I'm a Big Girl Now

Goodbye Crib!

Hello New Bunk Bed!

The Girls are excited!

Big Pile of Leaves

I finally got around to cleaning up the front yard. We have a huge tree that's been littering the lawn with leaves. It was about time.  And so, we had a huge pile of leaves all gathered up.  The kids had a blast jumping and throwing them around until I had to throw them all away.

Green Eyes

I love Terrick's green eyes.

So pretty. Click on the picture to see a close up.

Family Photo Shoot

Any Resemblance?

The top one is me and the bottom one is my little A.  She reminds me of me when I was little.

How Do You Sleep?

As a routine, we always peek in and check on the kiddos before we go to bed.  This is how we found our oldest sleeping in his room.

Seriously, how is this even possible?  Now you all believe me when I say that my kids can sleep anywhere, I literally mean ANYWHERE!

Halloween Costumes

Can't Believe I Have a 9-Year-Old!

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

I asked for a silly face and I got an "eye roll."   Now I know he's getting too old (below).

My Dad is So Awesome

My Dad has the greenest thumb of anyone I know.  While they were down visiting the other week, he gave me this fabulous gift:

He built me this wonderful box garden! My old garden ended at the tomato plants you see in the middle.  Now it extend to the end of the old grassy area.  I was excited to plant some new stuff for the fall/winter.

Happy Birthday! The Big 5!

Can't believe my baby boy is 5 and in kindergarten.  He's my little guy that's supposed to stay little and snuggly forever.  This little guy has more energy than any other little guy I know.  Full of excitement and silliness.  We sure love our "T"  or "Lubby" as he is also known.  (The cake is supposed to be a batman cake.  I used a chocolate cookie for the bat.  Not my best work)

Picture Day

So I will be the first to admit that I'm cheap (or poor - however you want to look at it).   And. . . School pictures turn out so terrible.  Let's face it, the kids need several shots to get a half-way decent smile.  All things considered I hate buying school pictures.   The last couple of years I have started just buying the class picture for the kids so they can remember friends and teachers (which this year is still costing me $60 big ones).  I get them ready for picture day and take them out to the front yard to take pictures by our tree.  It makes a cool backdrop and I can get my own prints from Costco for much cheaper.   All in all, the result is better pictures for less money.  Win win.

So Sleepy

You know, after a long day of riding her horse, a cowgirl gets tired.

No More Monkey Bars

This little guy loves the monkey bars, but one week into school, we're paying dearly for it.  Poor little guy.  My hands hurt just looking at them.

Hopefully he gets some callouses when they heal.

15 Months and Finally. . . .

15 Months and Finally. . . I can do a little pony tail!

It's a tiny little thing and she hates it, but it's so cute.  The other kids call it her little "Doink"  Too cute!

They Are Growing Up So Fast!

Five short years ago I had four children under the age of four.  Looking back, I just remember being very busy, doing lots of games and crafts to keep the kids busy, and lots of crying in the house.  I look at this picture and I remember these little versions of my kids and wonder where they went.  It is so strange for me to think that next week all four of those little ones will be in school.  Just me and the baby home until 1 in the afternoon!  It's strange to see the kids growing up so fast.  Can't believe how time flies. 

Little Girls

When you grow up and think about having a little girl, you think about dress up and princesses and pink.  You don't think about trips to the emergency room and broken teeth.  Here we are, though, with just that.  She's had staples in the back of her head, stitches in her forehead, scraped up her lip and nose, and now she's chipped her front teeth - her permanent teeth.  It's a good thing we have a dentist appointment set for Thursday already.

Father's Day!

We had a fabulous Father's Day this year.  We had lots of fabulous little surprises for Dad (and they were all fairly inexpensive!)
The night before Father's Day, we cleaned up Dad's bedroom and left this on his pillow: 

We found the printable at Seven Thirty Three.  We filled it out with all of Daddy's favorite foods for breakfast and let him choose what he wanted.
The kids each made him a card (or 3 or 4) and we bought him his favorite candy bar.  And used a printable label to put over the candy from The Idea Room.  She has free printables for multiple sizes of candy like this:

Then we got his favorite kind of soda - Henry Wienhard's Root Beer and used this printable label from Oopsey Daisy. 

Thank you Tatertots and Jello for posting all of these wonderful ideas!

He got all the special meals of the day that we knew he loved and also made him some of his favorite peanut butter cookies.

Our last kind act of the day was creating him a "WE LOVE DAD" masterpiece on the driveway.  I knew he'd have to stay after church for at least a little while, so we took advantage of our time and filled the whole driveway with chalk.

He was really very grateful for all the little things we did to make his day great.  We love our Daddy so much, I'm so glad we were able to make a special day for him.  He is my love, my best friend and the best Daddy to my kids a girl could ever ask for.  LOVE YOU, JARED!!!!

Cruise Details

We took a 4-day cruise to Catalina and Ensenada for our 10th Anniversary.  It was amazing.  We spent a lot of time relaxing and enjoying the ship.  We played mini golf, ping pong, shuffleboard, tried out the water slide (one time it was freezing water), relaxed in the hot tubs, watched a couple of shows and ATE a lot (or at least I did).  Who can resist all-you-can-eat food, right?  We ate buffet style for breakfast and lunch, then had our dinners in the dining room.  The staff was great and we enjoyed our "table mates" a lot.  We chuckled that in putting us with couples our age, we were at a table of 3 sets of newlyweds and one engaged couple.  One of the couples was even LDS.  Small world, right?  I even managed not to talk about the kids pretty much the whole time.  I haven't had so many adult conversations in a long time.

In Catalina, we did a little shopping and went to visit the hotel we stayed at for our honeymoon (seems like yesterday).  In Ensenada, we did some more shopping, ate some fabulous tacos and took an hour and a half horseback ride that went up the hills and had some beautiful views.

All in all, it was just so nice to get away from our daily lives and have time together.  I am so in love with my dear husband, I wish these kinds of excursions weren't so few and far between.