Dallin's Birthday - June 2013

 Dallin's birthday is exactly a week after Amy's birthday and it's a good thing he is only three so he doesn't know what a slacker his mother was for his big day.  Amy's party definitely drained all the creativity and energy out of me so poor Dal had a pretty low key day.  We did manage to pick-up some balloons that afternoon and to him, it was better than any party I could have planned.  I love three year olds!

Highlight of the day!

Opening presents.

That night as we were getting ready for bed, Wyatt asked why we didn't have a cake for Dallin....see, super horrible mother!  I did make up for it the next day by making donuts and we made sure to sing "Happy Birthday" then...

...but without a candle...I really am a slacker!

Facts about Dallin on his 3rd Birthday (The good and the bad):

-He loves Mickey Mouse and Dora....anything to do with either of these things is a win in his book.

-He also loves to play "Biskit Ball" with Wyatt.  Luckily Wyatt is an awesome big brother that will indulge him and play for a LONG time.

-He loves going to the dairy with Lydia to see the calves.  And she is a very patient sister to take him often.

-He's a pro at playing Temple Run on the Ipad (however I probably shouldn't admit that...it means he plays it too often).  Seriously though, he's better than anyone else in our family.  And every time he makes a mistake when playing any game, he says "Aww DANG!"

-He is NOT a social butterfly.  He stays nice and close to mom when around other people.  In other words...HUGE mamma's boy!  (He has a big surprise coming when baby brother arrives)

-He was awesome at catching on to potty training...easiest one of my kids by far....for about a month.  Now it's not cool anymore and he wants nothing to do with the toilet.  Not so awesome.

-He whines.  A LOT.  And a common phrase around here is "MOM, Where are you?"  This is exactly how Wyatt was at age three and there are days I think I will go crazy.  But I have to remind myself that he isn't mischievous...so it's a trade off.  I'm not sure which is worse though ;)

He really is a mamma's boy and currently my youngest and still my baby for a few more weeks.  It's funny how eager you are for your first child to grow up so fast, but by the fourth you want them to stay a baby for as long as possible.  I should probably be preparing him a little more for when he loses his baby status in the family, but I might as well let him enjoy it til it happens.  

I love my little Dal Pal!

Amy's Birthday - June 2013

This was Amy's first year to have a birthday party with friends.  She was so excited and requested a Lalaloopsy party.

That morning she opened presents and then Lydia and I got to work getting ready for the party (I love having Lydia as a helper in the party planning department.  She was excited to do most of the work!)

The day before we drew this Lalaloopsy poster and the girls colored it for "pin the crown on Lalaloopsy".

Lydia also helped me put together a treasure hunt.  She came up with, and wrote most of the clues herself.

When the birthday girl's friends arrived, we read "Lalaloopsy Party Time" and then they got to work decorating their foam crowns with foam stickers.

Then they played "pin the crown on Lalaloopsy"

Afterwards Lydia took them on the treasure hunt where they found a "treasure chest" full of goody bags and lalaloopsy puzzles.

Next up was snow cones...since in the Party Time story, the Lalaloopsy girls had snow cones at their party.  This was a HUGE hit!  The girls loved them.

Hannah, Raena, Miss Amy, Londyn, and Atlin

Super fun little group of girls.

After eating their weight in snow cones and playing for a while, they came inside to open presents.  I loved this picture of Amy giving Raena a thank you hug for her gift. 

Amy was on cloud nine all day and so, SO excited to be the birthday girl.  I'm glad we don't do "friend" parties every year, but it does make all the prep work worth it when you have a little girl who enjoys it so much!

Some fun facts about Amy on her 5th Birthday:

Favorite Food:  macaroni

Favorite Colors:  purple and pink

Favorite Toy:  Lalaloopsy

Best Friends:  Mesa, Raena, Atlin, and "my other friend with blond hair" (Londyn...she has a hard time remembering her name ;)

What do you want to be when you grow up?  An artist

I love this girl so much!  She is becoming quite the little chatterbox.  She will play for hours with her toys and can easily entertain herself.  She also loves girly things.  She loves to "style" my hair, paint nails, accessorize her outfits, and pick out what earrings I should wear.  She has long beautiful curly hair that looks so cute every morning for about 10 minutes, but then is a crazy mess the rest of the day because she plays so hard.  She's a charmer and it's hard to resist her hugs and sweet smile.  She can also be a little dramatic, but luckily not too often.  She is by far the most excited for our new baby to come.  She makes sure to give my belly hugs and kisses several times a day and always wants to see pictures of our baby (pictures from the Baby Center app).  I have a feeling she will be quite the little "mother" and helper when he joins our family.  

Amy definitely adds spice to our family!

Preschool Graduation - May 2013

This super adorable girl graduated from preschool last week.

She attended a private preschool here for the past school year.  It's the same one Wyatt went to and we've been very happy with it.  She went three days a week and loved it.  The biggest reason for sending her this year was to help her come out of her shell a little.  It worked!  At the beginning of the year she didn't talk to anyone at preschool.  By Christmas she had warmed up to the teachers and a couple of the students.  By the end of the year she was a regular little social butterfly. One of her teachers even said that during the last week of school she actually had to ask Amy to STOP talking during group time!

I actually think preschool graduations are a little ridiculous, as does Greg (which is why he missed the first half of it since he was on his way back from a dairy show in Utah), but I have to admit that I teared up a little at this one.  I'm sure it's mostly because my pregnant hormones are CRAZY, but it may have had something to do with the fact that this little girl blew me away!

She actually introduced herself and her parents (I was just certain she would opt out of this).

She sang EVERY SINGLE song!

with actions...

...and loud enough that we could even hear her over the others at times. 

Completely out of character for this one, but so much fun to witness!

And she was very proud to be the special one for the evening.

Love her!!!

The Big 10!!!

Lydia celebrated her 10th birthday in April.  TEN YEARS OLD!  Wowza!  Oh how I love this girl!  She is by far the best 10 year old I have ever known ;)  She is so patient with her siblings (and mom), so kind, helpful and funny (she totally gets sarcasm).  She's smart, talented, and such a hard worker.  She loves working at the dairy.  Her latest hobby is her 4-H pigs.  She feeds them morning and afternoons, plus spends extra time with them...just because she wants to.  I also appreciate that she is responsible.  She has been babysitting when I run errands (and Greg's close by at the dairy).  The other day I left her in charge while running Amy to preschool.  When I got back in the car I saw that I had a text from home.  It said, "Dal had a poop accident!" (we've been potty training).  There was also a voice message from home and this is what I heard, "HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!"  The poor girl didn't know what to do, but she wasn't upset that I had put her in that situation, just grossed out ;)  I love that she is so easy to please, goes with the flow, and is just so pleasant to be around.  She has qualities that I need to work better at having! 

Another story from a couple weeks ago...Greg was asked to help pick rock on one of the church farms close by.  Lydia really wanted to go with him and help.  Greg later told me how awesome our daughter is.  He said that while some of the youth helping (ages 12-18) were easily distracted from their task and tired of it easily, our little 10 year old picked rock the entire time, non-stop!  I wish I could say she is so great because she has awesome parents, but the truth is, she is just great!

OK, so enough bragging about how wonderful this girl is and onto the birthday festivities.

Her only birthday request was to have a friends party at Randy's tumbling (where she goes to gymnastics).  She invited five of her friends and they had a great time!  Easiest birthday party ever.  Afterwards they came back to our house for a sleepover where they giggled in the living room until late into the night.  And I didn't take one single picture...not even on my phone.  Fail!

On Sunday, she was excited to have Grandpa Wyatt, Grandma Carole, Jared, Carrie, and Clara come for dinner and presents.

 Blowing out most of her 10 candles.

(And that look on Greg's face was the look he was giving Wyatt for blowing out a few of them before she could.  Little stink!) 

She was really hoping for a new bike and Grandpa and Grandma delivered!  I think she was nervous about how big it was, but she can ride it like a pro.

On Monday (her actual birthday) Greg needed to take a cow to our vet about an hour and a half away, so we decided to tag along.  We had a couple hours to spend while the cow was in surgery, so we took the kids into Rexburg to lunch and bowling for Lydia's birthday.  They had a great time and we decided that we don't bowl often enough.  Especially since Amy and Dallin beat us all!

It was a fun-filled birthday weekend and fun to celebrate with our favorite 10 year old!

Grandma's 90th Birthday Celebration

Greg's Grandma will turn 90 this month!  We celebrated early with her the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It was a fun party and I especially enjoyed the slide show where she was able to explain each picture.  Not many 90 year olds can do that!

Grandma with her children:

Neil, Sheri, Marni, Laurie, and Alan

I'm not sure what was said to make them all laugh, but I'm sure Grandma said it!

Greg with Grandma

cute cousins!

Kaitlyn, Annie, Lydia, Hilary, and Hannah

I loved this dispay of pictures

My favorite picture of Greg's Grandparents

Happy Birthday Wyatt!

Last week we celebrated Wyatt's birthday!

He's the big SEVEN!!!

Out of all my children, he cares the most about his big day.  He starts planning it about two months in advance and doesn't hold back.  He had several requests this year:

Gifts: 

-A bow and arrow

 -camouflage backpack

-legos

- telescope

- the battleship game

-toy rifle.

(He got the bow and arrow, a camouflage waist pack, Legos, and battleship.  I told him he would have to request the other things for Christmas)

Food:

-macaroni and cheese for lunch

-poppyseed chicken with mashed potatoes for dinner

-Pioneer Woman's homemade ice cream bars

-BYU birthday cake

(Yes, he likes to watch the Pioneer Woman on Food Network with me.  He saw those ice cream bars and immediately requested them.  He's been buggin me ever since and I have to say...best birthday treat ever!  We loved them!!!)

Activities:

-going to a movie at the movie theatre

-going to Bear World

-having a BYU birthday party with friends who like BYU

*notice Amy sporting her favorite headband? ;)

Edible paper sheets from the cake decorating section at Walmart saved the day!

Singing Happy Birthday to our favorite seven year old!

We actually celebrated with friends the day after his birthday.  Plans changed on his actual birthday and Greg had some things come up at the dairy so unfortunately we weren't able to go to the movies or to Bear World, but having friends (who are BYU fans, of course), over for cake the next day still made for a very Happy Birthday for this boy!

(funny story:  I've mentioned Brother Barclay in past blog posts.  He's the guy in our ward that Wyatt idolizes because he hunts.  The Barclays just had their sixth child and now Wyatt says he wants to have six kids when he grows up....seriously, IDOLIZES Brother Barclay!  When I mentioned that we could have the Barclay's over for his BYU party Wyatt adamantly refused!  "We can't invite the Barclays!  They're Boise State fans!!!"  I guess Brother Barclay isn't ALL perfect ;)...for the record, we like Boise State too...but not as much as BYU!

Happy Birthday to Me - August 2012

This year I had to share my birthday with school work, soccer games (coaching one and watching another), the Republican National Convention, AND the first BYU football game of the season.  Fortunately my kids are getting old enough to remind Greg that it's my birthday and even give him a few hints of what he can get me.  Birthday's are definitely more fun when you have four excited kids on board!

Braces...SIGH! - May 2012

Before:

 After:



Lydia's Birthday!

We celebrated Lydia's 9th birthday this month!

For her birthday her only request was her own bedroom...she doesn't ask for much huh?!

A year ago we started the process of cleaning out one of our basement bedrooms to move her down too.  It was supposed to be as simple as tearing out some old carpet and repainting.  Unfortunately we found mold in the process...A LOT of mold!  Talk about depressing.  We tore out sheetrock, insulation, and removed the mold.  Apparently our foundation along the back wall of our house had a slight slant to it and over the years all the water (from rain and sprinklers) had been building up on that ledge and leaking down along the wall.  It was lovely.  It was also going to be an expensive fix and one that we weren't prepared for so we shut the door on the room and ignored it for the next year.  So you can see that her request for her own room really wasn't all that simple!

But....because we love this girl so much....we tore into the project, hired some help, and presented her with a new bedroom for her birthday!

I love how it turned out.  And more importantly, SHE LOVES it too!!!

She also got a new bedspread from Grandpa Wyatt and Grandma Carole (which she picked out), new sheets, and a few other new bedroom accessories for her birthday.

It's hard to believe she's NINE!  But I love that she is growing older and maturing.  She is such a great big sister and awesome daughter to have!  She does so well in school, likes playing the piano, and is SORT OF looking forward to braces next week!!!  She also just became a member of a sewing 4H club and purchased two pigs for her first year of livestock 4H. 

LOVE THIS BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY GIRL!

Big News!!!!

This 18 month (as of yesterday) old....

Is FINALLY walking !

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!

He also figured out how to open the child locks on the kitchen cupboards.

I think he's feeling mighty accomplished.