HeadShots

I mostly just took these to play around with my camera but I love the way they turned out. If my kids ever need to get a spot on TV or in a magazine I'll now have some headshots to turn in for them. Speaking of which I turned an application in for Kalyana to be in a "Signing Time" movie so keep your fingers crossed for her. We should find out later this summer how it went. They were sure to point out that lots and lots of people apply so I dont know how good our chances are but I know she loves those movies and would love to be in one!

Semi Professional here I come

I got this snazy new camera for my birthday from my parents, sisters and hubby. My old camera although digital was just getting so old and slowing down it was driving me crazy. Especially since 98% of my pictures are of my kids I would always have to tell them to wait and sit still for so long before my camera would actually snap the picture. This new camera has tons of features I love! Plus one of my selling points was that I can get different size lenses (for inexpensive prices) so that I can also dabble in the professional side a bit like I've always dreamed of. It finally arrived on Tuesday and Tarl and I have both been learning all about it and taking tons of pictures (more than 500!) in the 2 1/2 days since I've gotten it. I went through last night and actually deleted about 400 of them since we were just playing around and trying to learn buttons and features. The neighborhood kids have all been out playing and found themselves in our backyard on Wednesday so we had lots of subjects to use.

Flowers & Carrots

I love love love not living in apartments anymore and that I actually have a place to plant flowers. I think this is the perfect fit for me right now. Enought I can get a decent amount of flowers but not too much that me and my pregnant tired self couldn't keep up with it. Since this is the only place that gets sun (the small spot in the back I could plant is always in the shade) I was heavily debating weather or not to plant vegetables or flowers. I guess my vain side took control because I opted for the beautiful flowers instead of the healthy but not so attractive/curb appealing vegetables. Tarl and I thought it would still be fun to let Kalyana help out though so we let her pick her own pot and her own vege's (carrots) and she has that little blue pot to grow something yummy in. Here are some before/after pictures of my flowers and Kalyana and her dad planting her carrots. They planted them on Wednesday but since we've been outside the last few days for several hours she's already spread/played/raked/watered her dirt a little too much so we're crossing our fingers something actually grows out of there. We're trying to gently tell her too much love for her plants can hurt them.

She's 4 already!! ??

Kalyana turned 4 on the 20th. She woke up to a curtain of ribbon hanging above her door, streamers, balloons, and presents. I let her open about 1 every other hour so it would last all day. Then we let her pick what she wanted to eat for breakfast, she asked for "spongebob chicken fries" (we had some chicken fries in the freezer but thanks to the BK commercial they are now called the above) and ice cream. We indulged her :) We played and has visitors come by to wish her happy birthday and she got lots of phone calls of the happy birthday song. She loved it! The we had her party on Saturday morning. There are quite a few kids around here her age so we had a pretty good turn out. Her theme was spongebob so she could invite both the boys and the girls this year. Tarl made her an awesome cake (and if you look close enough in the second pic you can see Kaly put on the candles all by herself). We played pin the eyes on spongebob, musical chairs, magnet fishing game, balloon rely races, and had yummy cake and opened presents. Tarl even painted fun little pictures on the kids faces (if you can see Kaly's in the first pic). The kids all had a great time! Kalyana even got a visit from both sets of grandparents so that was way fun too. Tarl and I had a pretty long day ourselves. After the party Tarls' parents dropped in for a couple of hours and took us to lunch, they live up in Pocatello so since we're in school we dont get up there as often as we'd like. Then we had an impromptu barbeque with 3 couples from our neighborhood (holy cow-4 families were there and I think I counted 9 kids w/ 3 moms expecting). It was so fun to visit with the adults and since there were so many kids they all kinda entertained themselves. Then we got the kids in baths and to bed and our neighbors the Coats came over to play a little fusion frenzy on the xbox. It was after 1am before we went to bed.

Horse/Moses Movies

Makayla is getting to be a pro on the rocking horse. Grandpa and Grandma D gave it to Kaly a few years ago for Christmas. It doesn't take these little ones long to figure it out and push so hard they almost topple over. This and the doll crib are Makayla's favorite toys. (She'll go crawl in the doll crib and pull the blankets up and tuck herself in--it cracks me up!--She also has a fascination with sitting on things, so I guess this makes sense. She'll pull anything onto the floor and sit on it; a towel, a piece of paper, a sister or cousin (sorry Austin), her bib, anything! Man kids are entertaining.)

Kalyana has recently watched the movie "Price of Egypt"--an animation about Moses. There is this song in it (that she is singing) when Moses is sent down the river. For the last few weeks she's been reenacting it out in the bathtub (complete w/ basket and baby Moses). I believe the song goes something like, "River oh river flow gently for me, such precious something something :)"

Dresses, etc.

Kalyana and Makayla this week. :) They've been so excited for summer but it just isn't warm enough to play in the water outside so Kalyana asked to wear her bathing suit in the tub. They also got new Easter dresses.

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

We had big neighborhood easter egg hunt this morning. Tarl and I aren't big on crowds so we've never done the huge community egg hunts so when my neighbor suggested we do this I thought it was an awesome idea for the kids! Us moms filled 25 eggs per kid so there was lots to find for everyone. Then even the tiny kiddie's got to pick up a few too while the big kids sat and waited for their turn in the bigger yard. Makayla was so funny as she'd hold her little basket and pick up and egg and then find a random toy laying there that she thought looked more fun. She did manage to get a few though. Kalyana kit the jackpot and completely filled her basket plus some (I had to hold some so they wouldn't fall out). Crazy as it seems she quit when she felt like she was done even though she was standing right in the middle of about 5 eggs (most of the other kids were in the front yard). After the egg hunt the kids got to play while we had a neighborhood barbeque.

Happy Birthday to Me

I grew up with awesome parents who gave us kids fun birthday parties and made our birthday magical. I've decided that since we don't really do that for ourselves as adults instead of having say a birthday party, I want a birthday week (yes, celebrating the birthday the entire week--or close to it :) ). Tarl is sometimes willing to comply to this (since he doesnt often care about his own birthday, mostly this rule just applys to me). So my birthday was on April 3rd and my sweet hubby let me sleep in while he took care of the kids (actually he has been pretty good about doing this for the whole week!), then while my awesome mom came and watched the kids Tarl treated me to a yummy lunch and a funny movie (it was fun to actually go to the theater-I think it's been 6 or more months since I've made it out to one) and then when we got home we were surprised with a pizza party (with my mom, Heidi, Anthony, Austin, and my fam). Then on Thursday I woke up and got ready and Tarl says, "want to go to breakfast?" (I had asked him earlier if we could go out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during my birthday week). We took off to Denny's and although I think this was the first time we've been out with both the kids they actually did alright and we had fun. Then we came home and played outside (the above video) and visited with the neighbors from like 10-3. Yup we came home sunburned again, but it was just too fun we didnt think about it. Then Tarl brought me home a new game for the xbox so we played that for some in the evening. Then this morning we had a neighborhood event (see above blog). And tomorrow my parents are taking the whole family out to TGIFridays. I'm a big fan of birthday week!