Goodbye Grandpa Clair

We said goodbye to grandpa Clair Hanks, age 85 who died on Friday at 6pm. He died from complications with Parkinsons Disease, a disease he struggled for the past several years. He died on his 85th birthday surrounded by family- completing his circle of life. His funeral will be on Wednesday at 11 in Pocatello Idaho, which we will get to attend. Bryan was able to be up there with his dad Kevin as Clair passed last week.

Safety First

Today we went to Target to get the girl's pictures taken. We got in pretty quick but had to wait over an hour to look at them. My girls did great shopping for that long. As I was looking at pictures, my girls got thirsty. I watched them walk off to the drinking fountain, get drinks and then start back. I put Ashley in the cart and then got back into my pictures. I assumed Emily would be there, or was there because there were a lot of kids. I think it was 5 minutes before I realized that she wasn't there. I panicked, looked for her, couldn't find her and panicked more. I looked for a few minutes and then went to the clerk. As she was about to announce a lost kid on the intercom, I found her. I counted my blessings right then, a lot. It's only every week that I look at the 'Lost Child' section in the ads and think "Where on earth would I ever see this kid?"! Today when I looked at my ads, it showed the picture and then said, "Don't put your child's name on the internet." So hence the upped safety precautions on this blog.
In talking to Emily about it afterwards, I asked if she was scared. She said, "I wasn't lost, I was right here." She said she found a nice lady that became her friend and helped her find me. Thank you angel lady for helping my baby feel safe!

Dancing with Dad

Last Wednesday Emily was happily playing dress-ups while Ashley napped. She had on one of her favorite outfits, Snow White. She had just come downstairs to find her prince, and then in he walked- home from work a little early! Bryan scooped her up and they danced, twirled and dipped all around the kitchen for a few minutes and both loved every minute of it.
Emily's other favorite dress-up dress is all white and she loves to pretend she is getting married. The outfit includes white shoes, gloves and a ring. The man she is going to marry? Dad of course!
Ashley's insists that all her dress-up outfits have to be pink.

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/