And Even More...

Here are a couple more to catch me up.

Matthew loved preschool!  We are so sad he won't be going there next year because we are moving, but we are grateful he got to go this year!  They had a beach theme for their final program.  He was so cute.  At the end of the program they had all the classes singing and the teacher told them they were having a contest to see who could sing the loudest.  Matthew was yelling at the top of his lungs, no singing, just screaming.  The teacher looked back at me and laughed.

Daniel came to me one day and said, "I think we should do a float to enter in the parades this Summer."  I said, "Sure let's do it."  He said, "Great, the first parade is next Saturday."  We had 1 week to make the float.  It was crazy, but it turned out decent and we had fun walking in the parades this Summer.

I took these pics of the kids and framed them this way for Daniel for Father's Day this year.  Emma and Matthew were pretty easy to get, but Bella took some real effort.  Overall, I think it turned out pretty cute and was worth the effort.

We went to Denver again this year for a dance competition.  I was quite pregnant and didn't compete, but Emma got to compete with Daddy this year.  She had so much fun!!!  She was smiling the whole time they were dancing and was so excited to be there. We also went to the Zoo while we were there.  We split the drive in to 2 days there and 2 days back though, so it seemed like a whole lot of driving.  I think if we do it again, I don't want to split the drive.  We only had one day the whole trip that we weren't driving somewhere.  We did have a good time though and I think the kid's favorite part was swimming in the hotel pool.  :)

More...

Okay, here are some more to help catch me up.

I talked about how we went to Sea World and the pool for Matthew's birthday while we were in Florida.  However, since we were in a hotel, that made it a little difficult to do a cake, so we had a couple of cousins with aunts and uncles over for cake and ice cream after we got home.  Bugsy was so excited about his excavator cake and seemed to have a good time!

One of the little neighbor boys that Emma plays with learned how to ride his bike without training wheels and so of course Emma wanted to learn as well.  It was Jan and Jen's birthday and I was busy trying to get things ready to have cake and ice cream that night and told emma she'd have to wait.  It's a good thing she has a daddy.  He recognized just how much she wanted the help and went out and taught her right then rather than putting her off.  She was beyond excited to learn and I wish I had taken the time to go out and watch and be a part of it with her rather than being so worried about being right on time.  Matthew couldn't quite get it that day, but a couple of days later, daddy helped him again and he got it too.  He was also VERY excited to be such a big boy!  The pictures below are of the day Matthew learned when I actually took the time to go out and be a part of it!

We had our first concert for the dance studio on May 18th.  Matthew and Emma were each in a ballet class and got to perform with their classes.  Matthew was a bumble bee and Emma was a unicorn and they were both so excited about their costumes.  They did a wonderful job performing and looked so darling!  

Daniel also danced with the classes he taught because there are never enough boys.  He also did 2 solo numbers with a couple of the girls he teaches.  Overall, it went really well considering it was the first concert we have ever attempted.  The entire concert only lasted about 20 minutes after which we had refreshments and people visited for about 20 minutes.  It was all over pretty quick and everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoy themselves.  It was a lot of work, but it was worth it!  :)

Just Kidding...

Okay, I thought I was done catching up, until I remembered several things I forgot.  So, I will have to make several more posts to actually be caught up!

We went to Florida in January this year for the World Country Dance Competition.  Daniel and I went out on Monday together.  Then Jan and Jenn brought the kids out on Thursday.  They took the kids to Disneyland on Friday then they watched us dance on Saturday.  We all did stuff together the rest of the days.  I was in my first trimester of pregnancy, so I was pretty sick, but we all had a pretty good time anyway.

Here are some pics from the comp.  The kids got pretty bored since it took a couple of hours, but they survived.  Daniel and I took 2nd place in our division.  We were a little bummed, but oh well.  :)

On Sunday we went to see the temple.  The kids had fun running around the grounds and Bella had fun bouncing on daddy's shoulders.

On Monday and Tuesday we went to Sea World.  We all really enjoyed it!  Tuesday was Bugsy's birthday and we told him we were going to Sea World for his birthday and then we went to the water slide/pool at the hotel that night to finish off his day.  That might have backfired though because he started thinking about what he wanted to do for his birthday next year while we were at Sea World.  Don't think we are going to be able to take him back to Sea World for his birthday next year.

We had a great time in Florida!  It was so nice to be in such great weather in the middle of winter!

This might be it!

I think this might be the end of my catching up!  Unless of course I find something I forgot...

MOVIE NIGHT!  Every once in a while we sit down and watch a movie together as a family.  This was on April 11, 2012 and the kids just looked so cute, we had to take a picture.  Bella LOVES movies more than she should.  She constantly wants to "Watch Rella" (Cinderella) or "Punzel" (Rapunzel).  she loves the princess movies, but those two are her favorite.  Emma is starting to get bored with the younger kids shows, so it is getting more difficult to find something everyone wants to watch.  They had fun this time though.  After all, popcorn makes everything better!

Every once in a while I do something fun and creative with my kids.  This time, we decided to take a pretend trip to France.  That is where Grandpa Harshberger went on his mission, so we learned a little about it.  We learned how to say "I love you daddy, "Je t'aime papa!"  And we learn that a traditional greeting is to give a kiss on each cheek, called cheek  kisses.  We got to drive the airplane (top 2 pictures) using spools or ribbon as steering wheels.  We wore french berets and the highlight was when we made and devoured crepes.  The crepes were the kids favorite part, probably due to the fact that they had Nutella and whipped cream on them.  They have asked for crepes several times since then!  :) We had a lot of fun learning about France and eating the crepes!

More Catching Up...

I'm getting closer!  Hopefully Ill be caught up before our new little baby comes because I know I'll be behind again then!

This was in February this year.  Emma had a fascination with unicorns for a couple of months and made several unicorn horns to wear.  On this day, Matthew and Bella decided they wanted one too!  I LOVE Bella's little tiny horn, I think it is so darling.  She wore it for a while too.  They were so cute!

Bella's first time plying in the snow.  This was not her favorite experience.  :)  She didn't like it when she fell in the snow because she got cold.  The fact that she could barely move or walk made her falls frequent.  It was not a great combination!  So we all ended up in the back yard on the swing set.  She really liked that.  Emma and Matthew had fun the whole time though.  They love the snow!

Easter was on April 8th this year.  We had our annual Easter BBQ on Saturday the 7th.  We all had fun as usual.  I was quite surprised at Bella.  Both Emma and Matthew didn't do much at her age, but I guess since she loves candy so much, she was going to town.  She got almost as much candy as Emma and Matthew did.  Don't get between a girl and her candy!  :)

Playing catch-up

I'm still trying to catch up here, so these are still pretty old, but here they are.

At Emma's school they have a devotional for each grade which is basically just a class program.  Emma's class did a program about the pioneers this year.  She was so excited because her bonnet and skirt had little pink flowers on them and that is her favorite color.  She was a little distracted, but overall did great and had her whole part memorized!

Emma learned all about Abigail Adams in class and then they had a party where they got to dress up.  They also worked on their etiquette and perform a dance to the "Minuet."  It was so cute to see the boys getting food for the girls and then seeing them all trying to dance together.  Of course there are more girls than boys in Emma's class, and she got paired with a girl.  She didn't mind though and seemed to have a fun time!

The rest of December!

Here are the last few things we did in December last year...

Bella got her first haircut on Dec. 23, 2011.  She wasn't so sure about letting someone she didn't know touch her, but I kept blowing bubbles and that helped to distract her some.  She did great and it looked so much better when the girl was done!  I love the bottom right picture.  She was a little surprised by the hairspray!  :)

I didn't have a lot of Christmas pics this year as my camera broke about 10 minutes in, but here are a few I did get.  Christmas was on a Sunday, so we were very grateful to have 11:00 church rather than 9:00 church.  Emma and Matthew were SO excited and Bella was happy to get her very own babies as she had been using Emma's up till then!  :)

I am sure we did our annual "Newfy New Year" celebration, but I can't find any pics.  So we just celebrated the Newfoundland time for New Year's Eve, which is 8:30 PM our time.  That way we still get to celebrate without keeping the kids up so late that it is not fun!

Well, that is the end of our year, only 6 months late.  Here's to the rest of 2012!

Last Christmas...

Yes, I am still 6 months behind.  Here are some things we did last Christmas!

Bella was not anywhere near as excited as the other two were about decorating the tree.  she preferred to play with the ornaments rather than put them on the tree.  Fortunately, after the first few days she left the tree alone most of the time.  :)

We (read: the kids and I, but not Daniel so much) love seeing the lights at temple square.  It was beautiful as usual.  We decided to go up the first Sunday to beat the crowds.  Too bad that's what everyone else does so there were huge crowds.  Oh well, it was still beautiful!

Matthew had his first preschool program for Christmas.  Being up in front of everyone made him a little distracted.  He did sing and do actions a little, but a lot of the time he was looking around wondering what to think.  He sure was darling though.  We love him!

Bugsy Ballet!

Yes, I know that ballet is usually something that you put your little girls in.  However, ballet is a good foundational dance for every other kind of dance.  And, since we own the studio, Matthew can go for free, so yes, we put Matthew in a ballet class with a bunch of girls.  

He's okay with the dancing, but what he really loves is the fact that he gets to go with daddy every Monday and Wednesday.  He does like the running across the floor part though.  I could only get good pictures of the slower stuff, but he really likes running!

And yes, this is from last September, but I'm hoping I'll get caught up soon!

Bella's First B-day Party

Yes, Bella's birthday was 5 months ago.  Better late than never right?  ;)

Here are some pics of the celebration.  We did a "Belle of the Ball" celebration.

Here is our little princess.  She was a little shy as usual, and didn't eat much cake, but she seemed to have a good time.

We decorated with royal flags and a royal cake.  I was only up until about 11:00 the night before which is a lot earlier than I am usually done.  The cake took a lot less time than it usually does.  Notice the torch to light the candle, obviously you need a blow torch for your birthday candles.  :)

We all got to decorate our own crowns, had some lunch and of course since it was a ball we did some dancing.  It was realy cute to see the kids doing the "Hokey Pokey," "The Chicken Dance," and following me in  line dance.    They seemed to have a good time.  I was just glad we didn't have any big problems and I got to actually see the birthday girl during the party.  Simplifying can be a great thing some times.  :)

Bella

Well, I'm behind as usual, but don't have time to catch up so I'll just post a quick little nugget of cuteness from today.

I was driving in the car today.  My little 15 month old Bella likes to take her shoes and sock off in the car.  Usually she just throws them on the floor.  However, today I heard her laughing and looked back to see her with her sock on her head, laughing at how funny she was.  I was cracking up - she was so darling.

For any of you who have seen the movie Monsters Inc., that is where this originates.  Daniel likes to put a sock on one of the children and yell 23-19 just like they do in the movie and then tickle them like crazy.  It was so cute to see Bella doing what she's seen daddy do.  What a joy she is to us!

P. S.

I totally forgot to post about this, but we are ECSTATIC that Bugsy has finally finished potty training!!!!!  It was a long road, but we are finally there.  He isn't potty trained at night yet, but we are pretty excited about him being potty trained during the day.  He has no inhibitions though!  He strips from the waste down and when he is done he comes running out excitedly.  He'll even come outside that way if we are not around.  He is such a funny guy!  We just love him and are so glad he finally decided to become a big boy!   The end!

Birthday Post... a little late!

Emma just had her first day of school 3 days ago so I decided I'd better do her birthday post before I do her first day of school post so that it will be in chronological order.

Emma wanted a "whale" party with the big blow up water toy.  I sent out whale invitations and we did it at my parents house again because the slide doesn't fit at our house.  (Thanks Mither and Pappy!)  I stayed up in to the middle of the night making a whale cake for Emma.  This is not an usual occurrence the night before my children's parties.  The uncommon thing was when the sno cone machine landed directly on top of it when I turned too sharply while driving to my parents house.  You can see from the before picture above, it was not a pretty sight.  I did the best I could to fix it while the guests were arriving and it all worked out okay.

We only get the big water toy out once a year on Emma's birthday so we always invite all of Emma's cousins so that everyone will get a chance to play on it.  With most of her cousins and four friends from school, we had a pretty good sized group.  I think everyone had a pretty good time and I know that Emma had a GREAT time!  We love our sweet little girl.  I can't believe she is 6 already!  Time sure does fly!  :)

Denver Dance Classic

Daniel and I were going to Denver for a dance competition.  We brought the kids and the girls along.  We were totally unprepared for this competition so it was a little nerve racking.  We messed up our routines several times, but it was good to get out there on the floor.  And, the kids had a lot of fun.  We didn't get any pics of us dancing, but here are other pics of the weekend.

Daniel took Emma out on the floor and danced with her during the break in the competition.  She was DARLING!  Unfortunately, it looks from the first picture like she got my double jointed elbows.  See how her arm bends funny from the elbow up.  Poor little dear!   Anyway, she LOVED dancing with daddy.  You can't see her cute little smile, but she had it the entire time!

We went to the aquarium they have there and their favorite thing was the tiger... at an aquarium... go figure!

Jan and Jen took them to the Zoo one day when we were practicing.  They loved it.  Bugsy loves crocodiles and from what I understand he got to spend an entire 20 minutes looking at it.  What a cute little guy!

 They always love train rides...

and the carousel! 

The car ride wasn't too bad.  We stopped a little more frequently, but the kids really did pretty well.  The pictures below are from a rest stop just as you come in to Utah.  There was a little trail up to an overlook that we went up to.  It was a nice little spot to stretch our legs.

This is the place!

We had a great time, but I sure love home!

Summerfest 2011

We like to go to the Summerfest in Orem but have not gone the past two years.  We went this year and it was a lot of fun.  The parade is in the evening and the weather was perfect this year.  The kids had such a good time at the parade.  Even Bella did pretty well.  Then Daniel took Bella home and the kids and I stayed for the fireworks.  I actually got to cuddle with Emma and it was so fun!  The fireworks are good every year, but this year they were FANTASTIC!  It was a great show and we had a lot of fun!

Bugsy didn't like the loud sirens of the police cars.

I love Bella's eyes in this picture, I think they are so pretty.

The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins.  Funny that Joe-Joe is actually a year older than Matthew and yet Matthew is the same size.  :)

I loved seeing the kids with their hands over their hearts for the flag.

Bugsy didn't want to put his hand over his heart, but he did it reluctantly.

While waiting for the fireworks, Jan and Jen gave the kids glow sticks to play with and the kids loved them.

We had a lot of fun!