What's the Deal?

Why hello there!

I've realized that I haven't written an update on things around here for a while and I thought that maybe it's time to.

Things are good.

Lily is wonderful. She had so much fun at her birthday party and is already planning ahead for next year. Hello, Kitty. Yeah, I know... But, she's as beautiful and fun loving as ever.

William had a GREAT birthday and is super excited for his party on Saturday. He has invited some cousins and some friends. It's weird that my kids are already at the age of "Friend" birthday parties. He's chosen the Thomas theme, of course. We went to William's Kindergarten orientation this month and met both of the teachers there. It's only a matter of time before he starts going to school!

They both had a good Easter and looked sharp in their Easter clothes. I'm a little behind on taking their pictures in their Easter clothes at the temple this year, but let's face it, it's been a little too cold to do it! I mean, it flurried yesterday. Can you believe that? Anyway, their preschool is coming to a close after this next month and graduation is going to be on June 1st.

Matthew is finishing up school for this semester and is looking forward to continuing in the summer. He will qualify to graduate with his General Education at the end of the summer!! However, I believe he is still planning to put off the actual getting the degree because there are classes he can take at the Community College that will apply to his Bachelor's and it will be cheaper. We'll see what he chooses to do though. But, I did want to post this picture because Matthew had to do a speech in his Communications class and he was speaking about running marathons. We made a poster and we found this picture to put on it..

It is so obviously an African American athlete. But... it also looks exactly like my husband.

I am in the process of a lot of things right now. I love to craft, A LOT. I keep myself busy trying to find new things to make. I am working with my doctor to try to regulate my thyroid. I went in to a doctor's appointment a couple of months ago for a cold and came out finding that I not only had sinusitis, I also had hypothyroidism. Which has explained a lot of things. So, we're getting it under control. I have to get my blood drawn once a month until my levels are where they are supposed to be. But, things will be good and little by little things are getting better. I am also in the process of registering for school! Yep, you read that correctly. I will be starting school a Salt Lake Community College. I'm going to be majoring in Visual Arts with an emphasis on Photography. I'm a big ball of nervousness and excitement. I haven't gone to school in 7 years ('bout time, huh?) and I have to take a placement test to see what classes I belong in. Then I register for classes and I begin in the fall. I'll only take a couple of online classes this year and then when Lily starts school next year, I'll be able to go to the campus to take classes.

So, that is the haps with the Townsend clan.

William's Day

Happy Birthday to my sweet William!

This boy has such a bright Spirit and I had so much fun taking his picture today. He has just been shining all day long and why wouldn't he be when it's his birthday?? My life would not be the same without William.

We have had a day filled with Mario Brothers and we are going to be having dinner at McDonalds (Will's request). And then we'll end the day with an Easter Egg hunt at Carrie's house!

Utah State Capitol

Last Friday, we went on a Preschool Field Trip to see our State Capitol. I wasn't really sure of how this would go. Maybe a little boring. BUT, we went and it was so much fun! The kids absolutely adored seeing all of the statues and the paintings and all of the things that represent our state!
This picture was on the bottom floor. It's of the ceiling and it's really cool because there are some stones that are a little see through on the floor above us, so we could see people walking around up on the 2nd floor. You can see a foot on one of the bottom panels in the picture.

The second floor was BEAUTIFUL! Absolutely gorgeous! The kids kept talking about it being like Cinderella's castle. Could you imagine going to work in a place like this??

Out of this window, you can see Salt Lake City. William really liked that he could see the temple from there.

House of Representatives

Senate

The building was a prime picture taking spot. And I had a field day snapping these!

Preschool group minus Henry! Yep, we make up half of preschool!

It was such a beautiful day and such a wonderful field trip. I had never seen this state capitol, so it was a good experience to go!

Kites and Storm Clouds

The Easter Bunny usually brings the kiddos kites, but this year, with Easter being late, Matthew and I decided that we should get the kites earlier. We haven't had many kite flying kind of days. When it is kite flying weather, it's usually rainy. William always says that Wednesdays are always the best days to fly kites. Apparently, he and Winnie the Pooh think they are the windiest. Last week we found a window of opportunity to fly our brand spankin new kites. Lily got a Barbie kite and William got a Spongebob. It was great and the kites were flying SO high.

And then the wind changed and it all of a sudden turned freezing cold.

It snowed that day!

It was a great 20 minutes to fly kites though!

One Tangled Party

Thanks to my sister in law, Allison, I HAVE PARTY PICTURES! Hooray! Now, I am able to show all the little details of Lily's shindig.

Here, you have the plates and the napkins, Tangled of course. I made the Rapunzel braid out of yellow yarn. It took FOREVER for that to be finished. But, I think it adds a little something to the cupcakes. Don't worry, there was not hair in the food..

Our first activity was a game. Pin the Frying Pan on Flynn Rider. It was a pretty big hit with the little ones. And it was pretty hilarious to watch. William actually got the closest to Flynn's nose!

Matthew's sister, Brittany, made this stupendous poster. Yep, she drew it. She's that awesome.

Then we sang Happy Birthday to Lily and had cake and ice cream. The Tangled cake was beautiful and delicious! Lily LOVED it and was so excited to pick it up with me that day.

And the finale was to "send off" the floating lights like in the movie. We tried to send it up with yarn attached, but it was too heavy and weighed the lantern down. So, we tried to use thread.

You can see the thread in the picture below.

It was a pretty great idea until the thread was singed off by being too close to the fire.

Luckily, Matthew caught it. And then for some random reason, let go of it. I'm thinking he thought he could catch it again, trying to fake us all out. UNFORTUNATELY..

That didn't happen. It got higher....

and higher...

and higher.

Everyone was either laughing hysterically or were more in my category which was freaking out! I didn't want it to fall and then catch something on fire! I made Matthew follow it just to make sure that it didn't do just that.

Thankfully, after about 10 minutes of being lit, the fire went out and dropped somewhere around the grocery store! Can you imagine it falling on some poor person? Those things were HUGE!

Anyway, there are the wonderful details of the happenings of Lily's 4th Birthday Party.

Lily is FOUR! Party Edition

I need to be honest. The reason that I haven't posted Lily's Birthday pictures is because I don't have many! Yes, I am ashamed! I told everyone that I KNOW that I would take pictures. Plenty of them. But, here's the thing... I forgot how when you're the host of the party, your camera ends up being neglected. So, I have decided to just go ahead and post the pictures that I have as I am patiently waiting for others to give me pictures that they took. I know, I know.. Ashamed.

Lily had a pretty good day on her birthday. We went to McDonald's for her birthday dinner and went to the toy store to look around for a while. I only have a couple of pictures that actually turned out from her actual birthday. She got her "Grandmother Card" complete with ten whole dollars. She also got a Lizzy doll from Grandma, Rapunzel tower, Rapunzel make-up, necklace, and ear rings, a Tinkerbell watch, and a couple of Rapunzel books!

She also got one of the things she most wanted from DJ and Laura.

(A Rapunzel Dress)

Lily's Tangled Birthday Party was a SMASH HIT! 30 out of the 33 people that were invited came! She certainly had quite the loot including a Rapunzel doll, a build a bear, Belle wand, bath towel, and a beautiful new dress!

And, yes, that is the banner that I made in the background, thanks for asking.

We also played a game and lit a few of the Chinese Wishing Lanterns. I'm excited for those pictures and that story!

Lily is absolutely LOVING that she is four. She definitely feels like a big girl now!

Ribbon Wreath

This is one of the awesome projects that I have been working on. I made this with two of my sisters in law out here in Utah. It was A LOT of work, but I think it paid off. It was so much fun to make too. I kind of like it and was excited to put it on our door. It's is tons of ribbon! If you want to do this, I recommend a comfy chair so your butt doesn't fall asleep!

Decorations!

First of all, let me just say that Lily's party was SOO much fun! I wish that everyone out in Tennessee was there. It was quite the bash! I'll be updating soon on everything that happened complete with pictures.

But, in the meantime...

I have had this idea to put up black and white pictures of me and Matthew above our bed in our room. We don't have any pictures of us up really anywhere in our home. This was the perfect solution! Matthew and I bought these three frames at Ikea (LOVE IT!). Then we waited for mom and dad to bring the picture of us dating here. I printed the pictures off and after about three weeks of them sitting on my bedroom floor, we finally put them up yesterday! And by we, I mean Matthew.

Matthew really wanted this picture of us on the far left. It's from when we first started dating... for probably like a month or something. Since I'm not a particularly HUGE fan of that picture, I picked one of our engagements, which Matthew is not too fond of either. BUT, we both agreed on the wedding pic! We are pretty happy with how these look in our room. I feel like my house is slowly coming together like I want it to.

We also hung these in our room yesterday! It's the perfect accent!

I found these two beautiful fabrics at a fabulous fabric store in Gardiner Village. I knew that I wanted them in my room with my green and white bedding. So, I got my hands on canvases and went to town hot gluing the fabric on them! They turned out just like I wanted and are perfect in our room!!

I have been crazy busy with life and with tons of crafts, which I LOVE! I haven't finished everything quite yet, but (along with Lily's Party Pics) I will be posting my crafts soon!