discovering science... part two

today we went to the discovery science center with the fongs. it was a blast. right now they are having a tiger exhibit as well as a whole section dedicated to clifford. you know... the big red dog... we brought the girls here about a year ago and they loved, so it was great to take them again before we move.

here is grace perfecting her dental skills. my what big teeth you have...


they had a slide down clifford's tail and the kids liked that for about 2.5 seconds... they managed to remain inactive long enough to snap a few pictures on clifford... the first is grace and jared, then raegan and lizzie in the background.



ok, i just had to add these two pictures in because finally grace is actually smiling when i take the pictures! hip hip hooray!



after clifford, we headed outside to the dinosaur exhibit which they loved. they have a little cave to go in and they are showing this movie with a t-rex looking for food and he keeps going on and off the screen like he is looking at you and for you to eat... well, grace loved it (spending like 10 minutes straight in there) and raegs hated it (crying at the first sign of t-rex and saying 'scary, scary, scary... and on and on).

here are grace, raegan, and jared on the slide that is the dinosaur's tail.


after the outside dinosaur fun (which includes dinosaur poop!), we headed inside to do a few more things before lunch. grace really wanted to try to the rock wall, so i put her up there and had her pose for a picture, then helped her climb the wall. i was always there to support her and she got a little ways up, but after a few steps, she said... 'i'm scared, i want to come down'... so down we came.


and here is raegs in all her 'say cheese' cuteness! love her!

easter parties in full swing

friday, we attended an easter party with grandma at alison earl's house. it was great fun! grandma was kind enough to come down to babysit for us on thursday while we went to the game and then stayed until the party was over. the girls love having her around to play with!


at the party the kids enjoyed decorating bags for the egg hunt and decorating cookies... lots of decorating going on.

and the streak(er) continues....

byu loses in the first round of the ncaa tournament... again

last thursday, bryan and i went with the fongs to the first round of the ncaa tournament to see byu play texas a&m. they played in anaheim which was awesome and crazy lucky for us to go. we bought tickets on tuesday and it all fell into place. this first picture is just how far away we were. being afraid of heights, it took a little bit for me to get over how high we were. yikes!


well, as we all know what happened, byu started off terrible... down by 11 points before scoring, then came back and played well enough to keep it within a few points and even sometimes taking the lead. however, in the end, they just couldn't hold on and lost 62-67, continuing the streak of losing in the first round since their last win in 1993 against smu.


here are cathy and danny looking awesome and me not looking at the camera... again.

lip service

ok, so last night, we were saying the prayer with grace and raegs and i was helping raegan to say it. i would say a few words and then she would repeat them. she started out great, saying everything i would say, then i said, 'we thank thee for...' and usually she would repeat, but instead she said, 'five, six, seven, eight...' i cut her off there and finished the thought, then moved on to the next thing we were thankful for and said again, 'we thank the for...' and again she said, 'five, six, seven, eight...' and only then did i realize that i had said 'for', and all she heard was 'four'... so she just kept on counting. i struggled to help her finish the prayer without laughing. it was so funny!

raegan has also started to sing the alphabet song, she skips a whole bunch of letters (she goes from 's' to 'y and z'), and her favorite part is to say, 'next time sing with me!' i love it...

grace has started something pretty funny as well. due to the mass amounts of princess movies available for her viewing, she has started calling me 'your majesty' and 'queen mom' and refers to herself as 'princess grace' and raegan is 'princess raegan'. occasionally, she asks if i will be the wicked queen, but i always tell her that i want to be the nice queen... she argues for a few minutes, then accepts that i don't want to be the wicked queen. the other night she called bryan, queen dad... i laughed and explained that a queen was a girl, not a boy... now she just calls him dad.

american idol

ok, can i just comment for a moment on the american idol disaster that is kristy lee cook? no offense to the poor girl, but i think tmz.com said it best when they said that she could kill the two remaining beatles with her rendition of eight days a week. seriously.

i love that they have opened the lennon/mccartney songbook... as long as we don't hear any more performances that make me want to gag.

on a lighter note... i find myself home alone as the girls have headed off to grandma's for the weekend... amidst the things i dream about doing if they were away, i find myself rather sad. i really miss them. it's interesting how you wish you had a moment alone to do something for yourself, then when you find it, all you think about is how much you miss your kids. i've eased into the day by sewing and reading, but as the day wears on, what will i really do with myself? apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side.

last dance class

grace finished her last dance class on wednesday. she was having so much fun! in her class, they start out with ballet for the first half, then do tap for the last half. she seems to really enjoy both. she was a little afraid at first; she only wanted to go to class if paige was there with her, but near the end, she was doing much better. i have a video of her jumping on her last day. the girls were asked to run and leap over the small stuffed animal on the ground.



i noticed on the last day that grace mostly followed paige around. she stuck to her like glue, but paige was a veteran and had taken the class before and was a good example to grace. grace would mostly just run around and try to get things right. hopefully when we move we will be able to put her into another class and she can learn more.

the day brett favre retires from the nfl...

... is the day i retire from life. basically, that sums it up. sadly, today, we have heard the news that the greatest quarterback ever is retiring. how will life go on? honestly, the nfl will never be the same.

bowl, baby, bowl

we had a pretty awesome weekend. we started off with a game night at the bishop farrer's house. fun! the alison and eric earl were there with their kids, as well as we the farrer's niece, stevi and mike duran and their little fam, plus the missionaries. we played 'oh heck' (very similar to up and down the river) and my one true love... guitar hero. we had a blast!

saturday, grace and i attended the primary easter activity and had fun learning about the importance of the atonement and resurrection.

saturday night we decided to go bowling with the earl's and duran's. we had so much fun! we played one game... the adults had one lane and the kids had their own (with a bumper). seriously, grace totally got a higher score than me and bryan! what's up? well, she did have the bumper.... i think i came in second to last... but at least i broke 50! we had a good time.

here is a picture of most of us... minus some kids... i think i have my eyes closed...

one, two, three...

ok, so much to the surprise of all of us here, raegan counted to thirteen on her own! wow! what a crazy kid... we weren't even working with her, but all of the sudden i was counting to get her to stop running away from me ('raegan... one... raegan... two...') and she just carried on all the way to thirteen. she must have learned it from bryan who often counts with her as he is bench pressing her and using her as a way to improve his biceps. (not that it's working... the bicep improvement, that is...) so, after she gets to 13, she skips to 17... we'll have to continue to work and see if we can get her all the way up to 20. fun stuff!