Then........... and Now!

 

Chris, Riley and myself in front of the Seattle Washington Temple.  

Riley is 3 months old.

 

Fast forward 12 years.  

Here we are in front of the St Louis, Missouri Temple.

Can my baby boy really be 12 years old already?  

He's almost as tall as I am.

Ha!  I guess all three of us look a little different!

Proud Little Mama

Little Ella loves Bugs.  In fact she loves all kinds of little critters.  Little Pet Shop friends.  Squinkies.  Little trinkets.  Just little things she can carry around.

Anyway, she loves bugs.  Don't ask me where she got this from.  Definitely not from me.  I detest bugs.  Maybe from my dad?  If he finds a bug in the house he will catch it and release it outside.  I will kill it so it can't find it's way back into my house.  Or, if I'm too afraid to get close to it, spray it with the can of starch.  (Hey, I was ironing in the basement and that's all I had and I didn't want it to get away.)

Back to Ella.  She loves bugs of all sorts so I bought her this little butterfly house.   We had to send in a card and they sent five caterpillars in a little plastic cup with some food.

Day One

 Day Three

Four of the five caterpillars ate a lot and grew quite quickly.  We were surprised every time we looked at them at how big they were getting.  One of them was the runt of the group and was really small.  We were half expecting one of the other ones to eat him.  (Are caterpillars cannibalistic?)

Finally four of them climbed up to the lid of the cup and made a chrysalis.  So we moved them to the butterfly house.  We left the little runt behind in the cup.  He is there right now as I write this, growing quite big.

This is the butterfly house hanging in the girls room.

Two of the Chrysalides

So four Chrysalides have been hanging out in this butterfly house for quite a while now.  I was starting to wonder if maybe they had died.  Everyday Ella would ask me "When are they going to turn into butterfly's?"  "Soon dear!"   At least that's what I kept hoping.  Today I was in the girls room, putting something away and I heard a tiny fluttering noise.  I glanced in the direction of the butterfly house and there were two butterfly's!!  I called for Ella who of course took her sweet time responding.  She finally came in and when she realized what had happened she was soo excited.  She called her grandma Clara and asked me to call her dad at work.  She even showed Grandy (our dear friend and neighbor)

Ella likes to point out that the butterflies are plain when their wings are closed but very pretty when they are open.  They are Painted Lady butterflies. 

She is now anxiously watching the other two chrysalides hoping to catch them opening up.  And of course the other guy is still in the cup all by himself.  But hey, at least he didn't get eaten right?

Ciara's version of the Titanic

Some people say that they think the titanic sank from the iceberg it hit, but lots of people have different theories on what they think happened. What I think happened was that when they hit the iceberg, somehow there was a sharp point and it made a little hole and caused water to soak into the boat. There were not many survivors in this crash. Over 1000 people died in the crash, but only 2000 people survived the crash. Lots of the people that were so sadly killed were adults and very few were children. Although the people that survived were very sad about their wife, husbands or child's death. Not everyone was married.

Snow Princess

 My sweet hubby got me a new camera for Christmas and I'm still learning how to use it.  The snow was a perfect backdrop for my little sweetie.  I just love these pictures!

Snow day fun!

We have had a lot of snow around here lately, which has meant days off from school and lots of outside play in the white stuff.  Thankfully Chris loves to sled with the kids, while I am quite happy behind the camera!

 

I was on the phone to England when everyone was getting ready to go out so I wasn't really helping anyone get dressed.  For some reason when the kids were sledding this thought popped into my head " I wonder if Ella has socks on"  Sometimes she will put her shoes on without socks, and I wasn't sure if Chris has just asked her to put socks on, or if he had helped her.  Sure enough when we took of her boot, there was a bare little foot!!  Thankfully I was wearing two pairs and gave her a pair of mine to wear.

 

The Weather Man may have been wrong!

They predicted 3-5 inches of snow last night.  In fact this is what they said last night before I went to bed:  "Around seven am we expect to have about 4-5 inches of snow on the ground with some light snowfall continuing."  They called school off at about 9:30 pm last night.  (I was grateful not to get a 5am phone call this morning)

This is what we woke up to:

I think we have about 11 inches of snow right now......

..... and it's still falling!

Scholar Bowl Round 1

This is Riley's second year in Scholar Bowl and I love going to watch him compete.  This year he is team captain.  They compete against other schools in our district so its a lot of fun because they get meet other kids outside their own school.

I had to take Ciara to a doctor appointment so I was a little late.  One of the mom's told me that Riley seemed to be in a bad mood and boy was she right.  When I went to take his picture of him in the first round doing word problems, he looked up, saw me with the camera and well if looks could kill.........   I put the camera down!

Here he is in round 2.  This round is called The Judge.  When the question is asked they have to buzz in and the person who buzzes in the fastest has to answer the question.  If they answer correctly, their team gets a bonus question which they can discuss as a team and then the team captain has to give the answer.  If they give the wrong answer, the other team has the opportunity to answer.  This particular school was well matched and Riley's team barely squeaked in a win. 

 Thankfully Riley was in a better mood at this point.

This is Riley's reaction when he and a team mate buzzed in at the same time.  The team mate buzzed in quicker but answered incorrectly and Riley knew the answer.

I advised him this was probably not the best reaction for the team captain!

 Here he is playing Target Number.  Riley is wicked good at this game!  They give them 5 Uno cards and then they have a target number they have to reach.  The more cards they use to get the number, the more points they get.  Riley almost always uses all 5 cards.

Two of his team mates also playing Target Number

The whole team with their coach who is also Riley's teacher.

I didn't realize two of the kids had their eyes closed darn it!

They didn't end up winning overall but they did really well.  Riley's table won Target Number.  They won 8 out of 9 games of Mancala and they won The Judge.  Can't wait for Round 2.