February 2016 little things

…in what seemed like one fell-swoop.

For FHE one night we took all Dave’s coins he’s saved up over the years to the coin counter at the grocery store.

We all made estimates about how much would be in there.

Lucy won.

We had a little banana bread making party…

…and a get-to-know-you party with our young women class at church.

Elle has decided that being a senior means she should go snowboarding as much as possible.

 Dave took the big girls a couple times too.

…while Lu and I had some awesome dates 🙂

Claire and her cousin started ballet classes:

Their faces tell you how excited they are about that little fact.

The sixth grade held a “night at the museum” to showcase all the cool things they’ve been working on lately.

As the weather has turned sunny and warm we’ve taken full advantage of bike rides around the neighborhood.

And I can hardly stop myself from trying to capture the beauty of all the buds starting to pop out.

This night on my way home from dropping off Elle somewhere I had to stop the car to check it all out.

 Takes my breath away.  God is such an incredible artist.

Dave and I went to watch his dad present the devotional at BYU-Idaho:

 (more about that back HERE).

 This one was at the high school state soccer play-offs:

And this desert night was spent going to the temple with these cute girls:

 (I had Lucy so I only wend with them as far as the smoothies…but Grace had a great time with those sweet girls and the other leaders.)

She hasn’t taken lessons for long, so she’s just on the practice team, but it’s fun that her friends are doing it right along with her.

I hope it will light a spark in tennis for her because man I love that sport.

I’ve been reminiscing a lot about college as we’ve been trying to get Elle ready to go.  Looking through scrapbooks I found these pictures of my Boston University days.  Here’s my dorm:

 And my ID card:

 So crazy that Elle is now in the stage I was in back there trying to decide all this future stuff.  It’s been a pretty crazy journey and worthy of a whole blog post in the future.

More tennis try-out stuff:

Why do I love it so much when I see Lucy working her little tail off on Saturdays so she can hang with her friends?

(She doesn’t usually dress up for working…ha!  but we had just attended a baptism that day.)

Cute little friend-trip to Chick-fil-A:

 

 We sent Max a little “heart attack” of his own in the MTC:

Elle went to California with some friends one weekend.

 Claire had junior high orientation.

 Yes, I just said that:  JUNIOR HIGH!!

I don’t know why this one is so much harder to believe than my older kids.  I’m just not ready!  But she is and she’s super excited.

We finally got our barn doors painted and situated.  I love the chalk board one.  Especially since I can write notes like this that totally motivate my kids:

HA!

I took this picture for my friend who wanted me to pick her up a salad at Trader Joes, so normally I wouldn’t include this in a “little things” post, but I am because I just have to share that this salad is SO good!

 …just in case you want to give it a try.

We had a little scavenger hunt at the mall for a church youth activity.  We had to find four leaders who were dressed up funny.  Here’s one of them in the middle:

Lucy and I were both sick as could be one day.  Mine was my allergies turned viral infection and hers was some mystery fever.  So we played a lot of this:

(Thanks sweet Gale!)

Grace got to do the “color run” with some friends for one of their birthdays.  Here she is heading out:

One night just on the spur of the moment Dave had the idea we should go see Kung Fu Panda 3 for Family Home Evening.  And it actually worked.  That doesn’t happen often.

We loved that movie.  Funny.

Grace and I went on a lunch date that we remembered to take a picture of:

 Lots and lots of tennis tournaments.  During the first two weeks of the season Elle had nine matches.

As a member of the practice team Grace played in a couple of them too.

We had “New Beginnings” at church where all the 12-year-olds are welcomed in:

 Claire was pretty excited about that.

I did Art Masterpiece all about Jackson Pollock.  We used paint and marbles to create our own masterpieces.

Elle got her senior pictures taken.  Neither of us like shopping one bit but we did it anyway to try to find some stuff for her tall body to wear.

We lucked out and found some things that would work, and got those pictures taken from Erin who did our family pictures a while back.

I will post more pictures from her shoot soon, but until then, check out Erin over HERE…I am forever grateful to her for capturing our family AND Elle so well.

 Speaking of photography, Claire is trying her hand at it…

 I had to capture these cute girls too…

 So fun.

Grace is also really getting into photography.  Here are some of her practice shots with Claire:

 …and some friends too.

Love it.

And that’s a wrap for some of the little things that made their way to get documented in February.