Yard Sale Again!

Courtney decided that she needs more "spending money" that she can buy things with. I told her that she has enough "things" and doesn't need anymore. She strongly disagreed with me, found a bunch of "things" she doesn't need and decided to have a yard sale so she could buy new "things." Okay!

So this is what is in front of my house:



She is holding up the sign but there isn't anyone coming down the street. It took about 5 minutes before her arms were too tired to hold up the sign. CUTE! She hasn't had any customers but the rule is that if something is taken out to be sold, it doesn't come back in the house. So to DI we will go sometime this week.

Science Project

Courtney's teacher invited her students (the ones who wanted to participate) to do a science experiment about a plant. They are studying plants right now in their class and this is another way to incorporate that into their learning. Courtney decided she wanted to grow a plant. So I found some old seeds from a few years ago, some dirt from the shed and got a terra cotta pot that she had decorated at her birthday party last year. And we planted flower seeds (4 O'Clock flowers).

We watered them, put them in sunlight and waited. They GREW! I was so excited because the seeds were forever old and the dirt was...well, dirt. I wasn't sure if anything would work and I was afraid that Courtney was drowning the poor seeds. But it worked.

She was first up today at the presentations for her class and was a bit nervous. She didn't want to go up alone so I stood by her while she told how we had planted the seeds, watered them and how they were now growing. It was fun to watch.

Here is the video of "The Angel" dance from Courtney's competition:

Dance Competition

Courtney was involved in a dance competition this past weekend. It was a long day but she had a lot of fun. They performed their regular routine to "All the Single Ladies." Then later in the morning they performed a lyrical routine to "Angel." It was really neat and Courtney loved it.

After the competition was over, Bryan and Ethan gave her some flowers to congratulate her. (Ethan wanted to buy her a bigger bunch that looked "fancier" but Bryan reined him in.)

Miscellaneous Denver Trip Videos

Here is a video of Courtney going to sleep while trying her hardest to fight it. The poor girl. We were almost to Denver when she finally fell asleep! She eventually woke up, adjusted her seat back and then woke up. Ugh! But it's cute to watch.



Here is a video of some karaoke kids. Courtney is quite the crack up. She had fun singing with Grandma Pack.



If you look at this video you can see that Ethan is singing along too even though he is acting indifferent. Cute boy!

Green Guy

Courtney brought home this little guy from kindergarten the other day. They are learning about plants and so they grew some grass-head guys. Courtney promptly went outside and buried hers. I don't know why, she just said she "felt like it."

Denver

Wednesday morning we woke up early, loaded the van and left for Denver at 6 a.m. Ethan wanted to leave earlier but we thought we had better wait until at least 6 a.m. The drive was long and uneventful. The kids watched movies, played games or fought. Bryan drove, slept, broke up fights, distributed snacks and changed movies. I drove, broke up fights, changed movies and distributed snacks. We were happy to arrive in Arvada.

We relaxed when we got there. After a while Grandma and Courtney made some shamrock cookies. They frosted them with dark green frosting which turned their teeth green! It was funny.




Thursday morning we woke up, had breakfast (green lemon pancakes), got pinched (because I was wearing by BYU shirt instead of green) and then Courtney, Grandma and I went shopping for a while. The guys hung around the house watching basketball. That afternoon, Courtney, Grandma and I did karaoke. Courtney's pretty hilarious with a microphone.




On Thursday night Bryan and David had tickets to the BYU game so they went to that while the rest of us watched all the games. There were some great nail-biting finishes! It was fun. The kids went to bed late, but they had a great time.

Here's Bryan outside the game:


Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast and then we went sledding. It had snowed on Thursday night but there wasn't enough close to Arvada to sled on, so we drove to Elk Meadow Park (not too far away) to do some sledding.

Bryan's gigantic snowball (see the one that's about to hit him on the right?):

David pulling the kids back:

Ethan sledding without a coat, WHERE IS HIS MOTHER?!?

Courtney making a snow angel:


When we came home we ate lunch and then went swimming. It wasn't too crowded and was a lot of fun. Then we went home, got cleaned up, ate dinner and watched basketball. Ethan filled out a bracket with Bryan. Ethan really got into the games after that!

Saturday morning the kids wanted to go to the Denver Zoo. The last time we went was with Uncle Andrew right before he went into the MTC almost 2 years ago. We hadn't come prepared to go to the Zoo, but we decided to do it anyway (it was better than the train museum which we have been to way too many times!).

When we got to the Zoo it was crowded! There were a lot of people in town for the NCAA basketball games. Bryan dropped Ethan and I off and then went a mile away to park the car. Finally we were all together, bought tickets, rented a wagon and were off. The kids loved it...for a while before Courtney got tired. Then she loaded herself into the wagon, used Uncle David's coat as a pillow, buried her head and laid down. She was set.

We walked around looking at animals for a while before Bryan and David had to leave to get to the BYU game. Grandpa then pulled the wagon with Ethan in it as well as Courtney (what a trooper Grandpa is!). We looked at animals, watched the sea lion show, used every bathroom in the place and enjoyed ourselves. We stayed for a long time until finally we were all exhausted. We returned the wagon, went to the gift shop, bought some stuffed animals (tiger for Courtney and sea lion for Ethan), loaded into Grandma and Grandpa's van and drove home. It was a fun time!

Then we spent the night watching basketball. BYU WON!!







Sunday morning we woke up, packed, loaded the van, made lunches, ate breakfast, put toys away and took off for home. The ride home was, again, uneventful. It took us less time because we didn't stop for lunch, we just ate our sandwiches in the van. Everyone was tired and happy to see home but we had a great time in Denver!