A crazy assortment of things!

The kids having fun at the local "childrens museum".  They renovated it now and got rid of all this fun pretend play toys.

 A member of our ward has a pomegranate tree and these are the arils that I received from about 24 pomegranates.  It made quite a lot of jelly.  Yum!

 We love going to the Fresno zoo and they have a new african exhibit with elephants, lions, cheetahs, etc.  We spent the day with one of our friends who also has a season pass.

 Raking and playing in the leaves!  We love fall/winter!

 This is our new fireplace/tv console that we purchased last year.  It is hot in the summer but can get drafty in our living room during the winter.  This was a lot of fun to have.

 I was fortunate enough to be able to come out for a day to spend with the Pierce girls.  So much fun, even with my shopping meltdown. (Sorry bout that ladies)  Such a cute afgan!

 A random shot from preschool last year.  O is for owl

 Our ward Chrismas party was a "Polor Express" theme so Mike got to be the conductor and punch everyone's tickets.

 My first attempt at fondant and a wedding cake.  It turned out o.k., but I learned some tips for the next time.  At least it tasted good.

 Me and my cute kiddos

 Merry Christmas!  We had a fun Christmas.  We have just a couple gifts and then had a "staycation" for a week where we took advantage of doing some fun things around Bakersfield and LA.  We went iceskating, to the LA museum of natural history, the zoo, etc.

 Happy Birthday to Mike!

 The preschool kids always love going on their field trip to the firestation.  Gordon even got in on the hose spraying action!

 We were so proud of Emma and how well she has been doing in school.  We were so worried about her and how she would do, but she has really grown during the last 2 years.  She was even student of the month.  Way to go Emma!

 Her school had a sock hop and so I made the girls some poodle skirts.  It was a pretty fun project.

 Our usual spring hike up to the Wind Wolves Preserve.  It is a nature preserve about 30 minutes from our house and usually has a lot of wild flowers.  I think we just missed most of them this year, but at least it was really green.

 Here are some pictures of the Valentines Mommy/Daughter date dance that we went to hosted by our ward.  As you can see by the bottom photo it wasn't a great turnout.  Oh well.  Daddy stayed home with Gordon since he was sick, and me and the girls had a good time eating and dancing.

 More preschool crafts.  Happy Presidents Day!

 Emma, we decided she wanted to dress up as a missionary for school one day after just having the sister missionaries over for dinner.  Cute girl.

 Cute little boy playing outside!

 We had to put our cat Gracie to sleep this past spring.  It was very hard since we had had her before Emma.  She was very sick though and had never quite recovered from her surgery last year.  It was hard, but I was at peace with how quick and peaceful the process was.  The pet hospital we took her too, was so kind and understanding and even sent us a sympathy card in the mail.  We got this bird bath for her marker.  It helped us feel a little better to make it look nice.

 We had a super fun day at the "beach" this spring.  There is a "mothers beach" in a marina and so the kids can play and swim in the ocean without having to deal with the waves.  There is a cute playground and even a Cheesecake factory right next door.  What's not to love right?

 Happy birthday Emma!

 Look at this beautiful doll mom made!  She was just going to send it to the D.I. until I told her she better finish her and give it to my blondie Emma.:)  Isn't she so talented.  Emma loves her and named her Emily.

 So I got the "crafting" bug again.  The CRAZY crafting bug.  I've been wanting to re-due a lot of things in my home for awhile.  It's sure a work in progress, but someday it will get to where I want it and then I'll probably want to change it again:)  Our couches and covers were in a sorry state and i was just done.  These couches have come through 9 years of marriage, mulitiple years in a college boys apartment and were my hubbies roommates grandparents couches previous to that.  They were awesome!  They didn't look great, but sure were comfortable.  I found a fabric store going out of business and found some upholstery fabric for 80% off.  I felt like I couldn't pass it up.  The biggest problem was that they didn't have enough to cover both couches and the fabric I would have preferred to use on my accent couch I had the most of and so my adventure of some crazy mismatched couches began.  It was truly a crazy adventure and took a couple of weeks to complete.  I don't love the way they turned out, but hopefullly they'll last us a couple more years and once the kids are older we'll get some new ones.

 I also painted my piano.  Mom was pretty disgusted with me, but if you saw it up close it was in really bad shape and I'm trying to go with some cleaner colors in my home.  I guess that's the joy of paint, you can always paint it again.:)

 Cute girls going to a daddy daughter dance.  Their daddy is pretty handsome as well.  They picked out his shirt and tie for him.:)

 End of summer preschool party.  My vivian loves to make the sillies faces.  Gordon loves some icecream.

 Happy graduates!

 Emma got a new bike for her birthday.  She is having a hard time being brave enough to go without training wheels.  She is really afraid of heights and struggles with balance, but hopefully someday soon she'll catch on.

 Love these kids of mine.

 Emma's last day of dance class.  She had a lot of fun.

I made Mike a picture frame with the following photos in it for Fathers Day.  It turned out pretty cute.

 Nauvoo trip photos to come.