Time for school!!

Its that time of year again.   Mothers around the county  and kids complain.  Time for kids to go back to school. Brenna is in third grade this year.  She was so excited to go back.  She always says she would rather be at school than at home. She is such a smart girl and I'm looking forward to her getting a bit more challenged now.

Ian started preschool this year. It's only two days a week. ....I almost wish he was in kindergarten..... but I would miss him pestering me all day and Sophie would miss him.  She misses Brenna and gets so excited too see her when she gets home.

I'm on the PTA board again as treasurer.  Hopefully this year will go more smoothly than last year.  Last year was a crazy year since our Secretary flakes out,  our vice president resigned in december (she was supposed to take over as president for this year) and our president moved in February, which  only 2 of us. ... plus I had Sophie in December which only made life crazy.  I am looking forward to this year and all it has in store.

Monster truck!

We went to the Davis County Fair because they had elephants. Well....we watched the elephant show and the kids loved it. Then they said there will be elephant rides. The kids really wanted to ride....but they failed to mention that they were $8 each.....that was a bit much to walk around in a circle. Then we saw there were monster truck rides!! They were only $5 and the truck did a few crazy laps around the arena, spinning, jumping, peeling out....lots of fun! That was tons better than a stinky ol elephant.

Here are some pictures of Sophie the past few months

She has grown so much!! She is a happy girl and adore by everyone. She is a thumbssucker too....I have mixed feelings about that....She grabs everything.....especially when I am cooking. Such a big helper!

Great to be 8!

Its hard to believe my little girl is 8!!!! ( I Will post her birthday pictures later....I am posting from my phone and can only do 1 at a time) It seems like yesterday she was crawling around getting into everything. Now she is growing up and old enough to be baptized! She got to be baptized on June 1. She was so excited!! We took some pictures the week before of her in her dress, which I will post later. Then on Saturday it was the big day.  She got to be baptized on the same day as one of her friends, Emma. Jason got to baptise and confirm her. As part of the program Makayla sang a song. Ahead did a wonderful job! She has a beautiful voice.  Brenna loved that her cousin sang for it. She sang the song "I am His Daughter."Then after we had friends and family come for cake and ice cream.  I made her a special cake in the shape of a dress. It was all white and really yummy!!
I'm so proud of Brenna and her decision to be baptized. She sure has grown up a lot the past year. She still fights like crazy with her brother but when they get along they have lots of fun.  She is much a big helper with Sophie. She loves to told her and play with her.  She we will be a big help once Sophie learns to crawl and walk. Brenna is such a sweet and special girl and I am glad to cal her my daughter.

6 months!!

Can't believe it has already been 6 months!! Time sure has flown by. I have been a slacker and haven't blogged much.  Hopefully I can do better. I found an app for my phone that lets me do blog posts so I should be able to do more.

Happy Birthday, Brenna!!!

My little girl turned 8 this year!!!  Where oh where has the time gone?! She had grown up so fast =(  I sure love this sweet girl though =)  I remember when we were first married and we had talked about having kids, I always wanted a little girl first.  Then when I got pregnant (a year before we planned on having kids...) I was so excited when I found out I was having a girl.  She was such a sweet baby, but definitely had a personality from the get-go.  I have loved watching her grow and develop into a little lady.  She is such a smart girl and loves to read.  She gets that from me.  She loves school and loves her teacher, Mrs. Forsey. She is always excited to learn new things. She is such a friendly girl and will make friends anywhere we go.  I have loved seeing her testimony grow this past year.  It seems like up until the past year, things with church were just stories or pictures to her.  But now she is grasping many of the concepts and gaining an understanding of the principles.  She is definitely ready to take that step of baptism here in a week =)  She is such a good big sister to her brother and sister.  She fights like no other with Ian, but when they are playingnice they have such a fun time.  It will be interesting to see her relationship with Sophie since there is almost 8 years between them, but for right now, Brenna adores her little sister and I have a feeling that Sophie will want to be doing everything her big sister is doing here in not too long.  I know that when Brenna was sent to us, we got one of God's chosen spirit children.   She is already such a great example to those around her and to me.  She teaches me how to be a better person and mom.  I don't always have all the patience and she is quick to forgive when I end up taking it out on her and it's not her fault.  I couldn't ask fr  a sweeter or better daughter.  I am so grateful that I get to call her mine. I am incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful daughter.  I love you, Brenna Kay!!!  You'll always be my baby girl, no matter how old you are =)

This was Brenna on her last day of school this year.  This was her teacher Mrs. Forsey.  She was such a great teacher!!  Brenna will sure miss her.

Sophie =)

Sophie is now 2 months old =)  We love having her in our family and the kids still adore her.  she has been a pretty good baby so far...except when I eat chocolate....it gives her a belly ache =( A few weeks ago we had a little scare with RSV but luckily she is a strong little girl and it hardly phased her. She just got a stuffy nose and a bit of a cough, but nothing major, basically a very minor cold.  When I heard she had RSV I was prepared for her to end up in the hospital because she is so young, but she's my strong girl =)  She is growing like a little weed.  She loves to smile, especially in the mornings.  She loved to hang out with Jason while i get my exercise in (trying to shed the baby weight!) and she gives her best smiles to him.  I have a feeling she is going to be a daddy's girl. We are truly blessed in our family.  

 She is already getting her own personality going...which is spoiled!  She loves to be held and loves to look around and watch what is going on.  She is starting to be a daddy's girl too.  She saves her biggest smiles for him. =) They haven't held as much as they want because they keeping getting little colds, nothing big, pretty much just a runny nose, but I don't want to take chances. We are all adjusting to how much extra time it takes to get ready with a newborn.  It used to be I knew exactly how much time it would take us to get ready to go somewhere (okay, it was mainly how much time for me to shower and get ready) and now I have to add in feeding the baby, getting her ready, holding her because she doesn't want to be put down....so I feel like I an constantly running late.  The story of a mom, right?  But after having her it really feels like our family is complete, that there had been something needed, and we found it =)  We have all been going a bit stir crazy being cooped up since there really isn't much we can go and do with a newborn.  I can't wait until it warms up and we can walk to the park again.  Poor Ian is getting sick of hanging out with just mom.  I'm not very much fun.

I have a super awesome friend, Dallas, who takes amazing pictures.  She did a photo shoot with Sophie and we got these super cute pictures! Now to just decide which ones to hang up.....

The first Sunday in February we had Sophie's baby blessing.  Jason Gave her the sweetest blessing =)    The dress she wore was actually the same one Brenna was blessed in.  My aunt Helen made it.  It was a nice day spent with family.....because right after the blessing we headed to my dad's and watched the superbowl and pigged out on junk.  Unfortunately the 49ers lost by 3 points =(  but I was just happy to seem them there!

This is one of the few pictures of me with Sophie....since I am always taking the pictures.  Yes, I know, she doesn't look like me....I guess Jason will never have to take a paternity test since all of them look like him. =)

Happy Birthday, IAN!!!

I am a little late in posting this......

My handsome little guy turned 4 this year!!  I can't believe how big he has gotten.  It seems like yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital.  He is definitely a momma's boy and a big sweetheart.  He always comes up to me and gives me a hug and kiss and says "I like you!"  He is definitely all boy too!!  He won't wear any clothes that have "girl" colors and if you call him cute....watch out!!  He gets so mad!  He says he is not cute, he is cool! =)  He loves to box, wrestle, pretend he's "IronThor" (he wears his iron man costume with a cape) and run around crazy!  But he still loves to sit and cuddle me when he gets the chance. His favorite things are Avengers right now.  You can convince him to do anything if you can connect it to one of them....except Black Widow because she's a girl.  I am so grateful to have this little man as my son.  I love him more than I could ever hope to express.  He is a true blessing in our lives.  I know he is one of our Father in Heavens strong spritual warriors and I can't wait to see him grow into that.  I don't always have the patience I should with him....especially when he is supposed to be taking a nap but is instead playing with robots....but I am eternally grateful he is my little stinker.  He is such a special little guy and is so full of life (aka mischief!). I wouldn't change a thing about him!! I love you, IAN!!!

His new favorite things are silly monsters.  We redecorated his room with them and he wanted to have his birthday party with monsters.  Now, when you go to the party store, there aren't exactly very many silly monster decorations so I had to make my own.  Thankfully I already had some ideas and then was able to get a few from Pinterest.  This party was alot of fun to put together because there were lots of colors and pretty much anything goes with monsters =)

Before decorating for the party I had to figure out the cake.  So I just browsed the internet for some ideas.  I usually make the cake and frosting from scratch but I was lazy this year and used box cake mixes and canned frosting.  Taking care of a newborn that sleeps all day actually takes more time then I remembered....but then again having 2 other kids adds to it =)

Here is my cake.  I wanted to do it green since that is my little guy's favorite color.  After I decorated it I realized it looked like mike Wysowski from Monsters, Inc.  That was totally unintentional!!!

I then wanted to do cupcakes for all the kids (I wanted to save the cake for our family birthday party that night)  So of course the cupcakes had to have monsters.  I am not the most artistic but I think you get the idea of it. 

Here's how I did the eyes in case you are wondering:  I just melted some white chocolate and squirted it into circles on wax paper and put M&M's for the eyeball. 

I saw a cute idea here for some party favors.  I loved having something the kids could take. I had lots of fleece and felt scraps so I just cut them in various shapes and faces.  it was a pain to hand sew them together since for some reason my sewing machine wasn't wanting to sew....it kept knotting up.

I also made these cute little monsters for decoration and then my monster got to keep them to play with after the party.

I can't take credit for this fun centerpiece.  My sister made it.  She got some plastic plant holders and painted them, and then a plastic dish for the top.  She then decorated it like a monster.  She filled the plastic dish with gummy worms (my little boy's favorite treat and perfect monster food =)  )

These decorated the goodie bag table.  I made these awhile ago as decorations in his room.

I scored with these!  I went to the Dollar Tree and found them.  They were perfect for the party!!  I wanted a game that 4-year old kids could do.  this bingo game was great for them.  And the green and blue bubble containers in the background were also from the Dollar Tree.  They made the perfect prizes for the games.

Here is another game I did.  It was "Pin the Eye on the Monster"  I had to draw the poster but you could probably use a Monsters, Inc poster if you can find one. (the little guy in the white shirt with the monster on it is my little monster =)

Another game I did, but I forgot to get pictures before, was I put pieces of paper in balloons with prizes on it and told the kids to pop them for their prize. Because we all know that as soon as a kid sees a balloon the first thing in their mind is "Can I pop it?"  And this saves me from dealing with all the balloons after.  The catch was, I had some balloons with a monster face (you can see the blue and yellow one in the picture above).  The kids had to find a monster balloon to pop.  This was a hit with the kids.  Just make sure you have something on hand to help pop balloons with for those who aren't heavy enough to pop it by jumping on them =)

Before the Party started, to keep the kids distracted while guests were still arriving, I printed off a bunch of monster pictures and let them color them.  

I then decked out the room with streamers in all sorts of colors: red, yellow, blue, and green.  I also used all the extra balloons as decorations.  This was a very colorful party.  All of the kids had lots of fun and I think some of the parents that stayed had a good time too =)

Here are a few party pics:

Ian loved playing Monster Bingo.  

He patiently waited for each monster to be called and got excited when he had it on his card.

When he opened his presents he gave each person a hug to say thank you.  What a sweetie!

He got to blow out his candles...shush...don't tell anyone I lit candles in the church.

He loved his silly monster cake.  He is such a terd when it comes to pictures.  He will smile and then move his eyes away from the camera.  

Happy Birthday buddy!!!