Springtime

We were lucky enough to receive a butterfly habitat for Christmas so we were excited to get some baby caterpillars this spring and watch their amazing transformation.  And AMAZING it was.  I mostly did it for my preschoolers but really the whole family got involved and it was so much fun.  We ordered 5 caterpillars and all 5 made it through the entire life cycle.  When they came they were teeny-tiny.  We got to watch them munch and much and get really fat.  The rest you can see in the pictures:

 This is a picture of the caterpillar preparing to make the chrysallis.  It looked like this; I went in the kitchen and ate lunch; and when I was done it was in the chrysallis--crazy!

 Soon, more joined the chrysallis stage.

 Once they were all their chrysallis' we moved them to the butterfly habitat so they would be there when they hatched.  The girls loved pushing the stool over to check on them and it was so exciting when they started hatching! We fed them sugar water on fresh flowers and also fresh cut oranges.

I released 4 of them with my preschoolers but we had a late bloomer that hatched late.  I promised Cyrena she could release the last one.  She tried to get it on her finger but it was more interested in joining the real world!  We will definitely be doing this again.

Sunday afternoons

 

On Sunday afternoons Cyrena immediately changes out of her church clothes, Natalie stays in her dress, and Anna is somewhere in between. You can see our house is getting a bit empty since we are moving tomorrow!

Easter Sunday 2012

Easter Bunny and Carnival

We asked the Easter Bunny if he (is it a he??) would fill our baskets Friday night so we can focus on the true reason for celebrating Easter.  He/she kindly obliged and the kids had fun with that.  Following the Dean tradition, eggs and the baskets were hidden.  The kids found Anna's first then they needed help with theirs.   They had a great time and were very happy.  They got some new church books/pictures/puzzles, silicone ctr rings, socks, and coloring books.  There wasn't too much candy so we let them have as much as they wanted until it was gone!  By Sunday after church the baskets were packed back in the garage-awesome.  Anna was pretty darn excited when she opened up one of the eggs and skittles poured out--she hurried and shoved them in her mouth because she was afraid we'd take them!

Later Saturday afternoon we attended our annual stake carnival.  It was super fun for the kids, they loved it.  Natalie wanted to try everything, our little daredevil.  She even volunteered for the mini dunk tank--to be dunked!  

 This girl LOVES books!!

 Natalie is holding one of the puzzles we got her.  She yelled out "Look, it's Santa!!  To which we replied, "No, that's Father Lehi"

"Do I really need to unwrap these??"

 Running through the huge blow-up obstacle course

 When Natalie didn't die her first time through, Cyrena got enough courage to go through it.  Also, Cyrena actually went into a bounce house-she's on a roll!

 Anna got to pick a ducky from a pond

Natalie in the hamster ball

The Challenge

I just completed an 8-week 'getting healthy' challenge.  The outline is found here.  There were 7 of us that took part in this challenge which entailed drinking lots of water, eating lots of fruits and veggies, no sugar 6 days a week, exercise 5 days a week, etc, etc.  We earned points for everything and also for our weight loss. 

  It was a great motivator for me!  I've been working out consistently for years now but my dieting goes up and down depending on how motivated I am.  It was really hard only eating sugar once a week.  I'll admit there were a few weeks that I ate treats twice.  But really it was so great to not have something sweet all the time.  I was to the point where I needed it every single day.  But this taught me that those cravings go away quickly.  I really looked forward to Sundays where I would make a really yummy treat and make it special.  I think David's coworkers enjoyed them on Monday since I had to get them out of the house on my non-treat days! :)  Of course there were times it was really hard and I wanted a little treat but for the most part I felt great.  We all know sugar doesn't make us feel good but it's hard to say no.  Knowing that 6 other people were saying no to sugar and not eating after 9 p.m. made it really easy for me to as well!

The results:  I lost 10 pounds and ran a 5k!  I have not been able to run a consecutive 3 miles since I was in college.  It feels so good to be able to do that again.  I trained with my good friend Alison and we ran in a race on St. Patrick's Day morning.  Now, it was this organization's first time hosting a 5k so there were some course misunderstandings.  Because of that I actually ran about 3.45 instead of 3.2.  I felt like I was going to die!  The only real frustrating part about that is that I had a certain time in mind and since I ran longer I didn't make my time.  My goal was under 40 minutes.  When I'd been training in my neighborhood I'd done it in about 38 minutes so I was anxious to see if I'd make it faster than that in the race.  Anyway, since I ran longer, I finished at 40 minutes.  Oh well, I know I would have met my goal! :)

Gold Diggers

Well we had to have some St. Patrick's fun around here!  We brainstormed how we could catch a leprechaun.  

We got some shiny gold paper (they love things that are shiny and gold!)  And made a sign for the front door.

Then we made a shiny little trail that led to some gold placed carefully in our trap!

In the morning we saw the trap was tripped and the gold was gone!

But luckily our little leprechaun left us some shamrock clues that led to our own gold treasure!

The girls also made these shamrock necklaces...

While Anna got tangled in the yarn. 

Two Eyed Anna

A couple of weeks ago Anna had surgery to open up her tear ducts.  They have been clogged since birth.  Normally they open on their own by 6 months (Natalie's did) but Anna's did not so she required surgery.  I'll be honest, I was dreading it even though everyone told me it was so routine and no big deal.  But just knowing my baby was going to be put to sleep and have something jabbed into her eye made me a bit nervous.  However, it all turned out ok.  She was out of my sight for maybe 15 minutes, that's all.  The facility and staff were amazing, it was a great first experience in the surgery center. 

She rode around in this car for about a half hour while we were waiting for the surgeon.  Every time we stopped, she would whine and wiggle for us to keep going.  Behind her there was a huge mural full of pets.  Anna is a bit obsessed with dogs right now so that was perfect.

The Dr. came in and marked both her eyes so he could make sure to unclog each one.

Afterward she was really hungry so we filled her up quickly with bananas and crackers then she ate more when we got home.  Her eyes were bleeding on and off most of the day.  

And the really bad news is that we think she's going to have to get a tube put in that left eye.  It is still clogged and is tearing and goopy.  Poor girl, we'll find out soon what the next step is.