Legoland

On Thursday, we drove to Legoland, home of the famous horse ride, "The Royal Joust" (below). This is the ride that Maddie has talked about for the last fours years. She says it is still one of her favorites.

This "Knight's Tournament" ride was Nicholas' favorite ride of the day.

The Beach

On Friday, Emily and I flew home to attend my grandma's funeral. Nicholas, Madison and Darren finished out our California vacation by going to the beach. When I asked what the name of this beautiful beach was, the answer I received was, "Somewhere near Corona Del Mar." I'm sure we'll be able to easily find it again, if we want. The beach had sand and rocks and tide pools filled with sea snails and plant life. The kids had a blast.

Landon buried himself in a hole that Darren had dug.

My Grandma

My grandma passed away last Sunday at the age of 94. I grew up living next door to her and my grandpa, who passed away a few years ago at the age of 97. They had a farm with chickens (the reason I have chickens now), cows and pigs. They grew hay, corn, had an apple orchard and a garden with fruit trees, raspberries, grapes and all kinds of vegetables. If I was outside playing, I could hear the fence gate creak and slam many times as they went back and forth from their house to their farm each day. I think my family remembers my grandma most as a hard worker and a person who had a strong, unwavering testimony of the gospel. We will all miss her very much and we appreciate the good example she was.

Many of the cousins: Bart, Jordan, Brady, Derek, Brian, Brett

Brittney, Me, Stacey, Kristy, Shauna, Kelly, Cindy and Judy

A Success!!!

They sold pumpkins, gourds (lowering the price to 25 cents after talking it over), chocolate chip cookies and homemade coloring books and made $12.00! They are so excited to have $6.00 each, and have counted their money several times. From a parents point of view, they probably could have earned more if they hadn't gone off to play in the backyard after earning $8.00. (They were very satisfied with $4.00 each, thinking that was a ton of money.) The last bit of money came from neighborhood parents buying the cookies.

A Sleepover With Hanna

Off-Track

Despite the cold weather they had a plan: to sell homemade coloring books to the public. Due to the fact that all the other kids on the street are still in school and we don't get much traffic on our street anyway, sales have been non-existent. Spirits are not dampened though; today we shall add some 25 cent gourds to try and spark interest.

Hours of Free Entertainment

I love you, Mom and Dad.
This weekend I reread my now coverless copy of Daddy-Long-Legs. I love that book! If you haven't read it, please do. It makes me happy, happy, happy.

A Little More About Dance...

I happily sat down to do a post and there, sitting next to my computer, was my beloved old copy of Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (written in 1912) with its cover ripped off! Who did such a thing and then put it where they knew I'd see it? If I didn't have a sneaking suspicion that it was Emily, who will never answer for it, I'd wait until dinner tonight and then whip out the book demanding to know who committed the crime. Oh, the lack of justice.
Oh well.

Every time we take Maddie to dance class, Emily has to look at these two statues. She's especially intrigued by the bronze book--she always looks to see if there's anything in it, and also tries to close it for the girl. I wonder how it looks through her eyes...

A bit of Maddie's dance. (Maddie is in blue, and if you watch carefully at the beginning you can see Maddie's teacher dance through. The teacher dances beautifully, and I'm sad she'll only be there until December when she will be getting married and moving.)

Artsy Maddie

Commentary

Maddie Lost a Tooth!

Maddie lost her second tooth last night (maybe not so much "lost" as Darren yanked it out) and she says it feels so strange having a hole where her front tooth used to be. She was excited this morning when she found that the Tooth Fairy had visited sometime during the night and left her two whole dollars! (The Tooth Fairy only left $1.50 for the first tooth--that unpredictable lady.)

Dear Jordan,

Holy cow, after checking my e-mail now I know I made a good decision to not allow comments on my blog. Let me clarify--it is very cute how excited you are about the upcoming baby and really, I thought is was downright sensitive of you to try on a pregnancy tummy. And it was funny, in a good, happy way. So let's keep in mind that I am mostly a nice person, trying always to be better, and this blog is a "family scrapbook" if you will--where all things noteworthy should be written--and no more of this talk about "heads will roll". (Maybe you ought to make your blog private again; people who threaten to retaliate could possibly attract the wrong sort, always good to be careful.)
Your loving sister,
Tiffany

SEP Conferences

We went to SEP conferences today and both Maddie and Nicholas had excellent, almost perfect report cards. Darren and I are very proud of them. It's always great to hear how wonderful your kids are (even though we know it already) and it was good to see how much their teachers like them. It's okay to brag a little, right?

Happy Birthday, Jordan!

Yesterday my family met at Cafe Rio to celebrate Jordan's birthday. Since I left my camera sitting next to the computer, I didn't get any pictures of it. This is disappointing because after dinner and birthday cake, we went to Gateway to do a little shopping, in which Jordan became a little celebratory and tried on the pregnancy pillow tummy in the women's dressing room at Mimi Maternity. On second thought, maybe it's good I forgot my camera. But the idea of it is now forever documented here.