The First Step

I signed Josh up for Kindergarten today. He had been excited up until the other day. He's been telling me that he wants to stay home with me and not go. I think he thought he was going today, not in 4 months. It will be really weird to only have one at home again.

Now I'm Curious

And I hope Adsense treats me better than my husband.

Dancing Princesses

Liesie dancing with her namesake, Princess Anneliese from Barbie's Princess and the Pauper

I guess she wore her out.

Sleepy Girl

Birthday Craziness

We survived the triple birthday! The kids had fun blowing bubbles, drawing with chalk, and jumping on the trampoline at Oompah's (Grandpa) house. Liesie had a little more fun than the others.

Mischa's cake based on her horse Webkinz

Liesie's caked based on her Webkinz (we got sick the day of the party and the black bled a little during the week)

Their cousin's cake. I decided to do a dog that looked like my dad's dog.

Mischa got a beautiful quilt that Grandma Kinney made and a cage for her new gecko and Liesie got some outfits and some Littlest Pet Shop toys.

Happy Birthday Song for Liesie

The frosting is the best part of the cake

Finally!

Mischa has been looking forward to turning 8 ever since Caleb got baptized a few years ago. I think she would've started a countdown from her 7th birthday if she had gotten the idea. It just about killed her to wait an extra week since she turned 8 on the same day our Church has General Conference. We had a nice turnout- we also had a convert baptism with us, so we got those that might not have turned out for Mischa but go to convert baptisms were there. I did learn not to rely on the word of 20 year old missionaries when it come down to details, though. "If you need any help with refreshments, let me know" translates into "the Relief Society is taking care of refreshments" (never mind the fact that they didn't follow up with her). We had some stressful moments on Friday hunting down clothes, pulling together refreshments, and making phone calls to the other family to see what they knew, but all the stress went away once we were there. It was really cool to see Perry baptize Mischa and have family and friends come to share in her decision to get baptized.

New Looks

Mischa's new piano glasses (she's just a touch nearsighted and it was bugging her when she was playing the piano).


And Mischa takes her turn as a photographer to present my new glasses- a lot bolder than I've ever had. Anneliese says they're pretty.

Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman

In December, we got around to painting Caleb's room. We finished right before my mom came to visit and I never got around to taking pictures. I am going through each room spring cleaning, so I grabbed the camera before the boys could get back into their room. The posters are from some calendars from 2006 and 2007. Sticking them up there was a nightmare. I tried double stick tape, sticky tack, and glue dots. Nothing worked. I finally found some really tiny map pins and we tried to match the colours with the corners so that they would blend in. I think it turned out pretty cool. And, since we had the calendars, and the Spiderman sheets and blankets on clearance at Walmart for $5 each, the main cost was the paint.

The Colours of Spring

Ah, Spring in the South. I have to say, that this is the most beautiful place to be in the Spring. The Bradford Pear trees, Saucer Magnolias, azaleas,

phlox,

lilies, irises, and daffodils.

You really cannot beat the amount of flowers right now. But, in the last few weeks, a more prevalent sign of Spring has emerged.

The pine pollen. And it is EVERYWHERE!!!!! Even on my nice little new car : (

Pets

We've always been a furry little creature family. Mice, ferrets, and guinea pigs. We're not quite ready for dogs yet, since Liesie is so small and I want her to not be face to face with the dog. We had been without a pet for a few months when my next door neighbour asked if we wanted his son's fat-tailed gecko. Being assured that this was a low-maintenance pet, I agreed. I have been pleasantly surprised at how much we like him (or her, haven't checked yet). He sees the kids come up every night to get ready for bed and he comes out to wait for his crickets. It's really cute to see him shake his little tail right before he grabs the cricket.

Since Caleb had the space to keep the cage, we put him in his room, even though it was a family pet. Apparently, though, location is 9/10ths of the law, even though the kids know it's a family pet. Heaven help me when we get a dog and the dog favours one room over the other. Mischa then decided that she wanted one for her room. I told her for her birthday we'd get her one.
Since today is her birthday and tomorrow she'll be getting a cage from Grandma and Grandpa, I went out to visit a couple of the pet stores in town to see what they had for our shopping trip on Monday. There is a Petsmart right by the Target I go grocery shopping at, so Liesie and I stepped in to see what they had. Nothing really in our price range, unfortunately, so I turned to go. At the exit there was a dog rescue group, so I had to step around them a bit. This new route took me by two hamster cages and a 10 gallon tank with the tail of an albino leopard gecko sticking out from a hiding spot. I went to look closer and saw that it was for adoption. I was just about giddy at this time, lol. I asked about it and the associate went to get someone who knew about it. After a few minutes, the lady came to help me. Turns out, after unhooking a really cool magnetic rock hiding place (the outside of the "rock" sat on the outside of the cage so you could check on your pets inside), there were 3 geckos in there! They were all pets of the employees, so they are all really tame and really healthy. I got all 3 (now each kid has one), the heat lamp, hiding rock, and cage for free! She was really excited that we were already a gecko family. So our newest members are a leopard gecko,

(she's a little feisty and active)

albino leopard gecko,

named Leopard Stripes by Mischa

and blizzard leopard gecko.

8 At Last

Mischa has been looking forward to turning 8 every since she turned 7. She cannot wait to get baptized. She had been really, really, really wanting to be baptized on her birthday, but this year the Spring Session of General Conference of our Church starts today. With three 2 hour sessions throughout the day today, there is no way for a baptism to occur. She's getting baptized next Saturday instead. She's taking that in stride better than the fact that her birthday party that her friends can come to will be in May (I could do it during Spring Break, but it wouldn't be that great of a job, plus a lot of people are going out of town make it pretty much a failure). She'll be getting the family party tomorrow, and on Monday we'll probably go shopping for her gecko.
She's bummed today because it's raining, but I pointed out that party day is supposed to be nice and sunny.
She's been really fun to watch growing up. She's very into reading and crafts right now. She loves her family and playing with her friends. I couldn't ask for a more helpful child and she is always eager to please. She is a very good example to everyone.
Happy birthday, Mischa!