.:Andrus Family:.

Monday, April 6, 2015

.:Easter 2015:.

We kicked off our Easter festivities a couple of weeks beforehand with FHE on a Sunday nite (because of Josh's schedule) and made peeps houses! The girls, of course, thought it was pretty great!

The Saturday before Easter, we had our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt. A neighbor puts it together every year; she had over 900 eggs this year! We all donate prizes and candy, and then the kids are split into three age groups for the hunt. The girls always have a great time. It was windy and cold, but they were troopers!

Our fun didn't end there! After that Easter egg hunt, the girls were treated to another egg hunt courtesy of Kerri. She, Ken, Em, Katelyn, and her two kids Easton and McKayli came over for more Easter fun.

After we spent some time with them, and a quick visit from Grandpa Gary, we were on our own for some egg dyeing. We did 24 eggs, which I thought would have been plenty, but they could have done tons more if we would have had them!

Jabes supervised.

On Sunday, we woke up to find that the Easter bunny had paid us a visit and left some goodies and hid some eggs.

He even helped Santa out and brought some goodies that Santa forgot at Christmas!

Yes, that is Jabes sitting up.

We spent the rest of the day playing with our new goodies, eating yummy food, and watching General Conference. It was a nice, low key day spent together as a little family! We definitely enjoyed the commercial side of things, but it was also wonderful to be able to hear from our prophet and church leaders as we remembered the true reason for Easter: our Savior and His atoning sacrifice. So grateful for our gospel knowledge!

Sunday, April 5, 2015

.:Celebrating Rem:.

We had a fun couple of days of celebrating Rem!

We started off the day, of course, with presents!

That afternoon we had Remi's kindergarten orientation. I can't believe she will be going to kindergarten next year! She is really excited, though, and it will be fun for her to start.

After that, we let Rem choose where dinner was, which naturally was "Old McDonald's" as our kids call it. We ate, and then headed to the movies. Remi picked Home, and we all had a great time seeing it!

The next day we had a Frozen birthday party for Remi. We invited some of her friends from church and school, as well as a couple of other kids. It was her first real friends only party, and it was a lot of fun.

The girls all dressed up as Frozen characters for the party.

We had Frozen food, complete with a cupcake dress.

We started off with some Frozen coloring pages as everyone arrived.

Next it was on to Frozen bingo, and then we made some Frozen necklaces and key chains.

Then it was time for the best part: presents!

After presents, we sang to Rem and ate.

It was a fun party; such a great group of kids!

The party crew!

Happy Fifth Birthday Rem!

Friday, March 27, 2015

.:Remi - Five Years Old:.

This beauty of a girl turned five today!

I just looked back at her four year old post, and had written that she had been growing up a lot last year. Well, I have to say the same thing again this year! Remi is just learning and growing so much lately; I am so proud of who she is becoming!

Remi is still her own little person. She is not easily swayed, and really, almost always that is such a wonderful thing! I like that she is confident and secure in herself and what she wants. It is definitely going to be a trait that will serve her well!

Rem is still super girly! She loves to wear dresses, and now has gotten into posing for pictures. It is such a nice change from how she used to hate pictures! She loves to put on makeup. Remi still loves her dolls, but she is super into My Little Pony right now. The amount of ponies at our house is incredible! She has a wonderful imagination; I love to listen to her role play with her ponies and her sisters.

With Reece at school every morning, Rem and Harper have obviously spent more time together. It has been neat to watch her really step into that big sister role more. She also really loves Jabren, and is always happy to try and help cheer him up or keep him entertained. I've mentioned before that he seems to have a little soft spot for her, too. I've been impressed with how Remi is often more willing to help me with things, like cleaning up, etc.

Remi has been going to pre-school two days a week this year. She has learned so much, and made so much growth this year! She is remembering her letters and sounds, and can write her name now. I love seeing my kids learn and develop! She loves her teacher, Miss Alanna, and seems to have found her place at school. She has learned how to adapt to new situations so much more easily, and is really starting to figure out who she is in her school and church classes. Rem is also in a dance class this year. She for sure likes dressing up in her costumes, but the jury is still out on if she enjoys the class or not. Up until now, I haven't really been able to watch her class so I haven't been able to see how she interacts and listens. There have been a few times when we've had to have some chats because her teacher told me she wasn't participating. This past week was the first week I was able to watch, and she did awesome! Her teacher has even said something to me about it the past two weeks. We will finish out this year and see if she wants to continue on next year.

Remi is still cautious in general, but she has also loosened up with some things. She still doesn't care for moving things (like swings or carousels), but she has turned into quite the monkey at play grounds! She will climb up on equipment, go down big twisty slides, and run around like crazy! It has been really fun to see her become more sure of herself and able to handle more. Like I said last year, she knows her limits, and it's great that she will stick to them.

Rem is a singer! Man, can that girl sing! And loudly I might add. She has really natural vibrato. She loves to sing songs that she knows, but also songs that she makes up. While it can sometimes get really loud, I usually really love listening to her. Even her classmates know that it is a cue that she is in a good mood. Her teacher told me of a time at school where she started singing as she worked, and one of the boys said, "Well, I guess Remi is feeling happy!" Cracks me up!