Woohoo! Kindgerarten is FREE!

Finally, some good news! Something is FREE!!!!!! I didn't know this, but Utah is a Free School state. That means that there are no fees for kids to attend school. No bus fees, no classroom fees, no school fees, no registration fees! There are things you can voluntarily donate, but nothing required! Kindergarten kids don't have to purchase school supplies! Everything is provided. There is a list of voluntary supplies that parents can donate, but nothing is required! Woohoo! We finally got the girls' birth certificates in the mail last week. We are waiting on their medical records and then we can go get shots for Hannah and get her registered for school. She is so excited, but really nervous! I can totally relate. I am looking forward to her going to school for three hours every day, but I am so scared to not have my baby with me! We don't leave our kids very often, so it's really hard for me to feel ready for her to start school. Thomas and I were talking last night about all the things we still need to reinforce with her over the next four weeks. It's a scary world and even more scary when you watch Law & Order reruns! Kids are exposed to so many ugly things at such young ages these days. It's a crazy world! So... watch for first day of school photos, that may be out of focus depending on how hard my eyes are watering! :)

pRimp my album

Okay, here is one of the MAJOR reasons I haven't blogged lately! I have been busy! I am so excited about this project! It's a way to get digital scrapbooking out to masses of people and make it easy and ultra-affordable! If you sign up to be one of our testers, you can get discounted products. And everyone knows discounts on already cheap products is extra good.

PRIMP MY ALBUM

Test our new online photo editor for free! If you have ever wanted to
quickly crop, re-size, add text, backgrounds, embellishments, stickers
and more to your photos than this is a perfect time to do it, free.

You can apply to test our Primp My Album Photo Wizard for free by
going to www.primpmyalbum.com and completing the short application NO
LATER THAN this Friday, July 24th, 2009.

The Photo Wizard will allow you to create all kinds of photo projects
from custom made postcards, thank you notes, greeting cards,
announcements, digital scrapbook pages, calendars, photo books and
more.

If you choose to test:
1) You will receive FREE Primp Points to purchase papers, stickers and
other fun embellishments.
2) Once you complete your two photo projects, you will be eligible for
a drawing for a $25 gift certificate to a restaurant or retail
shopping store – you pick. (We have a lot of these to give away.)
3) You will have exclusive access to our Primp Posse testing group
discounts and giveaways on a regular basis. This includes discount
printing, free products and more.
4) You will be asked to create two photo projects like a photo
collage, an announcement card, a greeting card etc – you pick – we
only need the digital form you made with the Photo Wizard. You will
also take a survey, and be required to post to the Primp Posse testing
discussions.

It’s as simple as dragging and dropping your photos into the program
and your result will be a professional, custom made project that is
great to share with everyone. You can print your projects, or share
them via email, blogs, photo sharing sites and social networking sites
like Facebook.

Take 3 seconds to fill out the application at www.primpmyalbum.com and
enjoy the discounts, giveaways and products of this great Primp Posse
testing group and help us make imporvements with your discussion and
feedback.

We're still alive...

I promise! We're on vacation in Chicago this week and still in the process of putting our new house together. There will be pictures soon. As soon as I can see my carpet, I'll take pictures! :) Life is good. Everyone is healthy. Everyone is happy.

Blog Update - Done!

good news for the day...

i found my sharpie.

Some pictures of my monsters...

Okay, quit harassing me to post pictures of my kids! :)

This picture is from Easter at Ash & Dyl's house. It was also Zoey's birthday! They loved playing in the Dora tent.

***

Princess Ainsley in her glass slippers throwing a temper tantrum... who knows why!

Hannah swinging at the park.

Hannah & Ainsley eating lunch in the Wilk on campus at BYU. It was so much fun to walk around campus with them! :)

After walking around campus (and doing some software shopping at the bookstore!), we went to Ash & Dyl's house to help them move and clean a bit. I think my kids made more messes than I cleaned, but it was good to see everyone one last time. (I still can't believe you ditched me, Ash...)

Ainsley wearing the shirt that Zoey gave her. Ainsley wet her diaper all the way through her outfit. So, she was running around Ashley's house in nothing but a diaper. Then Ashley gave her a shirt. Then she found a pair of leggings for her, too! Score! We ended up with a cute outfit.

random picture of ainsley

random picture of hannah... she is so pretty!
***

Ainsley's 2nd Birthday Party!

Ainsley with her very favorite gift of the night... sidewalk chalk! Thanks, Chrissy!

Ainsley with her birthday cupcake

Ainsley licking her birthday cupcake

Hannah eating a birthday cupcake

Ainsley with her new cabbage patch doll from Uncle Greg & Aunt Leslie.

ainsley with her new dora dvd

***
these are pictures of the house that we have a contract on... hopefully everything works out...

the front. yes, there is a fence around the front.

the backyard... it's huge and needs a lot of work. don't worry it looks better on the inside...

the completely redone kitchen... not my style, but still very nice
and do you see that little thing on the left? it's a DISHWASHER!

the view from the front door

ainsley playing in the dishwasher

the bathroom cabinets... much more my style...

the basement living room

one of the downstairs bedrooms

the downstairs bathroom... look familiar? it's EXACTLY the same as the upstairs bathroom

Ainsley sitting on the tree stump in the backyard

Coming in the side door. Down the stairs to get to the basement, or straight into the kitchen

upstairs family room

the front yard from the front door

ainsley put herself in timeout on the front stoop

hannah and ainsley playing computer games with their cute cousins!

a horse at one of the houses we looked at... not the one we are buying

ainsley handing me some flowers from the backyard at the new house

ainsley and thomas playing

ainsley being a superhero

It's {inter}National Scrapbook Weekend!

Check out my design blog for more fun...
http://meredithcardall.blogspot.com/2009/05/nsd-news.html

this month in photos... so far!

The month started out kinda crazy around here. Pretty much like every other month! We really enjoyed watching General Conference. BUT, starting Friday Ainsley had a 104.5 degree temperature. Not good. She didn't have any other symptoms at all. Just a really high fever all weekend. She went down for a nap on Monday afternoon with a nap and woke up totally fine. We never did find out was wrong with her and no one else got sick. We were very blessed!

Poor little munchkin just wanted to sleep on her Dora couch. She was too exhausted to climb on her bunkbed!

Poor Hannah was bored out of her skull. So, I grabbed her some cookies and frosting at the grocery store. That kept her happy for hours!

Hannah and I also had a cooking night one evening. We made eggrolls. Hannah begged to make them. She took one bite of the finished product and declared that she doesn't like eggrolls. More for me!

We finally had some warm weather and the kids were so excited to get out and enjoy the warm weather.

Hannah loves riding her scooter. Thanks, Grandma!

After riding bikes, we headed over to the park to go down the slides.

Then we went back to the house and found the bubbles.

They made me blow bubbles for them for a while. Then I got winded and gave the bubles to Hannah. She blew bubbles for a while.

Then Ainsley wanted to try.

She ate more bubbles than blew.

Hannah brought in a dandelion (and made me SNEEZE all night). She kept smelling it. Her entire nose was YELLOW by the end of the night.

*****
Chrissy called us Thursday night and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo. So, bright and early Friday morning we got up and got ready. The kids were so anxious about going to the zoo, we decided to go out and play at the park while we were waiting for Chrissy. My kids love that park. It's the one thing the kids are going to miss the most about living here, I think.

some of the cousins posing for a picture

my kids don't like merry-go-rounds. I put them both on animals to ride. They both freaked out. Yes, even Hannah who has ridden them MANY times alone. So, lucky Mom got to sit on the merry-go-round bench with the kids. I don't love merry-go-rounds either. I think we'll skip this part of the zoo experience from now on.

Hannah, excited to be at the zoo, or just out of the house...

Hannah & Carter being monkeys waiting for the other kids to come out of the bathroom.

Some of the cousins in the rhino cave. They have a button you can push to smell the rhino poo. Lovely...

Hannah was completely enthralled with the giraffe's long tongue. So she showed me how long her tongue is!

Ainsley just wanted out of her stroller.

Hannah and a cousin looking at the penguins... I think.

Hannah was being a tiger! I think she hit a growthspurt. All of her jeans are an inch or two too short and apparently so are her shirts... Fun!

We took a picnic lunch with us. Ainsley was so excited to be out of her stroller. And that kid LOVES cheese. She saw her lunch and just started laughing.

Ainsley wanted to eat like an animal. She is going through a puppy phase right now where she is constantly pretending to be a puppy.

And of course, Hannah wanted to try, too!

After lunch, Ainsley finally got out of her stroller. I made her wear the puppy backpack/leash. She loved seeing the monkeys.

Hannah loved the reptile house. It was hot and smelled like urine.

Ainsley did NOT want to wear her backpack anymore. I gave her the choice of wearing the backpack and walking OR sitting back in the stroller. She chose the stroller!

Hannah loves to pose like a "supermodel". Are little girls just born with that desire? I have no clue where she gets this stuff. Maybe her girl cousins?

*****
After we got home from the zoo, the girls wanted to play at the park for a few minutes. They were chasing each other in circles and all around the park. They kept racing to climb up to the slide. Ainsley was laughing uncontrollably and Hannah kept telling me that she was too fast for me to take a picture of her. Goofy little monkeys!

*****
We had a flashlight easter egg hunt at Aunt Aimee's house on Friday night. Almost the entire family was there and it was a lot of fun! There were lots of cupcakes and candy so the girls had the time of their lives!

The kids were playing some form of "one potato, two potato" with their feet. Hannah LOVES playing games with her cousins!

Ever since the incident with the bead in her nose, Ainsley has been addicted to flashlights. She absolutely loves them and is never allowed to play with them. So she was soooo excited to be turned loose with a flashlight all to herself!

Hannah was really excited about the flashlight, too! She was so excited about the egg hunt. My kids were the last ones outside hunting for eggs.

Hannah found some of the eggs that the other kids missed!

Ainsley was showing me her flashlight.

Grandma Shelly helped Hannah & Liv sort through their eggs.

Ainsley was so sad that the egg hunt was over. So, she went and sat on the back doorstep and pouted. It was hilarious. She is such a drama queen!

*****
These are the pictures from our Easter Egg Coloring earlier tonight. The girls had so much fun coloring eggs!

Hannah likes to pretend like the egg holder is a wrench and she likes to look through it like eyeglasses. Crazy little kiddo!

Isn't my little family cute? I love them so much!

Ainsley was sooooo happy to be coloring eggs!

She wanted to show us all her egg!

No more eggs, Ainsley. Sorry. She was so upset. She actually climbed up on the counter to try to get to the cracked eggs that we didn't color. Thomas told her no and that she needed to get down off the counter.

My poor little baby was completely heartbroken...

Until Daddy told her that she could have a piece of chocolate... stinker!

My little cuties just thought that their eggs were the most beautiful creations in the entire world. And they were!

Hannah was sooooo excited to see that the egg she used the clear crayon on really did work!