Ashlee's Ballet Recital

Ashlee just finished her 4th year of ballet. She loves it and I love to see her improve each year!

Technique portion of the program...

Sorry for the horrible video but hopefully you'll see past the crappy quality and horrible lighting :)

This is the performance portion of the program where the teacher has a little more freedom with the choreography and music, and they get to wear something other than the traditional black leotard and skirt and pink tights.

Easter 2011

We had an enjoyable Easter Sunday, although it didn't start out the greatest.  All the kids were ready for church (except for Brynlee needing her hair done) about 30 minutes before church started so I wanted to get some pictures.  I tried and tried to convince Brynlee to put something in her hair.  Rob got a few pictures before her hair was done and finally after mom losing her patience (got to work on that!), she let me put a flower in her hair.  Yes, we were late for church.

Check out these studs...

"Before" pics. I had to include a bunch of them since they are quite comical (not at the time, of course)...








Much better, don't you think?

Cheryl and her family and Rob's parents and Grandma Jones came over for Easter dinner. Afterwards, we did an egg hunt in the backyard. I don't think you could wipe the permagrin off of Trevor's face. Love that kid!

Rob put an egg in a tiny basket up in the tree. The older boys were determined to knock it down with their baskets.

The little basket in the tree...

Just missed it...

Got it!

And then the big basket got stuck!


Meanwhile, Landon took advantage of the lack of competition and picked up a ton of eggs. I felt really bad taking some from him and sharing with the cousins.  He was pretty upset even though I still left him with alot of eggs. After some tears, he was able to force this smile. Sorry, bud!

Eight of the thirteen Barton cousins.  Such a "happy" group.  At least Trevor and Ashlee are smiling :)


I love this picture of T showing his Great-Grandma Jones his loot.

Baby Animal Days

The day before Easter was finally a nice enough day to head to the American West Heritage Center for Baby Animal Days.  The girls and I are volunteering this year at the AWHC so we get to dress up in 1917 attire (since we volunteer on the 1917 Farm site).  The first few days of the festival were AWFUL!  Tons of snow so they ended up extending the event until the end of April.  Ashlee and Brynlee liked volunteering with the chicks and ducklings so that's where we were most of the time.  We volunteered that morning and then Rob and the boys joined us in the afternoon when our shift was over and we were able to see all the baby animals.  All the pictures are pretty much self explanatory.  Brynlee wanted to stay in her dress (that is, until a chick or duck pooped on it), but Ashlee and I went home and changed.  Luckily Rob called us while we were still at home to bring an extra outfit for Brynlee.  Ashlee has her dress on in the first picture with her in it, although she has a black dress coat on so you can't really tell.   I need to get a picture of her in her outfit, though.  I sewed both of the girls' dresses.

Waiting for the train...

The candy cannon.  They tossed candy and water bottles all over the ground and then the candy cannon went off, shooting out more candy, and signaling to the kids to go at it!  If you look up in the sky, you can see the candy.  Probably the highlights of Landon's day.  He's is definitely my candy boy.  Pretty sure all the laffy taffy he collected (and it was ALOT) was gone by bedtime.  Surprisingly, we just had a checkup at the dentist and they all made it into the no cavity club.