A Few Cute February Pics

This is Evelyn's new dress. We got it at Walmart, they had so many beautiful dresses. I am just wishing I could find something like it in my size. Would you believe we bought this in the girl's dept., it's a size 6! Tall girl! This is was before she gave (okay, I really gave it) her first talk at Church!

This is how she feels about getting her hair done. She is much better about letting Nicole do it instead of me.
Last Friday we were trying to decide what to do when Evelyn found a card. It was a formal invitation to come to the "Fancy Noodle Restaurant." We were told to come fancy. So us girls went and got fancy while Ben prepared an amazingly delicious alfredo sauce with tortellini, rosemary sourdough bread and a salad. And a fancy table! It was delicious! Ben's so good at making us girls feel special!We took some cute pics of the girls in their matching dresses, but I chose to post this one because of Hannah, squished or not, that girl is gonna smile! She's so sweet! And Evelyn is a loving (sometimes overly loving as documented above) sister.
This is Hannah's little hideout in the kitchen corner. If we ever can't find her, we can be sure to find her here escaping from her sister most likely!

Our Little Red Wagon

Hi all! For Christmas Ben's parents gave us money to get a wagon for the girls. Since we moved to Rexburg 3 days after Christmas and it's been really cold, we've haven't gotten it until now.
The girls LOVE it and Evelyn asks every day if she can go for a walk.

This was the night they got it. We walked out to get the mail. Getting the mail has never been so thrilling before! Sorry, no video of the mail, it was too dark.

We were so thrilled that the snow was melting and dripping off our roof, we just had to get out! We invited some friends to go with us to the nature park in our wagons. It was so much fun! It was a bit of a workout for us moms though, as you can see, there was still a good bit of snow on the path.

To me it seemed so warm, but when I told our Arizona family that we went for an hour long walk because it was above freezing (it was 37 degrees F), they shivered! The girls were SO happy to be outside.

Another wagon shot. Thank you so much! (Evelyn watched the original Mickey Mouse Club and always imitates something that Annette said, so that is what she is doing in the picture)

New numbers!

Howdy everyone. Jess and I finally changed our phone numbers over to Idaho phone numbers. For security reasons, we won't be posting them here, but if you want to know what they are, shoot us an email or leave a comment on this post and we'll get them to you. Thanks!

The Lilac Fairy

For those of you who frequent our blog, you may remember a video of Evelyn dancing and pretending to be the Lilac Fairy from the Sleeping Beauty ballet. We recently checked out a book about ballet called "Lilly Backstage" and in it is a detailed series of illustrations showing a young woman putting on make up to become the Lilac Fairy. Needless to say, this was Evelyn's favorite page and she would frequently stare at it for long periods of time. Well, you think we would have learned by now not to leave her alone for more than a few minutes at a time (see why), but we're apparently poor students.

While Jess was in the shower, Evelyn decided that she wanted to put make up on just like the Lilac Fairy. Being the resourceful girl she is, when no make up could be found, she turned to the next best thing: Crayola markers! At least Jessica found her before she put on her blush!

We were both quite impressed with how well she "stayed within the lines" and got the coloring exactly like it is in the book (blue and purple for the eyes, bright red for the lips, etc.).

It sure is hard to get mad when you can't stop laughing!

Our little Lilac Fairy!

It's beginning to look a lot like... Iceland?

The snow has really piled up this year, more than the last 5 or 6 years, at least. These pictures are taken a few days apart but you can see that the snow is quite a bit higher and it has risen even higher since these were taken! Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Yep. That's at least 6 inches of solid ice on our roof. Yikes! We'd better do something about that!

It snowed so bad we got stuck in our own driveway!

These nice folks saw me shoveling and offered to pull us out... talk about embarassing!

Notice that in this picture the mail boxes are still above the snow line.

But here it is quite a bit higher. (You should see it now!) We're not sure what Evelyn was doing but she looks like she's waiting for the mail.

The girls had fun playing in the snow. By the way, we're not negligent parents, its just that Evelyn's idea of bundling up consists of her Sleeping Beauty gown, rain galoshes and, on rare occasions, a coat. What can we say, she's three.

You can't really see it here, but the snow on either side of the walkway is higher than Hannah's head. She always stops and says "whoa" when she comes out side.

Again, we're not sure what Evelyn is doing here (seems to be a pattern, doesn't it) but it looks like she's either rejoicing in or bemoaning the abundance of snow.

The Inevitably Inevitable

We knew the day would come. We just knew it. With a child as curious and adventurous as Evelyn, it was inevitable. Well folks, the day came. It has already been over a week. Here is Evelyn the night before (notice the long hair). The next day she wanted to do a "project" with scissors. I let her. She had the children's scissors in our room. I was in our room too, arranging and organizing. I left to move a box to the garage. I came back a few short moments later and I learned a great lesson:

If you don't want your 3 year old to do this...

NEVER leave the room while they have scissors in their hands! Especially when they had a haircut only a day before and had the idea fresh in their minds that scissors can cut hair.

When I came in I realized what had transpired. I remembered that we knew this moment would happen and amazingly enough, I was not mad (I think it helped knowing that my sister-in-law is an amazing hairdresser). I asked, "Evelyn, what are you doing?" She responded with big puppy eyes, knowing she had done something that she shouldn't have, "I was just practicing getting the bugs out." I'm not exactly sure what she meant but it made perfect sense to her.

Here is the miracle that Nicole (My miracle-worker sister-in-law hairdresser) performed.

It actually works much better for Evelyn, so it was a blessing in disguise. Sometimes she asks me to do her hair "long" but then I remind her that she cut it all off. She gets a little mad about that, but for the most part she loves that it doesn't take hardly any time to do her hair and it doesn't really even get tangled!

I really feel like it was a rite of passage in being a parent as well as a little girl. We made it and thanks to Nicole, it wasn't so bad.

A Few of our Favorite Things...

There are many things that our family really enjoys. We thought we would share a few of them (in no specific order) so you and your families could enjoy them too!


Laurie Berkner
A fun children's singer who has got our girls pretending to be dancing dinosaurs, goldfish, and baseball batters. Her music is creative and very danceable. We have her dvd too which the girls really like to watch. Their favorites are "The Goldfish Song" "I'm Gonna Catch You" and "We are the Dinosaurs."


Charlie and Lola
(Note: For greater effect, read this first sentence in a British accent) Charlie has a little sister named Lola who is small and very funny. Ben can't help but get groovy to the theme song. This brother and sister duo is incredibly contagious. Lauren Child, their creator, has written books and developed a children's cartoon series as well. We love both the books and shows. You will be able to see more episodes on YouTube as well.
They got Evelyn to eat "green drops" (peas) and "moon squirters" (tomatoes) like crazy. One day all Evelyn wanted for lunch was green drops and she ate them all!
Evelyn's vocubulary has definately increased and she frequently says: absolutely, extremely, and speaks often with her own version of a British accent.
We just ordered a book called "Sizzles is Absolutely Not Here" Sizzles is a dog who Lola loves to tend. It's a lift-the-flap book. We're very excited.

Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor

For all of you who have little girls who love to be fancy as much as our girls do, these books are a MUST! From writing with plumes, sprinkles on ice cream to posh puppies, Nancy proves that sandwiches really do taste better with frilly toothpicks!

Starfall.com
An educational website that helps children to read without them even knowing it! Evelyn REALLY loves this and asks all day if she can play starfall. Along with letters and their sounds, she has also learned about poetry, great composers like Tchaichovsky, Joplin, and Mozart, she has learned about plays, words, and even how flowers grow. I highly recommend the website.


Martha Stewart Everyday Food Magazine
Ben and I subscribe to this delightful delivery that comes once a month into our mailbox. We immediately go through and plan a week's worth of meals from it and go shopping. Almost all of the recipies we have tried have been "This is a keeper" or "We'll have to have this one when we have company" recipies. We have really liked all of the soups we have tried, the vegetable side dishes, and many many many of the main courses. All of the recepies are online. Give 'er a try!


Rexburg Nature Park
I realize that not all of you can enjoy this wonderful place. It is only a half-mile from our home. I think the ducks are too large from all of the community feeding to fly south! We have a great time visiting them. Here is proof:






The ducks are a little overwhelming and so Ben and Jon had a good time encouraging the ducks to approach Noelle (sister-in-law from AZ who got to visit for a weekend) and Nicole by throwing bread at their feet.

We hoped you liked a few of our favorite things.

What are some of your favorite things?

Ballerinas and Fairies and Tchaikovsky, OH MY!

Our friends Stephanie and Sean Braniff recently held the first annual "Bloggie Awards" and our humble little blog revieved the coveted "Girls Just Want to Have Fun Bloggie." Hard to believe, I know. They said, "Ballerinas, tutus, princesses, singing solos, dance shows, and a world of pink and the Wyeths still have us beggin' for more."

To show our thanks, we put together this special little number. This one's for you, Steph and Sean! (Visit their blog here.)

(Okay, so it wasn't really planned. Evelyn likes to dress like this everyday and Hannah has recently taken an interest in doing everything her sister does. So first thing Saturday morning, after they got dolled up, they decided to have a dance party. Here's what happened. )

Evelyn's new do after she gave herself a little "trim."

Her pose for the big finale.

Hannah has been enjoying the tutued life.

They love playing and dancing together!