Happy Birthday Jason!

We celebrated Jason's 35th birthday yesterday. Thank goodness he graduated before so he could enjoy his day! We had Stake Conference at church, so church was one hour shorter, which made the day that much more relaxing.

I made Monte Cristo sandwiches for breakfast (a new yummy egg recipe that we tried), Jason's favorite dinner of chicken cordon bleu, and a chocolate chip bundt cake.

He got some shirts from us and gets to buy himself a wireless router. (We're moving up in the technical world!)

Since it was about 35 degrees colder on his birthday than two days earlier, and raining, we didn't get to go for a Sunday family walk.

Here's what our front yard looks like now when the sun is shinning. We finally have everything in bloom! Last year our forsythia bush was blooming over Easter, along with our tulips, but this year was so cold our forsythia bush bloomed over Easter, a whole month later! This tree, though it bloomed later as well, at least has kept it's blossoms longer. Last year the blossoms bloomed right before a stormy week which blew them all away in a few days!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Dance

This week was the week of dance! Victoria missed her dress rehearsal last Sunday, but Karissa made hers on Monday, Victoria went to her run-through on Tuesday, Karissa's run-through was Wednesday, I made cookies for the bake sale at one of the recitals on Thursday, on Friday night Victoria danced in the recital, Karissa danced in the afternoon recital on Saturday, and they both danced Saturday night- phew! The reason it was so much is because, as I've said before, Dancin' Feet is a huge program with tons of girls up to age 18. It's a major production, with even one more show today. The high school auditorium is full each time for the 2 1/2 hours of some very good dancing with backgrounds and themes for different parts of the performance.

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to film or take pictures during the actual performance, so I have some pictures of my cuties before they went on-stage, and filmed their run-through dances, though the clarity isn't very good since they were way up on stage. For one of Victoria's dances, I'm including a practice from a couple of months ago, since the run-through for that dance was messed up. They put her in line in the wrong spot and she was doing great and smiling, until when it came time to dancing with her partner, she was not near her. So she looks a little distraught for a moment, then keeps on dancing. She took it very well.

Here's Victoria with her partner, Annie, for the Flowers ballet dance.
Here's her whole class.

Here's her in her tap costume that they borrowed. They danced to Baby Face. It was her favorite dance.

Karissa got to dance her tap dance to Going to the Circus. She was the star of the show Saturday night. At the end of her dance, the back curtains opened to reveal the rest of the circus set with all the clowns, balloons, and other dancers dressed in bright colors. Karissa ended the dance facing away from the audience, staring open-mouthed at everything around her. When the rest of her group had left the stage, she finally realized she was alone and ran off quickly with the audience laughing at her cuteness.

They both did a great job for both recitals and enjoyed watching the rest of the show as well.

As for, I'm beat! We all slept in for Mother's Day after staying up way too late, two nights in a row. Jason made me bagels and lox for brunch and we ate dinner at a friends' house, which meant another late night, but no clean-up here. They picked me flowers from our yard that are finally blooming, now that cold April is over. Along with all the cards the kids made for me, I guess there's a gift, but we'll open it tomorrow, when we're all awake again!

Happy Mother's Day!

Here's Karissa's and Victoria's dances at the run-through and Victoria's other dance at practice.

The Day We Were All Waiting For

It has happened- Jason graduated from the University of Michigan with his MBA! His parents came out to attend the ceremonies and help celebrate this momentous occasion. The festivities began on Thursday with a reception at the business school building which was put on for the night school students and their families. Since we had decided not to take the kids to the actual graduation, knowing they would be bored out of their minds, we all went and enjoyed some hors 'devours and treats. Jason even got a nice U of M pen out of it! The next evening we left the kids with a babysitter, pizza, and popcorn, and went down to Ann Arbor for the business school graduation where Jason actually got his diploma (we were way to high up to get a good shot of that).

On Saturday we left the kids with another babysitter, very early in the morning, and went out to the Big House for the graduation of the whole class of 2011. Despite the endless sitting on football bleachers, it was actually a very good program, one of the most interesting graduations I've ever been too.

When we returned we took the kids out to Ichiban Steak House (thanks Abuelo!) where we were entertained by our hibachi chef as well as enjoyed his yummy food. Austin especially enjoyed the miso soup and fried rice, Victoria her big pile of shrimp, and Karissa flirting with the chef.
Here's the cake we made for Jason and shared with our next-door neighbors who happen to be big U of M fans too.

Congratulations Jason and GO BLUE!

Spring Break

We've had a fun filled week, despite the awful weather. It snowed on Monday to start off our spring break. The kids and I still trekked out to Ann Arbor to get some things for Jason for graduation, but we had to cancel our picnic at the Botanical Gardens since we had a nice covering of snow. No matter, the kids enjoyed helping me clean and playing at home the rest of the day. We went to the free 9:00 am showing of Yogi Bear at the movies and then stopped to get some flowers to plant, even though it was cold and raining, on another day. It turned out that it was the grand opening of the nursery and they had face-painting there. Victoria and Karissa loved their beautiful butterfly faces.

We played with some friends, inside of course, due to more days of wet and cold and Victoria got to join us for some of our usual errands and trip to the library. All the kids got to come with me (it's usually only Austin) to the church for Zumba which I get to to go to every Wednesday, taught by an awesome teacher.

Finally, on Thursday, we had a slightly warmer day and the sun was shinning, a plus, so we went to the zoo. This was taken in the aviary, which we hadn't seen yet in all our times going to the zoo. Karissa found a real robin's egg in our yard when we got home. We couldn't find the nest, so we put it in some cotton in a small box inside. We don't know what will come of it, but we're playing it low, mostly so the kids won't handle it too much.

On Good Friday we got to spend a nice, cold and wet, day with Jason! He didn't have to study and he didn't have to go to work, what a relief! We shopped for TV stands for our upcoming new HDTV which we'll get as part of his graduation gift. Then we went to lunch at Los Tres Amigos, a new restaurant around the corner. Here's Austin with his chips and salsa, which he loves! Too bad Karissa doesn't like Mexican food like the rest of us. She got chicken strips and french fries.

We colored Easter eggs and Austin had some nice green-colored hands afterwards!

The kids have missed being with their dad, I have too!
On Saturday we made Bunny Buns for Easter morning. They were delicious! Kind of like homemade doughnuts, though, Karissa didn't like them.
Austin didn't quite know what to do with the Easter egg hunt, but he sure enjoyed the fruit snacks that were in them! (Yes, I made sure most of his were not jelly beans, which he loves and will eat them all in one gulp if we let him!)He found an egg with a chocolate-wrapped egg inside and gave it to me to open it, then decided he didn't want it after all, so he fed it to me!

Victoria loved Piggy that she got in her basket and all the candy and other gifts.
Karissa liked her Chicky and other gifts too. She was happy to get a couple of fruit snack eggs as well.
Here's my cute kids, except Austin gets his own picture,

he wouldn't leave the push car, but I got a cute smile out of him because he was happy I didn't move him!
Here's our best at a family picture. How do you like Austin's shiner? I better give an update about that crazy boy soon! Happy Easter!

KarissaQ

As sweet as Karissa is, she is also very stubborn and insistent. Somehow when she started writing her whole name she would add a Q at the end. I kept telling her that she didn't have Q at the end of her name, but she insisted that she did. Some of you have even received letters from her signed with the Q. Luckily, she has realized that she doesn't have one and has started excluding it from her name. Here's one last piece of art with the KarissaQ. We have to document it for memories' sake.

Dance Pictures

Victoria and Karissa have each been taking a ballet/tap dance class this year. As the dance season comes to an end at the beginning of May, the program had a scheduled picture day with all the dancers in their various classes. It's a big "to-do" with this program, Dancin' Feet, especially since there are about 300 dancers in the program. Everyone had specific times to show up at the studio dressed in their recital costumes, complete with hair and make-up. Of course my two had very different sitting times, which meant more driving for me, but we had fun. I took my own individuals of them. Here's Karissa in her Going to the Circus costume. She loved getting her hair done, and especially getting make-up put on her. Her little, non-existent, lips, remind me of mine.

Victoria was excited for make-up, but didn't want much to do with fancy hair. I finally convinced her to let me twist the top before pulling it back into a ponytail. She promptly took it down the second we got home from the studio. Her lips were a different story: I have never put lipstick on lips so big in my life! Especially with the bright pink lipstick, they were quite the lips!

Austin loved Karissa's gloves and wanted to wear them. He couldn't be left out either! (He wanted to put make-up on too, but I convinced him that the chap stick was enough!)

General Conference

Even though conference is not over yet, I asked each of my kids today what they like best about general conference. I meant as the experience as a whole. I thought maybe they would say things like playing with legos in the living room, drawing in the living room, etc. But they surprised me with their answers. Victoria said she liked the talk with the story about the "stone turning to gold". Unfortunately, I missed that part, so I don't know who gave that talk, but I'm excited to read about it later on. She said she also like Elder Cook's talk because it was "funny". Karissa said she liked the singing. They especially loved when the choir sang the Primary song I Know that My Savior Loves Me. When I asked Austin, he said, "Yeah, yeah". I asked him if he liked the candy (we play Gospel Topic Bingo during conference with Star bursts to help us focus and listen for key words) and he said, "Candy!" So I guess that was his highlight. We look forward for tomorrow's sessions, though the kids always do better on Saturday, so we'll see what we get from tomorrow. Jason's just hoping to stay awake during the second session!