My sister Marie's basketball season ended with a loss on Saturday! They had a great run. It has been so fun being close to her and being able to watch her play a few times. I found these shots of her on facebook and had to post them for my Mom. They are pretty cool!

I took this video of Britain reading about three weeks ago. She flew through the book! I can already see an improvement between then and today when I read with her! It is amazing!

Please excuse Adam's yelling, but it is cute to listen to him call Tori and hear her answer him!

This video of Kalixta is also three weeks ago. Now see knows all her letters and their sounds! She has started on books too and is getting so good!

I love to read! Adam loves to read! I have always hoped that my kids would love to read also. Some days they do and some days they don't. But they do read and they read everyday for at least 30 minutes! This year I have seen an explosion in the improvement of reading. It is amazing to watch!!!

Britain is really getting this reading thing! I love to watch her read and sound out words!

Kalixta struggles but she is my little tortoise! She usually takes longer to pick things up but once she does she never forgets!

Ariana and Tori are little monkeys. They love to do anything their brothers and sisters do! They love to be read to but are just as content to look at the books themselves!

Nikolas has just started to love to read! I have had to ask him to put his book away when he is eating. Or tell him that now is not the time to read. This is a miracle! I love to see him reading for pleasure! I think this is because he accepted a challenge. Last August he was given the challenge to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year. He did it and I know this why he is doing so well!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is a favorite in our house! The three oldest kids have all read them at least once! 

We have started reading the first Harry Potter book together as a family. 

I hope that all my kids continue to read and learn to love it even more! 
 
  

My sister, Marci and her husband Kenny are having a baby!! I am so excited for them! She is due on August 5! They wanted to find out what the baby was and Marci had a great idea. She planned a Green and Purple Party. The plan was that she would go to the ultrasound appointment and the tech would write the sex of the baby on a paper and put it in a envelope. She then brought the envelope to my house and I got to see what the baby was!! Yep, I got to know first!!! I made cupcake with either a green M&M for boy or a purple M&M for girl inside. We all went to the Platt's house for the reveal!!!

And you guessed it! It was Green!

Marci and Kenny are having a BOY!!!

We couldn't be more excited here!!! 

For the party we picked to wear either purple or green for our pick of what the baby would be!

As you can tell most everybody wanted/thought it was a boy! Here are all the people that guessed right!

Congrats Kenny and Marci!! 

Last week Ammon had a field trip. I was gone the night before and he was a little worried about his lunch the next day. Nik let him leave me a  note on the white board. 

Health conscious kid I am raising there, huh?! 

How could I forget to post my cute decorations?! I have been waiting all month to do this and I forgot! 

So here there are. I made these from an idea for summer ones I got here! I love them! They always make me smile! 

I didn't do it exactly like she did but I love the idea and want to do it for many more seasons!!

Zoe made this little decoration with some friends from church. Such a cute craft! We may have to do more next year!!

 
 

We had a fun fun day here wearing green and watching for leprechauns! It started with Adam's making green Cream Of Wheat for breakfast and everyone wearing green, of course! Britain and Kalixta wanted to make a leprechaun trap. Adam helped them set it. They got a treasure chest and put fake gold coins in it.

Ariana with the treasure chest! Can you tell it is bright outside?! It is gorgeous here!!

Adam rigged a string and stick to hold the lid open. He told the girls that he would hid and pull the string when the leprechaun tried to take the gold!

Ariana covered him all up before we went to the park!

Adam waiting for the leprechaun!
 

By the time we got home from the park Adam had caught a leprechaun, but that crazy leprechaun tricked him and got away! He took our gold too but left us a treasure chest full of green goodies!

The kids loved everything about it! They are already planning next year's trap! 

We had a delicious dinner of corned beef, green beans, green grapes, green mashed potatoes and green kool-aid. That was followed by a great green cake! 

It was quite a day!! Hope you all had a

  Happy St. Patrick's Day!!
 
 
 
 
 

We recently read a story as a family that talked about Vitamin L.  Vitamin L  stands for Love. The story is about a little girl, Lacy, who has a hard time always being nice to her little sister. Her Dad challenges Lacy to remember to be like Jesus and love her little sister even when she is the one being mean. So Lacy takes her Vitamin L everyday and soon it becomes easier to be nice to her sister! You can listen to this and other stories here! So Adam started giving all of us Vitamin L every morning! If he forgets someone will remind him! 

A number of times I have heard one of the kids ask the other one, who is usually being mean, if he/she took her vitamin L. A few times I have heard someone tell the other, you need to go get some Vitamin L. One time I even heard Ariana ask if any one had some Vitamin L in their pockets. Love it!

Hopefully we are on our way to a little more love in our house!! 

Britain and Kalixta love to pick clothes for Tori to wear! They both have their favorites that they will always pick. Kalixta loves to pick this blue outfit. This outfit HAS to have a onesie!  Kalixta didn't bring it but I still put the clothes on just for fun!

We all got a kick out of her clothes! She loved the easy access to her belly button!

Taking pictures of this girl is crazy hard she won't stand still for anything and believe me I have tried it all!
 
 

Adam rented the Little Rascals and we have been watching them. The kids love them and want to watch them over and over again! I love to listen to them laugh! It cracks me up to see what makes them laugh!

When Ammon was little Adam's Dad nicknamed him Spanky because he looked liked Spanky from Little Rascals! The kids like seeing "Ammon" on TV! 

The original Spanky!

My Spanky!

Nik likes Alfalfa, so he did his hair like him!
 

Then he and Zoe got a little more creative! Funny kids!