End of Basketball

The girls basketball ended in March. It was fun for them! Here they are with their entire team, The Bulls E. They are excited to go to a camp in the summer.

They were excited to get their own trophies. There was an extra one, and so Chloe got to have it! She was happy about that.

Here is a video of Izzy getting her trophy:




And here is the video of Lily:

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

We had fun turning these...

...into these!

I saw them last year on another blog and loved them! The girls loved how they turned out and kept saying, "It really looks like I'm holding the sucker!" Izzy and Lily had fun decorating their own on Picnik.com. Lily ended up with two different cards; they were so fun to make. We sent them to grandparents and some cousins, and of course, friends at school! Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!

A few detailed notes about 5 year old Chloe:

-She calls all missionaries, or really any man wearing a suit and tie a "prophet." Once we were riding in the car somewhere and she said, "I saw a picture of a prophet mom!" I looked and it was a picture of a realtor on a bus bench. He was wearing a suit.

-She is quick to notice if a person on TV or on an ad at the store is dressed immodestly. She'll say, "That person is immodest, she shouldn't wear that." We are happy she knows that, but we also taught her it isn't nice to say that to other people. We don't want her offending anyone!

-She likes to get scalp massages or head rubs. They help her fall asleep. I love them too!

-She loves to not only catch the ladybugs but build little homes for them out of grass and sticks.

-She said she wants to be a vet when she grows up because, "then you get to have lots of pets!" She loves animals and hopes to one day have a baby parrot. I told her the baby parrot wouldn't always be a baby, it would grow up one day, and she said, "Then I'll just get another baby parrot!"

We love having Chloe for our daughter! She is a real blessing to have in our home and in our lives. We love her very much!

Here she is (sleeping on the floor in her room) with her birthday balloon and stuffed animal. Silly Chloe likes the floor, where it is closer to the heating vent.

She was happy to wake up to the balloon! Olivia was happy too.

It was Playschool today, and it was our turn to bring the snack. So I made these fun ice cream cone cupcakes to take to share. They are just cupcakes inside the cone! Chloe picked out the green icing and green sprinkles. She loves green!

And this is how I transported them. I just cut out circles in a foil pan and turned it upside down. Easy peasy!

We also made these fun butterfly bag snacks too. The clothespin is the "body" of the butterfly, and pipe cleaners are the antennae. Chloe and Olivia had fun coloring them with me.

Half the baggie was Goldfish crackers and the other half were cucumbers and carrots!

Chloe's 5th Birthday Party!

Chloe had her FIFTH birthday party today! She is not officially 5 for a few more days still, but today was her party. She had a lot of fun!

She wanted a FISH themed party this year. We had blue balloons taped to the ceiling with blue and green ribbon tied to them, to give the house an under the sea feel. I made these invitations with "swimming" fish on them. The top part spins around on a little brad. Chloe colored and glued the fish on by herself. She loves to help!

We had the last rotation of the invitation say, "You'll have a FIN-tastic time!"

Here are the cupcakes I made:

Multi-coloured fish! The scales, eyes, and lips were M+M's, and the fins are these orange slice candies. Fun to make! The girls had fun helping with this too!

We had fun planning out the goody bags. They had things like Goldfish crackers, Swedish Fish candies, fish stickers, and these little fish tanks! They are really just Swedish Fish candy in blue Jell-O that I put in little jars:

We planned out a whole bunch of fun fishy games too. I meant to put these pictures on the end of this post, but they ended up here instead. Here are some of the girls fishing for their goody bags. Izzy loved hooking them on the fishing rod on the other side:

We played a game where they had to eat like fish do--with no hands! They had to try to eat the donuts on a string with their hands behind their backs. A little messy, but fun! It was a little tricky to do with no hands.

They made paper plate fish, with glued on aluminum foil for the scales:

They also made these homemade bottle aquariums. They filled empty bottles with glitter, ribbon, fake grass, craft balls, rocks, and of course, fish! It resembled aquariums and under the ocean, and when you turn the bottle upside down it is fun to watch things sink to the bottom, and float to the top.

We also played Pin The Fish On The Hook:

Most did a good job avoiding the hook!

I made this game, Fish For Your Name, where I put letters of their names on little fish, and put metal paperclips through the mouth of the toy fish. Then I made little fishing rods for them out of wooden dowels, string and magnets. Then they got to fish for the letters of their names! I let them take their letters and fishing rods home as a souvenir too. I found a pack of those little toy fish at the dollar store. There were over 100 little fish in the bag. Great find for this party!

Cupcake time!

Presents!

Ben and I are saving her gifts from us until her real birthday, but we did give her one from us today too. Ben had to go upstairs and bring it down. Here are some pictures of Chloe's reaction:

It was a real fish for Chloe! She loves it very much. She named it, Goldie Bubbles Swimmer Anderson. She calls it Goldie for short:

It is just a tiny guppy.

The person at the pet store told us to start with one small one and then get a bigger one after about a month. This is our official first pet!

Chloe is excited to keep it in her room and feed it and take care of it. Happy birthday Chloe! We love you very much!

Izzy's Teapot

Olivia loves to play on Izzy's new iPod, but thinks that it is called a teapot. It is actually really cute when she asks, "Where is Izzy's Teapot? Can I play on Izzy's Teapot?"

Olivia misses Izzy and Lily when they go to school. Yesterday she woke up and came down after they had already left and she asked, "Where is my Izzy? Where is my Lily?" I think she was trying to say where are my sisters and it came out like that instead. Too cute.

Olivia has learned how to play the computer. I think Chloe is the main one who has taught her. She plays on Starfall.com and loves it! She can maneuver the mouse and everything, all on her own. She is only 2 and a half! All my other kids did not learn how to work the mouse and play on the computer until they were much older. I said to Olivia, "How did you get so smart?" She said, "From the pooter and Lily's DS." She likes Lily's DS too apparently!

Almost every week at church someone compliments me on how well behaved the girls are in Sacrament Meeting. They say things like, "You are so lucky your girls just sit there nicely and colour, while my kids run wild!" There are many times I feel like my girls are running wild too, but it is nice to hear sometimes that people notice them when they do behave well. This past Sunday an older lady was sitting behind us and afterwards told us, "Your girls are so well behaved. They sit so reverently and quietly." She was saying that she loved to watch them, and at one point Olivia was gently playing with Chloe's pigtails and was holding them up to her own head as if to say,"I wish I had hair too." She said it was really cute. I didn't even notice! Olivia's hair is really short for her age! It just grows so slowly. Every child is very different and unique, even if they are from the same family!