Anna's birthday

Pizza-making fun for Anna's birthday party! She turns eight today and she had a fun party. We only do parties every other year so this is a party year. The girls showed me their best pizza dough tossing skills and then they each created a personal pizza. Their skills were of course improved by the poofy, white hats and silly black moustaches. Anna helped sew the aprons for each girl to take home. We completed the menu with lemon cake and ice cream. We also had beautiful weather so some of the party was spent outside.

We love our Anna and we our so glad she is ours. Eight is a special age and she has chosen to be baptized. The date is set for November 12th. Her teacher had nothing but excellent things to say about her in parent/teacher conference. Anna's reading skills are way above the second grade level too. She scored a 787 and the second grade reading level is 300-600 on the Lexile scale.

Eight is off to a good start.

Summer Fun 2011

The kids rode on a train with Gordon from KC to Independence. Short ride but a train nonetheless so Jacob was super excited.

We rented a pontoon boat with some friends. Megan was the only one who wanted to go by herself on the raft.

Anna and Gordon

Gordon and Jacob




Megan's birthday party. She turned 5 years old.

Anna had her face painted at a party sponsored by Gordon's work.

Round and Round

Anna decided she wanted to be part of the talent show for her first grade class. If you didn't already know, Anna is an excellent hula-hooper. She doesn't get it from her mother though. The song she hooped to was Selena Gomez, "Round and Round" and another little girl in her class did it at the same time. The song was 3 minutes long but Anna can go on forever without messing up. We are so proud of her future in the circus! Just kidding, but we are so proud of her for getting up in front of a group of people, especially a group of her peers.

(This is one of 4 posts)

Pre-K graduation

Megan had a great year in preschool. Loved her teacher and learned lots of new songs. She graduated from preschool Thursday night. I had them move her name to the front of the alphabet so I could wisk her away to her ballet recital that happened to overlap on the same night.

Our little troll

Megan had her first ballet recital last Thursday. She danced three dances total. In one of the dances she played a troll. It is fun to watch here dance and have fun. At this age they aren't judged for technical skills so they get to just have a good time.

Haircut

A boy's world

Jacob is fascinated and crazy for trains. Especially Thomas the train but any sort of train moving or standing still, sends him into a happy frenzy. He also really likes bridges and overpasses and is always on the look out for one. Just imagine what it is like when a train is passing overhead on a bridge while we are driving underneath!

As a tribute to that fascination, his Happa (Grandpa Downs) has created the ultimate magnetic board to display it and Jacob throughout his young years. Jacob loves it and names the trains on it every time he enters him room. It is fun to see his face light up!