Tooth pictures

After Sarah lost her teeth, she took some pictures. Here are a couple for your viewing enjoyment....

Showing the gap in her mouth.

A tooth!

(Yes, that red stuff is blood.)

Future Tooth Jerker

Sarah can be a little impatient. Specifically, she can be very impatient with her teeth. From her very first loose tooth, she has always worked and worked on them to pull the teeth out. Tonight at dinner, she told us that she had two teeth that were just a little loose.

She had them out by bedtime.

She is super excited. Double the teeth means double the rewards right?  We'll see if the tooth fairy comes through.

Maybe we have a future dentist on our hands.

Everyone loves mom

They are so happy to be with her. I'm so lucky to be with her too! :)

Cooking class

Sarah and I are taking a cooking class together.  In our first class, we learned about taste and flavor. It was really interesting. For example, we ate a jelly bean with our nose plugged and all we could taste was the sugar. When we unplugged our nose, then we could taste the flavor. To learn about the five basic tastes (salty, sweet, bitter, sour and savory) and how they interact with each other, Sarah created a mise en place that had melon, radicchio, lime, sugar and salt and then we ate them in different combinations. The radicchio was definitely most palatable when there was a bit of melon, salt and lime juice with it. And we really like the melon with lime juice!!! I can't wait to see what else we learn.

Sarah trying out the different combinations of tastes with her siblings.

Hard working Matthew

Matthew has been busy saving his money to earn some Legos. He finally had enough last weekend and was super excited to be able to play with his new toys. He enjoyed building the initial set with daddy. Now he is busy building and rebuilding into all sorts of creations.

Royalty

Tonight we had some very special guests. Sir Matthew the Griffon and Lady Megan the Fair graced us with a visit. They went with us to the library for a special royal story time. Thanks to our ward's Relief Society President, their outfits were supplemented from their normal wardrobe. Lady Megan's dress and Sir Matthew's shield were all they had to start with. They were very gracious and allowed some photographs, after we assured them we did not work for the tabloids.

Where do beadies come from?

This is the critical question. Those of you who have visited us have probably been to the "beadie" park. Well Matthew figured out that beadies must grow on bushes. He knows because he found some.

Morning Dad!

Matthew is an early riser. He loves to be up to see me go to work. However, some mornings I get the feeling that he could really use a little more sleep.

Spring freeze

You know how the weather can suddenly turn brisk in spring right? Well the kids decided they were cold in the back yard. (It was approximately 75 degrees out. Freezing by Arizona kids' estimation.)

The joys of afternoon church

Megan and Matthew don't always nap in the afternoons, but they often do. That makes afternoon church a hard time. However they have now figured out that they can go to sleep. Last Sunday they both fell asleep in the last 15 minutes of sacrament meeting.

Preschool

A few weeks ago in preschool, we studied the letter "s" and servants. We read the Bible story about Jesus washing his disciples' feet and talked about different servants. One day we focused on police, one day on doctors and one day on firemen. The kids loved reading about "A day in the life" of each of these people. I made some lapbooks to go along with this week's theme and they've been a hit with the kids. (No surprise there given the obsession with firemen and, to a lesser extent, policemen in our home.)

Back/Front of the lapbooks.

Inside of the lapbooks.

Matthew is now calling all these people "my friends." If we see a firetruck or a police car, he says, "There are my friends." (He also says it about construction and utility workers.) It's really cute. And he has a whole lot of friends!

The next week, we studied the letter "e" and emotions/excited. We read about Jesus' Resurrection (as well as the events leading up to it). We went to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa temple, where we saw Jesus' life depicted. We also talked about different emotions that we have.

Happy.

Sad.

Excited.

This past week, we studied "u" and up. We learned about Jesus' Ascension into heaven and read a number of books on the moon and stars. Matthew really liked the book about Neil Armstrong. We made moon craters by dropping marbles into flour and made books with the phases of the moon. We made constellations by poking holes in black construction paper. We stomped shadows created by the sun and made suncatchers with tissue paper.

Matthew stomping shadows.

Megan intent on stomping!

We are now done with God's Little Explorers preschool curriculum and are moving onto learning about letter sounds.

Disney on Ice

U won tickets to Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy from work. We had great seats and really enjoyed the show. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald started the show off. We also saw characters from Cars, Little Mermaid, Tinker Bell and Toy Story 3.

Waiting for the show to start. We certainly are thin-blooded people!

Sally and Lightning trying to help out Mickey and Minnie's car, which had broken down.

Walking with our blankets after the show. U thought we looked funny, but at least we stayed a bit warmer.

Mission Reunion!

My mission president and his wife were in town and had a mini mission reunion. It was a lot of fun to see them and to see a few other people I knew from my mission, including my MTC companion. We enjoyed the yummy food they had and even got to bring some home. (Sister Hart was encouraging everyone to eat, eat and eat some more.)

Soeur Hart, Matthew and me.

Soeur McConkie and me. I took her contacting on her first day in the mission.

With President and Sister Hart. Sure do love them!

Randomness: On the way to the reunion, Sarah asked if she would have any friends there. We said probably not. Well, it turns out she did. One of the elders from my mission lives in our stake and Sarah had made friends with his daughters during the Women's Broadcast of General Conference in March. (She actually had told me she'd made friends with some girls that evening--I just had no clue they were Elder Call's kids!) (pipe in "it's a small world!")

Easter!

We celebrated Easter weekend by watching General Conference. The Easter bunny also found its way to our home on Easter Eve. The kids enjoyed finding their eggs full of jelly beans. There was even one for mom and dad!

Megan's Easter basket. (The little paper bunny has her name on it.)

Matthew's basket.

Sarah's basket.

Matthew loved finding eggs and even found a few of his sisters' eggs.

Megan was an enthusiastic egg finder. She even found mom and dad's egg.

Sarah enjoyed her search as well and would let Megan and Matthew know when she saw one of their eggs.

A Trip to the Zoo

U and Sarah had the Friday of Easter weekend off so we headed to the zoo. It was a nice day and we were able to see a lot of animals.

Sarah enjoys taking pictures.

This baboon was sitting very complacently by the window.

When I put my hand on the window, it's like I startled her and she slapped her hand where mine was on the glass. She did it multiple times with me.

Sarah likes climbing up onto the bars.