It Pays to be Good

Photo 104 of 365, taken April 18th:

Alyssa's school has a code of conduct award every so often. Their code of conduct is essentially a set of school rules and when teachers "catch" students being good or doing something that directly follows the code of conduct the teachers can then write out a slip explaining what that student did well. Every once in a while, the school office draws a random slip from these code of conduct cards and that child earns a prize. One time she won a school shirt in this same way. This time, she won a free pizza meal at Rocky Rococo's. While I am very thankful that Alyssa behaves well for the sake of that being the right thing to do, it is always nice to be rewarded for doing well. I could tell she was excited about it. She loves structure and the sensibility that comes with rules, now if only some pizza and soda was enough incentive to get her to clean her room...

Rebekah enjoyed her dinner at Rocky Rococo's too.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday...

Photo 102 of 365, taken April 14th:

The girls got beautiful new dresses for Emma's birthday from Grandmommy and Granddaddy, thank you so much!!

The weekend continued to move by at lightening speed! After church, we headed to Illinois for a few quick hours for my cousin's baby shower. Emma stayed behind to go to a friend's birthday party, and we had to rush back to get Alyssa to choir on time, but we were happy to be able to go and see some cousins that we don't get to see very often.

Photo 103 of 365 taken, April 14th:
And Rebekah scored one of those cute and yummy frog prince cookies!

Birthday Cake Fun

By the time we got home from gymnastics practice on Emma's birthday, the unbelievable had occurred...Emma was all cupcaked out! Poor Dave had taken the time to set out the beautiful cake, but she couldn't stomach any more cake for the day. She had several cupcakes earlier in the day and then more at the end of practice, so we decided to put off singing to her until Saturday.

It was worth the wait though!! Here's the perfectly pink cake Emma loved so much!


Happy Birthday laughter as we sing to her.

Thinking so hard about the all important birthday wish.


This picture looks worse than the situation actually was. Thankfully, while it was close, none of her hair ever got caught in the flame.

Very happy to be celebrating the day after her birthday...as it turns out, her tummy may have needed a little rest, but she would never tell you she had too much cake for her birthday!!

April 13th

Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister in law, Ku'ulei! We hope you had a beautiful birthday!!

April 13th was a busy day...we had the German Immersion Foundation Dinner and Auction, so our day began with running to the Italian Community Center to set up.

Photo 100 of 365, taken April 13th:

All the goodie bags of cookies being set up for the guests.

This was the invite for the auction. Our theme celebrated the 200th anniversary of The Brothers Grimm fairy tales. My friend Barb designed them and I thought she did a great job, the silhouettes were just beautiful! They fold out and there is a whole section not seen here. It was a fun auction.

After helping with set up, we came home for a while to relax before having to get ready for the event. Emma got to open presents and have birthday cake. She loved this football stuff she picked out back in March...I think she wore it the rest of the day.

Photo 101 of 365, taken April 13th:

Dad's little football player.

This photo made me wonder if she knows what football players do though. Dancing with ribbons in one hand, and balloons in the other, outfit complete with helmet. She's something else :-)

Happy 10th Birthday, Emma!

Photo 98 of 365 taken April 12th:

Ten years old...an entire decade of life. Wow is just about all I can say!

10 facts about Emma on her 10th birthday:

1. Emma's favorite colors are bubble gum pink and pastel yellow.
2. Emma is not a morning person.
3. Emma loves everyone. EVERYONE. One of the things I marvel at about her the most is how quickly she makes friends, how special she makes everyone feel, and how it seems like she's never met someone she couldn't get along with or that she didn't want to get to know better.
4. Emma loves to eat tofu, watermelon, vanilla yogurt, cheese, plain pizza, chicken nuggets, macaroni and rice. Other than those on the list, I cannot think of any healthy foods that she eats. Feeding her stresses me out sometimes.
5. Emma loves to read, run, roller skate, and draw. She loves playing games and seeing tv shows that make you think. Her favorite show recently is Brain Games on the National Geographic Network.
6. Emma is a helper. She'll help with any task, any time. She works very hard at anything set before her.
7. Emma's favorite day of the week is Monday {weird, huh?}. They re-fill the candy bowl on the front desk at the gym on Mondays.
8. While Emma's favorite animals are pigs, elephants and dogs {in this order}, I would have to say that Emma is more like a cat...drop her and she'll find her feet.
9. Emma is very girly, but definitely has a tom-boyish side. She'll race the boys at school on the playground {she usually wins}, and she's really strong!
10. Emma is famous in our house for walking up during the last ten seconds of a conversation or tv show and wanting to be filled in on every detail she missed. She is very funny, most of the time easy going, and smart.


Alyssa on cupcake guard. After gymnastics practice, the girls weren't allowed into the kitchen to get a birthday cupcake until their jobs were done.

I think this one got out of her job a bit early :-)

Photo 99 of 365, taken April 12th:

An after-practice birthday photo.

When we got home from the gym the girls had to try out the rhythmic gymnastics ribbons.

The face of concentration on the birthday girl.

We Love You, Precious Emma!!
Happy Birthday, to our Sweet 10 year old!

Cupcakes Galore

Photo 97 of 365, taken April 10th:

Emma LOVES cupcakes way more than her two sisters, and I can always count on her asking me to make several batches for her various groups of friends on her birthday. This is what our table looked like earlier today in preparation for Emma's multiple birthday celebrations this week. This evening she shared cupcakes with her friends at church.

These cupcakes are for her teammates at gymnastics.

And these are for the Birthday Bunch. She takes speech with two of her good friends, Ava and Catherine. Basically, these girls were made to be friends for each other...aside from having trouble with the letter "R," all three 4th graders celebrate their birthdays between April 8th and April 12th, and they will have a special party tomorrow with Frau Sontag {their fabulous speech teacher}.

Last Night of Spring Break

Photo 96 of 365, taken April 7th:

Reading stories before bed was a little bittersweet tonight. I always feel that way when the girls have been home from school on vacation. I know the next day, the house will be too quiet and I'll miss their silly laughter, Rebekah's constant requests for more food {how one tiny thing can eat so much is beyond me}, even their little squabbles with each other will be sadly absent. They were in cheerful moods though, and talked about being excited to go to school and see their friends.

Photos 94 and 95

I can't believe we have gotten this close to 100 pictures, I'm still running behind but working on it...

Photo 94 of 365, taken April 5th:

We met my Uncle Ted for breakfast one morning over Spring Break. It was great to see him. The girls love him and call him Uncle Teddy Bear.
Photo 95 of 365, also taken April 5th:

Rebekah and her friend Isabel had fun peeling bark of the tree that holds up the girls' tree house. Rebekah held up this long piece to pretend it was a huge beard.

Let's Go Outside!

It has still been pretty chilly for Spring, but we enjoyed some parks near my parents house. Our first stop was to The Jay Farm.
Photo 91 of 365, taken April 4th:

The girls were fascinated with this drinking fountain attached to an old fashion pump that one of them had to work in order for anyone to get a drink. They would have played with this all day if it was any warmer.

This long-time family run farm is now a great park for hiking, tromping through the woods, and visiting the creek that runs through. It's nice! After what has felt like a long winter spent indoors it was so nice to get out into the sunshine and soak up some vitamin D.



Photo 92 of 365, taken April 4th:

We took a quick break for an ice cream snack and then headed out to our second park of the day.

These merry-go-rounds are not too common anymore. I can at least sort of understand why. I remember having fun on them when I was little, but watching the girls whip crazy circles around on this thing was like watching an accident waiting to happen.

Explorer Alyssa.

It was not quite warm enough for the girls to be barefoot with their leggings rolled up like this so they could wade into the water, but they did it anyway. Rebekah kept asking if she could go swimming.

The treasures Emma found.

Photo 93 of 365, taken April 4th:

And because I don't think I have ever posted of this little guy here...this is my parents' dog, Gus. He is very sweet.

We Finished It!

Yesterday, before we headed down to my parent's house for the rest of Spring vacation, Rebekah and I finished gluing and framing her classroom project for the German Immersion Foundation auction and dinner that is coming up.

Photo 90 of 365, taken April 3rd:

We ended up having 4 collages like this one. This one is my favorite. The kids worked so hard on them, they are each roughly the size of a poster board. I really wanted to matte each piece, but in the end decided against it because of framing costs. I thought they came out super bright, colorful and happy looking!

It's All About the Hair!

Photo 89 of 365, taken March 3rd:

While the girls were at my parents' house, my mom had a hair appointment and the two older girls went with her. My mom's hair dresser did each of their hair in a French braid that wrapped around to a curly side pony tail. Based upon all the photos they tried to take of themselves with Emma's kindle, I would say they were pretty excited about the fancy hair-dos. I wish I could do nice hair styles like this for them myself! I never been able to do much beyond a standard ponytail and regular braids.

An Animated Rebekah

Last night Dave and I took Rebekah to see Wreck-It Ralph.
Photo 88 of 365, taken April 2nd:

It was such a cute movie! Probably my favorite kid's movie in a while.

I was so distracted the entire movie by how much Vanellope von Schweetz looks like Rebekah. Their personalities are even quite similar, a funny mix of strong-willed feistiness that is somewhat timid and very loving. It was like watching a cartoon version of Rebekah on the big screen. Rebekah is certain, however, that she would never wear candy in her hair ~ too sticky!!

Rebekah Goes to the Domes

For the first few days of Spring Break, the two older girls are staying with my parents, so I am having lots of alone time with Rebekah. Yesterday, we went to the domes.

The theme of the show dome right now is Blue Bayou.
Photo 86 of 365, taken April 1st:


The flowers were beautiful, as always.

And my company was pretty sweet too...




I got such a kick out of seeing the things that interested Rebekah the most...above are three things she insisted I take a picture of.

In the arid dome she liked the silly names of some of the cacti. Pictured here are living baseballs, fingers and toes, baby toes and little pickles. She read all these names, giggling the whole time.


Photo 87 of 365, also taken April 1st:

Inspired by all the plants at the domes, we came home to start some cucumber, lettuce and spinach seeds in a window planter. We invited Rebekah's friend, Skylar over to help. The lettuce and spinach seeds were so tiny, the girls could hardly see what they were planting, so I may have some pods with dozens of seeds in them, and some with next to none.

This was the first April Fool's day in a few years that I have not prepared some kind of "trick recipe" for the girls. It didn't seem like quite as much fun without the older two girls here to share it, and Rebekah gladly eats just about any veggie I put in front of her, so I couldn't have pulled any prank on her that would not have been welcomed. Just wait until next year, girls...with a year off I'm sure to come up with something great next April 1st.