Leelee's Big One!

I basically can't believe I'm sitting here writing this post. How on earth did my baby just turn one? Where did this last year go? I have no idea, but I do know it's true that time just keeps flying by faster and faster. My little chunky monkey 9 pounder is now my sweet, petite baby girl teetering through the house mixing it up with her siblings. They all adore her and it's so cute to see each one's interactions with her. I even get glimpses of Colby doting on her and I have hope that one day they will be best buds.  While having six kids has completely kicked my butt it has all been worth it to have her in our family. She has saved my sanity this past year and she is such an incredible joy to have in our home.

 Kris got her the CUTEST pink donut for her birthday and mostly she just enjoyed mushing it.

 A little thing about Leelee is that she loves ice. I mean, she really LOVES ice. She knows all the places to look for cups of ice water and she goes to great lengths to get to it. She knows she can often find a cup on my night stand and here she is on her birthday snagging a piece after church. I just have to laugh at her and I think it's pretty much the most adorable thing ever. In fact, we got her a cute little pink ice tray that makes the perfect size cubes as a present for her b-day. AND just after she opened it she was sitting on the floor and turned around and grabbed Kris' cup of ice water that was sitting under his chair to get some ice, I kid you not.

 She dug right into her cupcake, sans frosting. She's a big chocolate lover (like her mother) so it was right up her alley.

Growing up in a large family Leelee is certainly not afraid to voice her opinion or stick up for herself, much to Colby's chagrin I am sure. She will let you know what she wants when she wants it. That being said, she is quite an agreeable child, she gets along with everyone, she's calm, content and lots of fun to be around. We all adore this little girl and cannot imagine our lives without her!

Happy Birthday sweet little Leelee!!!

"O"vember

Soooo, November was a big month for the O-man. He turned the big EIGHT! But I don't have any pictures worth posting because I could not get the edited ones to upload, it's making me crazy but some pictures of me first thing in the morning are not suitable for the public to view. :) These kids just won't stop growing up. It's all passing me by too quickly. Please! Time. Slow. Down. I'm begging you!

On the 11th of November we went to the Veterans' Day parade. We were glad we did. It brought back memories of the 4th of July parades in Rexburg and they even threw out some candy for good measure. I honestly didn't think we'd ever see a parade like that in Mesa. We were very happy. A picnic in the park with cousins rounded out our awesome day. Thank you Veterans' for making it all possible!

The next day Owen lost his first top tooth. He's eight and he had only lost two bottom teeth. I guess he's a late loser. He'd been working on this tooth for quite awhile and finally Dad was able to get it out. Soon all he'll want for Christmas is his two front teeth.



The Sunday after his birthday we finally had his birthday cake at family dinner. He requested a wizard's hat on his cake. Please ignore the horrific editing job on this photo. I was trying something and it went awry and of course I can't get the unedited one to upload, but that picture isn't all that great either. Oh well. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated with blogger at the moment?

On the 26th Owen was baptized. It was a beautiful time with a wonderful spirit and good family and friends there. I'll admit it was a little hectic having it Thanksgiving weekend but we survived. Barely.

Imagine being late for your own son's baptism. Yes, I was. Only about three minutes but luckily the font was late getting filled, and well, since I'm the mom they wouldn't have started without me anyway. :)

My handsome boys!

Grannie and Pops

Aunt Hayley and Uncle EJ
(My, my Owen sure does look handsome in his suit!)

Future missionaries

Owen with his cousin Nick

I couldn't resist posting a few photos of this little cutie!

I could just eat her up!

Somebody had a birthday

We celebrated Colby's 3rd birthday at the end of August. He was super excited for his birthday donuts, even more excited for those than for his presents.

 We kept it a low key affair. When they're young and don't really know the difference I like to keep it easy and cheap. So we took the family swimming, it's one of Colby's favorite things to do so he was very happy. This happened to be Leelee's first trip to the pool.

 He got some birthday money in the mail from his grandparents in Idaho so he got to have a little shopping trip. It was hilarious. It hadn't started out as a trip to the store to spend his birthday money but we walked by these shoes at the end of an aisle and he was in love. "MOM, I WANT THESE!" And I was thinking, "No way!" (I'm generally not a fan of character shoes) plus they weren't even on sale. But then I remembered that he had his birthday money so I said, "well, if you really want them then you can buy them with your birthday money." He exclaimed, "I do want these. I REALLY do want these." So in the cart they went and thus began his shopping adventure.

 He wandered up and down the toy aisles looking and looking and when he found an item that he knew he wanted, in the basket it went. He was very picky and selected only items that he knew he would love. And if you know Colby you'll understand his next choice: a hat.

Here he is posing with all his loot: the shoes, the pirate hat, a bat and ball set, a giant bouncy ball, a Frisbee, and a Nerf rocket football. He was even funny when he had to choose between two items because he didn't have enough money left to buy both, he was very matter of fact and decisive. No tantrums, just a very satisfying shopping trip with a three year old. I'm still laughing about how grown up he was about the whole thing and how much fun he had getting to spend all of his money.

I have to say that this little boy challenges me to the very innermost core of my being. I was sorta hoping that once he turned three all the difficulties I have with him would just melt away and I would have this delightful little three year old. I love three year olds, it's such a fun age. Alas, it has not exactly turned out that way. He knows how to push buttons I didn't even know I had and I have come to the determination that he is the child that will teach me patience far greater than all the others. BUT, I love him fiercely and our family wouldn't be the same without him. He definitely livens this place up! He's already looking forward to his next birthday and talks about this birthday as if it were yesterday. He tells people "my birthday was 'last day' " (meaning yesterday). I tried to explain to him about Christmas and I think he's starting to get excited for that.

We love you Colby!

Double Digits!!!

My little girl isn't so little anymore, well she hasn't been for quite some time but at least her age is starting to catch up to her. She'll probably still get mistaken for a teenager but at least now that she's in the double digits it will hopefully not seem so shocking, at least for me. 

Dad got her a special pink coconut covered donut. She loves coconut.

This year for her birthday Gracie said she wanted a shopping spree. So all she got for her birthday was money and she and I (and the baby, of course) spent the day shopping. We stopped by Dad's work and then went to Ikea, the mall and Target. She cracked me up with how frugal she was. Ikea was pretty much a waste of time because she didn't want to buy anything there without seeing what all her options at the mall were. She spent a ridiculously large amount of time at the rock store as she carefully chose a few select rocks. She bought a geode which was cool because she came home and got to break it open to see what was inside. 

 After about four hours of shopping she had spent a whopping $11, she eventually spent more over the next week or so.

A few facts about Gracie:

She wears a size 11 shoe in womens. Yes, you read that right- size 11. Bigger than me, we barely got to enjoy the sharing shoe phase and she's 10 for crying out loud. Oh please do not let this girl be taller than six feet, but her big feet have me concerned.  I should note that it does not seem to bother her one bit at all and unfortunately she has been blessed with no coordination.

I have never had to deal with friend drama with her at all. She is a good friend and she gets along well with others and doesn't seem to ever get caught up in any nonsense.

She hates (HATES, I tell you!) to do chores. You see, she is a child who likes to have fun. She likes to craft and write and play and daydream and do fun things! And chores are so not fun! Oh, and she also always leaves her dirty clothes in the bathroom. But, I might add, she has been keeping her room in super neat condition (mostly) since we moved into our house, nothing like this.

She's an awesome big sister. Since she likes to have fun she is always coming up with new games to play with her little brothers. She was my savior this summer while I was suffering through my pregnancy. She kept those boys entertained for hours each day playing school and doing other fun activities.

She's super smart. She scored 100 on the state standardized test in the language/reading section and only missed 3 points overall. (But I'm not bragging or anything :)

She practices her instruments faithfully, without ever being asked to do it. Last year it was the violin, this year it's the clarinet (sorry Em!) since she wanted to join the band.

She gets hot very easily, hence the flushed cheek look she sports in so many pictures. The only one of my kids to suffer from this. Weird.

Happy 10th Gracie, my dear, you are a supremely wonderful, fantastically amazing daughter! We're so lucky you're ours!

It's My Party...

Today is my 34th birthday.  Yikes, am I really that old? Really? Yes, it's true.  I'm just trying to go with the flow.  And if I live to be 100 (as I plan to) then my life is just over 1/3 of the way done.  So, c'est la vie. Anyway, I didn't really want to blog to lament the fact that I'm getting older I wanted to blog about how cute my kids are because as Matthew told me this morning after he apologized for not getting me a gift he said that the best gift he could give me would be to be a good person since I am the one who gave him life. Too true. And so sweet. And Colby sang me "Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday" all by himself.

Then Owen and Rex unveiled this beauty:

 It's a lego creation that they built, h b m, it stands for Happy Birthday Mom!

 Then Gracie gave me her gift, a memory box.

 Dang these photos that won't rotate! Why will some do it and others won't!?

 Leave it to Gracie...

 I can store all my special keepsakes in here.

I feel so loved today, the kids all want me to have a special day, they let me sleep in with minimal interruptions- they even waited so patiently to eat their breakfast since we had donuts and they couldn't eat them without me.  I love these kids, they are my best gifts!

(I'm sad that Kris had to miss all the festivities, I'm glad he went and got the donuts this morning before work.  He has to leave for work at 6:20 and I sure didn't want to wake up at 6 on my birthday, or wake up all the kids for that matter. Love you, Babe!)

Swimming Summer

We've been doing LOTS of swimming this summer, almost every day.  We are very happy to have a community pool in our neighborhood and the kids enjoyed a couple of weeks of swimming lessons where they each improved greatly on their swimming skills.  We'll have them turned into Arizona water babies before long.  Every Friday after the summer movies we've been going over to the Bergen's for a little swim/pizza party.  This particular Friday happened to be the week of Rex' and Ren's birthdays.

 The newly three and five year olds and almost all the cousins (who live here).

 Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes Kindra made (I probably could've eaten 5)!

Then we called cousin Mia in Idaho to wish her a happy birthday since it happened to be her birthday on that very day.  Wish she could've been here to help us celebrate!

Number 5 is Alive!

Rex turned 5 in June and he was pretty excited.  I love my little Rexy and I'm really sad he's old enough to be in kindergarten now, I hate how fast time flies.  He's lovable, fun, friendly, laid back, sweet, and smart.  He especially loves anything to do with numbers.

Enjoying his birthday donut. (They get their love of maple donuts from their dad, yuck!)

We celebrated with a little family party at Chuck E Cheese's, as you can see he was pretty excited.

We were glad Granny and Pops could make it.

He seemed more excited to get this water gun from Gracie than to get any of his other presents.

The boys.

The kids raked in the tickets, apparently they found a game with a glitch and scored a billion tickets. More than they've ever had before, they had lots of fun picking out their prizes and the guy at the counter was super nice and patient :).

The big present. Maybe once summer is over he'll get a chance to actually ride it.  (Kris and I have this thing about bikes, in Arizona you get bikes for Christmas because it's perfect weather for riding. In Rexburg it doesn't make any sense to get a bike for Christmas because you won't be able to ride it for another 4 months. And it looks like Rex shouldn't get a bike for his birthday in AZ because it's just getting hot enough that you don't want to be outside anymore unless you're at the pool, lesson learned.)

The birthday cake. It was a store bought ice cream cake and I thought it was pretty gross, another lesson learned.  At least the kids enjoyed it.

Happy 5th birthday Rex!

Birthday Boy!

Owen turned seven! He's the middle child and a classic one at that. He gets all the hand-me-downs and I always feel guilty about that but he doesn't seem to mind. He's good natured but can have a fiery temper (wonder where he gets that from?). He is an excellent student, he soaks up learning and loves reading and math. All his teachers (school and church) love him. He makes friends easily and is very helpful. He enjoys riding his bike and playing video games. We love you, Owen! Happy Birthday!

The special birthday boy donut

(Colby was in the background saying "cheese")

The hoped for skateboard, he's pretty good already.
He got this crown at school and wore it proudly. In fact, he told me that he was going to save it and wear it every year on his birthday. Sometimes his innocence just melts my heart. I hate it when they grow too old for this stuff.

Birthday Boy!

I can't believe my baby is two!

We told him to say "cheese" for the picture, so he did.

Again.
And again.

That evening we had a double party at Peter Piper's.

Colby and his cousin, Walter, are just one day apart.

The kids had loads of fun.

Colby's scooter. He loves this thing. He calls it his bikel. He didn't know how to make it go at first, he would just stand on it with both feet or push it with both feet on the ground. By the end of the night he had it down, it's pretty darn cute.

Mom and Birthday Boy at the end of the night!

What a fun day!