Emma Turns Six!

So, apparently I mainly only do blog posts for birthdays. Probably because there's a level of guilt involved if I don't. Anyone else relate?

Without further ado, since it's already waited almost 3 months,

Happy Birthday, Emma!

If you can't tell by the dress, the party had a Frozen theme. My kids, like every other child in the world, are obsessed with Frozen and we've had to have many talks about the movie and in particular, Elsa's Let It Go song. But that's a post for another day.

Here's a picture of Emma's cake.

The party was fun. We played hot potato, but called it Frozen Snowball and used a Styrofoam ball as the "potato." We also played pin the nose on Olaf. I had pictures of the games, but I couldn't find them. :(

So here are some fun things about Emma now that she's 6!

Emma is a lovable girl who is very affectionate.

She has a massive amount of energy.

She loves to smile.

Emma is dang smart. That girl has been hiding her reading skills in an attempt to have everyone read to her. :)

She loves reading comic books, Calvin and Hobbes and Fox Trot usually since that's what we have in the house and I won't let the kids touch my Sheldon comics.

Emma is excited for school this year, for which I am grateful. It certainly makes it easier for me.

Emma is brave. I don't mean in a reckless way, just that she is willing to try new things that may seem scary if Nathan or I am there encouraging her.

Emma loves the chickens. I find her outside all the time carrying one of them around like it's a baby. I think they are finally getting used to her. :) And her Easter Egger finally started laying! We found a greenish egg in the nesting boxes last night!

Emma, I love you! You are a sweet, fun girl and I am so glad that you are part of our family. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, teaching me patience, and for all the hugs, kisses, and "I love you, moms."

Lincoln Turns 1

Happy Birthday, Lincoln!

Lincoln's last night of being 11 months old.

Then we cut his hair. Sad, but good.

In His Fifth Year . . .

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Wearing his nightshirt I made him and holding the Lego person he made at the Lego store.

I love the Dr. Seuss fabric line. I think I posted a picture of Emma with her birthday pillowcase I made, so here's Jeremy with his.

Cool clothes from Grandma Rosie

Remote Control Truck!

Wooden map of the U.S.

With all his loot

Jeremy wanted lava cakes for his birthday instead of a traditional birthday cake, which was just fine with me! He also picked out caramel and double chocolate Magnum ice cream bars :)

We love you, Jeremy! We hope you love being 5!

5 Fun Things About Jeremy: His favorite drink is water, he loves Legos, he loves to imagine new kinds of machines and then draw them, he can read but doesn't want anyone to know about it yet, and he is awesome!

Jeremy still gives the best hugs out of anyone I know. He's such a great big brother and he loves to play with Megan. He's almost always willing to play anything she wants to play and is so helpful with Lincoln. He was so patient while the girls and I did the musical, This is Kirtland! this summer. He even came to see the show a couple times and he paid attention!

The only thing this picture has to do with Jeremy's birthday is that it was taken on the same day, but look who's pulling himself up on everything!!

The next Einstein?

 Bye!

Sweet Emma Rose Turns Three!

Today Emma turned three. She's been asking for weeks when her birthday is and finally this morning I could give her the answer she wanted to hear, "Today!"

Emma is Little Miss Independent. I think it is finally safe to say she's potty trained. She hasn't finished her second potty chart yet, but she's consistent enough that I don't think I'm jinxing myself here. She's gotten amazingly better at clean up time just in recent weeks and we are all grateful for that. I think the idea of being a "Big Girl" is dawning on her. We talk about what Big Girls do or don't do and that helps.
 

Emma's birthday dress. Probably the most fun clothing item I've made.

Here are a few more tidbits about Emma

*Emma loves pasta. It's been one of her favorite foods for a long time. Whether it's spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, or perogies, this girl will eat it up. However, for her birthday dinner she requested chicken noodle soup.

*Emma loves to be read to.
*She loves to make up songs just like Megan did (and just like Megan they usually have to do with Jesus and her loving her family).

*Emma loves to play super hero. I made the kids super hero capes for Christmas and it is Emma that wears hers on a daily basis. Sometimes even to the store or to pick up Jeremy from school.

*She has a hard time looking at the camera, even if you point it out to her and promise her candy.
*She makes us laugh every day.

*She still draws on walls.

*She loves other kids.
*Emma's bedtime routine recently changed and she's just run with it. No problems. She's been sleeping on a crib mattress in Megan's room so they can share the humidifier (oh the joys of allergies, I've considered joining them) and she's been great.

*One of the highlights of turning three for Emma is getting to go into the Eagle's Nest at the grocery store while I shop. In fact, as part of her birthday presents, that's what we'll be doing tomorrow since we ran out of time to do it today.
*She is VERY excited for preschool. Let's just hope it stays that way once school starts next fall.
*Emma makes us smile every single day!

Emma, thanks for being in our family! We love you and are so glad you are three!

Thanks Grandma Rosie for the clothes!

Thanks Papa for the Twizzlers and Mama for the Queen Bee magnet peg doll :)

Emma requested a bumblebee cake

Happy Birthday, Megan!

Megan turned 6 on Saturday. She wanted a fairytale birthday so we told everyone to come ready to share their favorite fairytale with us and dress up if they want. It was a lot of fun. We started off with a story I was pretty sure none of them were familiar with (except for Megan), Bubba the Cowboy Prince. It's a cowboy version of Cinderella set in Texas, so of course it is awesome.

Then we had a fairytale scavenger hunt. I'd placed random fairytale items around the house like Snow White's apple, Cinderella's broom, Bubba's cowboy hat, three stuffed bears to be the Three Bears from Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a bean from Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. and had the girls look for them. Then we played a game called Kiss the Frog. The girls sit in a circle, one girl is the princess and is blindfolded in the middle. Each girl picks an animal to be and I pick one girl to be the frog. They make their animal noises and the princess has to listen well enough to find the frog while blindfolded. When she thinks she's found the frog, she gives the frog a Hershey's Kiss.

Blowing out the Birthday candles. This cake was baking attempt #2. And yes, that is the dress I made Megan for her 3rd birthday. It apparently still fits.

This is Megan at three in the dress.

It was a fun party and I was impressed at how well Megan's friends knew her. She received almost all arts and crafts stuff; one girl even got her a create your own storybook set, which is basically a scrapbook with tons of paper, stickers, die cuts, and stuff so she could write her own book.

Those are ribbon wands in the vase on the table. They were our party favors along with some Pixie Sticks which we called Pixie Dust.

This is where the girls pretended to be captured by an evil witch.

So, since Megan is now six, I will share six wonderful things about Megan.

1. She always tries to do the right thing, even when it is hard.
2. She loves her siblings very much and always tries to include them in her playing.
3. She loves to help out around the house and with her siblings. She even read Jeremy and Emma their bedtime story for me the other night since I'd fallen asleep on the couch!
4. She is dang smart.
5. Megan has an interesting sense of humor. She likes to be silly and has fun coming up with silly sentences with Jeremy and Emma.
6. She loves her Heavenly Father and Savior. She shows amazing faith and is always willing to pray for others when she sees they are sad or in need. She is a wonderful example to me.



We love you, Megan and we are so grateful to have you in our family!!

Backtracking

I realized that I've missed quite a few posts, and a couple of them I feel bad about missing. Others are more of the "this is what's been going on" vibe.

So here's the first of the I-feel-bad-for-missing-this-post post.

Wahoo for Jeremy's First Day of Preschool 2010!

Jeremy is actually doing really well so far this year. I know we haven't even had a full week of school yet thanks to Labor Day and Rosh Hoshanah, but he seems excited to go, he's practically running into the classroom (instead of me shoving him in and then running away), and he's trying to be obedient to his teachers even when he doesn't want to. He's told me the names of a couple other students in his class and has even admitted to me that one of them is his friend (huge improvement since Jeremy doesn't really like other kids much). He's enjoying gym, where last year those days were almost impossible for him. I'm really proud of him and all the growth and improvement he's made. 

The second I-feel-bad-for-missing-this-post post is . . .

Happy 30th Birthday, Nathan! Congratulations on being old!

Yes, we celebrated Nathan's 30th birthday at the beginning of the month. While I think this birthday should mark the end of his teasing me and calling me old, it probably won't. Nathan wanted flan instead of a traditional birthday cake this year and lasagna for dinner. It was all quite tasty. Nathan is now one year closer to having his age make sense of all the gray in his hair. Don't worry about it! You know it will make your patients trust you more than those young'ins.

Date Night, Birthday, and Mary and Anne Boleyn

So, Nathan and I don't get to go out on many dates. I think one of our most recent ones included scraping wallpaper off the kitchen walls. Romantic, no? Anyway, tonight Nathan took care of getting a sitter (Thank You, Kjirsti!) and then surprised me with dinner and a movie! Usually if we do go out we pick one, dinner or a movie, so this was pretty deluxe and awesome!

We went to a place in Shaker called Touch of Italy. But apparently, to locals, it's more commonly referred to as "The Touch." We'd never been there before, but had passed by it and Nathan knew I wanted to try it. We found it humorous because when we walked in the lights were off and there was no one to greet us. Nathan had to walk to the kitchen to find the host and get us seated. The atmosphere was less than Italian or welcoming, so we were wondering where the "touch of Italy" was supposed to come in. We found it in the food, thank goodness. I ordered eggplant parmigiana and Nathan had grilled chicken over pasta. It was delicious. I only wish there'd been enough room in my stomach for all of it because my taste buds wanted more of it!

Then I realized that it was still before the kids' bedtime, so Nathan must have had something else planned, too. He told me we were going to go to Lowe's to look at a new stove. I didn't think that was true until we actually started getting close to a Lowe's. However. . .

He then took the freeway and I had no idea where we were going until we got close to a movie theater.

We saw Inception. Holy moly. I'm still working on wrapping my brain around it and I'm really curious about what kind of dreams I'm going to have tonight. For the last two weeks I have dreamed consistently about Mary and Anne Boleyn and the English court.

Although in my dreams they don't look anything like Scarlett and Natalie.

I'm ready for something different and tonight I think it might come. 

My Birthday--Whoop-i-dee Doo

So my birthday was the other day. I'm officially in my "thirties." Becoming 31 wasn't as horrible as 30. I didn't really care. And that's mostly because I had a really hard time getting up at all.  I spent the entire day feeling sick. It was almost like I was hit with the first trimester morning sickness again. I couldn't eat with the nausea and then to add to it, my blood pressure plummeted. I couldn't stand for long and sitting without laying my head down was almost too much at times.

I actually didn't cook or prepare a single meal for my kids on Thursday. Nathan did breakfast for Megan and Emma before he left for school, Jeremy grabbed an apple when he woke up. Megan made sandwiches for lunch and doled out huge bowls of Cheetos for herself and her sibs. Then dinner was leftovers which Nathan reheated.

I took a nap, which was great until I woke up to Jeremy informing me of apple jelly being smeared all over the dinning table, my sewing stuff scattered all over the floor, and sticky hands everywhere.

The only real bright side to my day (besides a great package from my parents, thank you!) was book club. I love book club.We discussed The Hunger Games and not only did we have a great time talking about the book, but a great time going off topic, too. I know, you're probably thinking I'm nuts for going to book club after feeling awful all day, but it was at my house and all I had to do was sit in a comfortable chair and chat about a great book. Easy peasy. Besides, by that time the Dr. Pepper had finally made its way through my veins and was getting my blood pressure back up. For me, Dr. Pepper=normal blood pressure during pregnancy. Or at least almost normal blood pressure. So that part of my birthday was great. I felt fine and had fun.

I did have a wonderful girls' night out the night before my birthday. It was fabulous. Yummy treats, popcorn, hilarious movie, and great friends+very cute present, so bonus there.

Anyway, it was my birthday. It kind of sucked until the last four hours of it. But Nathan's taking me out to dinner on Saturday, so hopefully that will make up for the lack of fun on the actual day of.

The Party!

Jeremy's 4th Birthday Party!!

We started off with a rousing game of Bed Bugs.

(Which Jeremy needed earmuffs for because the game is "too loud.")

Then we had the kids be exterminators and do a bug hunt! I made this little teepee, filled it with balloons and then "hid," plastic bugs beneath the balloons. One at a time we had the kids go in the tent with a butterfly net and search for bugs. We gave them each 15 seconds and then counted up how many bugs they caught.

The kids all wanted a turn blowing up balloons. It didn't matter that we had plenty for the teepee. 

The balloons ended up being a major source of entertainment,

from hitting them up in the air to taking their Capri Sun straws to them.

We also went outside to play for a bit, but forgot to bring the camera out. We tried to have the kids play bocce (pronounced bow-chay, not like the Star Wars language), but they were too interested in running around free and playing with other lawn toys.

Jeremy wanted a firefly cake. This was my best attempt.

I put neon green sprinkles on the butt of the bug to give the appearance of glowing :)

Waiting for the cake!

 

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

Don'tcha love how kids swarm together when one of them is opening a present?

This was Jeremy's first birthday party with friends and I think it was a success. The kids seemed to have fun and Jeremy is still flying high playing with his presents.

Thanks to everyone who came!