her best buddy, Presley, there but she had a yucky cough that day.

Lighting the candles...

Let the "I'm-embarrassed-because-I'm-the-center-of-attention-right-now,-but-I-love-it" face begin...

You can see a similar face on her other birthdays... here and here.

Her one on her 2nd birthday still cracks me up. :)

Blowing out the candles...

Eating cake and ice cream...

Savannah, Scarlett, and Paityn.

 

Isabelle and Adilyn.

 

Kanyon and Maya.

 

Janice and Aliyah.

Presents!

Some family at the party...

Aunt Alex, the representation for my side of the family.

 

Alli and Uncle James... 

 

Cohen... sporting some of the fun party prizes from the games.  The stick on earrings were a favorite of his and he kept them on the entire night.

 

It was a successful party... Scarlett had a great time and received lots of gifts that she loved.  There wasn't really a "theme" this year... Really out of character for me.  I guess I didn't want to do a full-on Barbie theme because that didn't seem fun to me and I had seen so many other cute ideas with the #4 that I just focused on that a bit more instead.

I have to say since we eliminated boys (except for her brothers) this time for her party, it was the quietest party I've ever had at my house!  We may be having many, many more girl only birthday parties in the future!  ;)

*****************************************************************************

A few more pictures from Scarlett's actual birthday which was Sunday, the 10th...

We have church at 9am, so as painful for a 4 year old as it sounds... she had to wait until after church to open her presents from her family.  Lucky for us, she didn't even realize that there were more gifts to open!

She opened a gift from her great Grandpa and Grandma Sonnenberg... she was thrilled as you can see!

 

She got a card and a cute dress from her Grandpa Jim and YoungJa.  You can see that the princess card was loved!

 

Cohen and Kelan gave her these little princess flip flops.  Now if only it would stay nice enough outside for her to wear them!

 

Kanyon gave her the movie, Tangled.  I think he was just as excited as she was... he loves Flynn Rider and the horse, Maximus.  :)

 

This Baby Alive was from Steve and I... she doesn't really need one more baby, but it was all she would ask for!

 

Cohen had a hard time understanding that it was Scarlett's birthday and not his.  He wanted to open presents.  Lucky for him, his birthday is in less than 2 weeks!  ;)
 

**Scarlett saw the doctor and here are her stats as a 4 year old:

          Weight:  34.2 lbs - 50%

          Height:  39 3/4 in - 55%

          Blood Pressure:  88/52