Dancing Queen

It's picture day at Rhythm in Motion. Ariana is very excited for her performance next Friday. It was fun to get her all dolled up for the pictures, but MAN did it feel weird putting mascara on a 9 year old!

Our Boy Scout

Dakota is a Den Chief for the Cub Scouts in our ward. This week he took part in an Arrow of Light ceremony. He was just expecting to observe and be there for support. When he got to the church he was asked to speak and help with the ceremony, of course he said yes. Dakota has a good heart and is always willing to help people in need. Good job!

The Surprise

Friday night through Saturday afternoon Doug was on a camp out with the 12 and 13 year old boy scouts. Since our garage was neglected all winter and became quite the disaster, I decided the kids and I would surprise Doug and have it cleaned when he came home. It took several hours on Saturday and a van full of trash but we got it done. When he came home I had both garage doors open and he said "when I pulled up I was so happy to see the garage clean I almost cried!". I think it was even more appreciated after only 5 hours of sleep and several miles of hiking that day. One more thing to check off my to-do list.
Alayna successfully dodged all of the picture I tried to take of her, naughty girl. Ariana spent Friday night at a friends house and came home right as we were finishing up. She lucked out this time. There will be many more fun projects for her coming up!!!

Easter and Doug's Birthday

On Sunday we had a little celebration at our home. We celebrated Easter; the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are so grateful for the sacrifice he made for us and his example. He set the standard we try to reach every day.

We also celebrated Doug's 40th birthday. Dinner was delicious! Unfortunately I burned Doug's birthday cake - pineapple upside down cake. Dakota saved me by making a yellow cake and Alayna frosted it. Thanks you two! Our friends the Summers came over to celebrate with us and brought a fun game that I cant remember the name to. We are glad we had some surrogate "family" members to share the special day with.

Spring Projects

We started on our spring project this week; fixing up the deck. The boards had peeling paint so we started to sand them in the fall. Unfortunatley, we didn't get it finished. Doug had a great idea to unscrew the boards and run them through the planer then screw them back in. Sounded great to me, it is money saving and eco-friendly! We spent about 5-6 hours on it so far and have a couple more to go, then painting. Our goal is to wrap it up by the end of next week.

Other things we are working on our cleaning up our flower beds and removing the decorated rocks that migrated into our lawn over the winter. That is what I'm working on in the grass with the bucket. There are so many rocks, so far out in the yard, it makes me wonder what my children were doing...pelting each other with them? I also included a couple cute pics of our cat meowie sunbathing on a stool in Arissa's room.

High Cliff hike

It was great to get out and do some hiking today. The kids are on spring break now and Doug and I took off a couple days so we could spend some time together. We went to High Cliff State park and messed around for a couple hours.

Ariana's Night

Ariana planned and prepared her very first FHE. She was so excited to do it all by herself. She was able to pass off one of the goals in her Faith in God book. We learned about eating healthy foods and taking care of our bodies. For our activity we did an Easter Egg hunt. It was a fun night. Thanks Ana!

All City Strings Festival

Dakota is in his 3rd year of playing the cello. In the Appleton School District every year they have a big performance with all of the high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. It takes our beautiful Performing Arts Center to hold this many students. It is over 800 children in total! We are proud of him for his efforts and love getting to hear him play. We hope he continues for many more years.
My camera has a terrible zoom, we were on the 3rd level of seating. Sorry for the blurry picture!