She likes to share

My daughter Emily got a gift card for Justice (preteen girls clothing shop that also sells makeup, candy and stuffed animals) for her birthday. It was burning a whole in her pocket so after just a few days of listening to "when can we go to Justice, when can we got to Justice" I took her. She didn't buy any clothes but did stock up on candy and lipgloss. Then as soon as we got home she invited all of her sister upstairs for a candy party. Emily shares candy all the time, she really is a generous kid. Luckily this time she didn't make invitations and make the girls play games to receive the candy. In this picture Megan must be really enjoying a gummy french fry.
Here is a close up of some of the candy shared. She offered me a piece of gummy pizza but I declined. I think I prefer real pizza. Nathan gobbled the piece of gummy pizza right up though.

Kids, you've got to love them. c:,

Today I'm thankful that

*garage sale season is starting up. Not that I need anymore toys or nicknacks around the house but the prices are right and buying a few new things makes the day fun.

*I got to chat with a good friend from Arizona on facebook---it made my day!

Fun with snails

A few months ago I rolled up one of Melissa's blanket and said "hey this looks like a snail". We put a rubber band around it to maintain its snail shape and she took it into preschool for her show and tell she was so excited by it. Yesterday I walked into the computer room and saw lots of blanket snails. If you have small children and blankets make yourself some snails. It's sure to be fun! Check out Nathan's happy face.

I just got invited to a girls camp meeting on Sunday. I can't believe my oldest daughter is heading to girls camp and I'll have a daughter going to camp for the next 12 years! I'm guessing I'll get more than one chance to go along.

This is a fun blog that I follow. The family is LDS and lives in Austin, Texas. They had 2 children and then quintuplets. It's very cute--check it out. http://wilkinsonquints.blogspot.com/

Twins?

Everytime I take my little girls out I am asked if they are twins. They are actually 20 months apart in age but they have similar hair, coloring, and are almost the same height. They think it is very funny that people think they are twins. They are best friends though and that is something to be very proud of.

I always wanted a sister. After I was born I was blessed with four younger brothers and I already had two older brothers. I love them but I remember crying when my dad would call from the hospital to say my Mom had a boy. Now I have been blessed with four daughters (perhaps to make up for all those brothers I had). I took this sequence of 4 photos of Megan and Melissa that is so cute. I think it captures them and their love for one another. Nathan is a cutie too (sorry bud, no brothers for you)!

Today I am thankful that

*I have warm banana muffins to eat

*Nathan is happy (he's been clingy for weeks)

*tomorrow is another used books sale at the school

Holly's blog

My daughter Holly got a camera for Christmas and just this week started her own blog. She would love some blog visitors and comments are always great too. She posted some fairy creations on her blog as well as some pictures that she took last week at 6th grade camp. She was at camp for 3 days and 3 nights. Her blog address is http://hollyruth.blogspot.com/.
Today I'm thankful that
*Emily's 10th birthday party is done and Megan's party isn't until July.
*Our good friends the Molinas came to dinner last night.
*We have beautiful red, yellow and pink tulips in our backyard.

BC Temple open house

On Saturday we woke up early, dressed in our Sunday clothes and headed north to Canada. A new temple was recently built south of Vancouver and we wanted to have our children attend the open house. Our 2 hour trip to the border went smoothly. Happy kids and no traffic. Then we got in the border line. We couldn't see the border gate so we knew we had a bit of a wait. Turns out we waited for 90 minutes. The girls continued to watch movies in the back seat but Nathan was mad. After 30 minutes with him crying and attacking us all in the van I got out in the rain with him and we waited the remaining 60 minutes outside together. We were all very relieved and really needing a bathroom break by the time we reached the border. We headed to a Canadian McDonalds before continueing to the temple.

We parked at a Mormon church near the temple and then got in line to wait for our shuttle. Turns out Saturday was packed at the temple and the shuttles couldn't keep up with the crowds so local members were asked to turn their cars into shuttles. This truck was our shuttle. Scott sat in the front and me and the 5 kids sat in the back. We got in and out of the same door so it looked a bit like a clown car...with so many people getting out. The temple was beautiful even in the rain. First we watched a video about temples in the brand new church building sharing a parking lot with the temple. Lines of people everywhere, you could hardly walk in the church hallways, and boy was it hot.

Luckily we ran into some friends from our home ward and got to stand in line with them both outside and inside the temple.

Our girls had fun playing handgames with their friends.

Here we are after we toured the temple. Melissa slept through half of the temple tour on Scott's shoulder and then wasn't in the mood to get her picture taken. Nathan cried half the time he was in the temple and threw his binky on the temple floor litterally 10 times out of anger. The three older girls loved seeing the inside of the temple. This was their first open house. Holly recently did temple baptisms at the Seattle temple so she enjoyed comparing that temple to this one. Emily thought the mirrors in the sealing room was neat as she could see herself going on forever. We are glad we made the trip but were so happy to get home. The trip took 11 hours.

Today I'm thankful that

*Holly was so excited for 6th grade camp (she'll be gone for the next 4 days)

*I was able to take a walk through my growing up neighborhood with Nathan

*Our new little trees in the backyard are so cute and flowering