sunday afternoons

For a while now I've had the idea to get a picture of my family from my seat at the organ. This is what I see for a large portion of Sacrament Meeting every Sunday. James does a great job juggling all four kids all by himself. I appreciate him.

Naked Baby Alert

Our sweet baby Luke turned one this past week! Happy Birthday, Luke-a-nator. This is him in his birthday present. He LOVES it. He pushes it around, loads things into it, dumps them out, climbs into it, climbs out of it, squeals when he sees it, gets mad when anyone else wants to use it, etc., etc.

This is Luke devouring his birthday cake. He was so intent on eating it that I couldn't get him to smile for the camera. "This is serious business, mom. Don't interrupt the cake eating."

Hop On Pop

This is the cake I made for Luke's Birthday. It is supposed to be Hop on Pop, but well, I did my best. All in all, I was really proud of myself. More pictures later on the actual birthday party. 

Little Lumpty and Supper With the King and Queen

Candace with her wonderful first grade teacher, Mrs. Spadafora. She was a GREAT teacher. We will miss her very much. 

Candace and her class singing some old favorites, namely: God Bless America, Take Me Out To the Ballgame, Take Your Hat Off When the Flag Goes By and Pack Up Your Hot Dogs in Your Old Backpack to name a few. 

Candace was the narrator for the play "Little Lumpty". She did an excellent job enunciating her words clearly and speaking slowly. She had her whole part memorized. We all enjoyed hearing the tale of the misguided Lumpty who was destined to follow in his ancestor's (Humpty Dumpty) footsteps, but with a more positive outcome. He jumped into a fire net instead of being crushed into tiny pieces. 

They had such a great time. 

Candace and her good friend, Lindsay. 

of monkeys and frogs

These are the cupcakes I made for the May birthday celebrations with our extended family. Aren't they cute? The monkeys were made with Nilla Wagers and chocolate chips. The frogs were made with gum drops and lime jelly candies.

And just in case you haven't seen enough of them: here are some more pictures. Can you tell I was excited about these? (Especially the monkey ones.)

We tried to get a picture of all of the babies. Some were more cooperative than others.

Good Books

Candace loves reading and we love reading to her. We are looking for any suggestions to add to our lists.

Books We've Read to Candace recently:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Twits
Witches

Books She's Read Herself recently:
Amber Brown is Not a Crayon
Don't Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown
Multiple Magic Tree House Books
Multiple Jigsaw Mystery Books
The Magic Finger
James and the Giant Peach

I especially love Roald Dahl for this age group. At six she can read quite well, but her reading fluency is ahead of her reading comprehension. Does anyone remember good books they read when they were in elementary school?

macaroni and cheese and the baby acrobat

Best in Land, Do What Can

Joshua came up to me yesterday and had made these really awesome "cougar teeth." He was so proud of them and wore them the whole day. 

Tried a new whole wheat bread recipe. It was very good. It's the only recipe I've tried that doesn't use any white flour at all. 

There's Luke-a-nator being adorable. He loves this toy dinosaur. Take a look at the next few pictures to see what happens when he plays with it. 

Love his face in this next picture. My kids have all done that same face one time or another at this age. 

Luke isn't looking in this one, but I had to post it as well. Look at my beautiful daughter. Candace is really growing up too fast. Also, as a side note, check out Levi in the background. He's getting him a piece of that dinosaur as well. 

These four kids are the cutest.