ta-da!

I turned around and Emily had come up with this trick all by herself!

bathing beauties

Emily LOVES taking baths! Give her a few bath toys and she'll play to her heart's content. I crack up when I can hear her chattering away and more often than not the floor gets flooded...

Mallory joined Emily in the bubble bath after a particularly messy lunch!

bubble paint!

For my last time teaching preschool before we take a break for summer, our theme was BUBBLES! First we played with big bubble wands outside, then did a baking soda and vinegar experiment.

The highlight was making bubble paint prints, which was fun, exciting, and messy! Of course I had to use the leftover bubble paint later to experiment and have my own fun making stationary.

Halfway through I found I was even more fascinated by the visual process of creating and capturing the ultra-colorful bubbles, so I busted out my camera.

I was having so much fun I lost track of time!

This green print is one of my favorites!

Here is red and purple blown simultaneously...

The red(pink)/purple print with some bubbles still remaining...

And after they popped! End result:

I love how the paint collects at the base of the bubbles

The paper towel afterwards was saturated with color! Next time I do this I'll put cardstock under the cups to create a print from.

Here's the recipe I ended up using, one color in each cup.

- A generous squirt of dishsoap

- about 1/4 cup of tempera paint

- about 1/4 cup water (but I would use less next time to keep the colors brighter- maybe just 1 tablespoon)

Mix, then put in a straw and blow to form the bubbles! The more bubbles, the better. They need to be above the rim of the cup. Place your paper (I used cardstock) on top of the overflowing bubbles to capture the print. I played around with scooping the bubbles onto the paper and letting them sit and pop on their own after a few minutes. The paper warped as it dried, so I pressed them in between two heavy books overnight to flatten.

time to play!

The dishes fairy strikes again!

It's that time of year... for a light jacket and jeans.

Emily loves to read her books! I'm so proud :)

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa (Larry and Marlene) for the play food set! It's their favorite thing to play with- even Mallory!

Mallory is growing up so fast! She's already climbing onto tables like a little mountain goat.

egg-cellent!

had a blast teaching preschool this morning- "E is for eggs." We read Humpty Dumpty, then took a dozen raw eggs with smiley faces drawn on them and pushed them off a wall to see why Humpty couldn't be put back together again... the kids' faces were classic!

fun with emily

Emily and Jason made me a yummy omelet for my birthday breakfast, and then baked my birthday cake... Emily was loving the chocolate batter! Emily climbed out of bed and decided it was time for a photo shoot... so we had some early morning camera fun. Okay, you can see how short her bangs got trimmed, but that's because she jerked while I was cutting! And they really are even, I swear!
How did she manage one of those annoying myspace expressions?!

Love this one!

She has mastered the intense "CHEESE!!!" expression. Yeah, the one that let's mom know there's no chance of getting a normal smile out of her. Our new favorite activity- painting with watercolors!

My goofy girl! We have so much fun :)

polished

Emily hates having her nails clipped. I mean, screams so loud she wakes all the dogs in a 5 mile radius and incites them to rebellion. Since she started waking up when I'd try to trim them while she slept, we resorted to Jason holding her while I did the deed. Now we're both partially deaf.

Then recently, inspiration struck! I busted out the nail polish and bargained that if she held still and let me clip her nails, we could paint nails. Emily loves to paint. So without a second thought she stuck out her hand and I clipped her nails in record time! I practically cried as I gushed her praises. Then the real fun began... We managed to get two coats on her little nails with only a few smudges
Of course, Emily had to have a turn painting too, so she gave me a beautiful manicure- most of it on my index finger :)

I love my girl!

road trip with melanie

Four days at Mom's wasn't long enough for me on the way home from Nebraska, so Emily and I hitched a ride with Melanie and her boys to spend another week in Utah!

If I ever get a pet that's not a plant, I'll name it Yermo. The first order of business as far as the boys were concerned was to go to Kangaroo Jump, an inflatable jumpie paradise. Emily was freaked out at first, but warmed up to it once she discovered the slide on the Shamu jumpie...

Tyler was cracking us up by leaping off the dinosaur and faceplanting against the side... over and over again!

I love Trader Joe's organic "cheetos" because it's like a treat with only half the guilt.

The perfect late-night snack- frosting on graham crackers!

The pool at the local rec center was totally decked out like a mini waterslide park. Derek and I went down over and over and over again!

Emily had a blast in the shallow pool, especially with the area that shot water out of the ground.

The kids were constantly jumping on the trampoline and coming up with hilarious tricks.

We joined Mom and Kristin's nightly Parcheesi ritual. Four players totally changes the game strategy. Ruthless. We had too much fun... someone (who shall remain nameless) "cut the cheese" while we were waiting for the camera timer to go off, and this is what we ended up with...

Melanie, Kristin, Heidi, Mom. Oh Cheryl, where are you??

I had a girls' day out with my friend Megan who took me to Gardner Village. We had lunch at Gardner Mills which was restored from the original mill, and one of Megan's ancestors was featured at a booth in the restaurant. I almost didn't finish my delicious chicken pot pie because we were having too much fun chatting and confessing our guilty pleasures :)

The Village is quaint and beautiful, with several shops that we perused.

I stocked up on Christmas ornaments, fell in love with the quilt and fabric shop, tasted the Heath bar fudge, and we laughed raucously in the Just For Girls shop over Anne Taintor's books and this *hilarious* book, title notwithstanding :)

Three years old and Tyler has his first auto collision under his belt! Well, really, who hasn't crashed into Kristin's poor car?

Emily was a natural on the trampoline, although I had a heart attack every time she bounced close to the edge.

The view from Mom's driveway. Sigh.

The kids did lots of exploring at the Children's Discovery Museum in Salt Lake. The favorite by far was the kid-sized grocery store, complete with checkout!

I love her concentrating look.

The kids brought bathing suits to run through the fountain, but were intimidated by how high it shot the water!

Grandma finally convinced Derek to run the gauntlet with her! I love this picture.

Emily was in dire need of a nap, so she just watched the fun and fell asleep on the way home.

While Melanie and the boys were off at a baptism and birthday party, Mom and I experienced the incredible food of Zuppa's (top of my Utah must-do list!) and hit some more DI thrift stores to add to my hoard of used books.

Jenn and Chad brought us to the yard where they keep their horses and we got to feed them some carrots and hay, then went for a ride!

They were *very* friendly

Emily loved feeding and petting them.

I even tried my hand at trotting, but was bouncing all over the place and ended up giggling so much I almost fell off.

Jenn taking the lead while I rode Chad's horse.

We had a great time visiting Grandma's house, and I'm proud of the kids for doing so great on the long road trip!