March comes in like a lion

March came in like a lion and pretty stayed just that.  Such a busy month but so fun.

My dad’s birthday was Feb 27^th and they spent the weekend here with us.  We made him a fabulous birthday cake carved as an open book and drew a picture on a castle on the open page.  It turned out pretty great!  They spent the whole day with us, attending church (as much as we can with an increasingly wiggly almost-toddler) and lounging around.  The girls each made him a book.  I typed their short stories and printed it out so they could draw pictures to go along with it.  E wrote a story about taking her pandas on a picnic.  A wrote a story about her stuffed kitten Mittens.  And L wrote a story about her and Papa doing an art project.

For St. David’s Day we made welsh cakes for breakfast.  Husband was on his way out of town so we didn’t do a whole dinner this year but breakfast was fun.  We sent the extras to husband’s office and they were a big hit.

And we had our annual Dr. Seuss party!  I’m not sure at what point this became tradition but this was our fourth year in a row and the girls were eagerly anticipating it.  They each invited two friends to come over and we started with a feast! We had roast beast sandwiches, truffula trees (asparagus), green eggs (dyed deviled eggs), cat in the hat hats (skewers of strawberries and bananas) and made Seussical cookies.  Making these crazy cookies is always so fun and the girls all loved it.  L conducted a game, seeing how many Dr. Seuss books the kids could name and rewarding each answer with a Dr. Seuss pencil.  And we watched the Lorax with a movie snack (mini marshmallows mixed with teddy grahams).

All the girls had parent teacher conferences and went about as expected.  They are all top-of-the-charts smart, generally helpful and pleasant in class and doing great.  They are all good leaders and admittedly increasingly loud and energetic down the age line.

All of the girls participated in the Waspette Spectacular this year. The local high school’s dance team hosts an end-of-season event where they show off their competition routines and invited local studios to participate.  So L’s dance team performed one of their competition routines.  We sat in the third row, right in front of where I knew she was at the beginning of the dance.  I saw the exact moment she spotted us, her face lit up and that expression right there makes my heart so full.  This kid loves to dance.  And she’s good at it.  I love, love, love watching her dance.  A and E also got to participate.  They joined the Mini-Waspettes clinic, attending practice three days in a row to learn a dance taught by some of the high school girls.  Then they got to perform that dance during the show.  E’s dance was to “Youre Welcome” from Moana and she was thrilled.  A was the tallest in her group and a natural leader with many of the girls watching her to remember the dance.  Plus the kids got to see some friends from other dance studios and loved watching the high school girls dance.  Such a great night!

I attended visitor day at E’s school.  It’s actually the first time I’ve been since the girls usually take Daddy or a grandparent and I was really excited to go.  Evie gave me a tour, showing me all the different stations.  We did an art project together, assembled puzzled and read books.  We talked with some of her friends and shared a snack.  It was short and super cute.

We also attended Leadership Day at the elementary school to see A sing in the assembly.  L’s class was sitting right in front of us during the assembly and she loved showing off her little brother to her classmates.

Husband and I had a spectacular date night.  We went to Provo Beach and had a great time.  We jumped right in with the wave rider.  We got a little beat up at first (mostly me, husband is pretty good at pretty much everything he tries, he’s naturally athletic and can analyze and understand how to approach it before he even starts).  But rather suddenly felt like we had the hang of it and had a great time.  We got more confident, still getting tossed around plenty but eager to do it again.  We played in the arcade and did the ropes course.  We can’t run on the ropes course of course so we made a game out of who could do a certain obstacle faster or without using your hands, etc.  We joined a group to play laser tag, not realizing all the adults were on the same time, including Husband, while all the kids and teenagers, plus me, were on the other team.  Their team easily doubled the score of my team. (But my personal score beat husband’s. Only because I stayed far away from him and strategically waited for the other team to come after my teammates.)  We got some snacks and had so much fun playing around all evening.

L had a very long crazy weekend.  When she got out of school on Friday I took her to a birthday party for her best friend Eva.  They had a great time with lots of fun activities for the Moana themed night.  Unfortunately I had to sneak her away early to participate in the Music Festival. She attended a master’s class and concert at the beginning of the festival and then participated in all categories this year (jazz, classical, contemporary, duet, accompaniment, sight reading, theory, composition and technique).  She did great! She earned a superior in all nine categories.  After her very late night at the festival, I woke her up early to get her ready for a dance competition.  She got to go to breakfast with Daddy and then we met him to trade off. He kept A for some one-on-one time while Grammy and I took L, E and Z to the dance competition.  She was thrilled to hang out with her friends and had a great time onstage.  She loved the participation gift (a diamond paperweight) and was especially excited when we splurged and bought her a new dance top with the competition logo.  We went out to lunch and did a little shopping before racing back to attend the music festival award ceremony.

And birthdays!! Baby Z turned one year old! His birthday was on a Tuesday, which is particularly busy for us so we celebrated with cuddles and little treats throughout the day.  We had pictures taken which turned out really cute and then saved most of our festivities for a birthday weekend.  L’s birthday was the following Tuesday, again filled with school and dance classes.  So we did breakfast in bed and treats for her classes (including ballerina cupcakes for her dance team) but did most of our celebrations all in one weekend.

We kicked off the birthday weekend on Friday with L’s birthday date.  She asked to have her cousintwin join us so Husband and I took L and our niece to our favorite Mexican restaurant.  They were very sweet and cute, giggling and coloring together.  We stayed up watching movies and had a giant sleepover with cousins and sisters. I had a blast staying up late to decorate cakes with my mom and sister.

On Saturday, we invited five of L’s friends to join us for lunch. We had a combined birthday lunch for L’s 9^th birthday and Z’s 1^st birthday. It was so fun and both of them were so cute and had so much fun. At L’s request we had chicken salad sandwiches plus I made fruit and veggie plates arranged like Seasame Street characters.  We had lemonade in cute tea cups and a LOT of cake.  For L I made a Beauty and the Beast cake, sculpting the enchanted rose under a glass dome.  And for Z, we made a giant cookie monster cupcake with bright blue fur and a mouth full of cookies and made lots of little cupcakes to match.  All the kids, L, her cousins, her sisters and her cousins, filled our enormous table—what a sweet sight, all these happy kids.  But the best part was when we plopped Z down on the table at one end with clusters of balloons behind him and his giant cookie monster cupcake in front of his. He smashed that thing apart, smearing frosting everywhere with beaming happy smiles and excited bouncing. The kids clapped and cheered for him and as their enthusiasm occasionally trailed off, he would bounce and clap pointedly at them as if to insist they continue!  And they did!  It was hilarious! 

We did a quick clean up and took the whole crew to go see the new Beauty and the Beast movie.  We got lots of popcorn and filled two whole rows at the theatre.  Z slept on Daddy for part of it and then wiggled on me in the cry room for the rest while A cuddled into Dad, L and her friends were fixated and E sat with Grammy and Papa, thoroughly entertaining him with her nonstop commentary.  “Don’t worry grammy, Beast isn’t really naked, he still has fur.” Or “now grammy, gaston looks nice but he really is the bad guy, we don’t like him.”

After the movie we took everyone home and raced off to the swimming pool for a cousin’s birthday party.  We met briefly in the party room to eat and sing and then scattered, cousins pairing off to play and having a great time in the water.

While we were at the pool we were joined by one of my very best long time friends! They live out of state but were visiting and managed to get out to our cute little valley for part of their visit. She and her husband brought their three wonderful boys, all who pretty perfectly match up with out three girls. L has had a crush on their oldest since camping with them last summer so she was especially excited when they came bounding into the pool to play and surprise us.  The kids did laps around the lazy river, jumped off the diving boards, braved the slides and made up all kinds of games.  Meanwhile I visited with my sisters and especially with my best friend, catching up and sharing news. 

So happy they spent the night! And we got to have even more time together.  We stayed up late as I worked on more cakes (we would have stayed up late talking anyway) and I loved it so much.  I spent hours with my mom and with Jo, my two best friends and poured our hearts out catching up on everything.

On Sunday we attended church.  The girls were thrilled to take the boys to their Primary classes with them and had a blast scattering to play after church.  We had a big Sunday dinner (lunch) and then sent them home while we drove up to the aunties for more birthday celebrations.  We had a big Sunday dinner with lots of cousins and more cake! I offered to do the cakes and with a big crowd I decided to make two cakes, another cookie monster and a unicorn.  The kids disappeared with cousins for imagination games and we loved lounging with Z and the aunties.  I love these incredible women and look up to them so much.  Grandpa was supposed to join us but had gotten shipwrecked on a fishing trip in Florida.  He was safe by then but it was so entertaining reconciling all the stories everyone had heard by then.

E had a school field trip this last week.  We went to the fire station and had a great time.  We started in the classroom where she shared several little gems that did not reflect well on my parenting (“oh yeah, I’ve heard the fire alarm, my mom sets it off all the time when she’s cooking.” And “I know how to open my window.  I have to open it because it gets so stinky in my room.” And “yeah I’m supposed to wear my helmet but sometimes I didn’t and I fell and hit my head.”—all unfortunately somewhat true but I swear its not as bad as it sounds.) She shied away when one of the people leading the discussion put all his gear on but bounced right back when it was time for the tour.  Her favorite part of course was getting to see the emergency vehicles.  They climbed through the ambulance and got to explore the truck.  And then best of all—they got to spray the hose.  Her face absolutely lit up.  She is so stinkin cute.

And we finished off the month with an incredible family date night.  Husband had given me the tickets for Christmas and the long awaited date finally rolled around.  The girls and I spent lots of time getting ready.  We painted our nails and did our hair extra fancy and I loaned them special costume jewelry as we got dressed up.  We dropped Z off at a friend’s house and took our three girls to dinner at Benihana’s.  They loved watching the chef cook right in front of us.  They devoured the shrimp and had so much fun.  E’s favorite was digging the egg out of her fried rice.  L’s favorite was her fancy drink.  And A loved the shrimp! My favorite was watching their faces when the chef did his tricks like lighting the volcano on fire or tossing and catching the shrimp. 

After dinner we took the girls to Ballet West to see The Little Mermaid.  The ballet was beautifully done.  I loved the costumes and the incredible talent in every leap and extension.  The dolphins especially were fun to watch and the crabs were hilarious. The girls loved the music and the dancing.

And now onto spring break! We are doing a staycation, planning little field trips but mostly sticking close to home.  I love playing with my kiddos and looking forward to enjoying lots of playtime and some much needed space from our busy schedule.