February come and gone…

The middle of February surprised us with one of about three snows we got this winter.  It snowed on Sunday and Rachel called to see if there was still snow left on Monday if we wanted to go sledding – of course!  There really wasn’t much snow left, and the ground was really soggy, but that didn’t stop us.  Neil wasn’t too sure about the sleds, but the kids took him anyway.For Valentine’s Day I did Abbie’s hair in hearts.  Neil saw us trying to get a picture and wanted to be just like Abbie.  It was so funny!   Do you love him leaning backward to show me his hair too?   I also got to go to Abbie’s class for her class party.  The kids in her class were really good and it was fun to be there with them.  I had made some material heart “mice” with long ribbon tails and if you rolled doubles you tried to capture everyone's mouse with a pan lid before they pulled them out of the way. Spencer got out the horse costume after church one Sunday and Neil tried it on too.  What a cute little guy!Mark built this Lincoln Log house.  He explained all it’s features and such, but I just can’t remember.  It was certainly cool though.

For a conference Ken was attending all the credit union’s were asked to make a commercial and since no one on his staff really wanted to be in it Ken let the kids do it.  They were SO excited!  It took us 4 hours one Saturday to get it all taped.  You can read about it here on Mark’s blog: http://mkpayne.blogspot.com/2012/03/commercial.html 

Ken’s friend helped edit it down to a 1 minute movie and added the sound track.  It won third place at the meeting and that made the kids happy too.

My Hero

After taping all morning we got to celebrate with a BBQ at Ken’s parents.  YEAH for yummy hamburgers!  One new thing they tried was using toasted English Muffins instead of buns.  It sounded kind of gross to me (I guess I can just remember the smell from toasting all those muffins so long ago when I worked at McDonalds), but we gave it a try and it was FABULOUS!!  and probably healthier too.  So try it!  You might be surprised and find a new favorite to share with your family too.  I forgot to take pictures while we were there until the very end.  Ken and the boys came home early while the girls and I stayed a played a couple games with Grandma.  I tried to get a group picture with the timer on the camera, but it completely cut Jessie out….well, there is her sleeve way over on the right side.Spencer and I made his poster for Star of the Week.  I sewed across the top of each of the flaps while Spencer ran the pedal.  He was so excited!  Neil and I went to his class on Friday and read The Legend of the Golden Snail to his class.Spencer and Abbie were eating some of the pepperoni while Ken put together their lunches for school.  Then they brought me in to see their creation.Neil love to go visit dad at work!  We had made some cookies to take up and surprise him. Here’s Spencer’s cute penguin he made at school.And his class did a little play of The Wild Things.  Here’s his mask.  Neil also loves to wear it.Neil was helping mark off chores on our Saturday list.  Thanks buddy!Rachel invited us to go to a girls gymnastics meet with her up at BYU.  The girls and Spencer came with me.  It was amazing to watch, but after two rotations Spencer was bored.The boys stayed home and got ready for our own BBQ.  Mark was SO excited because he got to use his new fire starter from his birthday to light the fire!  What a lucky guy.  Oh, and February is still a cold month, even if it looks warmer outside.I let a friend borrow our GeoTracks for about 4 months while she was watching her nephew.  When she brought them back it was like Christmas for the kids; they played with them almost everyday that next week.  I think I should loan out more of our toys! Any offers??  Here’s Abbie’s and Spencer’s track.Neil loves playing with the kids.  And I love it too!Neil helped pass out the cards while Ken and Spencer played Candy Land.  What a good helper!Jessie is a read-a-holic.  She had two books open here that she was reading from….not quite sure how she managed that one.Mark’s science project made it to district level.  He was pretty excited.  We went down to set up the display and found out that the date had been moved to the next week, his teacher had forgotten to tell us.  :-(    That was kind of stinky because the next Wednesday I had Activity Days and Jessie was at the temple with the Young Women so I had no babysitter…..and so it was a crazy mess of a day, not to mention that we found out after we set up his display that he had to be down there with it for the judging for an hour and a half that we didn’t know about it.  It was a rather frustrating experience.  Oh well, live and learn (and write a letter to the school district!).  His dad helped his make up a new poster that would stand up on it’s own.  What a great dad!More morning food art:  Yum!  We love sharp cheddar cheese pretzels!And one last picture of Neil.  Not sure if Dad or Mark did his hair for him.