Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother's Day

Since last week was Teacher Appreciation week the boys tried to do some special things for their teachers.  They took them notes, a little treat and on Friday they took their teacher's roses that Stephen folded and put on twisted wire.  We have enjoyed their teachers this year and are thankful for them.  I am glad that Stephen is so talented and was willing to stay up late one night after work to get these folded for the boys.  They were very excited to give them to their teachers.  The rose is real pretty.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

 On Sunday was Mother's Day.  I had to play the piano in Sacrament Meeting for the primary kids to sing, but I was grateful I didn't have to speak.  However, Stephen did have to speak.  He did well though.  It was a good meeting.  All three speakers were interesting and the primary kids did well with their singing.  I do love my boys and am very grateful for them.  I am also grateful for many mothers in my life, but most especially my own dear mom.

It's May

It is May already and apparently I only blogged once in April.  Oops.  April was a good month though.

Here's a picture of the boys enjoying the nicer weather.

 Rosemary, Steven, and Glen came to town one weekend in April.  Rose and Steven had a wedding to attend.  We had a good time seeing all of them.  Rose took pictures for the newlyweds and she'd just gotten a brand new camera so she took the boys in the back yard before they left for the ceremony and got used to her camera by taking a few pictures of the boys.

The boys came up with some of their own posing ideas.

 We also celebrated Easter in April.  All the boys got new ties.

 I also had my birthday at the end of the month.  Stephen and I enjoyed some time to ourselves the day before my birthday while the kids had fun with Grandma, Grandpa Jeppson, and Kimberly.  On my birthday we enjoyed the day together as a family.

We decided to get a family membership to the new aquarium down here with Christmas money.  Yay.  It is a brand new facility.  We had a great time.  We all enjoyed it and look forward to going back.

 This penguin just floated near the glass watching people which tickled Tanner and Porter to no end.

They have this fun rope and net thing you can climb across.  Vance's fear of heights got the better of him and Porter went along on Stephen's back, but Tanner did it all by himself!

Here's a cute picture of Tanner in the shark tunnel. How I managed to get zero sea animals behind him in the shot is a mystery to me.  I am talented like that apparently.

Spring Break

Vance got a stronger prescription on his glasses in hopes to train his eye to stay forward instead of turning in which meant new glasses for him.  We all really like the look of them and Vance  says they are more comfortable than his other pairs too.

 Spring Break was 2 days long, although they got another day off because it was the end of their term and that was a "teacher day" so they had 3 days off.  I thought it was kind of a weak Spring Break, but I guess they will get out sooner for Summer Vacation.  Stephen dropped us off at the library one day on his way to work and after the library we went to the park next to it and played before walking home.  We left just in time because it started raining shortly after getting home and then that turned to snow.  They don't have jackets on in the picture, but it was real cold.  They wore jackets on the walk home. I felt like we were in Idaho with the weird cold weather.

 Vance playing at the park.

 Tanner playing at the park.

 We enjoyed sitting at home as a family watching General Conference this past weekend.  We don't get any tv stations so we hooked Stephen's tablet to the tv and ran it through the internet.  We had some coloring contests to keep the kids happy and quiet. It worked really well with the oldest two.  Porter enjoyed watching on the tablet rather than the big tv.  Maybe he felt like it was more personal. :)

Frozen

Frozen came out this week so we decided to have a little Frozen party on Saturday and watch the movie as a family.  Tanner did most of the drawings and hung them around the house.

 Above, he did all but the Olaf on the left which Vance drew.  Of course, he threw a penguin in the mix.  Not that there is a penguin in the movie at any given time.

 Elsa and her ice castle.

 

 Hans.

This was hung in his bedroom.  A mountain leading to the ice castle.

 We made Olaf doughnuts.  We used three mini donuts, a doughnut hole, pretzel sticks, an orange Mike 'N Ike, and mini chocolate chips.

 Porter enjoyed his powdered doughnuts.

 We did a few activities including each boy making their own Olaf.  They also colored some coloring pages and we enjoyed having some popcorn while we watched the movie.  In the evening we had blue jell-o.  That was supposed to look like ice cubes.  They all said they had a good Frozen day.

Celebrate

We had fun celebrating Porter's fourth birthday.  I was looking forward to making a monster cake, but he insisted on cupcakes with the papers on top so we did that instead and really it was much easier on me. We love having Porter in our family!

 This is his cool pose.  Has he seen old pictures of his Uncle Eric... ;)

 He was very excited to get Sonic the Hedgehog from my parents. It out-shined the gifts we got him.

 Today was St. Patrick's Day.  The boys were excited to were their green, festive shirts.

We also took Vance to a Pediatric Opthamologist today.  He is still having troubles with one eye turning in sometimes.  The doctor wants to give him a stronger prescription on his glasses and see if we can't train his eye to look forward as it is supposed to.  We'll go back in three months to see if things are progressing.  We are hoping to avoid surgery if we can.  Thankfully, he was confident that we can fix his issue without it leading to his eye being turned in permanently.

Happy Birthday Porter!

Happy Birthday Porter!  He really wanted his slideshow song this year to be "Let It Go" from Frozen.  I didn't think it was very fitting, but who am I to get in the way of a him and his current favorite song.  :) 

March is Here!

Hooray for March!  I love Spring time and March means Spring here or very near.

I am still making sure to take a picture a week so here are pictures from the last three weeks.

Porter and I did a "Go Dog! Go."  preschool theme.  We had a lot of fun.  We played Red Light, Green Light with the signs he has in this picture.  Love that little face.

 Tanner and Porter spend a lot of time outside.  Vance does as well, but since he is in school longer I don't get quite as many pictures of them playing.  I have no idea what they are doing in this picture besides playing and having fun, but it cracks me up.

 I did get a picture of Vance outside last week.  He is so big and grown up!