Summer Vacation Week #1

We have had a busy week this week. I have been trying to keep the kids busy doing fun activities and classes. We started out the week with a cooking class. We made sugar cookies. I tried a new recipe. The were very light and fluffy. I have never found the "perfect" sugar cookie recipe for us. While this one was good, it was not quite what we are looking for.

We frosted them to look like watermelons. I found the idea somewhere on the internet (I never can remember where I find ideas!). I thought they would be so cute for the first of summer. The girls had lots of fun frosting them. We did it while the baby was napping, or it could have turned into a HUGE mess!

They turned out so cute. We took some to a few other families and they thought they were adorable. DH even had some of his fellow employees comment on them at work when he took them in his lunch.

We have also been doing "Summer Cleaning" as opposed to "Spring Cleaning". I thought I might as well put the girls to work. They have actually had fun doing it. This week we cleaned the living room from top to bottom. It is so nice and clean. We also cleaned out the coat closet.

The girls had fun trying on all of their winter stuff to see if it still fits. It took us a little while to get everything cleaned out, but it looks so nice now.

My oldest wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love. She was going to wait until school started again, but we thought it would be better to do it at the first of summer instead so she didn't have all that hot hair on her all summer long. Here she is before:

She donated 12 inches of hair. The stylist was surprised at how thick her hair is. M said her head felt much lighter after the cut. She has such pretty hair. We get comments on it all the time. It is the most beautiful auburn color. Women pay a LOT of money to try to get their hair that color. Here she is after:

I think the cut makes her look older, but she will always be my little girl.

It has been raining here almost all week. The girls haven't minded one bit since that meant we couldn't go out and do all the weeding I had planned. We did finally make it out to weed all the flower beds in the backyard last night and dead head some flowers. All this rain will surely bring out more weeds next week though.

We have had to be inventive with activities to keep the kids busy while it was raining. One day we made a fort out of sheets and furniture.

The girls played in their little hut for 3 hours straight! They love playing "house". They also had fun reading in there.

The girls have been doing tons of reading. Probably because I am bribing them! They get to earn a little Twillerbaby and a Twillerbee doll. A has to read 500 minutes to get her Twillerbaby, and M has to read 1000. To get their Twillerbee doll A has to read 1500 minutes and M has to read 3000. They are already well on their way. A has read over 180 minutes this week alone.

We have done other fun activities as well. We went shopping and got Dad's presents for Father's Day. We had a girls night last night while Daddy was at scout camp and watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua. We were going to paint nails too, but decided to wait and do that today since Dad will be gone all day. Poor Dad will be taking the scouts on a 20 mile hike today....in the rain. I am sure he is going to be really happy when he comes home!

We have had a great week. I hope I have the energy and ambition to keep up on all the activities and fun things I have planned. I want the girls to make lots of fun memories this summer.

One week down Ten to go.......

My santa babies....

My sister took the most adorable picture of her first little boy in a Santa hat when he was a baby. I kind of stole her idea and did the same thing with all my girls. I am so glad I did. They are one of my favorite Christmas decorations. Aren't they cute!

Baptism day....

M got baptized this weekend. It was a beautiful day. We sang the song, "When I am Baptized". In the song, there is a verse that goes like this:


I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.


That explains the day. The night before it had rained and the day was clean and beautiful, just like my little girl.


I am so proud of my little girl and these big important decisions she is making in her life.





We had a family get together afterwards. I wish we would have gotten some more pictures of M in her dress. I will have to take some (after I get the stain out....ARGH!!!!) and post them later and tell you all about the dress I made for her. I am a bit posted out for the day though.

School parades...

Mine are the cute black cat and the cute pink ballerina.

More birthday fun....

We were gone on M's birthday so we celebrated it yesterday. The poor girl didn't have a very good birthday anyway because she had the flu (Grandma and Grandpa B didn't have much fun either, since they were the lucky ones that got to clean up after her.....sorry!). She missed school on her birthday. She was disappointed that she didn't get to go and give her class her treats. She has the best teacher! She called on her birthday and had her class sing to her over the phone.

Yesterday for her birthday fun we went to Wal-Mart (I hear it is the party place..he he he). She wanted to get her ears pierced. We gave her the option of getting a new toy, or getting her ears pierced, and she chose the ears.

I think she was a little worried, because she didn't want to climb up onto the special seat where they do it. She picked out some adorable pink flower gem stone earrings. I don't know if you can see them too well in this picture. She is still a little shocked in this picture too.

She has been super good at taking care of them. She is so excited. She has even picked out the earrings that she wants to wear on Thanksgiving when she no longer has to wear her studs.

Afterwards, we took her to the toy department. Grandma and Grandpa R sent her some $$ to pick out something for herself. She got a horse for her Cinderella doll and a play make-up kit. She spent some time that afternoon making up herself and her sisters.

She had a fun time with it, until it was time to wash all of that glitter out of her eyelashes. I think she had a few stray sparkles when we went to church today.

When I was little we always got to pick out what meals we wanted on our birthday. It always made us feel special, so that is something I do with my kids now. M picked caramel apple crepes for breakfast (my small attempt at being IHOP), tomato soup for lunch, and taco salad for dinner. Here are her happy sisters waiting for the party to start.

In keeping with the clown theme from her birthday party, I made her a clown birthday cake.

Then she got to open her last remaining presents, including her new scriptures. She was so excited to take them to church today.

Happy Birthday M.....I still can't believe you are 8!!!!

Back to School & Ten Months Old

My girls started school this week. M will be in 2nd grade this year and A will be in Kindergarten. It will be an adjustment having them both gone. I will sure miss them. The younger two won't know what to do with themselves since their big sisters won't be there to boss them around.

A is so excited for Kindergarten. I think she is just getting bored at home. I think she just NEEDS something else, and something just for her. She has watched her older sister go to school for 2 years and bring home fun stuff and I think A has always been a little jealous. Now she gets to go do all of those fun things too. She just had testing this week and will actually start next week.
I am not sure if M was excited to go to school or not. This is her third school in three years and I think it has been a little hard for her. She has one little girl in her class she knows from church. I am glad that she has a friend to play with at recess. The funny thing is that she has a boy in her class that was in her Kindergarten class. We have moved twice since she was in Kindergarten and this boy moved too. It is funny that they ended up in the same class again.
Little H turned 10 months old on the first day of school. (What a big day for everyone!) She is sick this week and a little cranky, but still has the cutest smile. She has been doing better lately at sleeping in her own bed.....and that makes Mom and Dad very happy. I think she was just hungry. Now I give her a snack before bedtime and she sleeps much better. She is still infatuated with our stairs. She even says, "up" when she starts up them. She is learning how to climb down now too, but is still not too stable at it. Her favorite thing to do lately is get in cupboards. She is super determined too, so if you take her away from one, she goes RIGHT back.

What would you do for a quarter?

My 7 year old daughter came home from school awhile ago with a quarter. I asked her where she got it and she told me that Stephen had given it to her. I asked her why. "He gave it to me so I would play with him." How sad is that? A kid paying my daughter to play with him. I guess he has a big crush on her (at least that is what his older brother told my hubby). I told her not to take the poor boy's money and to play with him anyway. It gave me a good laugh anyway....and made my daughter turn bright red. This might be her very first crush.

Happy Birthday M....

We just celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday. (Hopefully this picture will come through this time.) She wanted a My Little Pony birthday party. I found a little set of birthday party My Little Ponies that I decorated her cake with. It was the easiest cake I have ever decorated. I can't believe how big she is. Where have the last 7 years gone? She is getting so tall and smart. It is so fun to watch her grow and change. We will see what this next year will bring.

A Sad Day...

Today is a sad day. My oldest daughter starts 1st grade today. I am not sad because she is going back to school or that she is old enough to be in first grade (well, okay, maybe a little sad about that), but what I am the saddest about is that I can't be with her today. It breaks my heart that I won't be able to be the one that fixes her her "Back to School" breakfast, or helps her make her very first school lunch. I won't be there to help her pick out her school clothes and make sure they match. I won't be there to do her hair up all cute (I am just praying that DH can make it look okay) and take pictures of her with her little back pack on. I won't be there to walk her to school and give her a hug and a kiss before she disappears into the school. I won't be there to pick her up after school and be the first one to hear all about her school day and her new teacher. I won't be there to sort through the million papers in her backpack or help her with her homework. I am terribly sad. This is the first big thing in her life that I won't be there for.

Have a good day at school M. I love you!

A New First....

On Sunday my oldest daughter lost her first tooth. It had been a teeny bit loose for awhile, but I guess she was wiggling at it on Saturday night and she said it popped a became a lot looser. She started crying because she didn't like the way it felt. Who does? Nobody likes to have a loose tooth! It bothered her so bad that she spent all of Sunday wiggling it. I was about ready to flip because her finger was constantly in her mouth. I guess all that wiggling paid off because it was loose enough after church that her daddy was able to give it a tug and pop it out. He thought is was kind of neat to pull out his first tooth on Father's Day. M was glad to have it out, until she saw that it was bleeding! Once the bleeding stopped she was just fine again and able to eat her dinner. She wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch because her tooth was bugging her so bad. It is still funny to see that hole in her mouth every time she smiles. The whole tooth fairy bit went over really well....except the tooth fairy didn't have any cash. So we ended up getting a dollar of her own money to give to her...we will of course pay her back. We will definately have to stock up on dollar bills for all the other tooth fairy visits.

On the day that M was born...

Yesterday was my oldest daughters birthday. I have seen several blogs with the birth story of their child on their birthday, so I thought I would do that too. So here is the story of how M came to be:

My husband and I had been married for a year when we decided it was time to start adding to our family. Little did we know, that it would take us a year and a half, lots of prayers, fasting, tears, and some fertility meds to finally get pregnant. We were so excited when I finally got pregnant (and stayed pregnant, after we had already had one miscarriage). I was extremely tired my first trimester because I was working full-time, but I wasn't very sick. I don't get that terribly sick when I am pregnant...at least not throwing up sick, just tired, nauseous, and gaggy. We ended up moving when I was 5 months pregnant. It wasn't a bad move since I wasn't that big yet. We moved into an apartment that had no air conditioning, so it was a very long, hot, and uncomfortable summer. We moved again when I was 8 months pregnant, but just across town. I was having some serious Braxton-Hicks contractions, but everything was okay. I went in for my regularly scheduled doctor's appointment 3 days before my due date. I had been having problems the last couple of weeks with my blood pressure being too high. My blood pressure had gone up again, so the doctor and I decided it was time to get the baby out. He told me to come back to the hospital that night to induce me. I walked home crying. I was excited, scared, nervous, happy, terrified all at the same time. I tried to rest that day, but of course I was to emotional to get any rest. That night my husband and I went to the hospital. The doctor used cervidil to induce me since I was already starting to dialate on my own. My husband and I spent a lot of time wandering the halls and watching the little monitors they had me attached to. In the early hours of the next morning my water broke and things started happening. I don't really have painful contractions until my water breaks, so this felt like the beginning of my labor for me. I spent the next several hours trying to breathe through contractions (luckily I had a wonderful nurse who really helped me focus). Those birthing books make it seem so easy to relax, but that is SO not the case. I spent a lot of time holding on to the bed screaming. Finally I got to the point where I could start pushing. I was so excited because I had heard that pushing is the best part of labor where you can really take an active role in your delivery. I HATED PUSHING!!! It was horrible. My nurse kept counting and telling me to push, and I just couldn't catch my breath inbetween. I spent two hours pushing, with not a whole lot happening. My babies heart beat started dropping, and the doctor said we needed to get her out. So out came the forcepts...this was an absolutely horrifying sight since I was doing this all naturally. The doctor pulled, and I pushed, and my baby was born. I was so relieved! After 14 hours of labor my baby was finally here. I hear a lot of people talk about how their birthing experience was so spiritual. Mine really wasn't. I think if I had not been so tired and worn out it might have been. It was amazing though!
So that is the quick version of M's birth (minus all the gross details). I cannot believe I have been a mother for 6 years now. It has been an amazing journey. I never knew being a mother could be so hard and so wonderful all at the same time. I never realized how much your children are a part of you. M is truly my daughter. She loves the same things I do, she thinks the same way I do. If she is sad, I just KNOW why. I understand her, I get her. It is so fun to be her mother.

Flower Fairy Birthday Party

This last weekend we had a flower fairy birthday party for my soon to be 6 year old daughter. It was a lot of fun.

Here is the invitation:


We played two games at the party. One was pin the fairy on the flower, and the other was musical flowers (where I put large paper flowers on the floor that the girls had to hurry and stand on when the music stopped). We also watched some stories and songs off of a fairy movie I got from the library.



I made all of the little girls that attended little fairy costumes that they got to take home with them. I made little green tu-tus, magic flower wands, and flower crowns.



We served cup cakes with paper flower toothpicks in them and punch for dessert. The party was going really well until a girl spilt half a pitcher full of punch all over my dining room. My daughter got lots of fun new things, and everyone seemed to have a fabulous time.

My Kindergartener....

I don't know why blogger is hating me lately, but no matter how I tried to put this picture in the below post it kept changing it to be another picture of my 3 year old. ARGH. Hopefully this will work.

A Proud Mother, and a Book Review....

I took my 5-year old in yesterday for her Kindergarten Conference. I tell you, no mother has ever been prouder! (I know, I know, I am sure you all felt this way too!) I taught my daughter pre-school, so this was an extra big thing for me. Especially to hear her teacher gush about how well she did and how smart she is. I have wondered and worried the whole time I was teaching her if I was doing everything the right way, or if she was really learning what she needed to know. So it was so great for me to finally know that I had done a good job of teaching my daughter. She is so excited for Kindergarten. He sent her home with some homework, and she was so excited to do it as soon as we got home. She is going to love Kindergarten. Stay tuned for pics next week of her first day...oh, getting weepy already.

On another note. My book reviews have kind of fizzled lately. It was too much for me to review so many books each week, so I am just going to review our book club book for the month, and any other books I find that I exceptionally love. Our book for this month was The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. It is a children's literature book and winner of the 1962 Newbery Medal. This was a fantastic book. It is set in Jerusalem at the time of Christ during Roman rule. The main character in the book is an 18 year old boy named Daniel. His father was killed by the Romans, and he has taken a personal oath against the Romans and is waiting for the "deliverer" to come that will bring war against the Romans and free the Jews from their bondage. His hatred of the Romans, leads him to join with a group of men fighting for this purpose. As the story progresses, he is confronted with difficult choices to make regarding his family, friends, and his beliefs. He also is able to listen to Christ's sermons, and starts to have a change of heart regarding his approach to freeing the Jews from bondage. It is an inspiring book, and really makes you think about the things going on in the land during the time of Christ. Not being Jewish, I never really realized the many laws that govern their religion and society. It was very interesting to read about it in this book. It also raises some good guestions. Will I know Him when he comes again? So many people didn't know Him when He walked the earth, performed miracles, and talked directly to the people. So, how will I know it is really Him? It is a wonderful book that makes you think about your beliefs and your faith. Read it with tissues.

Fluffy little tutus...

My 5-year old had her Spring Dance Recital last night. She looked adorable in her little pink costume. She did a great job with her dance too. My 5-year old loves to look at all the costumes. I must admit that I love to as well. That is my favorite part of dance. I have found that there are many things that I don't like about dance. Here are a few:
1. Mothers. Not all mothers, just the ones that go a little over board with the whole dancing thing. The ones that take their kids to the hair dresser for their "recital do". The ones who paint their kids with so much make-up that you would think they are clowns. The ones that bring a HUGE bouquet of flowers for their daughter after the recital is over.....and I mean HUGE flowers. We are talking bigger than my wedding bouquet!!
2. Rehearsals. Monday night, they had a dance rehearsal. Total mess. Is it really necessary for 3 year olds to rehearse? They aren't going to do their dance any better.
3. Recitals. I think ours are just handled very poorly. I had to stand through the whole thing last night because there was not enough room for everyone. There were people standing all the way around the auditorium, and even people in the hall watching from the open doors. This was especially bad for me since I was there with our 3 kids by myself (my husband, the lucky dog got out of the recital because he went to the rehearsal and had official church business to attend to). So I got to stand in the back, holding my baby, and trying to contain the other two in my two square feet of space. Getting out of there afterwards was a nightmare. I sat in my car in the parking lot for 20 minutes trying to get out....as I did so I sat and watched my gas mileage plummet....22.4...22.3....22.2. It was great entertainment I assure you!
4. Dance Choreography. The little girl dances were cute and fun, but something seems to happen between the cute little girl dances and the big girl dances. Can I just say that I was appauled!! I think if some of those girls were wearing a little less (and not much less) they might be taken for strip club dancers. I wanted to cover MY eyes, let alone the eyes of my children. I am sure the guy in the back of the auditorium with the binoculars was loving all the jiggling and bouncing though!!
Sorry to go off! I was just needing to whine a little. I sat there last night just thinking to myself, "This is my life?????". I want my little girl to have good experiences, learn new things, become self confident, and able to get up in front of others, but I am not so sure this is the way to do it. I would give it up entirely if they didn't look so adorable in those little tutus!!! Here are some photos of our little ballerina!