Daddy Daughter Hoe-down

My current calling is stake primary secretary.  Every year, the stake puts on a Daddy Daughter night.  This years theme was a Hoe-down.  We had a photo shoot, where we printed up the photos and gave them out by the end of the activity.  We had delicious kettle popcorn and other goodies.  We had a cute young women from my ward (Ali Davis) teach us the Hoe-down Throw-down by Miley Cyrus.  I have an awesome video of Rus and Ellie doing it, but I won't post it, too long.  It was a great night, and was cool to see a bunch of dads and their little girls dancing together.

Rusty and his little girl, Ellie.

Me and Rus

These are the great women I get to work with!  Nichole, Rhonda, Kim, me and Rae.  Aimee wasn't there since she just had her baby.

Jen and Ty visit

Jennifer and her hubby, Tyler and their girls came for a short stay to go to Disneyland and play.  I took many photos, so just sit back and scroll...if you want to see them.  Ty Jen and I look a little tired after a long day, right?  We were waiting in line to take our last ride of the day/night, Indiana Jones.

Ellie Ashton Ren MJ Chloe and Karsten sitting on the car in front of Mr. Toad Wild Ride.

There are so many beautiful flowers at D-land in the spring!  I enjoyed the flowers almost as much as the rides!  So lovely!

Ren and MJ in front of the 'Cars' display at California Adventure.  Ren really loves this movie and is so excited for the actual 'Cars' ride to open up.  (I hope he is big enough to ride it!)

Porter and Ren wait while some of our group go on the Water Rapids at Calif. Adventure.  They even wore ponchos to try to stay dry...

Do they look they are having fun?

Obviously, ponchos can only do so much!  Ashton and Ellie still got wet!

Here are the soldiers from 'Toy Story' performing a cool musical thing.  Can you believe that Ashton and Peyton got picked out of the crowd to come help them?  That was cool!

Drums are so cool!  And these guys were in pretty good sync.

This is an adorable photo of MJ and Ren, but then look behind them...those flowers are so gorgeous!

I think this is one of the rocket type rides, named the Zepher, maybe?  It was fun.  It seems to float out over the water in Calif Adventure.

More Zepher!

Look who we found!!  Woody from 'Toy Story'!  Ren looks pretty good here, but he was really unsure about this very large Woody!  He bolted as soon as the pic was taken. :)  He is a huge 'Toy Story' fan!  We went on the Woody's Roundup ride, where you shoot digital/imaginary darts at targets all through the ride.

These are some cute girls, Ashton, Ellie Karsten and MJ.  They almost look like sisters.  (Tyler and I are actually Smith cousins from a ways back.)

Cute pie, Ren.  He wants to sit on the yellow chairs too.  Of course, by the time he gets a turn, the girls are gone and then it's not quite as cool.  Again, check out the lovely flowers behind...

Bugs land, here we come!

We rode in the raisin box from 'Bugs Life'.

Bug bumper cars.

Jen and Ren in the caterpiller car behind Ellie and Ashton.

These are photos of the photos of us on California Screamin'.  My current favorite ride!  On top, Porter and Chloe are in the back seats.  I don't know who those people are in the front?  And then, Peyton and Jen in front and Ellie and I in the back.  You can't see Elle very well, she was closing her eyes and trying to go to her happy place!  She doesn't care for the ride. :)

When we were not at D-land, the girls played a lot of DS games together.  We could find them huddled around the house gaming! 

Say cheese!

Thanks for coming, Jen and Tyler.  We had a really fun time hanging out with you guys.  We are lucky our kids get along so well.  Love you all!

Mom's visit!

My Mom came out from MO to visit for 2 weeks.  During that last few weeks before tax season was over for my Dad, my Mom got so bored she agreed to come out and spend some time with us!  We were so thrilled to have her!  We spent half our time at my house, Liz came out here for that.  And the other half at Liz's house, we went out there for that.  I speak for all three of us when I say we thoroughly enjoyed our time together!  We did a few projects, including a table cloth for Liz and some quilt squares for me.  Mom helped me finish Chloe's quilt that I'd started 2 years before!  That is like a burden lifted, it's true.  I didn't get many photos of mom, though.  So, this sweet one will do. 

I hope Mom will come next spring!

School Stuff

JOG-A-THON

Ellie poses with a friend after their run.  They don't even look tired.

Ellie's class all gathers for a photo.  There were like 37 kids in her class this year.  I know, how did Ms. Kilroy do it?  They were a good class.  See Ellie sitting in the front?

Water break.  I think MJ stopped for a drink every lap!  She was cracking me up, I thought she'd have to have a potty break before long!

Autumn, Lindsey, Madison and MJ

Blair and MJ stop for a smile while eating their otter pops after their run.  Blair also lives in our neighborhood.

MaryJane's class.  She is the bottom row, 3rd from the left. 

MJ is such a sweet big sister, she asked her teacher, Ms. Calkins, if she could have another otter pop to give to her little brother. Ren was so happy. It's the little things, ya know?

EARTH DAY

Here is MJ and her friend, Autumn.  The whole first grade gave a little show/performance for Earth Day.  It as hilarious.  The songs they sang were the funniest!  I mean, all about not wasting water and turning out the lights and recycling.  Hey, and I'm all for that stuff, but the songs were goofy!  MJ had a spoke a line at the end to thank us (parents) for coming to their show.  That was a surprise to me.  She didn't tell me that was coming.  She is precious.

Happy 7th, MJ!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby!  MJ is 7 years old...as of April anyway.  To celebrate, I took her to the mall where she chose a stuffed animal at Build-A-Bear.  She also wanted to go the ChuckeCheese with her cousins, which we did!  Yea!  What a great day!  We love MJ like crazy!!!  She is fun and sweet and charming and cute!

 

Quin, MJ holding Brittany (her stuffed animal from Build-a-Bear), Ren and Libby

Ren is obviously really thrilled that MJ got a penguin and puffle.  For those who have played Club Penguin, you know about these.  :)

At ChuckeCheese, Ren spent the majority of his time on this 3 horse merry-go-round.  He just kept feeding coins... I finally encouraged him to move on!

Liberty and Ren liked the rides the most!

MJ plays  a game.  Gotta love this little cutie!  All the kids were trying to earn tickets to get some great prize at the end of our mini-party.  You know, like a plastic spinning top or one of the other 1 cent pieces of plastic I'll find on the floor later and toss.  :)

Drex is so cute!  He is getting so tall, look at those legs hanging down!  Love him!

Quin is concentrating so hard on this MarioKart game!  He is almost as tall as his brother, Drex.  And both of them tower over MJ, though she has them on age.

Annie Jr. School Play - April 2010

I have sooo many things I want to put up in the next couple of days!  My computer is kinda messed up and I can't seem to get to my picasa to edit my photos for red eye and whatever else...so I've been putting this off for way too long.  So, I'm posting without fixing stuff...for now...

MJ and Elle were in their school play's version of Annie.  They were so adorable and we were all so proud and really impressed at how well they did.  I was at rehearsals a lot, so got to see the progression.  But Rusty, Porter and Chloe only saw the performance.  These are a few photos I took, but the good ones taken by the professional guy will come later...when I find my cd with them on it.  :)

Ellie rocked the roll of Molly, the orphan.  (Molly is one of Annie's little friends.)  Elle sang several solo lines in songs and had several speaking lines throughout the play.  She even received a nomination for supporting actress from a National Youth Theater organization, which was a big honor.

MaryJane was the perfect Sandy!  (Sandy is Annie's puppy dog.)  She is already little and cute...put her in a puppy costume and you've got my ideal puppy!  The only puppy I'll ever have, fyi.  :)  She got to follow Annie around on stage and give her puppy dog eyes and stare.  She even got to sing/bark a few lines from the song "Tomorrow".  Super cute!

The play overall not only was nominated for an award from the National Youth Theater organization, but received the award!  We are super excited for our little thespians! 

Here are Ellie and a few friends trying to keep up on their studies during the week of performance.  It was actually a pretty crazy time for these young kids.