Jane's Got the Giggles

Go Cougars!

Here is our little BYU Cougar. These photos were taken on Friday.

Ears Pierced!

For Claire's birthday I took her on a date to get her ears pierced! She has become this new big, grown-up, little girl. I think Claire thought it was going to hurt more than it actually did, so when it actually happened she looked at me as if to say, "that was it?" We went for ice cream afterwards. Every day she reminds me several times to help her clean her ears and she has learned to turn her earrings all by herself. The first thing she tells people when she sees them is about her new earrings!

5 YEARS OLD!!

I can hardly believe Ethan and Claire are 5! 5 seems so big. They had a good birthday..presents in the morning...swimming in the afternoon...and the all important birthday cake in the evening. They had a little birthday party with their friends this past Friday with a horse theme, so we made each child a little hairband w/ ears and yarn for the mane and a tail made of yarn. They had a good time galloping around, playing pin-the-tail-on-the-pony, biting apples on twine (no hands), etc...Here are some photos of their big day.

Ethan plays with his speedracer.


They both got umbrellas...which they have up all the time: at breakfast, on walks on sunny days, in the van, etc...



They both received an armchair, which come in handy for Monday and Friday show time!





Claire received some hair clips for her birthday and with Claire, as you can see, it's all or nothing!


Now that they share a room (while we get Jane into a good sleeping routine), Ethan and Claire each got a little tent for their beds, so they could have a bit more of their own private space.




The birthday party and pinata.

Ethan received a cowboy hat from a friend and is now determined to be a cowboy for Halloween!


Jane had a good time watching the kids, but sometimes seemed to be wondering what was going on!

Beauty and the Beast

On Saturday morning we took Ethan and Claire down to a little theater in Provo to see Beauty and the Beast. An hour before the show began they had "Breakfast with Belle". Everyone got waffles and was able to meet Belle and the other characters. Claire loved it all. She's quite the little actress herself and has pretended to be Belle ever since the show. Dan took the children and I stayed with Jane. About half an hour into the show Dan called saying that Ethan was scared of the Beast, so I picked him up and we walked around BYU. Claire wanted to stay and really enjoyed herself. When we have watched Beauty and the Beast at home we have always fast forwarded the parts when the Beast is scary, when the wolves chase Maurice, and when Gaston fights the Beast, which cuts the movie down by at least half, and which also makes a little person ill prepared to see a scary Beast up close and personal in a small theater! We all had a good day anyway and were glad that we went.

Dance Class with Claire

Claire has been wanting to take a dance class for a while now so we enrolled her in one and she goes every Tuesday evening. She loves it. It's fun to watch about 10 four year olds, mostly all in pink, flitting and twirling, jumping and leaping. Here she is in her dance outfit.

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake Friday and Saturday. I have never experienced weather the way we did on Saturday. We woke up to beautiful, sunny weather, which lasted a couple of hours then several small thunderstorms came across the lake. The first two storms were about a mile away on either side, to the right and left of us and passed right by without raining on us at all. 30 minutes later a storm passed right over us and it rained like crazy for about 15 minutes and the cloud passed and the sun came right back out. This happened all day. 1-2 hours of sun, 15-30 minutes of thunder and rain. This first photo shows one of the many rainbows we saw that day. In the photo below you will see the big kids swimming, but Jane is bundled in her woolies...It was a cool day, much to cold for a babe to be in the water. But the greatest thing about the beach is the water and since E & C have taken swimming lessons 3X this summer Ethan, and particularly Claire were anxious to get in the water. It didn't seem to bother them that it was bitterly cold!

nice scenery

The water was freezing. When you first put your feet in, that small part of your body goes into shock...It was very, very cold. When you get out of the water your feet and whatever other parts of you were in the water ache from the cold.


This is the first time Jane has been to the beach. She loved the sand and kept running her fingers through it. She particularly liked when we would dig little holes. Every time she would scoot over to sit in it!





We did a little horseback riding while we were there...


And some race car driving...




I love this picture of Claire with the rainbow. I think you can only see the rainbow if you click on the photo.

This is Ethan and Claire towards the end of the day with their sweatshirts and undies. Their bathing suits were to cold and wet to put back on after lunch. After they came out they were freezing, so they stripped down and spent the rest of the evening wrapped in towels. They thought it was great because for Claire it was like wearing a long gown. She told us that she was the princess and Ethan was her prince. Ethan told her that he would only marry her if she stopped bossing him around.