Whitney Whitney Whitney!

Whitney's had a lot going on lately around her birthday time!  Birthday post coming next :)  

First, her music recital.  These pictures are horrible, from behind people, but we're kind of over the whole "get there early to get a good seat for your kid's recital" thing.  And we're only on the second child!  haha.

Anyway Whitney did great, she's a natural performer and she has practiced really well this year so she was totally ready for all the songs they played on the piano.  It has been so fun for me this year to watch her develop her piano skills!  She LOVES to play the piano and usually did more than the required 5 practices per week!  She has great rhythm and is continually getting better at matching her voice to the right pitch. :)

This was hilarious, for their classical music puppet show they surprised us with these pirate masks!  Here is Whitney vigorously doing the actions while looking like a pirate!

Next up- Kindergarten Graduation!  I generally think it's kind of a silly tradition, but it is kind of adorable!  Whitney wanted to wear the same dress Katelyn wore for HER kindergarten graduation and curl her hair the same, so here she is!

And here's a flashback- Katie's kindergarten picture!

The graduation was super cute, they did the Pledge of Allegiance, we all sang the Star-Spangled Banner (so cool that they all know it!) and they recited the Preamble to the Constitution with cute actions, it was awesome.  Then they sang a couple of cute songs and got their diplomas.  

It has been an awesome year.  She has learned SO MUCH- this is the first time in our 3 years at this school that I feel like it's motto has been realized.  The school is supposedly all about individualized learning- trying to teach each kid at their own level and challenge them and help them progress.  I don't feel like that's been adequately done with Katelyn- she's still bored a lot of the time.  But Whitney's teacher is amazing and managed to challenge and motivate and captivate my girl.  She is reading SO well and she got to do so many fun things and she was constantly coming home and telling me things she learned in every subject.

The best teacher- Ms. Craner!!  It was her first time teaching kindergarten, but she taught preschool in her home for 14 years so she had endless great ideas, and she was mentored by the other amazing kindergarten teacher Mrs. Nelson, who is a curriculum and individual learning EXPERT, so it was just AWESOME.

Here's Whitney with a few of her friends from her class- Brucklyn, Adreanna, Vivi, Kathryn, and Whit.

And last but not least, the girls have been in a tumbling class once a week for the last few months.  They were excited at first and mostly had fun, but got a little tired of it by the end- I had to make them go a couple of times.  Let's just say my children are not very gymnastically inclined!  Poor Kate has all my uncoordinated genes, and Whitney just didn't like it enough to care I think.  They both improved a lot and can almost do cartwheels and handstands, and I'm really glad they tried it, just for the experience.  I want them to try every sport and physical activity so they can find something they love!

Anyway here's Whitney being helped in a flip off the tramp:

Eric took videos of their "tumbling passes" but I'm not going to post them, so the only still shots we got were of the trampoline stuff.  Here's Katelyn doing a tuck, 

and a front flip.

And here they are with their medals.  Glad to be done, possibly forever! :)

The Big Move

No, not that kind of move, just moving rooms!   The long-awaited day is here, the girls are downstairs!!  So weird!  They keep accidentally going upstairs when they want to get something from their room, and it's very strange for me to go to bed knowing they are "all the way down there" haha.  

So here are some not-great pictures of Katelyn and Whitney's new room!  We haven't really decorated the walls yet, and their beds are a mess of stuffed animals as usual.  

The view from the door- Katelyn's dresser and the bunkbed, which doesn't look nearly as huge now that it's in a bigger room!  Oh yeah and notice the new carpet!

 The doll house and that little set of drawers (full of legos) are the only things that remain from the old toy room, we managed to fit almost everything else into the new awesome closet in the hall right next to their room, yay!

 View from the corner by Katelyn's dresser- the closet (which was my sewing/craft area and never had a door, so we just got this curtain for a door-- all my sewing stuff is down in the basement now) and Whitney's dresser.

 The window with curtains made of rainbow fabric Whitney picked out!

 Owen had some big changes to his room too, and he did really well.  I was afraid he was going to totally freak out when we took the "nursing/reading couch" into the baby's room, but now we just read stories in there instead... hopefully that will continue to work out when she's born!  or he'll get used to reading on his bed instead.  Anyway we also got him a sweet new dresser from DI, and we've put a few toys in his room, it's been fun.

Good times, we are ready for this baby to come!!!  I'm almost done decorating her room, then I'll post pictures of it.

Goblin Valley State Park

Okay get ready for picture overload.  I really should have split this up into two posts!!  Anyway, it's hard to pick between so many fun and cool pictures of our favorite camping spot!  

We've discovered, living in Utah, that it's important to have a fun place to go camping where it's warm, since in Northern Utah it's only warm enough to go camping in like July and August.  

We have found such a spot, where you can go camping in April and the weather is PERFECT. It also happens to be pretty much the most fun place ever for kids, because they can climb, climb, climb to their heart's content!  If you live in Utah, this needs to be on your bucket list!  Just don't go in June-August. :)

This time around we also managed to get the BEST spot, (#12 for future reference) it's in it's own little valley around the corner from the rest of the campground, so cool!  Cool enough that here are several pictures of it.

The little trek to the van (and the bathroom) were well worth it!

We love campfires, and s'mores, and stars, and our giant tent! :)

Okay now here are the pictures from the kids scampering around our own private little valley by our campsite.  Me and Owen with Whitney up on the left.

 Where's Waldo- can you see the girls??  When they called down to me I was like "yikes! that's high!" but it's gradual. The girls are pretty responsible climbers, I trust them to not go too far or high.  And Eric was always there to help them down if they needed it!  I like to climb too, but obviously I didn't do much climbing this time haha.

 a close up of them up there!

Me and my Owen

The next morning Eric helped Owen climb up to a different spot the girls had tackled.

Eric and Owen on the left and the girls in the light in the middle.

Katelyn and Whitney sliding down- two views! From my perspective and Eric's.

And now the pictures from the actual "Valley of the Goblins", about a 1/4 mile down the road from the campground.  We went for a short hike there the first day and a longer one the second.

We like to find rocks that look like animals, so here's Katelyn riding a "dinosaur"

 Whitney on the dinosaur

 The "turtle"- also a helpful landmark because it leads to the cave- see below!

Whitney on the giant alligator head- she's on it's snout, the eyes are the bumps behind her.

 Owen on the alligator head, but I was too afraid to back up any farther from him to take the picture!  He's a little unsteady still. :)

 Kate up on some rocks :)

 Taking a water break.

 Eric on one of the many perches I turned around to see him on. :)  He loves jumping around on the rocks, it's cute. :)

 Katelyn with her "slice of pizza" rock she found.  The funny thing I just realized is that she doesn't even like pizza haha!

And here's one of our favorite parts of Goblin Valley: the cave!

In the entrance.

 In the back of the cave.

 "sand waterfall! sand waterfall!"

 And the extra fun part- there's a little opening you can squeeze through and come out in a totally different spot!

 Whitney made it out!

 Then I went up top to pull Owen through, and here's Katelyn about to come up.

Going back out the main cave entrance.

 On the second day Owen and I let Eric and the girls go explore for a while without us slowpokes holding them up- I got some pretty funny looks from people though, a largely pregnant girl and a toddler all alone in there??

The explorers setting off.

 Isn't it just the coolest landscape??  So fun to play on.

 A while later Owen and I heard yelling and looked up to find our family up on a high spot.

 I guess after that they made it up to the ridge where you can look over the whole valley, cute:

 and Eric took some sweet panoramic pics with his phone:

Meanwhile Owen and I had started back towards the car, expecting them to catch us on the way.  Owen was quite the trooper and we had lots of fun just going our own pace for a while, but finally he started to get tired and I couldn't coax him to keep going-  his energy totally gave out and he seriously just laid on the ground and wouldn't get up, he was spent!  Just then I saw Eric and the girls at a distance, going right past us!  They didn't hear me call to them, so I finally carried Owen for the first time until they got to the parking lot and looked down and spotted us and Eric came running back to help.  Luckily it wasn't hot so we were totally fine, and Owen perked back up as soon as he saw Eric.  He even walked the end himself.  So cute.  I love my little family, and I'm so glad we got to go camping before the baby comes!  Eric goes camping every month with the scouts, and the kids are always jealous, so we finally had our chance to go.  Now they can't wait for the Father/Son campout and the little backpacking trip Eric wants to take the girls on this summer. :)  Oh and I should say camping at 35 weeks pregnant was totally do-able!  I had been a little nervous but I just let Eric do all the hard stuff and it was fine. :)