{Utah Trip} Welcome Home Uncle Mikey!

We made the trek (thankfully by plane this time!) to Utah for Rob's little brother Mikey's missionary homecoming. He served in the Chile Concepcion Mission for 2 years. We were all so excited to see him again!

 The Pilot let the girlies come sit in and see the cockpit on the flight. Ruby was excited about having a bunch of dum dums in her bag she could eat at will.

 The girls loved playing at "Grandma's park" (her backyard).

All the grandkids had matching shirts that said "Hola, me llamo es...." so Uncle Mike could know who was who since everyone looks so different from they did 2 years ago!

 

The girlies played with all of Grandma's fun toys!

 The kids loved playing with cousins. They were so good just playing all day long with only very rare fights. It makes me sad that we live so far from family!

Wings

 Grace has recently been loving My Little Ponies. She makes ears and tapes them onto headbands and the other day, all of her own idea, these wings which she designed and made. She is so creative! I love seeing what she comes up with!

School

 Last week we "rowed" (the program we're doing is Five in a Row) the book Night of the Moonjellies. It's a story about a boy who worked for a summer at his grandmother's seaside hot dog stand. He finds a moonjelly and after work, his grandmother takes him out on a boat to see the moonjellies out at sea.

We had our own restaurant at home one night. We made burgers and onion rings like they serve in the book. Grace learned about what it took to run a business and played waitress that night. She took orders and made sure all the plates were correct before taking them to the table.

We studied jellyfish and the ocean a bit too. Ruby's week was "J is for jellyfish." We ended up the week by going to the aquarium and seeing some sea life up close.

They had an awesome aquarium that had a tunnel in it you could walk through. There were sharks and rays and all sorts of fish. It was so neat!

 Rob thought it was pretty awesome.

 This is how Benji spent our aquarium trip.

Grace is also keeping a journal by writing a picture and a sentence every day. I'm excited to see her progress through the book!

Family Pictures

 While we were in Utah we had family pictures taken to celebrate everyone being together in 2 years! Kelly Sansom of Gallery Photography took them and did an incredible job!

Grace's Art Confessional

The other day I found this card from Grace. I was surprised when I opened it up and read what it said:

"I told Ruby to go eat dirt"

Haha. What? I knew Ruby has eaten lots of dirt, but I didn't realize that maybe some of it was from a suggestion from her sweet sister! I like the picture of them...Ruby with the dirt around her mouth! Funny kiddos!

Back to School

We started homeschooling for the year this week. Grace will be doing Kindergarten with a curriculum called Five in a Row, and Ruby will be doing Letter of the Week Tot School coordinated with what Grace is working on (hopefully!). The girls are loving it! We're also instituting a weekly tea party poetry time. Here we are with our muffins and tea (and hot chocolate) served on my china ready to listen to some silly poetry. I love having lots of time to spend with these girlies!

Well that's embarassing...

{or The Scarlet Letter}

This morning Rob noticed something red in our yard. Turns out he accidentally turned the sprinkler program for the wrong day on and the sprinkler police caught us and turned our sprinkler system off! Who knew? I'll bet that guy driving around at 5:30 am loves leaving scarlet letters on people's yards to shame them in front of their neighbors. Too bad a fine is involved too :(. Here in Frisco, we're serious about water usage apparently!

Arrr Matey!

 The other day I was working in the kitchen and I heard Ben fussing a bit and Grace said "Mom! Look at this! Hahahaha! ARRRR MATEY!" and this sight greeted me around the corner:

Grace had dressed Ben up to his slight dismay and was hefting him around the house yelling "arrr matey!" It probably wouldn't have been so bad but the elastic from the eye patch kept getting in the poor kid's eye. Sorry, Buddy, I think you're in for a lot more of this dressing-up business in your future :)

Grace's BirthDay

 Grace's actual birthday was a really fun day. We woke up early (like usual) and started with present opening before Daddy left for work.

 Benji's a good helper :)

 Ruby even got a little gift from Grandma and Grandpa. She was pretty stoked!

Grace was really excited for her birthday because she got to do whatever she wanted. She really wanted strawberries and cream for breakfast. Here she is a happy camper! The rest of the day was fun and relaxing. Grace chose to watch some TV and movies and played with Ben and Ruby. Happy birthday to my big 5 year old girl!