Highlights

Things have been pretty busy around here...in the ward we have had three funerals in less than two weeks, we had a flood at the elementary school (Becca's classroom is being totally redone), we had a very green St. Patrick's day complete with shamrock waffles & green syrup for breakfast green mac and cheese (not appealing...be grateful there was not a picture) and split pea soup for dinner.
We have watched Matthew for a couple days while Haylee is in the Philippines (my mom has watched him most of the time), today we had a Primary activity, we have started working in the yard on the days that it isn't covered in snow, and life keeps moving forward.

My favorite thing that has happened this week involved Sarah. I have been cleaning her room for her a lot more than I would like, so after she turned five I cleaned out her whole room...under the bed, in the playhouse, went through all her clothes, and cleaned out all her toys, and it looked great. I told her that now that she is five she is big enough to clean her own room. I told her that if she would just clean up her toys as soon as she was finished with them and put her dirty clothes in the hamper each night that her room would stay nice and clean.
Every morning I reminded her to make sure her room was clean & for the most part she was pretty good about getting it cleaned up...or so I thought.
After about a week I went to do her laundry and she didn't have very many items in her hamper, so I waited a few more days. Pretty soon Sarah's room started to smell pretty bad, and there were quite a few toys and dress-up clothes on her floor so I told Sarah to go clean it up. I came up a few minutes later and saw that she had shoved some of the things that were out under her bed. I was surprised that she would try to convince me her room was clean without at least putting them ALL the way under so I couldn't see the mess. I bent down to pull out the things that were sticking out from under the dust ruffle and had to catch my breath.
Under Sarah's queen sized bed there wasn't room for a Polly Pocket shoe. That child had shoved the last week's worth of mess under there. It probably took almost thirty minutes just to remove everything she put under there (I made her crawl under the bed to get it all out).
As she pulled the assorted treasures out from the bed I started to pick them up, and it wasn't until she finally finished that I wished I had waited to start cleaning so I could have had visual proof about how much stuff she was able to fit in there.
I did, however, figure out the stinky smell...Sarah had shoved 3 wet diapers under her bed. (I had asked her to take them out to the garbage).
So far she hasn't tried shoving anything else back under the bed which is good because if she does, she may very well be sleeping in a sleeping bag until she's 18. :)

I like to ride my bicycle

Greg and I got new bikes and we have been spending every sunny minute over at the church with the girls totally enjoying ourselves. Somehow we only got pictures of half the family & it is mostly the half that is behind the camera (yes, Rachel is often behind the camera & I get to hit delete on fifty to one hundred pictures regularly).Can you tell that Rachel thinks she is SO BIG?!
Rare Heather footage
Greg lookin' great!

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah turned five yesterday & we had a day of celebrating. She started the morning by putting on her fanciest dress-up and crown for a breakfast of crepes and juice.
Then, she changed into her favorite dance clothes for her creative dance class, where Miss Sarah (her teacher) gave her a birthday balloon and let her go first for all the activities since it was her birthday.
After dance we went to McDonald's where she climbed and played for almost two hours taking about two bites of hamburger during that time (thanks for keeping me company Haylee & Leslie).
When we got home from the golden arches, there was a gift from Sarah's Primary teacher waiting at the door with the nicest card...it made Sarah's day.
After three hours of exercise Sarah was pretty tired, so she sat on the couch with the gummy bears Haylee gave her and watched Tinkerbell with Rachel.
Just as Tinkerbell ended, Bryan came over and we all made chocolate chip cookies (because we just don't have enough treats on a birthday....OK because I know that making a treat will always make Bryan want to stay here instead of telling us that he's going to 'head home').
Then Bryan snuggled all of us on the couch while we watched Enchanted.
While Bryan was here the weather turned from a beautiful spring day (we went to dance & McDonalds in short sleeves & no coats) to a full-blown blizzard ( It is still snowing this morning & we went from no snow to about 8 inches overnight...not as much as some winter storms, but it's a pretty heavy dump for March).
Look out the window and you can see the beginning of the storm...
Despite the change in weather, we had a great time with a pizza and fruit snack dinner (Sarah's request) visits to and from grandparents, birthday cake, and then we topped of the evening by going to the rec center for a family swimming party.

For the last month or so Sarah has been upset that no friends would be invited for her birthday this year, but when I asked her if she had a good time she told me that it was the best day of her life, so I think we can call the day a success.