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.