Happy 4th, Lizzy!

My sweet Elizabeth Dixie turned 4 on the 20th. She had her donut tower for breakfast and ate candy for lunch. I think she was happy about that. 

 ...and happy to have Happy Birthday sung to her twice in the same day.

 Opening presents...though I did forget to take a picture of her with all of her gifts.

 That's her Grandma Dixie patting her on the head.

 Lizzy asked for a kitty cake for her birthday, so I went with Hello Kitty. If you notice the picture above, you'll see that Siri stole a pearl off of Kitty's necklace.

I hope you had a happy birthday Lizzy.

Now that you are 4 you keep asking me if you are a big girl. I tell you yes, but then you point out that you haven't really grown any bigger. You asked me why you aren't as big as me yet. :)

You are the biggest Momma's girl I have ever seen. You say you love Dad, but sometimes Dad and I both wonder if you really do. All you want is Mom. Always.

You are a girly girl, but not really. You love to wear skirts, even if it's freezing outside, but you hate to have your hair done, even though you love to admire yourself in the mirror when it's done. You always ask to wear my lipstick and you want your nails painted. All that aside, you love to play hard and when you fall and get hurt, you stand up quickly and get back to playing. You rarely cry from getting hurt, but you always cry if someone looks at you the wrong way. Such a girl!!!

Sweet Lizzy, you have such an attitude and you are not afraid to tell a person that they are making you mad. On the flip side, when you are happy, you have the CUTEST little girl voice known to man. In fact, many people comment on how cute your voice sounds.

I'm sure there are many more wonderful qualities about you that I have failed to mention, but just know how much your dad and I both love you. Our family would not be complete with out our Sweet Stinks.

Filling in the Gaps

These are the random pictures that have no affiliation with any one particular event.  As I was uploading them, I commented to James that we didn't have any of Lizzy. Shame on me. I don't take very many pictures as it is, but she's pretty darn cute, so I should do a better job of taking pictures of her. 

 We call Siri, "Monster" often enough that I guess she's taken it to heart.  Keep scrolling down and you'll see a similar picture to this one. Apparently we think she's cute as the Hulk because I took this picture of her and James took the other one.

 We got together with some of James' family to witness his sister, Becky, and husband, Scott, get sealed. When we went to dinner afterwards, one of the strange topics of conversation was about how James and one of his other sisters, Jenny, put candy corn on their teeth every candy corn season. Naturally, when candy corns became available for purchase, James put them right on his teeth. He's a dork, but I love him.

 Logan got to bring "Pete the Cat" home from school. He is their class mascot. When I went in to check on Logan after he was asleep, I found him like this. He is becoming a big kid, so I thought I'd better record this bit of cuteness before he outgrows it.

 Siri has trouble sleeping past 6:00, but one morning she was up at 5:00 AM.  James got up with her and at 7:00 she was falling asleep again. Go figure. They both took a morning nap together at 7:00 AM.  Again, a bit of cuteness that I needed to record.

 Santa, Siri, Hulk Monster.

Logan and I went to Chick-fil-A's "Mother and Son Date Knight". We went with friends and it was fun. I love that little squirt. Like I said, he is growing up so fast.

He was a nervous wreck when he started kindergarten and even the first day of first grade was a bit traumatic for him. As a result, I was a nervous wreck when we switched schools, moving to Idaho. I thought for sure he would have a break down, or refuse to get on the school bus, but he played it so calm, I was shocked! Prayers are answered and I'm grateful for that.

As I type this, he is tying Lizzy's Sunday dress for her (a little crooked, but hey, he can tie it!) and he found a shrug for her to help keep her warm. He doesn't do the best job of being a protective big brother; he is more of the, pester his little sisters to death, kind of big brother. But every once in a while he does something like help Lizzy get dressed, and it's good to see him taking care of somebody else. One more example of how big and grown up he is getting.

Halloween 2012

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and our Christmas decorations are already up, so naturally I am blogging about Halloween. But, it was one of the most enjoyable Halloween's I've had in a long time, so naturally I'd like to record it. 

My running friend, Kelli, told me on one of our morning runs, that she wanted to throw a Halloween party. I thought that sounded like lots of fun, so I offered to help her with it. If you know me, then you know I volunteered to make all the desserts for the party. This is what I came up with.

 Chocolate cat cookies

 Meringue ghosts and donut hole eyeballs

 Fudge filled chocolate mummy cupcakes. James actually insisted on decorating these himself.

 Kelli decorated the pumpkins to give as costume prizes. I made the white chocolate popcorn hands. I got the idea from a friend, who undoubtedly got it from pinterest, but I'm not pinterest savy. Yet.

 We played a bunch of Minute to Win It games. This is James trying to get the pennies out of a pair of nylons.

 The day after our party, we carved our pumpkins.

 I have such cute kids!  The more kids you have, the bigger your challenge of getting all of them to look at the camera at the same time.

 We all went trick or treating on Halloween night. We called ourselves "The Pirates of the Jordan River".  Siri stayed home with Grandma to sleep.

 While out gathering candy, we ran into a friend that James said hi to, but couldn't figure out who James was.

Seriously, a super fun Halloween season.  The kids still ask how many more days until Halloween again.

Getting Settled and Catching Up

It's been nearly half a year since my last update, and I plan to change that habit. I've sort of been waiting for this change to happen and until it did, I think James and I put a lot of things on hold that we've both been wanting to make be habits.  Random things really, but now that we are beginning to finally feel a little settled in our house, I think the changes are going to start happening. Like me blogging!

 I just came home from getting our "new" van registered and saw this. James was mowing the leaves off the grass, and giving the kids a ride at the same time. When we lived here 7 years ago, mowing was my job. The brakes on this tractor mower only kind of work, so the job scared the heck out of me.

We lived in this house (that the farm owns) 7 years ago. We didn't live here long, just shy of a year, but that was long enough to make it feel like we were coming home again.  Everything is so familiar and it's been an easy adjustment for me. The kids have loved it too, and that's a plus.

Before we moved in, James came up the week before and did TONS of work to the house. With the help of his nephew, every wall, door and ceiling got a fresh coat of paint, there is new linoleum and carpet in the whole house, they got to unclog the water line going to the house, fix the faucet on the tub, put in new pipes under the sink, a new faucet for the kitchen sink, and a bunch of other jobs I can't even think of. James is sick of the house work and is so excited that the jobs are nearly done. Of course, now we've discovered that the pipe the washer drains into is clogged, so his work isn't done yet.

While we were unpacking, we decided to just throw the Christmas tree up too; so even though we've been busy with unpacking the house, we still found time for Christmas.

Three days ago Siri was exploring the new adventure called the bunk beds. I thought she was playing with Lizzy in the play room, so when she started crying I didn't jump up right away. She wasn't crying very hard, but I had a thought flash in my mind that perhaps they had moved to Lizzy's room to play. I got up right then and found Siri lying on the floor next to the overturned laundry basket. I knew right away that she had fallen off the top bunk. We nearly took her to the doctor right then, but decided to wait a few hours to see how she felt. Long story short, we took her in two days later and found out that her right humorous is broken, but a cast would only make the broken arm worse. It is nerve wracking to watch your wobbly 1 year old walk around with a broken arm and no cast on it.

I'm out of time to write. Stay tuned for our past adventures.

Siri Turns 1!

Siri turned 1 on July 6th. When I woke up that morning I hadn't even decided if I wanted to celebrate that day or not, but my mom seems to run the show around here, so we celebrated on her actual birthday. I whipped up some Red Velvet cupcakes, made dinner, wrapper her present and called it "good to go". 

Lighting a candle outside really isn't the best idea, but since she couldn't blow it out anyway, it didn't really matter. 

 She was the most interested in the sprinkles. She ate those first, then the frosting, then the cake.

 Sprinkles...

 Frosting....

 Cake!

 Her poo diapers have looked interesting today. That's some pretty powerful red food coloring.

 She got some new clothes from Grandma-Idaho, books from Grandma Ward...

 and a musical, talking, stuffed dog from Mom and Dad.

Fun party.

Let's see here...some fun facts about Siri...

-She has less hair today than the day she was born
-Her eyes are still blue, which I can't believe. How have we made two blue eyed babies when James and I both have brown eyes?
-She thinks she is the stair master, and in reality she actually is really good at them. I've stopped hovering around her when she is headed down the stairs.
-Siri only has two teeth, so I still get creative on her meals, since I refuse to buy baby food. She is on whole milk and seems to enjoy it as long as it's warm.  If it's the slightest bit chilly, she refuses to drink it.
-She doesn't walk, which is shocking to me because she showed early signs of it. She will stand by herself for small increments of time.
-She loves to "talk" to you. Her favorite thing to say is "Bah"! She'll yell it, say it softly, and growl it.
-She tries to say "I love you". No joke. Sometimes she says it more clearly than others, but for the most part you can tell she is trying to repeat it back even though it sounds nothing like "I love you".  I've also heard her say "Thank You" in much the same clarity. We've tried to get her to say other things, and she will make noises with the right amount of syllables.
-She love, love, loves to play Peek-a-boo. She'll play with anybody or anything. Dirty clothes?  Great for covering her head up with to pull off and say "BOO"!  If she doesn't have clothes, her blanket or the kitchen towel, she will use her hands. She's less coordinated with those, but doesn't seem to mind if she's just covering her cheeks before she says "boo"!
-She's got her dad wrapped around her finger. She has figured out how to prolong bed time if he is the one putting her down. She immediately initiates him in a game of peek-a-boo and she will laugh hysterically while playing. How is he supposed to walk away from that? Her sad little crocodile tears follow immediately his departure.

I'm sure there other fun facts about Siri, but they are hard to think of! Happy Birthday to our little girl, Siri!

Our Happy 4th

It seems like we make a habit out of going to Idaho for the 4th of July. I let James go by himself (with Logan) last  year because I was 9 months pregnant with this blue eyed beauty. 

 It's hard for me to imagine what she will look like with hair. One day I will know.

 We tried to get a couple of cute pictures of our family before the day got underway.
We went to the church in the morning to watch the flag raising ceremony and listen to a quick patriotic thought. After that we headed into town for the parade.

 The kids were invited to ride on, what they called, a "tractor train".

 They had to sit around waiting for a long time before the parade started, but they both refused to budge from their seats.

  This is James' sister, Kathy, and her kids. They got to ride in the parade too. 

We spent a few hours later in the day riding on James' brother, Matt's boat. Matt was so nice to take person after person on rides on the tube. I didn't take the camera, so you'll have to use your imagination. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, but we all got a little sunburned despite the fact that we had sunscreen on.

Dixie, James' Mom, got a package of fireworks that we enjoyed after it was dark. It really was a perfect day, in my estimation.

Logan loves going to see his Idaho family. He can't get enough of the 4-wheeler, motorcycle, tractor, and playing with his cousins. Nothing makes me more happy than seeing my kids happy. I hope you all had a great Independence Day.

Fun With Kids

Life isn't that exciting, and we like it that way. We don't do a ton with our kids, like take them to the zoo, etc. The "fun" isn't worth the yelling and gray hairs. Ok, so we do that stuff sometimes, but it just isn't the norm for us. We play at home and we like it. 

Siri has been getting into EVERYTHING lately. For example, Logan's underwear drawer.

 She won't leave a bow on her head for more than 2 seconds, but she will crawl around with underwear on her head.

 Maybe she is embarrassed about her bald head, so she covers it up.
Siri has also mastered the stairs. Up and down. It gives me heart palpitations to watch her, but it's better than a gate, in my opinion.

Last week, Jame camped in the back yard with the kids. I slept in the house, just so Siri wouldn't be alone. ;)

They stayed up till after 11:00 watching Tales From the Crypt. They loved it and Lizzy in-particular has asked numerous times when they will do it again.

Hair Band Concert

James and his friend bought tickets to see Def Leppard in concert, but on the day of the concert, his friend got really sick and couldn't go. I really can't say that the 80's hair band era is my favorite kind of music, but I didn't want the ticket to go to waste, so I went to the concert with James. 

First up was Leta Ford. She was horrible. She couldn't sing on pitch for the life of her. Luckily for her she had one fan there. He thought he was her drummer. Let your imagination go wild with that thought and you are probably pretty accurate as to how into her he was. 

Next up was Poison.  I think that was my favorite part of the night mostly because he was way better by Leta, and because I was bored by the time Def Leppard came out.

Here is a picture of Bret with his shirt on. James had assured me that he would probably be shirtless...so I was a bit disappointed. (Lest you think less of me, be assured that I was not really disappointed.)

 Look how happy James is to be at one of his favorite things - a concert.

 Def Leppard finally came out and that's when the crazies came out.

 I definitely had more fun watching the drunk people and the inappropriate dancers. James loved the music, and I am in love with James.

We found out the next day that James' brother was there too. He lives in Idaho, so we're sad we didn't see each other there. 

I think that was my first and last heavy metal concert. I'm glad I went just to say I did it because James has always wanted me to experience it.