James' Uncle Loren was in town this weekend and we went out to a ranch for dinner. It was very entertaining and the food was great! The girls and their cousins had fun dancing with real Indians, breaking out of jail, riding a train through a mine shaft, watching a blacksmith shoe a horse, and listening to a cowboy band. What fun!
Even Michael enjoyed the band--he was banging his tin cup on the table and bopping around to the music!
This weekend, my sister-in-law, Lauren, had a friend come and visit from England. They took a 15 hour road trip and left her kids with me. We had fun--there was an incident that involved an entire tube of toothpaste and a whole lot of baby wipes and another time I found the just barely 3 year old inside the pantry (with the door shut) eating handfuls of chocolate chips, but besides that, everyone was well-behaved. I had plans of doing crafts and baking fun things and being a super cool aunt, but that plan went out the window when the watercolor painting got out of hand :) We went to McDonalds (where I got food poisioning, I think-yuck! I won't be back there for a long time!) and played at the park for 3 hours instead. I wish this picture had a date and time stamp on it--it was at 8:30 AM on the fourth day. That's right--everyone is clean, dressed, and even has their hair done. (I'm pretty sure no one brushed their teeth all weekend, though--don't tell Lauren!)
We've had an ordinary week here. We're finally getting used to having to be out the door by 8:45 EVERY morning and have even made it early to walk to school with the neighborhood moms and kids a few days. I'm not looking forward to having Ashley gone 7-8 hours a day next year, so I've been looking into some alternatives to that. It's been cold and rainy a few days, so we've been entertaining ourselves inside.
Here's what we've done:
Go up and down the stairs as many ways as we can--even Michael made it up 9 steps on his own!
Love on our little brother- (when Paige loves something, she wants to squish it or sit on it--Michael, James' parent's dog, my parent's cat)
Grow new teeth--the top ones are going to break through any minute!
And just have fun!
Tonight was "make your own pizza night" at our house. The best night at the cafeteria during my college years was definitely make your own pizza night because they set out pizza crusts, sauce, and all kinds of toppings and then they'd bake them for us--delicious! My sister, Elizabeth, got me these great mini-pizza pans for my birthday, so I can carry on the tradition at our house. It was a hit! Paige kept saying she needed a tiny pinch more of cheese and then eating it instead of putting it on her pizza, and Ashley declared that tomorrow is "make your own macaroni night." 
She's actually shouting "make your own pizza night!" at the camera.
Today was picture day at school. Here is what the girls looked like before they went into the windy 43 degree morning. Hopefully, their teachers smoothed out their hair before the picture, and hopefully, the picture people were more sucessful at coaxing out normal looking smiles than I was this morning!
Michael didn't have pictures today, but here's how he looked before church on Sunday.
Here are some pictures from this week that didn't fit into any category I posted about.
Here's the happiest baby on the planet. Seriously, he's great. He's about to be very mobile, so I guess I might have something coming to me, but right now, he's happy just to be with me or be eating (graham crackers and bananas, especially). We went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth today and he watched some, ate graham crackers (and got them ALL OVER my white shirt...), nursed, and sat contentedly on my lap. Then we skipped his nap and went out to dinner with James' parents and Jeremy and Lauren and he didn't fuss at all. After that, at nearly 9:00 we went to visit James' brother, Jake, who just started working at Cold Stone (ice cream), and Mike's only issue was that I wouldn't give him enough ice cream (I'm not really sure he should be eating that yet...but he sure does love it!)
Ashley on the second day of school. I'm glad she doesn't get embarassed by Mommy taking pictures all the time! It helped that several of the other moms brought their cameras all week.
Paige showing off the view from Nana and Papa's bathroom window. Check out the mountains in the background!
I just dropped Paige off at her first day of preschool! I think she's going to have a great time. She moved her picture over from "at home" to "at school" all by herself, found the hook with her name on it and hung up her backpack, and sat on her special spot. I told her she could choose what we do for lunch today, so I'm pretty sure we'll be going to McDonald's. I hope she has a fun day at preschool!
