Nora's 7th Birthday, registered for the St George Marathon

This cute girl turned 7 in the end of April! I pulled her out of school for a lunch date (actually the day before her birthday because her birthday fell on a Saturday and it's just not fair if she doesn't get to miss a little school for a lunch date with mom). Here she is with her teacher, who loves her, and who would be going in for surgery that following week, so she's been mostly MIA since. 

Surprise, surprise! Guess where Nora picked to have lunch? Actually not a surprise at all: Cafe Rio. It's a family favorite. She got her very own salad. They're huge. She had it for lunch a couple of days.

Afterwards we went shopping at Target (using the money she got from grandparents) and then we stopped at Rita's where she got this Gelati (icee with frozen custard on top).

Saturday morning, once Scott and I were back from our long workout (I do runs, he does bikes or runs or swims), she opened her gifts. 

So excited to have a Friends Lego set of her own! Finally!

She also got some roller blades (she's been stealing her sisters for months), a book reading light, and new tires for her bike (it had a big hole). Annabelle gave Nora her giant Squishy, which Nora loved(hand-me down gifts can be great with siblings).

She invited some friends over from school and the neighborhood, and they watched a movie while I painted their nails (shellac/gel nails...it took the entire movie, and I didn't quite finish everyone; luckily the last girl said she'd rather have normal nail polish since it doesn't take as long, and so that worked wonderfully).

We had pizza, breadsticks and Krispy Kreme donuts for her dessert.

She wanted a picture with her gifts from her friends. Did I mention for Annabelle's birthday we just had everyone bring a stuffed animal in place of a gift, which we then donated to a firehouse? I'd like to continue doing that.

And last but not least, I signed up to run the St George marathon in October! 2nd marathon, and I'm going to try my best to work on my speed and distance, so that hopefully this year, I can qualify to run Boston. But the times are faster than they were two years ago, for my age group, and I didn't get in then, so we'll have to see. But I'm training for it. Here we go!

Baseball, Speech Festival, and Old Pictures with Dad

Charles loves sports. Pretty much all of them. Though the ones he plays the most often are baseball, football and basketball. He has become a great hitter this season in baseball, and he's been able to pitch in a few games, which he has enjoyed. 

Scott is Elisabeth and Charles' math tutor. I am so grateful that he's so willing to help them out, because I always struggled with higher math and am super rusty on top of that, so whenever they ask for help (which they mostly don't anymore), we watch youtube and Khan academy videos first and I try to figure it out, but it takes a lot longer that way, and they just prefer having Scott's help. But it also means he sometimes sacrifices his sleep and time, because he doesn't get home til dinner, then we clean and put girls to bed and then he'll spend time helping them.

APA had their annual speech festival, and Jane was chosen from her class, to perform her poem. One was chosen from each class, and they performed at an assembly during school (Jane's was a K-3 assembly). She performed 'Obedient' by Shel Silverstein and did an amazing job! Annabelle also learned this poem, and Nora did Goodnight Moon. All did very well.

We are lucky to have neighbors that own these cars and share them. Here Nora is in the front car, driving Maddie.

It's hard to see in this picture, but Nora is sitting next to Charles and they are reading books together. This just warmed my heart. I had asked them to read, as it was getting later in the evening, but I had to pick up or run a child to an activity, and when I came back, he was still reading to her.

I mentioned in the last post that I received some old family pictures from my mom, which I then scanned at the family  history library. Here are a few more of my favorites.

1973; Luis and Rojean Garnica. Mom was pregnant with Pepa.

Dad's dad, Luis Garnica Navarrete, with his eldest daughter Luisa.

Luis Garnica (dad) with daughter Esperanza, and Lupe's husband. Late 1960s in Guadalajara.

Luis Garnica (Dad) 1984 with Jaime and other nephews(I think)

Concession Stands, Family Photos, Easter

I asked my mom to send me some old family photos recently, so that I could scan them at the family history library, and she came through for me. Here's one of the many. This is my dad back in the 1970s or 80s. I put all the pictures onto a jump drive and shared them with family through google photos, which makes me happy. 

Elisabeth with her friends, mostly from the neighborhood, in our backyard doing the firepit. She'll be 15 next month, which is sometimes hard to believe, and sometimes not hard to believe at all. She's one of the youngest in her grade and of her group of friends, so they'll all get to do things before she can: date, go to dances, drive etc.

They have a great group of kids her age, and in Charles' age group as well. Well, all my kids for that matter, but it seems to matter a lot more when they're teens. Here they are at SLC temple. Kristi and I took them up during their Spring Break, and they did baptisms and then we walked over to City Creek mall for lunch. While at the temple, Kristi had to stay behind because she had forgotten her temple recommend at home, and lucky lady, the entire first presidency and quorum of the 12 walked down a hall and just past her as she waited!

I think I've mentioned before that Elisabeth is on the high school cheer squad for next year. They've started practicing a couple of weeks ago, and the fees are also already starting to pop up. The total cost for the year will be around $3,000, which includes nationals in the Winter. So, in order to help these girls earn some of the money for these fees, they have various fundraisers, and one things Elisabeth and I have been able to do together is work at a concession stand (the high school keeps one all year at a couple of concert arenas; so we get to work with other people from the high school, which is fun). It's definitely not my favorite thing to do, but I'm glad to have the experience, and to teach her other forms of work (as of right now, she's got the best job teaching piano students from her home which is very different than most jobs teens will have).

We had our family pictures taken with Camera Shy, a professional photography company at Gardener Village. They did a great job, but I think we'll only do professional pictures every other year because it's expensive! This one was even a pretty good price, at $180 for an outdoor shoot (including taxes), but I'm totally cool with a neighbor taking our picture with my iphone every other year. 

It'll be fun to see how the kids grow from this picture until next years picture, and the year after. I'm thinking Charles will surpass Scott in height. He's almost my height.

For Easter each year, we put together a scavenger hunt with clues that lead to the Easter baskets. Well, Scott and I kinda hate doing it, it's just hard to think of new clues each year, so I handed off the task to Elisabeth and Charles, who were thrilled to do it! I love having teenagers! And they totally didn't care that they wouldn't be able to participate in the hunt. Wonderful!

They got a couple of small bags of chips/pretzels, some candy, Izze drinks (carbonated, but no sugar), and something to wear to church (dresses, new tie and tie pin).

For singing time in primary, I numbered 6 plastic eggs and put a slip of paper inside each one, with a song written on it (we used this as our review week, so we did songs we'd learned so far this year, plus an additional Easter song we know and love, The Miracle). I hid the eggs around the primary room and drew names of children who would go find it.

They brought it to me and each number correlated with a picture that told part of the Easter story. I had a sticky note on the back of each picture with the correlating number and a brief summary of the idea...brief as in a couple of words or a sentence. The kids loved it. 

After church, Annabelle and I frosted our Easter cake. She helped me color the icing and decorate the cakes.

I taught her how to make a couple of different kinds of flowers.

I loved watching Nora try to eat her Cadbury egg. It's huge, and a little awkward for a little mouth.

The completed cake! Charles helped with some of decorating as well, adding a couple of finishing touch flowers/leaves.

Oh, and I thought it was cute that most of their scavenger hunt clues, were phrases from songs. This 'sky full of stars' line from coldplay, lead the girls to the trampoline.

And for Easter dinner we had homemade pizza (cheese, pepperoni and veggie), salad and cake. I wanted something that was 'risen', but also something the kids enjoy. This satisfied both of those requirements.