May 2012

Another month in the Klein/Allen family has gone by.  Here are some of the month's happenings:

Abbey made this poster last month with Eric.  It was for an art contest at school about "going green" and keeping the waters clean.  Notice she drew herself, Andi, Ava, and Harry in it.  The dots in the water are "trash."  Pretty cute. 
A few weeks ago I got an email from her teacher with a subject line that said:  "ABBEY WON SECOND PLACE!"  It was pretty cool because the contest was for the whole district, kindergarten through sixth grade.  ...And our little artist Abbey got 2nd place.  We were super proud.  She got a $50 check.  We opened up a savings account with it.  Kinda' fun.  (It was especially cute watching her endorse the check when she wrote out her name on the back.)

My nephew Luke got baptized on May 5th.  Here he is with his dad, Scott.  I love these two guys so much!  It was a fun day seeing Luke get baptized.  He holds a special place in my heart:  He's got a quiet demeanor at times that I just love.  He also loves bugs, animals, and drawing.  He knows so much about bugs and he has the best imagination in his art work. 
When Luke got baptized, Andi got to get close and watch.  Afterwards she talked a lot about it and asked if she could get baptized.  (But she only wants "Mommy" to baptize her.  I tried to tell her that might not work.)  Andi also had her first talk in primary this month and it was about baptism.  We chose to have her talk about Luke getting baptized.  (I'm the one that gave most of the talk, but I was still proud of Andi for getting up there and trying it.:) )

This was Ava and Andi at Ron and Joann's 2nd annual "Princess Party."  This year's party was even grander than the first event.  The food, as you can see by the way Andi's eating, was delicious.  You'd expect no different from Ron and Joann.

Here's Abbey with her cousin Gracie at the princess party.  Ron and Joann were so nice to ask if we could bring other cousins along, so we did.  Gracie and Skylar both came along.  They were both so cute and fun to be around.

Here's Andi with her favorite baby cousin and best aunt Bethany.  This was at the princess party.  Andi adores Gigi and wants to be with her all the time.  Andi collected a bunch of candy in a basket and then turned to me and said, "I want to give these to baby Gigi."  So she did.  :)

Here's their debut!  On May 12th Andi and Abbey had their dance recital.  They've been taking dance this winter and spring from "Miss Katie's Dance" and they've really loved it.  They got to get special costumes just for the recital.  They were pretty excited about it.

Here's Abbey's class dancing.  She's the 2nd one from the left.  She was actually really good!  You could tell she really listened and learned the dance moves.  She didn't miss a beat.

Andi's the one in the middle, in the back, holding her "feather duster."  I think it was a cute little song about cleaning or something--I can't remember.  Grandma Joann is the one that took all these pictures.  She was super awesome about fighting her way to the front of the stage so she could get these perfect pics.  It was so fun to have so many of the grandmas and grandpas there.

Here Andi is again, middle back.  I thought she did very well.  She was definitely more shy in this performance compared to last December's.

Here's Abbey again, second from the left, in her cute costume.

I LOVE this picture. 
Ever since Grandpa Luke has been a part of Ava's life, he's often offered her a "shoulder ride," and she's often denied him of the privilege in fear of the whole concept. :)  But with each passing encounter, she's finally allowed him to give her shoulder rides and carry her around.  The funniest part, though, is that she just about mawls his face when he's holding her.  She just grabs his whole face so as to "hold on for dear life."  It's hilarious.  I've been proud to see her get more brave. 
Some of my best childhood memories involved shoulder rides on Dad.  Love him.

This was on Andi's dance recital day.  What a princess.

Here's Abbey the dancer, getting ready for her recital.

We were lucky to be able to get a swingset in our backyard this spring.  I've been so happy with the purchase...We don't have a big backyard so it was tricky finding just the right one.  But as you can see, we found it, and it's been getting plenty of use.
Eric put it together all by himself.  He also dug a bunch of holes for it and poured cement around it to secure it.  Watching him do that perfectly illustrated his "get 'er done" attitude.  If a project comes up, he wastes no time.  He just makes it happen.  No wife can complain about that.  :)

Swinging in the backyard after the dance recital.

Miss Lori's preschool class for the 2011-2012 school year.  Andi's on the front row, first from the right.  I really loved seeing Andi grow as she participated in preschool this year. 

Miss Lori had pictures taken of each of her preschool students.  I thought Andi looked darling here, of course. Her shirt that day said, "The Princess Has Arrived."  Very appropriate.

This was my Mother's Day breakfast-in-bed treat.  Eric knows how much I love red velvet cake.  So what did he do?  He made "red velvet pancakes."  Isn't that awesome?  I thought it was pretty ingenious.  He even covered it with chocolate frosting.  Mmmmm....Love it.
Eric also made me a slideshow of sorts that he did on his iPad. That was one of the best Mother's Day presents I've gotten. It had such good pictures of me the girls on it and it made me grateful once again for a guy who will take the time to do stuff like that.  Click on this link to check it out:  https://www.icloud.com/journal/#4;CAEQARoQcG5uHu7sYlQKKDtprkFpUw;F4CC035C-40FB-4823-BA1C-6C660BBBE194

Ava liked it too.  :)

We had some of our families over for Mother's Day.  Here's my sister Leslie holding my other sister Lori's son, Noah.  Noah has this thing with Aunt Leslie.  It's pretty cute.

Here's Eric grillin' up some grub for the family on Mother's Day.  He knows how to cook 'em and I love how helpful he is with that grill.

This was also on Mother's Day at our house.  Joann brought a bunch of crafts and activities for the kids to do.  She set up a table for them, and true to her form, she got on her knees and played right along with them.

We put Abbey's hair in two buns on this day.  So when we took it out, it was "super crazy."  She had to have us take a picture. 

This was my most favorite family home evening we've had together so far.  Eric was in charge of the lesson and it was AWESOME.  He cut up a bunch of papers and concocted a "memory" game of sorts.  I can't say enough how much the girls loved it.  He drew a bunch of funny pictures (he's got art skills) and they laughed hysterically at his work. 

My calling in Young Womens is to be in charge of Mia Maid class activities.  This one week I had a lady from our ward take us to a golf course to teach us some golf basics.  I took Andi along and she was really cute about it.  She had to have her own golf club and she wanted to golf!  Super cute...

Our next door neighbors, the Reynolds, invited us up to Pineview for a boating trip.  Here's their cute little girl Kazlyn with Andi on the boat.  Such a good illustration of Andi's cute shyness.

We played on the beach for a bit.  I like this picture--It captures Ava's frequent "concerned" look.  :)

All our girls got to ride on the tube on the back of the boat.  Andi and I went first.  Once Abbey and Ava saw us go, they decided to try it too.  It was a fun adventure.  :)  Here they are trying to get warm after one of those fun rides.

This is McKenzie Munk.  She was in Abbey's church AND school class this year.  She comes over to play a lot, and when she does, she just can't leave Harry alone.  She loves dogs!  Harry's such a good sport about it.  Chester, our neighbor dog, was over that day also.

I can't remember what exactly they were doing here, but lately Eric and the girls have loved to watch "Shaun the Sheep" and "Timmy Time" episodes on Netflix.  Andi calls "Shaun the Sheep" "Shaun of the Sheep."  Makes me chuckle.

I HAD to take this picture.  It was a monumental occasion.  Harry and Ava were sitting together....peacefully.  I was so proud to see Ava allowing Harry to sit on the bean bag with her.  I think she was watching "Signing Time" in this picture.  She loves to watch that in the morning when Abbey and Andi are at school.

Here's Grandpa Luke and Ava.  Super cute and a great example of how much effort my dad puts into his grandkids and also how much effort he's taken to shower the Klein girls with love.  He's so good with that.

I don't know.  I just don't know what to say about this one.
:)

Check out the shirt.  It's Ariel.  Could it get any better?  How Andi loves the Little Mermaid...

Here's Eric when we went boating with the Reynolds.  He knee boarded that night and tried a few other things.  Fun outing.

This was Andi's preschool graduation program.  This was her class and she is the second from the left.

During the program, Andi got to play the triangle.  Here she is playing it, third from the right.

Same thing.  She was pretty timid that day, but I know during class she was getting totally into the songs and the practices.

Grandma Luke came to Andi's graduation program and helped me entertain Ava during the program.  So nice.

Here's Abbey at the Orem Cemetery honoring her mommy on Memorial Day.  Eric took the girls up there on the Sunday before Memorial Day while Andi and I were at Ron and Joann's.  Just looking at the card melts your heart. 

Such a sweet, good girl.

Here's Abbey's Kindergarten graduation program.  Abbey's on the front row wearing a yellow shirt.  Just like her dance recital, you could tell she listens well to her teachers and puts a good effort into her performances.  She knew every word of every song they sang, and she sang it with heart!  It was fun to watch.

Here's Abbey with her "second" kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Spendlove.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Uncle James and Aunt Wendi's house.  Wendi's sister had a bunch of puppies at her house so we went and saw them.  I think Abbey looks very grown up in this picture.

Ava wasn't too sure about those little dogs running all over her, but she tried to be courteous.  She kept doing her "courteous" laugh and she tried super hard to be brave and hold them.  She looked really cute that day...I was glad Wendi got a picture.

Someone kept saying she wished we had a white puppy.  Could anyone guess who that might have been?  :)

Last Saturday we went to Cherry Hill.  Here the girls are, bein' goofy. 
It was a fun day.  They each went down the waterslides, played in the splash pad, swam in the pool, and went down the lazy river.  Eric and I used a lot of energy trying keep their spirits up, but by the end of the day, we were happy with the result.  They were all brave and happy that day.

Here's the Luke family at my parent's house working on a "family project" of sorts.  My dad went on a big fishing trip to Alaska with his friends, so Mom enlisted all us kids to help us come clean out his shed.  It was quite the project!  Eric helped a lot.

The kids played while we worked.

Here's Eric, Gabe, Scott, and Spencer.  They all worked hard.  BTW--Look at Spencer:  There's his FOURTH broken arm.  Poor kid.

Here are the girls last night playing "train" in the backyard.  I had to come out and take a picture of them in action.  They can be pretty cute when they play together.  So grateful they have each other.