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Meg loves to walk through Build-A-Bear when we go to the mall (just to look around since we never buy  anything since we already have so much stuff!)  I am pretty sure the store employees know us as "the people who never buy anything" but they smile at us anyways while Meg scrubs her (really old) build-a-bear dog in the bathtub and drags the ponies on roller-skates around the store.  She always asks "how much does this cost?" about everything she passes and for the past few times has zeroed in on the leashes.   At $4.99, they were in the range of "yes, you can save your money for that" and she kept asking for jobs at home to earn her leash.  She helped sorting and switching laundry and dusting until she had enough quarters to add to her remaining birthday dollars and off we went to the mall with Fluttershy!  I think the pictures speak for themselves…

  

She has loved the leash, even without the roller-skates.  It turns out that Fluttershy (and a myriad of stuffed dogs) don't mind a bit being drug around skate-free on the carpet, driveway, or grass.  

Meg finally got the hang of skipping on our way out of Target… in her glass slippers that made such a cool noise with every step and hop.  :)  

   

(I was as excited as she was to be able to watch it click!  And as nice as it may seem in theory to go to the store without a 4 year old, it wouldn't be worth it to have missed this moment.)  

And this is one of my favorite pictures!  Carter passed off his counting to 100 by 2's, 5's, and 10's, and when he did, his darling teacher gave him his own calculator with the date and his name on the back.  He was beyond excited.  

It was a grand adventure!  Pictures to come!  Love this one of our whole family though… and the fact that Nate asked a stranger to take it for me.  :)

 

Emma was a royal subject in her school's production of the Princess and the Pea, and she did a wonderful job!  This was her first experience in a play and boy, was it a lot of work!  Lots of early morning rehearsals, practicing at home, and then a few more early morning rehearsals!  The week before the performances, she was at play practice every single day!   She said it was worth all the hard work though – and it was so fun for us to watch her smile away, knowing her words and actions perfectly, wearing part of my humble offering to the production (I sewed her skirt.  :)  Her part may have been a royal subject, but I'm pretty sure this beautiful girl is a princess!  We should put a pea in her bed… or maybe we'll just let her get some sleep now that her early mornings are free again!  

      

The farther we got into March, the more time I spent refinishing the bunk beds my dad made me as a little girl for Emma and Meg's birthday… let's just say I learned a few things about spray painting along the way. 

 

Meg has been putting herself to bed when she feels tired lately… which is almost every evening around 5:30 or 6 now that she doesn't nap anymore!

Emma finally made it across the middle tricky part of these monkey bars at Zach's baseball practice:  

Meg's bean plant that she started from a seed at preschool grew like crazy!  

We had a great visit with my old neighbor and her cute little dog…

I went with Nate to a conference at the Grand America (and left him to listen to the lecture after dinner while I went for a little walk downtown…)

Ellie doesn't mind riding in the rain:

 

One afternoon I went to write a check and couldn't find my checkbook where I always keep it.  After tearing my house apart, calling to cancel the checks, and nearly driving to the bank to change my account, I asked Meg if by chance she had seen my checkbook and she says, "yes, it's in my backpack!  I put it there because I wanted to write checks on it."  (good thing she is so cute…)

  

We had some nice days for hanging out at the school by Zach's new practice field:

 

We took a birthday treat into Emma's class:  

One day when we took Zach to the batting cages at Boondocks the girls decided to ride the boats while we waited (they can choose something to do there too.)  Meg held down the sprayer the entire time and Emma mercilessly followed a dad and his little boy soaking them like crazy… and when they tried to spray the girls back Meg got so upset!  :)  Carter waited patiently forever to drive the little cars.  

  

Emma and I watched the general women's conference:

Emma had sock hair to get curls for the dress rehearsal of the play, 

And I spent half the day in 6th grade, trying to find out why we were missing so many assignments.  ;)  When informed that this consequence was taking effect, Zach kept saying "It hasn't come to that!"  But it had, and he survived.  :)

Since the girls got the bunk beds for their birthdays, it was finally time to move Meg out of the toddler bed (she was getting pretty squished in there!) and to take down the crib after having it set up continuously as a crib or toddler bed for more than TWELVE YEARS.  

It made this nostalgic mother feel better to have all of them climb into it with their blankets for one last picture before we packed it away for the grandkids… thank goodness Nate's biggest requirement when we picked out the crib was that it was sturdy!  (Seriously, he walked around Babies R Us shaking all of them!)  Lots of memories in this chewed on little bed!  And while it may head downstairs for storage, this picture is going up on my wall.  :)

Meg likes it when I take pictures of the back of her hair so she can see what it looks like.  This one (as usual) was a special request from her… she has very strong opinions about her hair!  (and pretty much everything else…)

  

An afternoon spent dancing:  

           

She is so graceful (not sure where she gets it!) and it I love watching her love to dance.  

We started a dinner chore wheel and it was Meg's turn to sweep.  Seriously, what's not to love about this picture??  

 

We went to watch Emma's debate at school – she had prepared a lot for this and was so excited.  She was awesome!  Well prepared and confident… I love watching Emma in her classroom – school is one of her talents!  

   

(Meg had had a long day and didn't quite make it through the rebuttal speeches.)

When Nate was out of town we went to dinner at my parents' house, and Grandpa B worked with Emma on her pool game…

 

Baseball practices are in full swing, and after every one at this field, after they do their team cheer and break to pack up and go home, Zach runs to the top of that enormous hill and back.  He had a few friends do it with him the first few times… but he is the only one still doing it.  He is one determined kid, and I don't think he knows how to give half effort at sports.  

 

Zach had a strong showing in the school spelling bee… the picture isn't great, but with a little bit of forgetting about when the spelling bee was, and a little bit of misinformation about the time when we were alerted, we are lucky we made it and got a picture at all!  Zach did a great job, and more than any other contestant out there, made sure he used all of his options for each word.  

 

 

I got a nightstand off of KSL to refinish for the girls' room… I brought it inside the door, and went to get bedtime started, and before I knew it Meg had moved right in.  :)

 

The girls and I went with a few of the YW to see the rest of our YW in the Jr. High production of Annie – it was great!  And so fun to take these girlies.  It was Meg's second musical of the week (we had seen another YW in another schools' version of Seussical a few days before) and she was a great audience!  

 

The big kids did the after-school ski program on Fridays this year, and since the winter was so mild, while they were skiing, we were bike riding to 7-11 for slurpees!  (Yes, Meg is in her swimsuit.)  

 

And… Carter built this all by himself.  We hadn't had the trains out in a while and it made me smile.  He was sad to take it down until I reminded him that really, for him, all of the fun for him is in the building.  (That goes for Legos too with this kid!)  

As I have put all of these pictures on for the "little things" it makes me realize that it's the little things that make up life, and these are the things I want to remember most!  Also, that I take a lot of pictures… this is only half of March.  ;)

 

I sat down Sunday afternoon to work on some family history, and all of a sudden had 3 kids who wanted to join in.  So we spent the afternoon reading about ancestors, (Carter was really interested in why all of them died), looking at family  trees, Emma called some grandparents to ask them questions, and Meg looked at old family pictures.  They were all so excited.  And even though I never did find out the actual birthdate of Charles Planty, I think the afternoon was a success.   

We finally found a weekend that would work for an extended family getaway for everyone… at least, if we were close enough to home, everyone could make it work for some of the time, anyways.  :)

After arriving at varying stages of Friday night, the kids all piled up in Grandpa's bed Saturday morning.  

Immediately on everyone's mind (at least my kids… and Jackson, who is always in a swimsuit) was the hot tub…

It didn't matter that it was snowing!  It made it that much more fun, especially when Nate dared all of our crazy kids to roll in the snow and hop back in over and over.  (No pictures of that, since we were all in!)  

We had such a mild winter this year that the little bit of snow we got up at the cabin was beautiful and so exciting!  It was our first snowman of the year, I think!  

But… still warm enough to build it without socks.  :)  (Actually, most of the kids only had their swimsuits on under their snow clothes!)

   

Nevermind that Frosty was a little tippy… we got him back up ok.  

  

Aunt Lauren and the kids found some awesome deer bones to study (and bring home, of course…)

And back in the hot tub.  I honestly think that a hot tub is my kids' favorite part of any vacation we ever go on!  

Meg was seriously wiped out.  (This was before dinner.)  Also… I think she loves her "vacation house bed" almost as much as the hot tub.  

  

There was also a lot of ping pong, pool, and movie watching in the theatre room!  It was a great space for everyone to hang out together.  

We couldn't head out Sunday morning without trying (that's the key word there) to get a couple of group shots!  I think Jackson must have been interested in standing in for Nate in the grown-up one since he had to leave early for ward conference meetings…

It was a wonderful weekend filled with delicious food (enough to feed an army!), lots of laughs, great stories (some new, and some classics that are worth repeating), and the best family ever.  Love you guys!   

In sandals.  In February.  With her Elsa dress and cape on.  On a big girl bike with training wheels!  So exciting.