St. Patty's Day Party

I am not much of a party planner/thrower and I wish I was, but it kind of gives me anxiety. Carly, on the other hand is a party planner. Birthdays, tea parties, St. Patrick's Day, etc....  

So, she's been planning and begging me for a St. Patrick's Day party since the end of February and today was the big day. Planning a party for kids is a good way to ease me into hosting for adults (if I ever get to that point). Also, I want our home to be a place where the girls' friends always feel welcome and I want our girls to feel comfortable inviting friends over. 

I wish I would have gotten a picture of all 5 of these school girls getting off the bus at our house - you could just feel the excitement! 

 The dining room was all decked out for the occasion. We had some brownies that a leprechaun had smudged green mint icing on. The leprechaun also snuck into our freezer somehow and made our ice cubes rainbow colors!

Here they are playing Don't Eat Pete (St. Patrick's Day style). I really wanted to figure out how to make this into a printable (to share with my three devoted followers) :) but I can not figure it out!! I think if you just right click on the image you can copy it onto a word document... I think. Give it a try, you'll like this game and so will your kids.

At the end of the party we hid these pots filled with yummy treasures for them to find.

I'm really glad Carly was so persistent about doing this party - fun was had by all! I love getting to know their friends and seeing them have such a wonderful time together.

Mommy Spa

Back in October Carly checked out a Fancy Nancy spa book and decided to try it out on me (with her sisters' help). Aaron took them to the store to get all the supplies they needed.

 The headband is made with pipe cleaners shaped to say "MOM"

What Sweetie Hearts! (with our neighbors dog, Missy)

p.s. Thanks Fancy Nancy for such a great idea!

Sardines

In the girl's room we have a bunk bed (twin over full), and a toddler bed. Then we also have the "spare room" which has a twin bed in it. With four beds to choose from, this is the sleeping arrangement our girls prefer each night:

One good thing about being short is that you can sleep sideways on a full bed and fit more people. :) Aubree isn't too particular about what direction she's laying. Carly told me the other morning that in the middle of the night she woke up with Aubree laying on her stomach and then later that same night Aubree was laying on her head. (I've slept with Aubree before, so I don't doubt it!)

School Playground

We try to walk Carly to school each morning and while we're there we stay to play at the playground for a little while (actually, a long while - sometimes we're still there when Carly comes out for 1st recess.) We are usually joined by other friends who also walk siblings to school - it's an unplanned play date and Mommy-social almost every day!

The girls (probably like every other kid) LOVE to have their dad chase them. Here are some fun pictures:

 I love their expressions when Aaron jumps out and startles them!

The girls love to climb trees. This is the maple in our front yard that the girls just put a rope swing on (Ellie's jump rope). Jumping to Daddy

Handsome Daddy

Carly loves doing all sorts of tricks in the air - indian style, cannon ball, stradle, cheer, etc...

Aubree swinging on the rope swing - it's works well for her to swing on her belly. ha ha!

Carly's turn

Ellie's turn

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A picture of my psoriasis or rash or excema, or whatever it is. I had the same thing 3.5 years ago in the same spot but it looked a lot worse! (This time I used a homepathic cream made from a plant and it didn't get nearly as bad, plus I didn't have to go to the dr. or use any steroid cream.)

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Carly and Ellie have been taking gymnastics for a couple of months - this is what Aubree does for the whole hour and a half lesson. She loves to just watch them.

Carly is doing a back walkover in this really bad picture. She is so dang good at gymnastics, and she definitely has the body build for it!

Ellie is also super good - I love to watch them do gymnastics and they love to go to gymnastics!

My little nurses

Yesterday evening we went grocery shopping as a family. Aaron and the girls got a birthday present for a friend and a bird feeder for our birds in the backyard. I did the grocery shopping. I kind of had a headache all day long, but after being at Wal-Mart for over an hour it was pretty bad. So when we got home Ellie made a comfortable bed for me on the couch and covered me with blankets. Carly brought me dinner on the couch and offered to rub my feet with oils. Aubree brought me a sopping wet rag and "gently" patted it on my forehead. :) Aaron made dinner for us - scrambled eggs, his specialty - and put almost all the groceries away (I found the chicken still on the counter this morning).

They are such sweethearts!

Happy Leap Year Day!

We celebrated Leap Year by going to the mall to get Carly and Ellie's ears pierced!
Ellie was the brave one who went first. These two take turns being brave. Sometimes Carly is the brave one, sometimes Ellie.Carly was SO nervous! In the end, they both said it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. Carly said she imagined she would be laying down (like on a doctors exam table) and they would have a big machine that would shoot a needle into her ear. I got my ears pierced the first time when I was 11 (at my friends' house - Natalie and Nicole Vohs). But, I ended up letting those grow in because it made me too queezy to put earrings in and out of my ear. :) I got them pierced again when I was about 13 or 14. Aaron and I decided we would let our girls get their ears pierced when they were old enough to take care of them and when they really wanted to. (They wanted to so much that they even paid for part of it - a handful of coins from each. And Carly wanted to so bad that she was willing to lay on an exam table and have a big machine shoot needles into her ears! ha ha!)

After they got their ears done we started walking out of the mall when the lady at Kiddie Kandids stopped us and asked if she could take the girls' picture and she would give us a free portrait. So, of course that's what we did.

I can't remember which one I ordered. But it was one of these with a black background.

Carly and Ellie liked this one best with the meadow background, so I ordered them one of these with a cute sister quote on it.

Carly - 7.5 years

Ellise - 6 years

Aubree - 3 years

(Don't you just love that little pea coat that Aunt Ang and Steph got for her b-day last year?!)

It was so nice to not have to stress and plan to get these pictures done. Of course I would have matched their outfits better and made sure their hair was just right and probably had a nervous breakdown in the process. But this was totally stress free and they turned out so cute. AND, I only had to pay $6 for the shipping on the meadow picture!

HAPPY LEAP YEAR DAY!!

Bedtime stories

The girls love to have Daddy tell them bedtime stories. Some he makes up and others are from books or movies he already knows that he'll make into a story for the girls. Well, a few nights ago he started telling them the story of Lord of the Rings. After the 3rd night of Lord of the Ring bedtime stories Carly was having a hard time sleeping peacefully. She finally came into our room and stood by my side. "Mom, I can't sleep".

I ask, "Why? Are you scared?"

"Yeah"

Then the fateful question, "Have you been thinking of Lord of the Rings?"

I have never seen Carly move so fast! She scurried into our bed and into the covers between us faster than I could say Gollum!

She started whimpering and said, "Mom! Don't say that!" (just the mention of it scared the "living daily wicks"* out of her).

So, we have decided to re-introduce the story when they're a little older.


* "living daily wicks" is Carly's version of "Living daylights" :)




Another Favorite Bedtime story


Carly LOVES Calvin and Hobbes. She usually just reads it to herself, but sometimes Daddy reads it to her. Ellie and Aubree enjoy listening in occasionally.

HALLOWEEN!

Carly and Ellie are wearing costumes that were handed down from Nanny Nette's house - I remember wearing these! I even have a picture of me as a clown (about Carly's age), with the same wig, but a different clown costume.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of Aubree!!! She was a fairy - and so cute too!

We went to dinner at Tanner and Libby's house with some other friends and went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We ended up at our house and enjoyed hot cocoa with our friends.

Daddy-Daughter Day Camp

Our stake has a Father-Daughter Camp-out every summer. The girls look forward to it so much. Last year just Carly and Ellise went, this year Aubree got to go too!

Beautiful Girls! And Handsome Daddy!!

The last two pictures are ones that the stake took - I love the caption on the last one - "You're always safe with Dad!!" (For whatever reason, Carly didn't want to be in these ones.)

here and there

This is the view we have out our back window in the winter time - so beautiful! And in the summer - even better!


Two miniature Mommies

This little girl is so much fun! Some of her latest phrases: "I don' wannu", "Love oo", and "my do it". She loves to pretend to be a puppy and loves for me to pretend to be a baby. Sometimes she'll pretend to be my baby and just cuddle with me - so sweet. I wish I could share all of her cuteness in this blog, but so much of it is just in her body language and the way she moves and talks.

Ellie and I made this cake from scratch - start to finish. (I'm sure you were thinking we had this ordered from some fancy bakery and paid a lot of money for it :))

So, things here are going really well. Aaron got a job at an Engineering Firm in W. Jordan in November - Yay! They have been SUPER busy and Aaron really likes the people he works with. We feel really blessed that Aaron got this job so quickly.

Carly on class picture day. 6 going on 16 - seriously! This girl keeps me on my toes. She is ALWAYS listening and asking hard questions. She really likes Kindergarten and has picked up on reading so quickly. She struggled at the beginning of the year with making friends which was really hard for her (and me). There are a bunch of girls in her class that have grown up in the same ward and she was the only girl who didn't know anyone. I was really surprised because Carly has always been our social bug and other kids have always been drawn to her. But, she has now found her place in the social scheme of things and is loving it. Here's a cute story about how Carly can be such a sweet sister: Ellise had spent a lot of time coloring Valentine's for some of her neighbor friends while Carly was at school. Then Ellie went to the mailbox to see if she got anything ..... nothing. So, when Carly got home from school with a big bag of Valentines, Ellie felt pretty bad. A few minutes later Carly told us to go check the mail. Inside was a cute picture/Valentine that Carly had secretly made for Ellise.

Ellise is so creative and inventive. She made this toy ALL BY HERSELF. It's a plastic cup with a string coming out of it and a bead at the end of the string. (You try to catch the bead in the cup.) Just today she asked me why we don't see a crack in everything. I kind of gave her a blank look. So, she pointed to the bridge of her nose and asked me why there isn't a gap when we look at things. (You have to be really bright to understand what she's asking - it took me awhile :)) I had never thought of it before, but thought is was a very good question. (Maybe our good friend, Dr. Klingler, has a 5-year-old explanation for us)

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start ...

(from "The Sound of Music")
The birthday girls. We had a birthday party for Ellie on my birthday. (January)

Can you believe those cheeks!?! Oh man! I'm surprised she's made it this far in life without someone (me or sisters) chewing those cheeks right off! Unfortunately she's been slimming up over the last several month, but she still gets compliments on those cheeks of hers.

Sleeping Beauty - Ellise

Even at 4 1/2 she could still use a nap almost every day

(but of course this only happens once in a blue moon)

Fourth of July

What a big girl! She's talking (one or two-word phrases or jabbering), and she is sassy and feisty. It's super cute now, but I'm a little nervous for what's to come.

Aaron took the girls on a Stake Father Daughter camp out. They had a blast!

Aaron and I at my cousin's reception

The big girls took swimming lessons for about a month and had such a good time and learned a lot. The nice thing was that they got pretty swimmed-out and didn't beg to use the pool at our house for that month.

Dressing up with our new best friend Rosie. She lives across the street and walks Carly home from school each day. She plays (kinda' babysits) at our house most days of the week - I LOVE this girl!! She is such a sweetheart and has such a neat family.

Carly and Daddy after her birthday party. She planned her whole party (with a little supervision). When the day finally came, Aaron took her to the grocery store to buy ice cream for the party while all her friends arrived. When she got home they threw balloons and confetti and totally surprised her! I tried to download the video, but as you can see, it's not here- it was so cute!
 

The girls and our garden (two malnutritioned tomato plants)

Being sweet sisters

"Smile Aubree!"

p.s. Nothing new with the job situation. We have a lot of contacts though and some definite possibilities... we're really hopeful. Things had been pretty rough at his architecture firm for so long, and with two pay cuts we were living pretty tight, so we're excited for what's in store. The money hasn't run out yet, so I don't think reality has hit yet either. (Thanks for all of your thoughtful comments.)