Cake and Icicles

 SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!! After counting down since Christmas, ANNE FINALLY TURNED 5!!! She picked Trix for her Birthday Cereal, opened presents that morning, and enjoyed her new Polly Pockets and modeling new outfits all day.  She also loved finding out the phone was for her when she answered, and proceeded to walk around the house w/ her hand on her hip telling Grandma about what crazy things Lucy did that morning, and how hilarious her frog singing "Happy Birthday" card was :).

We labored way too long to make a "Dora Cake," and ate Macaroni and Cheese w/ hotdogs before heading to New Beginnings, where Emily was honored as an incoming Beehive!

Emily also had the excitement of the school Spelling Bee this week:

She was disappointed to get out on "disparity" (not dispparity), but studied hard, and aside from not being able to get all of these wordspellings out of her head, had fun with the excitement--there wasn't NEAR the time to study that there was last year, but she did well!

Meanwhile, we have been BURIED in SNOW!!!! We have had dumping, and dumping, and more dumping!

From this picture you can see from the driveway, how deep it got up to the boys--we actually had SCHOOL CANCELLED!!! from so much snow IN UTAH!! Then we got an ice storm ON TOP of all of that snow, and had school delayed 2 hours after kids could barely walk home the afternoon before (we all would've done better to just have ice skates!!--I couldn't even go up our driveway, and we had a few injuries in our neighborhood of people slipping and falling.  Snow never looked so good! Fortunately, we got above freezing the day after, and with an entire bag of ice melt, were able to move again!! It has been QUITE a winter!! I've gotten down comforters for all of the basement beds, and Brian and I are looking seriously at putting in a woodburning stove in the basement, since we would quickly freeze if the power ever went out! I read The Undaunted about the pioneers going through "The Hole in the Rock" to settle 4 Corners area, and LOVED picturing all the desert! I've even started putting together ideas for camping in Moab (or further south!) for Spring Break. 

Though it's left us all with a few colds, we're getting pretty good at slick driving and shoveling, and warming up the cars before we leave :).  What a winter!! We ended the week by celebrating Anne's birthday at the Circus!! (You can look back to last year to see our disappointing attempt to go then) I found some half price tickets online, and minus Brian and Brent home sick, we drove up to Ogden for a great time! Once the lights dimmed and the music and announcements started, Anne was in a trance!--she didn't even notice the popcorn we kept trying to pass to her!--though it was so loud Emily and I stuffed bits of Kleenex in our ears the whole time, it was a FUN show!!--tigers, trapeze, magic tricks, clowns, dogs & ponies, juggling, tightrope walking, daredevils, and dancing elephants! The younger girls had taken naps that afternoon so they could stay out so late, and we did have a blast!

after I took this picture, Spencer told me I missed the announcement about no cell phone pictures--I don't know how ANYone could understand a thing at that volume!

Anne had her first Suzuki Graduation concert on Saturday, playing with all of the other "twinklers" and getting a certificate for learning all of them this year.  She loved wearing one of her new birthday outfits, and LOVED being on stage (I love it how she lolls her tongue out of her mouth when she's excited :).

sweet Emily re-gifted her flower from New Beginnings for her :)

Brian was feeling enough better that night that the 2 of us were able to go see a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit in Salt Lake, which was quite fun!--I kept getting nervous every time I'd finish reading a sign/display without interruption--I'm so used to having more to keep track of! :) He was such an innovative man, who sure made amazing use of his little-educated life!! Mindboggling to realize all he studied, learned, created, in so many fields from art, music, and anatomy, to mechanics and war machinery! I love how much he mimicked the natural world to create effective tools/ideas.  Amazing how enlightened he was for the time period he lived through!