Aha, ha! Now I have two slideshows!

Week of March 23 to March 29

I'm trying really, really hard to add a slideshow to my sidebar, but so far it is not working! Grrr! Keep checking back, though, maybe I will figure it out! (Cross your fingers!)

Guess what horrible, profane thing is happening today in Springville, Utah?? IT IS SNOWING! Argh! I have had enough! I know that I go through this every year, but really, when you have some days in the 60s, you just start to really believe that you might be done. Not only that but it awakens your memories. You remember summer. After that, you just can't go back, and if the weather goes back, well, you just have a hard time forgiving it.

Yesterday, though, the weather was lovely. Kevin had to work during the day teaching a class for singles, so that evening, after an early dinner, we went over to the track for some family running! We had a great time. Savannah is running on the junior high track team this spring. They've only had about a week and a half of practices and she hasn't decided on her events, yet, but we know that she will do great and the experience will be good for her. Sarah signed up for the 800 (two times around the track) for the grade-school track meet that is held every year. The difference is, Sarah has decided to practice for it. She wants to WIN (or at least do really well!) The pictures in the slideshow are from our evening at the track. It was a beautiful evening wasn't it? It was even full of beautiful kids!

Beth is still not crawling, but she is doing "the log roll" and can get from one side of the room to the other. She only gets frustrated when something is straight in front of her -- then she can't roll to it! She even got herself back into a sitting position from a laying down position this week! Pretty impressive I'd say!

I bought the twins some little plastic clogs and Cheyenne decided to write her name on them since her and Cali's are identical. She is writing her name really well and likes to write it on paper and in the fog on the door and in the snow on the car -- you get the idea. I didn't at all mind that she wrote her name on her shoes. I didn't mind at all that is until I realized that she had written her name on two right shoes. Ahh, the funny thing about having two of everything! Anyway, I did manage to get her name off one of the shoes (hairspray gets out ballpoint pen, if you ever need to know!) and she wrote "Chey" on a left shoe to make a pair with the other right. Marvelous!

Cheyenne has also started to pronounce Calianne's name correctly. Previously, Cheyenne had managed to consolidate all three syllables of Calianne's name into one. I think that is quite a linquistical achievement. The hard 'C' sound was hard to pronounce, too, so Cheyenne referred to Cali as "Tan." Cute, huh? I actually always thought so. Calianne, however, did not. She started yelling at Cheyenne and telling her, "My name is not TAN! It is CALIANNE!!!" It didn't take much of this before Cheyenne was saying, "Okay! Calianne!" And so ended a lovely little period in the twins' lives. Hopefully, we will always remember it, though. (Cheyenne also calls the library, the "strawberry." She knows she's not saying it right, but she has a hard time remembering the right way. I think it's adorable.)

I hope you all have a great week!

Week of March 16 through March 22

The big news for this week is that my friend from a hundred years ago came to visit me! Well, not exactly a hundred years ago, but a lot anyway! Dawn and I became friends in third grade when I first moved to Illinois and we stayed friends through grade school, junior high, and our freshman year of high school (that's seven years!) after which my family and I moved away to Las Vegas. We have kept in touch and she has visited me off and on through the years. She came into town for a convention a few days early so she could spend time with me! It was tons of fun! Here is Dawn and I (a hundred years ago) when we were in junior high:

Aren't we cute? This picture is from my birthday party, hence the lovely bows in my hair. And here is a picture of us this weekend at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon:

We look just the same, right? Of course we do. We had a great time, too. Dawn told me all about her life as a brilliant Chemistry professor at the University of Iowa in Cedar Falls and she got to hang out with me and all these kids! We went to Thanksgiving Point and to Bridal Veil and on Friday night just the two of us went out for Indian food and a movie. What? A girls' night out? How fun for me! I hope it was fun for Dawn, too. I think it was. I think it is so great that she would make the time to come and visit me and keep that connection alive. What a gal!

So, other than that, our stake women's basketball team (of which I am a part) won the regional tournament this weekend! Rockin', huh? I played in the semi-finals game the first night Dawn was here and she took lots of pictures of which I am not going to show you any! It was really fun, though. Savannah and Sarah played on the Young Women's team which competed this weekend, too. They won their first game, but lost the championship game by a close margin. They had fun, too, especially since Kevin got to step in as their coach! He had fun, too!

I also went to parent-teacher conferences on Thursday night and learned that all my children are delightful and doing just fine in school. On Friday morning, Sarah and I and the twins went and helped out the PTA by decorating one of the teacher's doors for Teacher Appreciation Week. It just happened to be Sarah's teacher. Here is a picture of our stunning artistic achievement:

Do you think she'll feel appreciated? I do hope so.

Have a great week!

Week of March 9 to March 15

Today we did Calianne's hair curly. I have a picture of Mariah's hair done this way when she is about Calianne's age. (Of course, when I did it for Mariah, she had asked if she could have her hair "bumpy." Funny, huh?) Calianne saw it and asked if I could do that to her hair, too? I said yes about three weeks ago, but she didn't forget! She has continued to ask me until I finally remembered to buy the little black rubber bands that I would need and agreed to do the job last night. She was so excited and wanted Cheyenne to have curly hair, too, but Cheyenne declined. To do this little number on hair, you take sections of hair (while still wet) and twist them until they fall in on themselves. Then you wrap it around itself like a tiny bun and put a rubber band around it to hold it in place. For a little more staying power, you use spray gel on the strand and again on the bun. The finished product is rather a cute hairstyle in and of itself. So, here is Calianne last night before bed:

I should have taken a picture of the back, too! Oh well! And here she is after church today, saying, "My hair is so pretty!"

She has just been so pleased with herself all day! It is fun to see her be herself without any concern that her twin isn't doing the same thing. Of course not. She is the most confident little Skinner we have met thus far! I love her to pieces.

We are doing pretty well on our sewing projects, if any of you are interested. We are working on a shirt for Savannah, Sarah finished two doll shirts and some doll pants, Megan is just about done making a baby doll the same size as the ones I did for the twins, and Mariah has made a little dollhouse doll with movable limbs and another mini doll like the ones from our first week of sewing projects.

We had Enrichment this week and it was that time of year for the Relief Society Birthday Party so we had a sit-down dinner and a nice talk. I was kind of in charge of that, but it wasn't very hard since the whole presidency works on it. It turned out well and I think everyone had a nice time.

Also, I got to play basketball this week! We have a stake team and got to play in our first game for the regional tournament. There were exactly five of us there, so we played the whole time and had to almost hold our breath everytime there was a grapple for the ball so that we didn't foul out. Still, we won by eight points. Not bad, huh? (Not that I helped much. I will work on it.)

Saturday the weather was wonderful so in the afternoon, Sarah, Calianne, Cheyenne, Beth, and I went on a walk to the park. I watched them and thought of when Sarah was the size of the twins. It made me nostalgic, as it always does, I suppose. Sarah spotted me, though, and said, "Mom, why do you have that worried look on your face?" So, I had to laugh and tell her how silly I was and just enjoy the sunshine and the day.

We hope all is well with all of you! Keep in touch!

Week of March 2 to March 8

Bethany started waving this week. We captured it on video for you all to see:

Isn't that cute?? I especially love how she buries her head in my neck when she's done. See? She loves me!

We had a pretty uneventful week. I was getting over being sick and it was Mariah's turn to get sick and stay home from school most of the week.

We had a couple of warmer days and the girls got to go on some bike rides. That was fun for them. Poor Calianne has been waiting impatiently for summer since October when I, out of necessity, had to say quite firmly "No more bathing suits!" The other day when she heard one more thing for which she had to wait until summer, she hung her head, started crying, said, "Summer is NEVER going to come!" and stomped out of the room. My heart just breaks for her! It feels like that to me and time goes MUCH slower for a four-year old!

Week of February 23 to March 1

The twins and I started off the week by going on a Preschool fieldtrip. We got to go see the musical play of Frog and Toad. It was great fun! I am happy to say that the play with talented, silly actors singing songs and tap dancing, was much more entertaining than the books upon which the play was based. I'm not a big fan of Frog and Toad books but now I am a fan of the play! The twins had great fun. They sat with their friends and they each got a cup of popcorn, a drink box, and a candy (for one dollar!). We only had to leave for the bathroom once for each of them -- unfortunately, not at the same time. All in all, a successful outing.

We got home to find out that Sarah needed to come home early from school because she wasn't feeling well. Megan had been sick Friday through Sunday and Monday was her first day back at school. Sarah was sick all week. Hopefully she will make it back to school tomorrow. Now I am sick. I got sick Friday. Beth seems to have it, too. The twins have both been sick, too, but since they hardly ever slow down, even when they don't feel well, it is harder to pinpoint. So, if you count when Savannah was sick during her birthday, then we have all been sick except Mariah and Dad. Ugh, ugh, ugh. We are not used to this much sickness around here. Hopefully this will be the last of it.

Savannah came home from school this past week and told us that she had tried out for a solo in one of her choir songs. "I don't think I did too well, though," she said, grinning sheepishly.

"Ah, come on!" we said. "Of course you did well! Why do you think that?"

"Because no on clapped for me!" she said and laughed.

Kevin and I just looked at her in amazement. People have gone to therapy for lesser cause than that. Who puts themselves out on a limb like that, fails, and then it totally doesn't bother them? Who I ask you! Only our Savannah.

Those were actually only "practice tryouts." She went ahead and tried out for real the next day. The teacher had the class vote on who got the parts and Savannah reported that the most popular girls got the parts. She shrugged. She didn't care. No therapy for her in the very near future. Wow! She is so resilient! It is amazing to see! She is our very own Stargirl (which is a book, by the way). We love her. She wore this to school the other day:

She hasn't changed too much from the free spirit she has always been!