Kyler's 1st Father & son Campout

Finally, the wait is over.  Daddy finally gets to take his little boy on a Father and Son camp-out.  Kyler was beyond excited to set up his own tent, sleeping back, and spend time with just the boys in the woods for the first time.

As you can see, Kyler was truly made for this man stuff.  He found sticks in the woods and got to work with the other boys.

Another first for Kyler was his discovery of "cheese wiz" one of the other dads had brought.  He particularly enjoyed licking the white stuff off an Oreo and replacing it with cheese wizz....yummy!

I think this camp-out was maybe the highlight of Kyler's short life thus far! Or maybe Daddy's, since he's waited so long for this!

Ballet cuties

The ballet beauties love dancing together in the same production.

For the spring performance, Teyah got to dance as a kindergarten student.

Aubrie danced as a good fairy. The catch with the fairy is that it was a fairy from a book, so most of her dance she had to perform carrying around a huge cardboard book. It wasn't her favorite roll, but I guess we can't love them all.

#Fashtag

Our girls are constantly coming up with ways to make money. The latest entrepreneurial adventure was their bow-making business named "Fashtag."

A friend from church, so kindly hosted my older girls and showed them all kinds of ways to make hair bows. I think they are pretty cool!

Too bad many of their friends have also created bow making businesses, so they've been a little hesitant to step on their friends' toes.

School Concerts

Our kids love music and love performing their school concerts. Teyah (in the lower middle) had a blast in her spring concert.

Ellie loved dressing as a bumble bee for her spring musical about bugs.  Once again, front and center.

And Aubrie enjoyed being in the school choir. Here she is singing at her elementary school graduation.

Easter 2014

Pretty dresses... handsome outfit... it must be Easter!

As tradition goes, we enjoyed dying our eggs...

finding our eggs...

and rejoicing in the wonderful blessing of the resurrection.

Lil Sister missionaries

This past week Elliana was called to serve a mission to Budapest, Hungary....we'll not really.  For activity days, all the 9 year old girls received pretend mission calls throughout the world and dressed up accordingly.  With the help of the real-life sister missionaries in our ward, the girls loved learning about the service that goes into missionary work throughout the world.

Pappa look alike

Since Kyler was born, we have heard many thoughts on who he looks like.....a little like Mom?...Dad?...Ellie?  Maybe so.  However, it wasn't until we saw the following pic that we realized, he has a long, lost twin.

Walah!....Kyler's twin!  Or is it Papa's twin?  It is amazing how much this Kyler resembles his Papa.  The smile, the hair, but most importantly....

....the swagger!

Ellie's 9th Birthday

This year, Elliana decided she wouldn't let the "cold bother her anyway," and she had a Frozen-themed birthday party.  

As tradition goes, Mommy prepared a special cake -- this year it was an Elsa cake.

Rather than traditional birthday party games, Ellie decided all she wanted was theater-type experience with the movie "Frozen" as the main feature.  Daddy meticulously drew this poster to add to the experience.

Each girl had to show their ticket stubs to get enter the "movie theater" which had a concession stand with lots of goodies and a big screen projection on the wall.

It was fun to see Ellie's friends from soccer, school, and church come together.  Interestingly, their personalities all seemed to match Ellie's sweet little personality.

The Frozen party ended up being a fun, memorable party, even if it lacked the crazy games that we usually do.

About Elliana...
She is in love with Frozen at the moment and loves busting out the songs with her sisters.  She has really excelled in school this year especially in Math, but mostly in her confidence as a student.  She is really small for her age, but that hasn't stopped her competing with the older kids in soccer as she has been playing competitive soccer with kids a year older than her and has continued to thrive.  She loves creating new Rainbow Loom creations and is constantly discovering new ones to master off of YouTube. We love seeing her confidence grow!

Staycation at MOA

This spring break we decided a nice staycation was in order.  As all our kids are now big enough to ride the rides together, we decided to venture to Nick Universe at Mall of America.  

Kyler was pulled over for reckless driving on this ride.

Aubrie decided go on the biggest ride she could find which she was barely eligible for.

Teyah was able to ride the swings solo for the first time ever.

And Kyler was thrilled to go with daddy for his first time "flying" on the swings as well.  Although our spring break was filled with snow-filled days, we had a blast together as a family.

Kid crafted Valentine's Day boxes

After much thought and research, the girls made these Valentine's boxes all on their own.  Aubrie went with the old-school rubics cube.  Elliana went with a cute little Valentine puppy. We were proud of them, but they were discouraged when they went to school to find their peers' Pinterest-perfect over-the-top V-day boxes. It's a different world than the one I grew up in. I love Aubrie's mouth (she made out of a letter "D" sticker) and Ellie's little heart over the puppy's eye.

Jack and the Beanstalk

For the past several years, Aubrie has dreamed of the day that she could have a big speaking part in the week-long school theater experience. This year she finally achieved her goal and was chosen for a fun speaking part in a goofy adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk.  

Aubrie was chosen for her gymnastic skills to be a "circus clown" and her best buddy, Alexa was chosen as Jack's sister. They were selected for their parts on Monday, learned their parts in a few days, and performed it live on Friday and Saturday.

Aubrie didn't get a whole lot of sleep this week, but that didn't matter.  The excitement of the week pulled her through for a memorable performance -- which probably won't be her last.

Sea World Magic

After spending a few days at Disney, we decided to truly go "under the sea" at Sea World. Our kids loved being up-close to these amazing sea creatures. We had originally booked several days at Sea World, but ultimately decided against it when we learned that the killer whale show had been shut down a few weeks prior to our trip.  After voicing our displeasure with this and other customer service issues, we were invited to enjoy a free day at the park!   

One of the highlights of the day was having the chance to feed the dolphins. Ellie and Teyah took a little longer to be brave enough to do it, but they all loved the opportunity.

Aubrie was the bravest of the three!

Even though the killer whale show was "under construction," we did have the chance to see the orcas training and playing.

Dave isn't the biggest fan of the cheesy animal shows, but I have always really loved Sea World.

Disney Magic

After enduring several weeks of one of the coldest Minnesota winters on record, the troops were more than ready for a getaway to the "happiest place on earth."  

Although the week was filled with temps ranging 45-80 and some rainy, total wash-out days, there weren't too many complaints from our crew as our weather back home reached wind chills of -40, with two days of school being canceled.

This vacation was full of several special moments. Our girls loved the brand new attraction at Disney World where they were able to interact with Belle in her home. Even though it's blurry, we love the expression on Ellie's face in this shot.

Kyler loved interacting with all the new Cars' attractions, but his favorite may have been jumping aboard a Star Wars hoverbike. 

At one point the line to visit Anna and Elsa reached five hours!! No joke. But, we decided to get in line in a total downpour at the very end of the day and only ended up waiting an hour. This put a new meaning to 'Frozen', yet even being drenched we knew we still were in a warmer place than Minnesota. My mom joined us on our trip, and devoted Grandma did most of the waiting in the rain.

Ninja stance!!

I'm not exactly sure what's going on with this picture!

We were fortunate to not only have my mom join us, but my sister Lauren joined us for part of our trip. Lauren wasn't too excited about the weather, but we were sure excited to have her with us!

This little pirate loved watching the Jack Sparrow show, even though Mr. Extrovert was too shy to go up on stage!

Argh!!!

Hit it! Even though he had her do it right handed! Haha!

Such a cute crew!

I love my mama! She's so beautiful inside and out!

This is the first time we've been to Disney that we've actually stayed after dark!

It's fun having our kids be a little older where we all can enjoy things -- like Big Thunder Mountain!