Bedtime Dancers

The girls love their feety pajamas! They also love dancing to classical music with their stuffed animals. Ashley just learned how to jump. She often practices and it is hilarious to watch.

Peanut Butter

Today in Joyschool, Emily learned to try new things. One activity they got to try today was to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich. The teacher told me she did pretty good. Later on she made another one for she and Ashley for a snack. Here are the fruits of her labors. Thursday they will attempt peeling a carrot and flying a kite.

Spontaneous Delight

This week in Joyschool we are learning about the joy of Spontaneous Delight. I feel lucky to be the teacher this week. I taught today and will again on Thursday. Here's what we did for school today:
-Blew bubbles with a straw in a bowl of water and dish soap
-crawled under a laundry basket and pretended we were turtles
-painted with shaving cream and then mixed in paint
-threw balloons around
-sang and danced to "Happy and you know it"
-read "Monster at the end of the book" w/ Grover
-had snack with pudding with surprise chocolate chips inside
-played outside with hopscotch and soccer
I love it!
I think this week it is finally going to be warming up! We had have a snowy winter and we are excited to go outside and play.
Last week I had a mom's night out party at my house. There were 10 ladies that showed up for DDR, Karaoke, snacks and chatting. I am also the hostess for book club this month and will be having another get together here on Thursday. PARTY! My 1/2 marathon is 8 weeks away and Abbi and I are running 8 miles this Saturday.
The girls are busy right now with art supplies. Emily has the colored pencils and has them in two groups which are families. The groups are talking to each other about where to go, how to line up, and how to fix their problems. Ashley has the stickers and is carefully putting them all on top of each other. She just found the Cinderella color book so she'll be busy for a while.
Bryan has been having lots of meetings with church, work, financial advisor, and HTing. Sounds fun, huh? It is starting to get busy at work and will be busy for the month of March. Luckily we have a fun cruise vacation planned for the first part of April and have that to look forward to. Our cruise is 3 day to Ensenada, Mexico departing from L.A. No, our kids are not coming- thank you Barbara!

Insight

My brother-in-law Cameron has started a new blog called Permission To Fail. To Bryan and I it has been revolutionary. I think it is definitely worth a minute or two of your time. For me it has made sense to start at the bottom and get an idea of what it's all about.

http://permissiontofail.blogspot.com/

Happy Love Week!

We went up to Idaho on Saturday to visit Bryan's dad's dad, Great-Grandpa Clair Hanks who is in poor health. He is 85 and has Parkinson's Disease. He is now in a nursing home facility and getting good care. We are glad that our kids get to know some of their great-grandparents. Between Bryan and I we have 3 left, all of whom we have seen in the last 2 months. :)

Other Hanks' happenings, we got to have Grandpa Kevin (Bryan's dad) with us this weekend. We all played Settlers game and Bryan won (of course) but I did come in a close second place!

We hope everyone has a nice love week! We are celebrating Valentines on Saturday night and think we are genius because we will not have a long wait for dinner and Bryan will get the cheap deals on flowers!

Turbo Bryan!

Yes this picture is of Bryan climbing up a frozen waterfall! Isn't he awesome?! He went up with my uncle Bill and another friend. They were very safe and got to have a cool experience! This is what rock climbers find to do in the winter months.
Bryan is playing basketball with a church group and the season is in full swing. The first game the girls went to watch, they sat on the sidelines and cheered for 20 minutes straight. Go Dad Go! Here is a picture after basketball tonight- dad and Emily doing some stretching. Bryan is also training for the SLC 1/2 marathon with me. 2008 is starting off as a year for getting into shape!
Bryan is also doing some innovative things at work by hiring his brother Cameron and another guy to be technical writers for him. It is working out good for all parties involved and is a cool change for Bryan.
There is a lot more I could say to brag about the man I love, but for now I will conclude.

Bedtime Stuff

Here is a glimpse into our night time routine. Bath time is only occasionally as fun as this picture depicts. More often there is a good amount of fun and splashing, accompanied by a few outbursts of crying.
After bath and pjs, we have story time. Here is Bryan reading Dr. Suess's "Oh, the Thinks you can Think". Our family's favorite page goes like this, "And you don't have to stop, you can think about schlopp. Schlopp, schlopp, beautiful schlopp. Beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top." So when our kids ask, "Pretty please with a cherry on the schlopp?" you can smile and know where they get it from. In this picture you can see Ashley's sad chapped face from winter combined with her having a binky at night.
You can also see Ashley's new favorite friend- Orangey bear. This last week I asked her what her bear's name was. She was quiet for a while and then said "ee-i-ee-i-o". Orangey bear has a small symbol of a McDonald's happy meal on it. Emily decided long ago that McDonalds restaurant is called "Old MacDonalds". Ashley picked that up and decided that since the bear had the arches (which I never pointed out to her), it went with the Old MacDonald song. I am blown away by how much kids understand what is going on and she is ONLY 1!