Ellie is 7!

And rounding out our 4 months of birthday celebrations, Ellie turned 7 in December!



Per our family tradition, we had her gifts laid out at the foot of our bed, and Ellie had everyone up and ready to watch her open them bright and early. Ada made her a darling fabric snowman, and Lauren wrote her a sweet poem and she showered them with thanks and love.





Ellie got a great haul. Legos and an outfit from her grandparents, Legos from Ada, a book from our dear friends in Idaho, a Nerf gun from her aunt, and replacement bullets from Tommy. Her favorite package was the American girl doll Isabelle from her grandparents. Jacob's mom had heard Ellie say all year that she wanted the girl of the year, and kindly made that dream birthday dream come true for Elli.



Jacob and I bought her a 20 inch bike, since she'd been riding on a 16 inch one and her long legs were hitting the front handlebars. She loves to ride and is getting the hang of hand brakes.



We host parties every even year, so on the odd year birthdays the kids each get to pick a restaurant for dinner. Ellie chose the Spaghetti factory and this time we were able to sit inside the train for our dinner.





Finally, on Saturday Jake and I took her to see the new Annie for her mom and dad date. She was so fun to hang out with and we loved asking her questions and spending one on one time together. She is always very grateful and thanked us for taking her out several times.



Ellie is a great seven year old girl and is growing and developing into such a thoughtful, obedient, inquisitive, and caring child. She is a morning girl and is always the one to get Thomas out of bed, as he is a morning boy. She usually reads to him before bringing him into our room. Ellie has a zest for life and loves to tease and play. She has really developed in her piano skills this year and loves to play and sing at the same time. Ellie reads like a champ and is into several fun series of books and has also loved plaing soccer this fall and winter.



Happy 7 years Ellie. We love you so!

Ada is 5!

Our sweet Ada girl celebrated her 5th birthday at the end of October. That's one whole hand baby. To say she was excited for her birthday was an understatement. We tried to make it a great day for her and make all of her dreams come true. She was so appreciative and told me "thank you" at least a dozen times throughout the day.

Opening presents first thing in the am

Her favorite gift "A big ginormous pillow pet!!!"

Sister love

Ada is pure goodness. She is a self sufficient girl and is very resourceful. She LOVES her sisters and brother. She says they are her best friends and she means it. Ada is a home-body and loves to work on crafts, projects, color, sing, and play with anyone around. She has a great faith and is the first one to remind us to pray over anything. She does have a stubborn streak and is hard to dissuade if she has her mind set on doing (or not doing) something. Ada speaks with the cutest lisp and mixes up her "th" and "f" sounds and it is nothing short of adorable. She is such an important part of our family and I'm grateful every day that she came to us.

Her dinner choice- Sweet Tomatoes

Jake and I took her on a date to the puppet theater a few days after her birthday. She enjoyed it, but I was glad we had a real toy for her to open on her birthday. Lesson learned- tickets in a box don't mean much to a 5 year old.

Happy 5th birthday Ada girl!

June 2013

June meant the start of summer, Spalding reading class for Lauren and Ellie, and traveling to CA and Utah or the big event of the year- my little brother Andy's wedding to the wonderful Chelsea L.

I'm so grateful for the summer reading class taught by my good friend in the ward, and love that my girls spend the first few weeks of summer living in their jammies and reading books. 

J's work had the annual company party at the ice arena and we dug out our pants and sweatshirts and had a great time.

 

 Thankfully we also had time for some fun play dates with wonderful friends from school and church.

I got to sneak up to girls camp for a day and give a little talk about missionary work and my lucky girls got to come with me. They loved having a sneak peek at camp and the bigs totally braved the 30 foot cargo net, with five year old Ellie making it all the way up and over.

 

 

 

 

  

Baby bump at 18 weeks:

  

  

and finding out that baby number four is a BOY!

and BANGS! So far, so good. 

Finally, the long awaited trip and eternal marriage of these two love birds! It was a wonderful day and we loved being there to share and celebrate with them.

 

Recoginze anyone else we say that day in LA?

 

After the CA wedding, we moved north on the road to Utah. We spent a few fun days in St. George (thanks to the Philipp's generosity in opening up their vacation home to us) and loved touring the historic church sited there, seeing Mary Poppins, and celebrating Father's Day with my dad and the sweet father of my children.



We made it to Utah to help get things set up for the wedding reception there. It was a lovely event in the mountains on a beautiful spring night, and only the key to the moving truck (back left pocket J) put a hitch into the evening.



We then had a few days in Utah to visit 7-peaks, ride on Bruno (my Grandpa's electric stair chair ala Up), spend time with our Robertson grandparents, and have a playdate with friends who'd relocated to Utah from Phoenix.



 

 

At the end of the month J returned home to work for a few weeks and I joined him a few days later, leaving our kids in Utah with their grandparents for a week. Our parents were both so wonderful to watch/entertain/feed/care for the girls, our kids loved having quality time with their grandparents, and J and I made the most of our time alone back at home.

Maybe it will become a yearly tradition??? :)

April 2013

Blogging took a back seat through the spring/summer months when I was in the first trimester of the pregnancy and my house (and life) often looked and felt like this.

However there were some fun events that took place in April that I don't want to forget. First, we have a lovely long weekend visit from my Grandma Pat and my parents. They came over J's birthday and we enjoyed celebrating together. J is a great man, husband, and father and I'm daily so grateful for him. 

My grandma is an avid shopper and spent a few hours at Last Ch*nce and the used book store. I love that my kids get to see and spend time with their grandparents and I'm grateful that they made time to come and visit us. 

Lauren played a piano piece with her friend Daniela in the school talent show, and showed great courage to get up and play despite her usual shyness. We also finished up the Let's Play Music class (that I teach) for the semester and both girls performed so well in the recital.

 At the end of April we had a lovely almost two week visit from my sister Claire and her two kids. We enjoyed our time with them, and I loved having another adult around to talk to and have help from all day long. Maybe sister wives wouldn't be such a bad gig... :)

 Finally, Ada made her debut visit to the dentist and we filled up all of their avilliable chairs with our 3 girls getting a checkup. We've just had word that Lauren is already going to start phase 1 of ortho care and we're destined to spend a lot of money on our children's teeth in the near future.



As the summer heat came on we got on our suits and got outside to play in the water and didn't get out until just this month.

And that's an April wrap.