Whitney's Spring Band Concert

Whitney had her spring band concert last night. She started out the school year playing the tenor saxophone, but decided to switch to the oboe. She has only been playing the oboe since January and her teacher asked her to play a solo in the concert yesterday. She played "The Candy Man". She was really nervous before the concert, but she did a great job. Compared to some of the other duets and solos she sounded like a pro. Todd wasn't able to go so Katelyn filled in as cameraperson. She did a pretty good job. She got most of Whitney's solo and at least you can see part of Whitney's face in the video.

Easter Festivities

Not much exciting has been going on here. That's why it has been so long since our last post. Just the same old stuff, we live in the frozen tundra, we can't wait for spring, all the kids are growing like weeds, etc.

We had a lot of fun celebrating Easter this past weekend. Our Easter traditions include an egg hunt, dying eggs, and decorating cookies. This year the Easter Bunny hid the kids baskets instead of eggs and left clues for them to find them. The hunt was interrupted shortly by a little spider (who found one of the clues before they did) and 3 screaming scared little girls. After the spider was "taken care of" they had no problem finding their baskets.

All the kids got new outfits to wear to church on Easter as well. Gone are the days of having everyone match though. Whitney and Katelyn said they would rather not get new dresses than get ones that match Lauren and Dustin. Lauren and Dustin still match however because they wear what I tell them to wear.

Wheels on the Bus

Here is Dustin doing the actions for the wheels on the bus. It is one of his favorite songs.

Here are a couple more cute pictures of Dustin.

Walking on Water

It might be cold here in Minnesota--and believe me we are feeling this week-- but that the cold weather and the many lakes that we have we get to walk on water!



This is a video from our Sunday walk down to the lake by our house. We found some winter ballerinas and some great slip sliding runs!

We also did some slip sliding!!

And then we decided to float on our backs for awhile on the water! :)

2008 Winter Carnival

So, after having subzero weather for about 10 straight days we finally had a heat wave. Of course that is relatively speaking. The temperature was actually only about 25 degrees, but that seems warm after -14 (that was the air temperature, with windchill it felt like -25). Anyway, I think that half the city of Saint Paul had a little cabin fever because I think they all went to some of the Winter Carnival festivities this weekend. We were included in that group. We all bundled up and went to see the Winter Carnival Parade and the Ice Sculptures. We also walked through the Minnesota "Hot Dish" tent. In Minnesota they call a casserole a "Hot Dish". Todd calls a "Hot Dish", and a casserole for that matter, a pot with a bunch of random stuff thrown in and called food. We got to watch some figure skaters and just enjoy being outside for a little while.

These were our favorite ice sculptures. Above is "And we're off. . ." that is the Emerald City in the background and in front you have the Scarecrow, Tinman, Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion. Below is called "Where's Frank?" it has 2 snowmen sitting by a fire and a third spot where there is just a puddle, a hat and a pair of boots.

Every year they carve an ice throne. It is a little cold on your bottom, but still fun. I think that Todd needs one of these at home.

The highlight of the parade was a man with a dog standing on his shoulders. The funny thing is that he wasn't even in the parade. I guess he wanted his dog to be able to see.

Fun, Fun, Fun

It has been only been 10 days since our last post, but it has been a busy 10 days.

On December 5th Katelyn celebrated her 8th birthday. The following Sunday, December 9th she was baptized and confirmed. We are so proud of Katelyn for choosing to be baptized. Both sets of her grandparents were able to attend and Grandma Nelson and Grandpa Anderson gave great talks. After the baptism we had a big family dinner (something we don't get to do very often) and then had a late/early birthday party for Katelyn and Lauren since their grandparents weren't able to be there on their actual birthdays.
















On December 11th, Lauren celebrated her 4th birthday. She had her first friend birthday party. She chose a Hello Kitty theme and we had fun making kitty ears and face painting whiskers as well as playing pin the bow on Hello Kitty, Where's Hello Kitty, Pass the Hello Kitty and Hello Kitty Bean Bag Toss.















Katelyn and Lauren aren't the only ones who have been busy this past week. On December 6th Whitney sang in the Holiday choir concert at school and then on the 11th participated in the Holiday band concert also at school. It was a lot of fun to go watch.



We also had a lot of fun bowling, nascar racing (at the Mall of America), sledding, exploding diet coke bottles, going to the Children's Museum, making a Gingerbread House, watching soccer games and seeing the Bee Movie while our grandparents were here.

More pictures

Here are some other pictures from the past week. We had so many that it was hard to choose which ones to use.