Derivatives reform on TV

The class that David went to Italy with has been involved in the financial reforms going on right now. David's part of that was dealing with derivatives. David's professor was interviewed by newshour and talked about the changes that are taking place. It has been really cool for David to work so closely with the actual reform process and with someone who has a part in it. Here is the video of his professor talking about this stuff, in case you have any interest in seeing what David has been working on this semester :)

Newsies

I happened upon this video tonight. I couldn't stop laughing. This is completely Gigi. She loves Newsies and more importantly, singing and dancing. Prepare to be amazed!

Junk Food Junkie!

JUNK

FOOD

JUNKIE!

We have really had issues with Madeline and food. When she was a baby she couldn't keep it down (that darn reflux), when she got older she flat out refused to eat solids and now she won't stop eating junk food! She will refuse dinner and then if she sees treats she goes CRAZY!!! Any advice?
Luckily she will drink cow's milk now.. and she is finally weaned! I'm a free woman, well a little freer at least :)

Longwood Gardens

My beautiful sister at Longwood Gardens. (Yep canders this shot did make it into my blog :) )
Candy decided to take a vacation day and wanted to do something fun with me and my girls. My friend Courtney told me how much fun she and her family had at Longwood Gardens so Candy and I decided to go. It was an hour drive, but well worth it. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! They had all types of gardens, but the girls favorite part was their indoor children's fountain garden. Thanks Canders for a fabulous day out! It was just what we all needed.

The girls loved this place. This video is mainly for my mom who keeps asking to see more footage of Madeline walking. She is practically running now :)


This is 10x more beautiful in person!!!


There was an enormous dragon fountain with water coming out of it's mouth. You could take a paintbrush and paint the walls of the room. The girls went crazy! Gigi was pretty proud of herself for writing her name with water.


This was by far Gigi's favorite part of the day. A wall with water! She and Madeline got drenched sticking their heads, arms, etc into it!


We loved the topiary gardens. I think this one is a dog, but Gigi is sure it's a bunny. What do you think?


Gigi being a statue. All day long she kept stopping and would then pose like this to be a statue. Funny girl.


We all loved walking around. The girls really adore their aunt Candy. I can't blame them, she's pretty darn cool!


Madeline could not get enough of the fountains!


Gigi hanging out in a chair just her size.


The hidden "castle" that Gigi found. We were hoping to find Sleeping Beauty there, but found some massive bells there instead.

Masquerade Ball

Even though David has almost finished his second year of Law school, I have only met a few of his classmates. Because of this we decided to go to a school function. David told me his school was having a masquerade ball on a really cool old boat called the Moshulu. I found out later from my smart brother in law Tony that this very boat is featured in Godfather Part 2.
I was pretty excited to go, but from the people that I have met I knew that it was going to be pretty fancy and I really don't have fancy things. Luckily we were able to borrow some beautiful masks from David's Aunt Marion and Uncle Fred- straight from Venice, Italy. I talked with my friend Lisa and she told me she would do my hair and even had a nice ball dress I could borrow. The morning of the big event I woke up with a small case of the stomach flu. So I decided to just wear a dress I own and did my own hair. When I got there I realized that the "ball" was just a really nice cocktail party. I felt so relieved and grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing me to get sick so that I wasn't WAY overdressed :)

We had a great time dancing and hanging out with David's friends. We were able to snag a great babysitter from the ward (a teenager that I teach violin to in exchange for babysitting!) who spent the night. Because of this we were able to walk around town for a while afterwards. Philly is a pretty fun town and it was awesome to be out with David :)

Easter Party

I love parties!! I especially love kid parties because they can be so laid back and fun. I really wanted to have a valentine's party, but we were sick so I decided to do a St. Patrick's day party, but we were sick yet again so I decided that for sure we would have an Easter party. Gigi helped me plan it all out and helped prepare for it, which by itself was a lot of fun.


Making cupcakes
Before the party we had institute and I was able to sit in with the kids and listen to their lesson. My friend Prairie creates amazing lessons for all of the kids that come and today it was about the last week of the savior's life and his resurrection. It was pretty awesome. The kids even acted out the scene when Jesus rides through town on the donkey. It was nice to have the spiritual message of Easter before a non-spiritual Easter party.

We had the party in the field behind our church and a bunch of friends came. I think we had about 25 people total. It was awesome! We ate lunch, dyed eggs, had a 3 legged race, had an egg spoon race, decorated Easter bags and of course ended with an Easter egg hunt. It was complete chaos, which I love and luckily all of the moms stayed and helped create a little calm. Thank you to everyone who came. Hopefully everyone had fun! I know I did :)

3 legged race

Decorating bags


The hunt!



Some of the kids were a little pooped by the end of the party :)


Later some friends came over to grab their cupcakes because they had to leave before we were done so they played for a bit. Gigi somehow convinced them to play a game where she was the guard and her friends were her slaves. The drumstick is what she used to push them into prison and the hair things around their wrists are their handcuffs. Hmmm...I honestly have NOO idea where she comes up with this stuff.