Getting ready for Christmas

Okay, so I know it's early but I'm totally geared up for Christmas this year. To kick start things I've decided that I want to get the kids' pictures done and use them for Christmas cards. I was having a hard time finding anything in the store that matched what I was picturing so I decided to make the girls "candy cane" tutus. They turned out great! Now I just need to get the pictures done! :)

Christmas card ideas

Some designs I made for Christmas cards.

Halloween

For Halloween this year Kaia wanted to be a bumble bee, Lilee was SuperGirl, and Connor was Spiderman. The kids had a great time trick or treating not wanting to stop even after their legs were too tired to keep going! All night long Connor would only answer to Spiderman and not his own name! They had tons of fun!

Birthdays

I know I'm really behind so...here they all are! Lilee's 3rd birthday was September 2nd, and Kaia's 7th birthday was October 8th. They both lucked out and got to have Daddy home for their parties! Eric came home the day before Kaia's birthday, and she wanted to go bowling. We picked her up from school and headed straight to Fat Cat's in Provo. We had a great time and decided to start bowling at least once a month.

Kaia's Glasses

A couple weeks ago we got a letter from the school saying that Kaia failed her vision screening. After having to calm down a very upset Kaia, we took her to the eye doctor where they confirmed that she needed glasses. So today I took her to Lens Crafters where she picked out her very first pair of glasses ever. Isn't she cute?

Labor Day Weekend

We just found out that Eric gets a 4 day leave to come home for Labor Day Weekend! We're bouncing off the walls with excitement! His plane comes in at 10am on September 4th and then he leaves again at 10am on September 7th. Which means, he'll get to help us celebrate Lilee's 3rd birthday after all! Now if only the next 2 weeks would fly by!

Ready or not, summer here we come

Kicking off our first week of summer vacation, I took the kids to the store to pick out new floaties for the swimming pool. Our attempt to go last week was short lived due to the lack of floatation devices. The girls picked out their own, Kaia picking pink of course and Lilee picking crazy monkeys, and I found a horsey for Connor. The kids wanted to go swimming that very minute and came home and blew up their floaties even though it was lighting outside! It took a while, but I finally convinced them to wait until the next day. We got to hear from Eric, who is doing very well at boot camp. I'm nervous that he's doing too well and is going to decide to go into the full time Army! He complains that the challenges aren't hard enough, that they don't shoot at them enough, or that it wasn't as cool as he thought it'd be! He earned a sharpshooter ranking while qualifying with his rifle, and just barley missed getting the expert ranking. He's qualified on grenades, tackled the victory tower, and passed the gas chamber. All that's left for them to do is the "war games." He's got 2 1/2-3 more weeks of basic training, then they get a week to sit around, and then he's off to advanced training. We're almost halfway done!

Kaia's Performance

Yesterday we went to Kaia's end of the year kindergarten performance. It was so cute! The kids sang songs and took turns saying what they learned this year. Grandma and Grandpa Hedman were able to come down and go with us, which made Kaia soo happy! Afterward we all went to dinner where Kaia and Lilee sat on either side of Grandpa and bugged him to share throughout the whole meal. :) We had a great time and loved getting to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. Eric even got to call yesterday, so it was a great day!

Eric Updates

We finally heard from Eric! He passed the GED portion of training and arrived at the processing part of boot camp. He's got 3-4 more days of processing and then the real work starts. He's doing good and had gotten really good at push-ups and sit-ups. He's been told that since he went to the 3 week GED training he's going to start boot camp 3 weeks ahead of the others physically-so here's hoping he gets promoted soon!

Museum Friday

For Kaia's last weekday of Spring Break we kept with our theme of "educational outings" and went to The Museum of Ancient History. The kids had a blast, largely because the museum is very kid friendly with lots of hands on exhibits. It's mostly filled with dinosaurs, but they've got an area where the kids get to play in a pond full of sand and little plastic dinos, and a pit where they get to pretend to uncover bones with little brushes. The museum boasts that its the largest dinosaur museum in the world, and they've certainly got a lot to look at! The kids had a good laugh listening to me try to pronounce the dino names. The pictures aren't very good because the batteries in my camera died and I had to use my cell phone, but they at least tell some of the story!

Clark Planetarium

Kaia has become very interested in the Earth lately, ever since watching "Planet Earth" with her Grandpa Hedman, and after she grilled me for over an hour about how the Earth rotates and space, I decided to take her to the Clark Planetarium. We, of course, picked to go the same day as a couple of the local schools so it was crowded but we still had fun! The girls got to pose for pictures on a landscape of the moon and one of Mars, and in front of a spacesuit. They got to rotate a little moon to show the different stages and see models of rockets and the planets. We got to see lots of pictures from the Hubel Telescope, see how much we'd weigh on other planets, and learn about why we have different seasons. We also got to see Under the Sea in 3D at their IMAX theater, which was very cool. After seeing all the exhibits we had a hour before the movie so we headed outside to the Gateway Mall to get some lunch, and not even 1 minute after we step outside it started snowing on us! We had to rush over to the "mall", which for those of you who don't know it's an outside mall where all the store entrances are on the street, and try to find the food court. By the time we got there we were all very cold and wet! We had a great time and got to see some really cool stuff!

Our day at the zoo

Kaia's school is on Spring Break this week, and since today is supposed to be the only nice day all week we decided to head to the zoo. The kids had a great time, especially Connor who LOVES animals. I think their favorite was the penguins. We had a great day!

Easter eggs

The girls and I colored Easter eggs on Saturday night and left them on the table for the Easter bunny to hide. The kids had a great time finding the eggs on Sunday morning and had devoured almost all their candy by lunchtime!

Eric

Eric made it to Arkansas safe and sound, after a few minor setbacks. First, they couldn't get him a flight out on Thursday so he had to sit around the hotel until Friday, and then he missed the flight! He has never been to an airport before and apparently he was waiting in the wrong part of the airport. So, he had to go back to the hotel and wait for another flight on Saturday. He finally made it late Saturday afternoon and was pretty worried about how much trouble he was going to be in. No word yet about how its going since he arrived, but I'm sure he's trying to adjust and will be just fine.

Eric's gone

We drove Eric to the hotel for him to ship out tonight. I tried by best to keep from crying too much, and Eric forced himself to go check in so I guess it went successfully. Even though we knew this day was coming, it really sucks. I miss him already and he hasn't even left the state yet! It's hard to imagine what these next 6 months are going to be like without him, but I guess we just go one day at a time.

In the Army Now

It's official. Eric was sworn in to the National Guard yesterday morning. He officially ships out to boot camp on April 1st, and he's headed to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for basic training and then to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for advanced and special forces training. He will be gone until the end of September, which is going to be soo long! We're going to miss him so much! These pictures don't tell the whole story...Private Fell had to be at drill this morning at 0800 which meant he had to shave off all his facial hair and it was hilarious! The poor guy has no chin or lips!

More Family Pictures

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures done while we were in Idaho for New Years. I'm am so excited! It's the first family pictures we've gotten done since Connor was born. I know I'm a slacker! They turned out great! Thanks mom!