March

They are always coming up with fun and crazy ideas! I love how creative they are! 

Sean took Brett and Alana to Brighton and it was pretty snowy and cold. Alana's hair got wet and froze! 

Its pretty wild how stiff it was! 

Lizzie has been wanting a 3-d printer for a long time. Sean talked with our neighbor Nick about printers and we picked a good one. Lizzie decided she wanted it early for her birthday so she could start printing right away. We have all had a really fun time with it! 

Oreo has been more snuggly lately with me and one night he even let the kids all snuggle around him too for a long time while we were watching a movie. 

There was a lunar eclipse but it was so cloudy that we couldn't see it. Sean got a really cool picture the next morning of the moon though. 

I love how much these three kids love each other! Lizzie just snuggled up to Brett. Not sure how comfortable he was, haha! 

We had an undercover spirit week at school. All the teachers had themes that we followed each day and the kids didn't know. If they noticed that we were all wearing crowns, they would ask us why and we would say "its wednesday I guess" It was fun! 

Building lego robots and play school in the background. 

Opening the 3-d printer! 

Alana and I did purple hair for crazy hair day. That was the school wide spirit week so the kids got to participate in this one.

Sean made a prince Oreo with AI =) 

Brett has been learning all about astro-photography. He has bought a tracker and a connection that makes the camera move ever so slightly to account for the movement of the stars. It also takes pictures at certain intervals. He sets it up and it takes photos for 30 min or so and then he uses some software to stack the images and get these awesome pictures:

This one is orion nebula:

this one is flame nebula:

Not sure what this game was, but it looks hilarious!

This was an impressive dragon print:

Brett had a band concert. He did so great and I think he is loving the extra challenge of being in the advanced band. He is four people over from the right, peeking through in the back. He went on a field trip with band as well and the competed at another middle school. 

We went to Letherbees one night and it was soooo yummy! 

Brett and Lexi are joining Merrill and Mimi for a musical number. It sounded awesome to hear them all practicing together! 

I was in the same league as Mimi one week. It was fun to see each other's progress! 

Cookie continues to be snuggly and sweet. The girls have really done a good job at taking charge with Cookie. Alana cleans his cage every friday and Lizzie helps. Alana gets him water and salad every day and Lizzie gets him pellets and hay. Alana even had me hold him the other morning while she clipped his nails. 

Sean was planning to accompany Trish and Becky on violin in an arrangement of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. They invited Brett to join on his flute, and Alana joined in with her violin. Sean wrote the notes out for Alana and she practiced really hard. She mostly plays by ear, so reading music is difficult for her, but she practiced so hard. Hearing them practice and play together was incredible. I was so proud of both Brett and Alana! Brett is sounding so beautiful on his flute! This was their first time performing in a Sacrament Meeting. 

Lizzie got to be the star student in her class. She filled out an all about me poster and got to bring a favorite book and a show and tell. She took Don't let the pigeon drive the bus and her magic 8 ball. All her class mates wrote her some really nice notes! She is thriving in school and learning so much.

I got to help with a cake decorating activity for the young women at church. Kari made all the cakes and I made 9 batches of Buttercream. I took tips and bags and it was so fun to show a few ways to pipe and watch the girls all be so creative! Lizzie was excited to be invited to Young Womens for this activity. She got to have double activities that night because they did a spa night for primary just before the cake decorating. 

Alana really loves being in young women's. This past week we have been reading the For Strength of Youth together as a family and its so cool to see especially Brett and Alana navigating personal revelation as they make choices. 

The day finally came for Brett to get his braces off! It was long awaited. He was supposed to have them on for 2 years and it turned into 2 years 4 months. Getting them pried off was no problem, but when they use the vibrating brush tool to get the glue off it was pretty painful. They gave him some happy gas and although he hated the smell and the feeling it gave him, he liked not feeling the pain. The process is pretty long and he was in the chair for about 2 hours. After they gave him a slushie and then he and I got some chick fil a. I dropped him back off at school and made it back just in time to teach kindergarten. 

His smile looks amazing and he is adjusting nicely to having no braces. He has to wear his retainers all day and night for a month and then just goes to nights. He said it felt weird at first to play the flute but now he is getting more used to it. 

Alana has been trying different things with her hair and she has been trying on some other earrings here and there.