Abuelo and Abuelita

We LOVED having Dan's parents come visit in May. Here are a few photo highlights from their trip.

At The Natural Science Museum

At graduation events
At home
Playing with a new light-up top

They were playing hide-and-seek and Elena had just popped out from under the bed

In Abuelo's hat

Dance

These are from the class that Emily teaches every other Friday at the church building. I'm not sure when the tights ended up on Elena's head, but I thought it was hilarious.I haven't taken the time to learn how to edit videos on my computer, so it's kind of long.

Easter 2011

We had a great Easter weekend. Ummm...if we choose to forget some extreme crankiness caused by missed naps. :) It was a busy couple of days. I think I'll organize this entry by sections.

Egg Dyeing

Church Egg Hunt

Behind Kevin, you can see Alan. His mother and I have prearranged his marriage with Elena. :)

Court of Honor
Alan's big brother (and my friend Elizabeth's son) received his Eagle Scout Award on Saturday. He's such a good kid, and we were so happy to be there to see his hard work (and the hard work of his parents) recognized.
Easter Baskets
Easter Dinner

Dan and I thoroughly enjoyed our Easter dinner at the home of the Evans. Yum! I should've taken a pic of the food. The company was awesome too of course. It was a nice, relaxing evening and the weather was perfect.

The kids' table

Kevin barely let go of this pink lawn mower the whole evening! We had to force him share with the girls. He is truly terrible at sharing. We're working on it.

Traditional Easter Family Picture

This one doesn't exist. :( I totally forgot to ask a friend to take a family pic. I didn't even remember to take a picture of the kids in their new Easter clothes. I took one of Elena after Kevin was already in bed. If you look at the lawnmower pic above, you can see Kevin's outfit. Fancy Nancy taught Elena what "posing" is in one of her books, so she gave it a try.Here are the only ones from the whole weekend that Dan and I are in. Dyeing eggs in our pjs:
Church on Sunday was great. I loved teaching the Sunbeams (3 & 4 year olds) all about the true importance of Easter and the Resurrection of our Savior. They were impressed, and it was awesome to see their understanding of Jesus Christ grow. :)

Lazy 5 Ranch

I have a little list of places (in my head) that I want to go to before we move. I was able to cross one of them off the list last Wednesday.
I have been to the Lazy 5 Ranch twice previously on field trips with my students, but I haven't ever taken my own kids. I was so glad that Page arranged a group trip, so we were able to ride in the wagon at the discounted rate. :) Here are a bunch of out of order pictures with some captions, but for the most part you just need to know that it's kind of like a safari where you feed the animals from the back of your wagon (or, if you want to pay less, from your car window).
The group. This is not really a good pic of anyone, and you can't see most of the kids' faces, but I felt too cheesy to say, "Hey, everyone! Look and smile!"

That's my girl! She got so brave over the course of the ride.

One week old piglet

23 hour old llama (according to our guide)

Classic Kevin face. He frequently sucks on one lip or the other.

This was in the barn before we started.

There was a petting zoo after the wagon ride. We got to feed them our leftover food pellets.
Elena really wanted to make sure that the baby goat got some food. When another goat tried to sneak in, she said, "This isn't for you! You're not a baby!"

This peacock was seriously wooing the peahen (you can see her behind him). When another peacock came too close, he chased him off.

I was lucky that the peahen walked towards our direction. It was so cool to see this display in person. You can click on the pic to make it bigger if you want.

Catty

Elena got her first pet this week. On Tuesday Kevin found a caterpillar on the deck and Elena claimed it as her own. It's a girl and her name is Catty. We went to library and looked her up. She's a tent caterpillar - interesting stuff actually. They don't make their cocoon and turn into a little brown moth until mid-to-late summer, so I talked with her about the fact that we couldn't keep her until then because of the move.
Elena was the most attentive owner you've ever seen. Catty got new leaves each day, we cleaned the droppings out of her bug keeper (Thank you dollar section of Target!), and spritzed water in there once/twice a day. Of course her favorite thing to do with her pet was to let her crawl all over her and get exercise. It was really adorable: "Catty, I'm going to sit your cage right here, so that you can smell the dinner that we are eating." "Do you like crawling on my arm, Catty?" "Catty, it's bedtime. Would you like to come in my room where it's nice and dark?"
Sweet Catty started to get homesick last night, and I noticed that she wasn't eating for the first time since we got her. Today she hardly moved, so I talked Elena into letting her free. Elena could see that Catty wasn't doing well and wasn't hardly moving at all, but still she was so sad to let her go. I felt terrible that Elena was crying, but I thought it better that Catty get to die/live in the wild rather than in a little plastic container in Elena's room.

Can you see the love and pride in the pictures above? She's enjoying showing Catty off. Hopefully all our sweet caterpillar needs is a little fresh air...

La camara nueva y los deportes

My parents got me a camera for an early birthday gift! It was on sale at Costco, had good reviews, and I had been resenting our old 2005 camera (4 megapixel) for over a year. Here is what the new one looks like in all of its awesomeness:
With such cute kids and big occasions like graduation coming up, my mom agreed that it was time to update. I love it! It is awesome and small and smart and takes such clear pictures!

The secondary purpose :) of this post is to show Elena's last day of field hockey and first of soccer. All pics where taken with the new camera.

Go Deacs!

Practicing:
Getting instructions before a scrimmage:
Kevin kept himself entertained (Yes, he's trying to eat the net in the picture below):
This was the best group photo that I got because there were about a million parents all trying to get the shot. Elena is towards the middle of the front. This is all the youth players and the coaches (Wake Forest players). Elena had so much fun. I already looked it up online and youth fh where we are moving is $75. Yikes!

She enjoyed soccer, but so far takes things very slowly. We should kick a ball around at home to help her get used to it. She has her second practice this week. This picture is during one of the drills.

I was so happy to see that Caleb was at the park for soccer too. We really miss him. Elena copied his pose. Look at his angelic face!

Bonus picture of Kevin playing with the merchandise at HomeGoods. This could be considered sports-related if you take into account that he thinks he's a cowboy and he was saying, "Yee-haw!" the whole time.
Thank you Mama and Daddy for my fun new gift. :)