Pizza Party!

Last week Joe's Mom gave us some left-over bread dough, so he decided it would be a fun idea to make pizzas with the kids. Jax was 100% into it and took his time making a master-piece. In the end, I think his looked the best out of all of ours! Ellie, on the other hand was a little distracted as you can see.... (where's your poopitz?).

Hi!

Time to devour!  Yum!

I promise Noah was apart of it.  He just ended up having a cheese-pizza, so I didn't get to snap so much the "making" part as I did the "eating" part.

And of course, here's my scraggly little Ellie. (Why is it that after every meal she ends up looking mildly homeless?).  While the pizzas were baking in the oven, we sang "O McDonald Had a Farm" and it was so cute. The kids don't know that song very well, so they were excited to be able to choose the animals and sounds, etc. Ellie's pig-noise is my fav.  And very suitable for the evening as we all porked down our pizzas!

"Poo-Poo-A-Toilet?"

Ellie thinks she wants to potty-train. I DO NOT think I want her to. She likes to tell me every time she has to go poo. "Ugh. Mom. A stinky bum bum. YUCK!" and then I look in her diaper and she is dry. She wants to sit on the toilet and pretend like she's doing something on it. She'll say proudly over and over, "poo-poo-a-toilet!" or jabber nonsense words while pointing at random things in the bathroom, "a-digga-digga-digga-tooth brush. A digga-digga-digga bath...." And then when I put a new fresh diaper back on, THAT is when she decides to poop. The little toot! I am not by any means full-on potty-training her and I was never planning on doing anything this soon, but at least she likes to sit on the toilet. Maybe some day, something will actually happen on it. And then, and only THEN will I start to take things a little more seriously.

 However, the idea of having only one set of diapers to change this Summer sounds kinda nice....

St Patties Day Weekend

For Saint Patrick's Day weekend, Sarah and I went to go visit my sister, Karen, in Calgary. Our niece Madison was having a dance performance that weekend and I still have not had a chance to see her dance on stage! What kind of an Auntie am I? So, why not make a trip of it and have some girlie-fun while we're there? We met up with Shannon and treated ourselves to a night out at Earl's. I think I am the only one in this pic who believes in wearing green on Saint Patrick's Day, ...but whatev's guys! What-EVS!  It was fun times.

Here's a pic above of Madi getting herself did. While below is a pic of Karen getting Madi's stuff together for the performance! Haha! She had so many costume changes, it was crazy! But it also meant she was in a lot of numbers that we were able to watch! So, I wasn't complaining! Haha! Although, I think I would make a horrible Dance-Mom. ("So sorry Ellie, I forgot your shoes to this number. AND your hair piece for this other number.... You don't get to dance those ones I guess....").  You have got to be so organized to be a dance-Mom, especially in the competitive world of dance.   Stressful!  And that's all I have to say about that!

Josh entertained us with Magic tricks while we were all getting ready to go. He is such a little stud!

And I had to throw in this cute pic of Gabe. He just woke up from his nap so he wasn't too thrilled about getting a picture taken, ..but honestly, he's the happiest kid. Such a cutie!

Let the show begin! Here are just a few pics of some of the many performances she did that night.

No big deal. Just doing the splits in the air.

Even Gabe joined in. Well, during intermission anyways. It's so cute. He dances any chance he gets! Karen you may have to consider putting him into competitive dance as well!

I was so proud of my niece! It's hard to believe she is only ten years old and she looks like such a woman on stage. Very professional and in some of the dances she even danced with the older girls because she is just that good. She also was the "star" in her lyrical number (my personal favourite), which I did not get any pics of ...because I was secretly filming it! And no I did NOT get caught. Haha!  Seriously though, when she first showed us her solo bit at home, I could not help but cry.  She looks so beautiful when she dances.  I know she has worked hard to get that good, but she is also very natural in her movements.  It was so enjoyable to get a chance to see her perform like that on stage.  Well done Madi!  I love you and I'm proud of you!  And thanks Karen for such a fun weekend!

Project Runway/Book Club

For book club this month we read the Graceling, which I recommend. I really enjoyed it and the ending left me wanting more! So, I can't wait until the next book "Bitterblue" comes out in May! Thanks Cassie for the recommendation! Although Cassie hosted, we combined the two nights together at Barb's and focussed more of the night on our Project Runway reveal! A couple months ago after watching a few episodes of Project Runway together, we decided to create something of our own and have our very own fashion night, runway and all (minus the judes)!  We cranked up the tunes and each took our turn revealing the project(s) we had been working on over the last couple of months.

Mine was a maternity t-shirt-dress.  I found the idea online on Pinterest.  I bought the shirt for cheap and sewed the skirt onto the shirt.  I pinned a non-maternity one, so I had to make some changes to the instructions, but all in all, it was a pretty simple recipe for a cute new dress!

I also bought some jersey fabric and made some cute casual scarves. They look pretty fabulous worn all together too! Haha!
Tarilyn made a cute dress out of jersey fabric!
 
 I love the bow in the back.  The best part is that the outfit is two-in-one! She slipped off the skirt part to show us option two of wearing it.  Only she can get away with wearing something so form-fitting (and this is a post-two-kid body).  Nice work Tarilyn!
 
Tarilyn also made this cute dress (that she gave to Bethany over the Christmas holidays), so it wasn't at the actual "reveal" but it was, indeed, made for this purpose!

Barb made this lovely pencil skirt.  She bought the fabric at Ikea to make it a thicker skirt, which is probably a good idea with the white stripes.  The funniest part is the sizing chart for her pattern was telling her she was a size 16, when we all know that Barb is no 16, so she made a smaller size and after the fact realized it was a teen-sizing chart!  Haha!  But she managed to squeeze into it anyway!  Looks like it fits to me.  Well done Barb!


She also made a cute swimsuit-cover dress.  Love the colours!

...and an adorable shirt for Scarlett (no pattern either!).

Not every project was an outfit, but each project indeed needed to be strutted down the runway, so here is Andrea with her beautiful quilt!
Sarah managed to strut like you wouldn't believe.  Just picture "Super Massive Blackhole" by Muse blaring, spinning scarves and the fiercest look you've ever seen!  Ha!

That's right.  These are ALL scarves.  Not tube dresses.  She made so many scarves (definitely more than me) that she chose to wear them in multiple fashions for the night!  And strip-tease!  Haha!  Well, ...just down to her regular clothes of course.  It was funny!

Just one of the many poses we made her do among her millions of scarves.  I personally want the striped grey one.  And purple and black one....

Well done ladies! Here's to a Fantastically Fancy Fun night of Fashion! ...and FOOD!  May there always be food.  ;)

Ultrasound Time!

I had my appointment last week (18 weeks) for my ultrasound for baby #4.  Usually at these things, I am far more nervous and excited because we usually find out the gender.  BUT, on this occasion Joe convinced me to have this baby be a surprise.  It was still really neat, of course, to see the baby's heartbeat (155 bmp) and all of its other features.  Unfortunately, there were NO sneak peaks between the legs, so I can't even make an educated guess.  And this is the earliest I've ever had an ultrasound so the baby still looked pretty skeletal in 3D form, ...hence the reveal of the 2-D pics.  The lovely news that I DID receive that day was that it was measuring big for 18 weeks, ...so that gives me a little hope that the baby will come early???  I know Ellie was measuring a week small at her ultrasound and she ended up being 8 days  late.  A girl can hope right?  The other good news that was confirmed was that there was only ONE baby in there, not twins.  The thought of having twins scares me to death.  If there were two babies, I am sure I would survive and perhaps even love the idea eventually, but my sanity would be compromised.  Anywho, I love the first pic of the baby's profile.  It looks like he/she is smiling.  Happy with their home.  Well,  ...don't get too comfortable!

I decided while I was there to get an impromptu profile shot of what I look like at 18 weeks. I have definitely found with this pregnancy that I've popped quite fast, but have only gained about ten-twelve  pounds up until this point (I am sure it would be more if only I would stop puking).  But I'm okay with the slower weight-gain.  Less to lose at the end I guess!  ...Too bad I have to puke to make that possible, but at least it's not every day with this one.  And baby is healthy (and apparently "happy" according to the first pic), so that's all that really matters.  I think I've been pretty fortunate to have fairly complicated-free pregnancies and deliveries, so if puking and nausea are all I have to deal with, then I'll take it.  At least, I try to think that way whenever I attempt to throw a pity-party for myself.  At this point, the only thing that would freak me out is if I didn't get my epidural when the time comes.  THEN, I will complain.  Anywho, Happy Ultra-sound Day!
 

My Couch-Potato

So, maybe it's not quite a "couch" per se but this is where I can usually find Ellie. On my bed. Watching TV. And playing my iphone. Already multi-tasking! It's a girl thing I guess!

Just call me an incredible Mom.  Do it.

Grand Family Home Evenings

My parents were up visiting last week so we decided to have family dinner with those who could join us (and pretty much it was just Sarah's family that could come) so we captured a cute pic with the Grands and then the best part of the night (other than Cafe Rio Salad!) was that my parents planned Family Home Evening! It was an evening of Geneology! My Dad told the adults a story of when my Dad's Great Great Grandma (Eleanor Grant) and Grandpa (Thomas Ord) crossed over with the Martin Handcart company and settled in Nephi, Utah. Apparently they were the first couple to settle Nephi, and at the time there were only eight families living in Nephi, so for safety's sake they all shared a big hut-like home. AND, the neat part about this story is that the eighth family that moved to Nephi was my Mom's Great Great Grandparents! So, ...they were all friends way back in the day (or mortal enemies since they all had to share a big house, and we all know what that's like from reality TV! Haha!). So, I thought that was a pretty neat story!

 Meanwhile my Mom got the kids going on their very own pedigree charts. Jackson is unhappy because he is a perfectionist and made a mistake on his paper, ...which is the crumpled heap in his hands. Oh dear. The drama.   
It was so cute to watch the kids hard at work on their pedigree charts. Thankfully Jackson gave it another shot and was much happier with the outcome!

HI!

The beauty of having Mom and Dad plan FHE is that they also took care of bringing TREATS! Yum!   And I couldn't help but add this sweet pic of Taylor and Dad.  Lovely.

Ellie especially enjoyed hers. She had two. Actually, I think we ALL may have had two. Delish! Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun evening together! Love you!

Once There Was a Snowman

Today was SO beautiful outside! It was well above zero and like a bad Mom I still have not built a snowman with my kids. Like, ever. And I live in Canada.  I know.  So, it was the perfect day to start!    
And the final product!  I should probably explain to the boys that since the weather is supposed to continue this way through the weekend that the snowman just might be "small, small small" by the time tomorrow comes around!

And of course with any building of snow efforts, one MUST eat the snow!  It's a rule.

We also ended up building a snow fort (for elves?  Leave me alone.  It's all the energy I had in me!) and had a snow ball fight. We tempted Joe by throwing snowballs at his window so he could take a break from working/studying. We're so mean. It worked though!
 
...because he ended up joining us!

The crew!

Dear Spring,

 After today's fill, we're ready for you.

 Love,

 Maren and the whole world.