This is Ben making sure we all know that he is not a girl -- possibly a dinosaur -- but not a girl.  He is so boy.  It is really fun to see these differences and have a chance to raise a boy.  We are loving this growling kid!

He cleans up well, too!  This was his birthday present
from G&G Gazdik.  Doesn't he look GQ? 

Our neighbors gave us their little tikes car.  Words cannot describe my jubilation!
Nor Ben's!  The first day we had it, he stayed in the backyard with it ALL DAY!
I love little tikes cars.  I love free little tikes cars even. more!

Now Bethany is free to ride the balance bike we got him for his birthday
 in which he was not at all interested!

Cali wanted to make snickerdoodles for mom and me time this week.  They are her favorite cookies.  She says that making them into ballls and then rolling them in cinnamon and sugar make them more fun than other cookies.  For other people, that makes them too much work.  For Cali, that makes them more fun!  What a good perspective.

Sarah had choir festival this week.  It was held at her own junior high, but she still got to be released from several classes to hang out with friends and sing songs.  She had great fun.

Plus, she got to look stunning in her choir dress all day!

Thursday night of this week our stake held a "Time out for Families" where they had a speaker on families and relationships and then had several break-out classes on different topics which we could attend.  Kevin was one of the teachers and I heard he did a fabulous job.  He has a real talent for teaching.  I am happy for him when he gets a chance to share what he knows with people.  He enjoys the opportunities as well!  The break-out class I went to was really good, too.  Kevin taught on marriages and I went to a class on parenting.  I figured Kevin could help me work on my marriage skills back at home.  :)

Saturday morning Kevin and I went to the temple.  Later in the morning Savannah, Sarah, and Megan had a "Personal Progress PowWow" that our ward put together.  They got a lot of their stuff signed off and had a good time together.

The day was beautiful and we got a lot of yard work done that afternoon.  We even turned on the sprinklers and my under-ten crowd was quickly in their swimsuits!

I forgot to mention that my second-graders had to turn in their animal reports this week and got to display them with their animal habitats on Friday.  I think you may have already figured out that Cheyenne did Zebras and Calianne reported on Cheetahs.  They made pretty cute salt-dough replicas.  What a fun project for them!