Dancing Ella

Ella loves to dance!
Today I found her dancing with her shadow out on our back deck!

It was the cutest dance ever!!!

Kate's First Day of School

Today was Kate's first day at the Waterford School. This morning Kate said our morning family prayer. She asked, "Please bless me at Waterford, that school will never be canceled." It was the sweetest prayer ever. Ella missed Kate A LOT. I took Ella to the park for a date, a picnic and play time with Mom. By the time Kate got home, Ella couldn't stop hugging Kate. She missed her so much! As for Kate, she loved school. We had a party and presents for Kate to celebrate her first day of school!

Good Books

My sister told me about this great blog:

http://angieville.blogspot.com/

This blog has become nationally known. The girl that writes for it often gets books from publishers, before they come out to provide official reviews.
I took a look today, and I liked what I saw. I thought you might be interested as well.

Happy Reading!

Ms Mommy's Preschool

Kate, Ella and I have started our own little preschool.

The girls call it Ms Mommy's Preschool.
Each day we spend some time learning, singing and doing a project!
We look forward to it every school day!
(Notice Ella's backpack....she always wears it to our preschool!)

Today we talked about feelings.
How we feel when we are happy and when we are sad.
The girls made happy faces out of food.
Bananas for the mouth, peaches for the ears,
ritz crackers for the eyes, craisins for the eyeballs and nose.
Pretzels for the eyebrows.
I love watching their creativity!

The Perfect Sunday Afternoon

Today we had the perfect Sunday afternoon!
We all read and napped out on the deck!
I have been completely into my book, "The Devil in The White City." It is about The Chicago World Fair, and since we were in Chicago this past March, I find it extra fascinating!
James is happy to be listening to Mockingjay, the latest Suzanne Collins book. Today, there was a cool breeze, the water was flowing, and it was completely relaxing!

We bought a hammock in Mexico this past January, when we were in Cancun.
We finally hung it out on the lower deck!
Everyone LOVES the hammock!

Abby's First Day of Second Grade

Abby's First Day of Second Grade

It is official! We have a second grader at our house!
On the first day of school, parents and students met for
back to school morning. It was fun to watch the kids parade into the school
with their new teachers and old friends.

After school, we had a first day of school party...
with presents for Abby. We gave her a new school shirt,
and the book "Huckleberry Finn," to challenge her reading skills!
Kate was excited to wrap the presents and host the party!
Abby's impressions of her first day:
"Second Grade is a lot LONGER than first grade."
"It is SO hot."
"My teacher is kind of strict, but really nice."
"I missed my friends!"

Kate's 5th Birthday

Kate had a long wish list for her 5th Birthday.
She had very specific things she has been wanting for months,
including Hello Kitty, and a pillow pet! Her Birthday was a fun opportunity
to make some of her dreams come true!

Kate's 5th Birthday

Kate has had a fun filled Birthday week!

Her Birthday theme: Hello Kitty!

We started her Birthday with a trip to Build a Bear, where
she created Cutie Patutie, her new Hello Kitty!Kate wanted her cake to say, "Kate Kitty"
since both she and her new Hello Kitty were both celebrating Birthdays!
For Kate's Birthday lunch,
she requested homemade
lunchables!

We spent the afternoon at Kangaroo Zoo!
Then out to Robintino's for Kate's favorite....cheese pizza!

Kate also had a Birthday party with
her friends on a different day!

Emma, Sylvi, Kate, Ella, Maddy, Emory and Olivia!

All of these girls have Birthdays between August and January!
They are all turning 5!

Happy Birthday Kate!
We are so glad you are apart of our family!

P.S. Kate finally got her purple unicorn pillow pet!
She has recited the commercial for months!
Hopefully now she will sleep well every night!

Kate's Favorites

Kate:
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite Toy: Barbies
Favorite thing to do outside: Ride bikes
Favorite Dinner: Breakfast for dinner with chocolate milk
Favorite Dessert: Doughnuts
What do you want to be when you grow up: Animal Shelter Worker and a Nurse for Dogs
What is something hard you did when you were 4: Go boating at the lake.
Best thing about being 5: Going to computer class and being a big girl!
What do you love: My doll, and the window seat in my room so I can look out the window.
Where is your vacation spot: Sea World

Boating at Pineview

Pineview

Each summer, J's work has a boating day at Pineview.
We had a lot of fun jet-skiing, playing on the beach, and boating.

Boating Babes
Abby (7), Kate (4), Ella (2).
J was awesome at Wake Surfing and was
even able to let go of the rope!

Ella driving the boat!
Look out!
Abby was super brave! She loved tubing. She got swamped,
got back on, fell off, got back on! Smiling the whole time!
Abby also sported a bloody lip,
after a rough ride with Daddy on the wave runner!
That didn't stop Abby from still more fun!
Kate enjoyed riding on the boat and the wave runners with Mommy.
She also liked playing on the water rafts, the sand (yea!!!), and
especially squirting everyone with water guns!

Ella was brave enough to ride the tube....but only with Aunt Amy!
Ella LOVED playing in the sand!
She also loved going on the wave runners to look for fish and ducks!

Fun Day!

BYU Education Week

Today was wonderful! Amy and I were able to spend the entire day on BYU campus at Education Week. I loved being able to go! The parenting class and the nutrition class I attended were in my old Chemistry classroom in BSNB. Another class was in my
American Heritage classroom in the JSB,
It was fun to be back on campus! LOTS of memories!
I graduated from BYU in 2000. 10 years ago! Time flies!

Derrick Family Party

Last Monday night we had the whole Derrick family over to our house!
It was so much fun to all be together. Grammy, Papa J and all 18 grand kids!

The youngest Derrick...Sophia Rose,
and the newest mom...Ashley!

Twins and Triplets

Abby and Abby 2.
Abby and Emme are 3 months apart,
and look a lot a like! We call them the twins!

We are lucky enough to have twin cousins,
Hadley and Chloe.
Ella looks a lot like her twin cousins....
so when they play together,
we call them the triplets!

The Derrick and Huffman Girls
Kate, Emme, Abby, Ella, Chloe & Hadley.
(Not pictured: 2 pregnant Mommy's
Baby Huffman and Baby Derrick will be 3 months apart!
We are so excited!!!)

When Amy comes

We all love Cherry Hill!

This week J had a work trip in Nebraska.
He had to golf everyday...tough life babe!

My sister Amy came and stayed with us, while he was gone!
It was like a mini vacation for us!
We spent a day at Cherry Hill!
Stayed up late talking!
Went on walks!
Went to see "Despicable Me,"
Went out to lunch!
Made homemade ice cream!
It was wonderful having such great company!
Thank's Aunt Amy!

Baby Everything

We are so excited to announce that we

are going to have a baby in
February 2011!
We are SO excited!

To tell the girls we decided to have a baby breakfast.
We made baby pancakes, baby doughnuts, baby bananas.
We set the table with the toy kitchen plates, utensils and cups all baby sized.
When we sat down to eat, we asked the girls if they knew why we were having baby everything. It took them a minute to figure it out, and when they did, they couldn't stop smiling!
J had a great idea to dye the milk.
So we had a pink container of milk and another of blue.
We told the girls that they could vote for a boy or a
girl baby by whichever milk they chose to drink!
Baby everything!

Afterwords, we used our American Girl cookbook
to make the tiniest doughnuts ever,
out of cheerios, frosting and sprinkles.
Baby #4, you are going to be loved!

Tyler's Baptism

Today was a special day.
Tyler, one of Abby's best friends, had his baptism.
He is the first of Abby's friends to make this important decision.
This was the first baptism that Abby had ever been too!
We loved being apart of such a neat day!

When the cousins come to town...

The twins, Abby and Emme!

One of the best parts about summer, is having all of our cousins come into town.

The kids are in play heaven and magically entertain themselves for hours!

Beauitful girls

The faces I love...Ella putting on her makeup!

Sisters playing together!
The girls doing gymnastics together!
All of Kate's silly faces!

The Wiggles Concert

The Wiggles in their
Big Red Car, all the way
from Australia!!!

Awesome seats on the 11th row!

Jeff, Anthony, Murry and Sam!

The kids brought roses to give to Dorothy the Dinosaur.
Captain Feather Sword came around to collect the roses.
The kids thought it was pretty neat!

This was our second Wiggles Concert.
We went in 2006, and again in 2010!
Good times!