The Hopper Clan

Brookings- Part 2

2012-02-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

No, that wasn't a misprint. This is Part TWO of our coast trip. But sadly I posted all of the pictures I wanted last (because that's easiest for me to upload them since they load upwards .) As I am uploading them I'm realizing I have to separate them or else this would be a monster of all posts. Just too much to make into one post. Even I would lose interest and it's my own family.

Every year we go to the coast in February to celebrate our anniversary. This year we shared a beach house with Phil and Kacie. We did it two years ago and loved the house and wanted to go halfsies since it was so nice and open with two bedrooms, a kitchen and beach access but a little too spendy for just us. They are really good friends with the owners and they didn't charge us at all. We made sure to clean up really well, change all of the linens and got it all ready for new tenants so that they didn't have to do any work for us staying there.

We went there Friday afternoon and left Sunday. These sets of pictures are from our last day there. Sorry this is out of order but it's just how it has to be. :) Here is what we did on Sunday before we headed back:

Jeremy's Dad and family actually stayed at the coast the exact weekend coincidentally. They stayed in Crescent City in Northern California and we stayed in Brookings just over the border. So on Sunday we headed down to Crescent City to do some different things and to see them. First up we went to this light house. It's on kind of an island and you can only go when the tide is out. The tide was starting to come in when we went in so they were freaking out that we wouldn't have time for a tour but if we hurried we could look at all the rooms and the light on top. The rooms were set up to look like what it used to in the 1800's. A man and wife life there and upkeep it and keep the light going as well as give tours. It was fun to see and get to climb the stairs to the top of the lighthouse. They kept apologizing for it being so quick but honestly, I have a 5, 3 and 1 year old. That was the best tour for them!! ;) Then we rushed out to what was sure to be water covering the rock way to get back... nope. They were so scared we'd be stuck there but we got out so easily. The whole situation was so funny.

Then we met up with Jeremy's Dad and went over to the Pier where there were tons of Sea Lions squawking, barking, yelping... what do you call it? The girls thought it was funny but.... from a distance!! Check out Lona's face! She's not so sure about them! There's some over to the left that she's keeping her eye on.

This was Tenley's face. She wasn't really sure about them. Oh, notice it was really cold this day!

Lylee and Aunt Sarah excited to see the Sea Lions!

And Lona...

Then we headed over to Ocean World. We went there two years ago but the girls have grown older and didn't remember going. So we went again. We surfed a little...And rode some jet skis.

You take a tour and start out by touching sea stars and sea anemones. Lylee was all for it. Lona wasn't so shy. Ten also liked it. Last time we went Lona liked it and Lylee wasn't so sure about it.

Aunt Sarah, Lona and Lylee. (They were so excited to get to see Aunt Sarah!)

AAAAHHHHH!!!!!After getting to see some neat fish under water in a boat we headed up to pet some leapord sharks. It was awesome. Lylee tried it but Lona would have NOTHING to do with it!

Even Tenley gave it a try.

Yikes!And then we got to watch a fun seal and sea lion show. It was so fun!{Dani and Gabe}

The girls watching the show.

And then Lona and Sarah went for a ride before we left. Lona was really getting into it!

And then we went home!!!

The Teasing Weather

2012-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

Seems like every February we have a week or so that is SO nice and makes you long for Spring and Summer. The sunshine is so warm that you don't even need a coat. We just LOVE these kinds of days! Especially me because the kids get so antsy and into too much trouble when they're inside for a long time. So I love kicking them outside to get their wiggles and naughtiness out! hahahahaa. I had the girls in matching shirts so I could take their pictures for the annual Valentine we make for family.

We had Kamy and took her on the swing. She wasn't sure at first but then just loved it. I sure can't wait until she can walk. She gets frustrated she can't keep up with everyone and doesn't like to touch the cold grass. So she will usually just sit there and cry. Which is why the swing was the better option. One of the days we went out to the front yard to play in the sunshine and I put her in the grass and as long as she didn't try to crawl on the grass she was fine. She did NOT like the grass. It was so funny. She wanted to come to me but didn't want to crawl. You'd think the grass was spikes! :) But I didn't give in and she eventually crawled in it. She didn't like it but finally did it. I'll toughen this kid up in no time. :) She'll have to get used to it because come Spring and Summer we are outside a lot!

Don't you love how Ten is sitting in the chairs still stacked up?My girls LOVE to swing!Ten was so angry that Kamdyn was in her swing. So I let her swing in the big kids swing (not sure if she'd let go and fall out or not) but she didn't. She LOVED it. In fact we went to go check the mail and she wouldn't let go. I had to pry her hands off the chains and she freaked out. I'm talking total meltdown because I took her off. She REALLY likes to swing!! Last week we went to the park and she wanted to swing but I kept redirecting her to other things. I knew that if I put her on there she would never want to get off. So either I'd be stuck at the swings the whole time or I'd have a tamtrum throwing child!

But I have to remind myself it's going to rain and rain and rain and rain and not to get used to the gorgeous weather just yet. It will come later but we need rain or it won't be green and gorgeous. But sometimes the rain gets so old and the kids get stuck indoors. So we'll take what we can get!!

The Last Few Days

2012-02-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

We went to a dinner at our friends house and she made some delish food! Mmmm, so good! She gave me the recipe and I am excited to try it. We brought some dessert and I decided to try something I'd found on Pinterest, something new. So I made this Better than....(ehem, you know what) cake. You can find it here: http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2011/04/better-than-you-know-what-cake.html. It was DELISH! I'm not usually a cake person but I ate way too much of this! Saddly we came home with about half of it left. I ate two more pieces after we got home and two more pieces the next morning after breakfast. I had to get rid of it before I ate the whole thing!! But the point was to show my Momma how beautiful it looked in the pan she got us for Christmas. Mmmmm, yummy!

Lona had a silly photo shoot... Not sure why she is making such a silly face!

So then I thought I would do it and then she makes this face...

This is her kissy face?... we have to practice! Lona is definitely my silly girl!! She can be so rotten but so dang hilarious!

We got some sickies in the house after the weekend. Monday night Lylee got a high fever and was sleeping tons. Then she threw up that night and again in the morning. She had to stay home from school obviously and it took a long time to break her fever. She slept almost ALL day Tuesday. It was sad. She would wake up out of a deep sleep and ask for her rag to be cold again, or a drink of her Gaterade. Tenley got a little sick but not nearly as bad and didn't last as long. Doesn't Lylee look so sad in this picture? She's got her puking bowl, her cold wet rag and her bottle of Gaterade to sip on. Hopefully we're done with those for now. I'm scared Lona and I will get it this weekend. We have our annual February coast trip starting tomorrow. It'll be fun!

Birthday Goodness

2012-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

A week later and I'm finally getting to my birthday post! So last Monday was my 28th birthday! It was.... interesting! Jeremy got a flu bug over the weekend. Not nearly as bad as his birthday when he got one (yes, he got one on BOTH of our birthdays!) but still felt yucky and was up all night the day before my birthday. Therefore on my actual birthday he was SO tired. But as for me it was a normal day, I had all of the kids at home, no preschool on Mondays and Kamdyn. Kami wasn't feeling well Thursday or Friday, but that's about it. After about an hour of dropping her off she got a fever and was SO tired and took a nap about 2 hours earlier than normal. As the day proceeded I got her to eat (better than she had been eating the last time I had her so I was excited.) and she was just really mellow. After I fed her a really good lunch her stomach was making all kinds of scary noises. I could literally feel the air (or whatever it was) moving around in her stomach. I knew it was bad news. At about 1 or 2 I had her on the counter in front of me as I was getting stuff ready to make lunch and she was being really clingy so I was keeping her close. Then.... she vomited. She vomited and vomited and vomited. It was SO much. (Sorry if this is getting too graphic!) It was as much vomit as a grown man would have. I could not even believe it. If this helps, she was sitting on the counter and she vomited in front of her so in her lap the puke was level with her thighs as well as spilled off onto the floor and onto my cabinets. She could barely breathe she puked so much. I felt so bad for her but honestly I just stood there and said out loud, "You've got to be kidding me. Happy Birthday!" It was so disgusting. I've never in my life had to clean up that much puke. It would be as if I myself ate a full meal and then threw up and had to clean it up. But... I've always made it to a toilet (or sink). So let's just say that was horrible. And after I finally got it cleaned up it got better. Oh wait, I forgot to mention she had two massive diarrhea blow outs before this happened. So by this time I was almost laughing at how awful the day was going... on my stinken' birthday. But I sure did feel bad for the poor girl. The rest of the day she just cuddled with me on the couch. Thank heavens it got better after Jeremy got home!! :)

I almost never get flowers and on my birthday I got two gorgeous bouquets! My grandma brought over a cute one (on the right) and then when Jeremy came home he brought me the Lily bouquet. I sure am lucky.

Jeremy got his Mom to come over and watch the kids so we could go out to dinner. We went to Oh's Osaka Japanese restaurant. It was fun. It was very entertaining and SO yummy!!! Very spendy though so it's definitely a special occasion type of place.

It was the kind of restaurant where they cook everything right in front of you. I got the teriyaki chicken and shrimp and Jeremy got teriyaki halibut. Both were very good. After they've cleaned the grill they usually write Thank you in salt but ours knew it was my birthday so he wrote "Tia" in salt. It's hard to see but I tried to get a picture of it.

Afterwards we just ended up walking the mall. I got some birthday money from my Mom, Grandma Braden and Grandma and Grandpa Ponciano so I wanted to check out some clothes. (We are getting old and were too tired to do something that would take a while like a movie or something. ) I got a couple of shirts and a skirt at The Gap for awesome prices! I'm talking a skirt that was originally $80 for $20. Yes please! Then we went home and Jeremy fell asleep before I could even get my teeth brushed! :) Poor guy.

My favorite thing about Christmas and birthday gifts is getting things for myself. I have such giving family (Mom, Dad, Grandparents) that give me money. A good selfless Mom would use it towards bills and her family. No, not me. :) I rarely get to buy things for myself guiltless that I enjoy spending the money on myself. I like to use it towards something expensive that I would never normally buy. In the past I've bought my Nike's and my Dansko's with it. This year I bought myself some Toms shoes with the money my Dad gave to me. I've been wanting to get a pair every since I first heard about the company a couple years ago. If you hadn't heard of it before they make these shoes and make another pair for someone who is in need of shoes in another country like Argentina or Africa. I can't remember the specifics. But I liked the idea of it. At first they didn't have as many designs but now they have so many. But I've been eyeballing these "glitters" for a while. They are just so adorable. I've gotten SO many compliments on these shoes! Girls everywhere love them. (And of all ages too. My daughters LOVE them!! :) ) But they stretch and form to your own feet so they're super comfy. And this beauty is my new purse I bought with the money Mom got me. I've been wanting a new purse for a while since the lining in mine is getting holes and my stuff is falling in between the lining and the purse. Gets annoying patching up the holes all of the time. I actually went looking for a zebra purse because I think zebra print it so cute. I'm not a huge animal print person actually. I tend to stay away from it but I really like black and white. Black and white is one of my favorite patterns. Anyways, at this store I knew would have some good ones I fell in love with this one instead. I never thought I would like a giraffe print purse. But I do think giraffes are so cute. Tenley has some giraffe jammies and a stuffed animal and things that make them so cute and adorable. Plus it's got my splash of blue. I am just in love with it! So Lona volunteered to model it for me. Thanks, Mom!!

So all in all I can say it was a memorable birthday! ;) I'm so grateful to be so blessed at 28! I have been emailing back and forth with my friend Lindsey that I went to high school with. She was the Senior Class President and I was the vice-president, talking about our 10 year reunion. I can't believe it's been 10 years already!! 9 years, insignificant. 10 years?!! Wow. But many of my friends don't have kids, are just barely having a baby or possibly have two. None of my friends from high school have 3 kids yet.(Although I do know of one girl that does have twins and a boy so she does have 3. But we weren't close in high school.) Granted I jumped right on that bandwagon and wanted a family super quick. But it's funny in high school most would say they didn't even want to start having kids until they were 30 and I wanted to have ALL of my kids by the time I was 30. Looks like we're pretty much on track!! :) But it'll be fun to get that planned and get to see old friends again! ANYWHO, the point being is I'm getting old but I feel like I've accomplished a good amount in this time. I am really lucky to have the beautiful family that I have!

These Kids Are Giving Me GRAY Hair!!!

2012-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

Literally. That just isn't a funny title for the post. I am going to have to start dying my hair soon because they are coming in much more these days. And here's why... Remember the hot chocolate picture with Ten? Well here is what she did on my birthday!

These are those "veggie stix" chip type snack. She was taking them one by one out of the bag. So I didn't think much of it. Then I look over and see this. Again, she is just so happy with herself! I will post more on my birthday later. It was... interesting to say the least!

Then this was today. Feeding Tenley has been a challenge the last couple of months. She doesn't have a big pallet yet so still is kind of picky. It's hard finding different things she will eat. I still get her baby fruits because she doesn't really like apples or oranges and besides bananas there isn't a lot in season right now. Sometimes she will do the canned fruit coctail... only sometimes. The other dilema is she wants to feed herself everything. Which is good, but very difficult with runny stuff like the fruits and yogurt. So today I fed her only a little bit of the baby fruit. Probably half. And she was eating it so good. Then I see this... oh my word!!! It was so hard to get out of her hair! Such a stinker!

Also today Lylee went outside to play without telling me! I thought she was in the playroom and then when I went in to check on her I couldn't find her. I searched all around the house, went outside, I couldn't find her. I asked Alona where she went and she thought she went outside. I never heard her go out there. I would've heard the door open! But no, I didn't. She was outside looking at the cows in the pasture at the end of the road. (We are 2nd to the last house so it's not that far away.) But still freaked me out! More gray hairs!

Then Lona goes outside to play with her and they must've been playing in mud because Lona comes back in the house and tracks muddy footprints all over the carpeted living room. Awesome.

Then she decided my laptop needed to be washed and was putting water all over the top of the closed laptop. Thankfully closed so I could wipe it off. That one made me nice and mad! Stinkers, all of them!! :) More gray hair.

But so you don't think it's ALL bad (because I sure have been complaining a lot lately) I wanted to show a cute picture of Lylee. We made some really fun valentines this year. They are being printed so I can't show you the finished product until I get them back and put the finishing touches on them. But I will post pictures because they will be super cute. But I needed to take their pictures for it last week and shot this one of Lylee and her ever growing long hair. I asked her the other day if she is still growing it out and she said, "Yes. Like Repunzel!" I don't think I want it THAT long!! I do wonder how long it'll get before it's just annoying! :)

Also something funny she said the other day: Jeremy got the flu bug again over the weekend and when we were putting them to bed Saturday or Sunday he said, " I don't feel good!" and Lylee said, "Do I have to take care of you AGAIN?"...... uh.... when did you take care of him in the first place? It was so random that we just busted up laughing. Sure Lylee!

Ten is trying to speak all kinds of funny words. It's so funny. She says "No" really well... of course! But her newest is "Boom!" We often say that to each other as a sort of, "told you so" or "in your face" response. She will come up to you and say that and it just makes us laugh.

Anyways, I do love the crud out of my kids. But boy do they drive me nutso and give me gray hair!!! :) But I wouldn't trade it for the world!!

On a sidenote, this Saturday is our 6 year anniversary and the weekend after we get to spend the weekend at the coast at a friend's beach house. Awesome! That'll be a nice mini-vacation!

Tenley Winks

2012-01-29T21:22:00.000-08:00

Jeremy got Tenley to wink a few months back and it's the cutest thing ever! I don't think I've ever seen someone so little wink. It's hilarious. But whenever we try to get her to do it for other people she just looks at us like we're idiots. And then we look like idiots! :) So here we have proof. :)

Articles of Faith

2012-01-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

In Primary at church over the last couple of years we have been working on memorizing the Articles of Faith. The Articles of Faith are simply 13 statements that tell what our church believes. Since last year we worked on the first couple with Lylee. It's funny how quickly Lona picks up on things that Lylee is learning. So when Alona became a sunbeam and got to come to Primary this year she already could do the first two. We've been working on our third one and the girls will get to pass it off this week. I think it's just so stinken' adorable to hear these tiny voices sing our beliefs about our church. (I should mention we learn them to songs in Primary. It makes them much easier to remember.) Anyways, Lylee can do them as well but didn't feel like being recorded.

Here is what she's singing in case you don't know them or can't understand her.

1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression. (We are accountable for our own mistakes/sins and not for someone else's.)

3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws, and ordinances of the Gospel.

Snow Day

2012-01-23T17:30:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday was such a fun day! We decided that we needed to go play in the snow. We invited Jeremy's Mom to come with us and that was fun having grandma along for the ride. So we started out by going to breakfast at The Apple Peddler and filled our tummies FULL! These next ones are us trying to kill time waiting for food. I must say for the few people who were in there... we expected to have our food super quick. Not so much. Good to know.

Lona is so weird! I just don't know where she gets it from!! :) ....

{Sweet Lylee}
Grandma Sheri entertaining Ten.

Then we headed out towards Crater Lake, but not quite that far. We went past Eagle Point, Past Shady Cove... just kept driving. We were getting nervous there wasn't going to be any snow! We were first going to go to Mt. Ashland but someone told Jeremy they went there on Friday and it was SOOO crowded it took 2 hours to get home because of the traffic on the mountain. So we decided to try this sledding area in Union Creek, it's called. We'd been there before Jeremy and I were even married and had kids with his Dad and step-mom. But we were afraid there wasn't any snow. Thankfully about 10 minutes before it, it got snowy, and super snowy!

Here is the sledding hill. There was SO much fresh snow! The girls had a hard time walking in some areas because you would sink down about 2 feet... to them it's like their thigh! In some places it was really wet under the snow. I learned my lesson really quick that I need to go buy some snow boots. It's not like I'll grow out of them and I really want to do this every year. I did bring an extra pair of sock and shoes, thank goodness. 5 minutes in I got SOAKING wet feet. I changed into dry stuff and put target bags that I brought our snacks and hot cocoa in over my shoes. That kept them dry for the rest of the time.

We had such a blast. The girls had never been sledding before. Sadly, I took Lona the first time down and we got thrown off the sled and she was in front and I knocked her over and pretty much buried her face into the snow. It was sad but really funny at the same time. I'm laughing just typing it. So mean. She wouldn't go down with me after that. She would by herself though.

{Sheri was afraid she would get water in her boots. Lylee did after a little bit and had to put bags inside her boots just in case it happened again. So we ran out of bags and Sheri made Lona some very attractive bags to keep her warm just in case. One was a subway bag and the other was from a piece of garbage bag. Oh well, it helped because there was lots of water under some parts of snow.}

Lylee went over and over and over again. It really was fun. Although it was snowing pretty good while we were there so when you went down the snow would whip you in the face and eyes so you could barely see. Still fun though! :)Lylee again.You have to make snow angels!! Just love those bags. Just nice decoration to the photo, don't you think? :)

This kind of picture (Jeremy taking it for us) reminds me of when we dated and were first married. We used to take lots of pictures like these. Doesn't he look like a giant kid in these bibs? Cracks me up!She is actually whining (not actually crying) because her glove was coming off. She didn't seem to notice she got a snowball in the head. We had to tell her.

The cool thing about this sledding area is the little covered area with a fire pit. We brought a pot, water and cocoa mix to drink hot cocoa. It was perfect. Sheri stayed in there with whoever wanted to stay, usually Tenley. She wasn't digging the snow very much. It was much too hard for her to walk and she couldn't maneuver the snow mittens. Whenever Lylee would come back from sledding she would get into a snowball fight with Sheri. Here she is throwing one at her. Ten fell asleep about 20 minutes right before we got there. We tried to let her sleep but she woke up. She was kind of a fussy gussy on this trip. You can see she was crying a minute ago.Now Jeremy is snow ball fighting with his Mom.Lylee wanted to build a snowman before we left so Grandma helped her.

And then she got distracted doing this...

And then she helped again.

{A couple of cuties}Working on the snow... bear. It got ears and that's what it became. Grandma and the girls and Carly the snow bear. Lylee named her. Jeremy and his Mom and the girls.Hugging Carly...

eating Carly... Hey!!!Saying our goodbyes.

Then we went home and I took Lylee with me to play volleyball at the church. Our women's league has started and it's so fun. We're a really good team and I love it! Lylee was really cute this last time and was cheering for me to win and hit the ball. Such a cutie! It was such a fun Saturday!!

The Joy of Parenting

2012-01-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

This was this morning when I was doing dishes. I obviously was not paying as good attention as I should've and I could've caught this early. But no, she'd been playing in it for a few minutes, hence the spreading and on the face... Plus it was time to go get the girls from preschool so I had to strip her, wash her up and change her then throw her and Kamdyn in the car. Nice.

This leads me to an awesome post I read yesterday. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false This happens to me EVERY time we go to a public place. An older lady will say, "Oh! It goes by so fast. Enjoy it while you can!" Which I always get annoyed with because it's usually at the moment when one of my kids is being super rotten and I want to spank them there in the grocery isle but can't. You need to just read it. Because it honestly feels like I wrote that article but with different names. I love how she compares parenting to climbing Mount Everest. It's hard most of the way but so awesome and worth it. And you don't need someone reminding you to enjoy every second or else it's gone.

But my most favorite part of the article was when she said people say, "You can't handle the 3 you have, why do you want a fourth?" Jeremy says that to me and some friends have asked that as well. Maybe not those exact words but similar. Here is what she said, "That one always stings, and I don't think it's quite fair. Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it's hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she's not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn't add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it's so hard means she IS doing it right...in her own way...and she happens to be honest." When Jeremy tells me how stressful his day was I never question his abilities or if he's doing a good job. Or ask him why he picked up another house to fix. Why do people do that with mothers?

I know, someday I will miss this. And not every moment of every day is so horrible. We have our good times and I love my kiddos to death. They are great kids. But boy are they stinkers and boy is this hard. But I LOOOOVE that I get to stay home with them every day. I am SO thankful that I get to do that! I have lots of friends that can't afford it and I'm really lucky, no blessed. Jeremy is so wonderful to work so hard that I can do that. But people, don't tell me I need to be enjoying every moment of raising kids. Or friends on Facebook, don't update your status every time about how amazing your life is and how wonderful your kids are. I have an old college friend that updates her status "Loving life" every time. It drives me nuts. Because then it makes you think, man, I just yelled at my kids. I'm not "loving life" right now. I'm doing something wrong. It's like the article, because we're not loving every stinken' second of raising our kids it makes us feel like we're not doing it right. Can we be honest every once in a while and say, "yeah, it's hard sometimes. But I still love it." I just loved this article and wanted to share. Because you know what? There are lots of different phases of life. Right now is the phase where all I do is take care of kids. And that's ok. I actually do like it... most days. :) And I think it's important to document this phase in my life. Because someday I will be in the empty nesters phase and I will maybe even miss this phase. But maybe reading this post I will remember all of it, not just the good times but that it was hard as well. Life is always hard, it always has it's challenges. But I'm sure this is a different hard than that phase. It's hard, but worth it.

We've Got Snow, People!!

2012-01-15T21:21:00.001-08:00

Ok, so like a millimeter but still, it's snow!! The kids were really excited Sunday morning when they woke up and looked out the window and saw snow. So excited they came in to tell us, the sleeping parents. Which they know is a "No No" because we are grumpy parents when we get woken up. :) But it was hard to be grumpy at that excitement. So once I finally got up (which is hard because we don't have church until 1pm! But once that baby wakes up... time to get up! ) we watched it snow for a bit and decided we should hurry and go play outside in case it's all we get. (It was coming down really light.) So we bundled up, which took like 20 minutes, and went and played in the itty bitty amount of snow we had.

It wasn't much snow but it was still chilly!!! Pink noses, that's for sure! And they all had gloves on but they couldn't gather any snow with them. It would just stick to the gloves. So the big girls took them off but then had freezing fingers.

We don't have any concrete or asphalt for a driveway so they liked the neighbors snow better than ours. :) It was easier to grab than on rocks.
Silly Alona. I put this picture on facebook and a friend from high school said, "That's a lot of pink!" I laughed when I read that because I hadn't even noticed. I just responded, "That's my life!" I am so used to pink, pink, pink that I didn't realize they were covered in pink. Lylee does however have purple snow pants though. Although honestly it's because I got them 70% off at Target and they were out of pink. She would've preferred pink for sure. All of Lona's snow clothes are a hand-me-down. We scored there! I want to go play in the snow this year though so I got Lylee some as well. Why does snow equal snowballs? Can't just play in it? Well, it wasn't enough to build a snowman, or do snow angels... so guess you just grab a bunch and throw it at people!!Even Dad got in on the snowball throwing. Then after about a half hour we went in and had some delish hot chocolate. 20 minutes to get dress for 30 minutes play. Then 10 minutes of clean up and putting everything back where it should go. Sheesh!

Little Kamdyn Turns One!!

2012-01-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Our sweet Kamdyn turned a year this last Wednesday (the 11th) and Phil and Kacie threw a really fun party at the Super 8 Motel's pool. We've always wanted to go there but never have. They rent their pool and waterslide out for parties and we finally got to go to one! It was lots of fun swimming in the middle of winter. It had a hot tub as well which we all loved. Wearing a swimsuit again?... Mommy didn't love! :) But this was a great way to entertain all of their friends since most have young kids. Here's Kami Cakes (as we call her around here.) with Phil before the swimming took place. We got her this shirt for Christmas. So cute!

HA! This is her "sad face" she makes lately. So funny. These are also her $30 baby Nike's Phil got her a while back.... They're cute but that's a lot of money for baby shoes. That's just because I'm a poor lady though! :)

Swimming in the pool!!! Ten had a great time. I'm sure Jeremy will HATE me putting this on the blog!

They had this waterslide that I totally thought would be slow and the kids would love it. Well, it wasn't slow at all! It was a fast spiral descend. But very fun. It took a lot of coaxing to get Alona to go down with me. I told her just once and if she didn't like it she didn't have to do it again. I even held her up out of the water at the end so she wouldn't get her face under. But she wouldn't go again. I think it was too fast for her liking. Lylee however went down once with Jeremy and loved it. She even started going down all by herself if Jeremy would catch her at the end. (They were wearing their swimming vests.) After a few she didn't even need Jeremy there at all. She just went over and over and over again! She had a blast. I even went with her a few times. It's fun!!

Then we went into the party room for some cake and ice cream and presents. It took her a while to get going but she finally just grabbed the cake and had at it.

Just had to show Lona's ridiculous cake/ice cream cake.

And these are from Friday but these are some cute pictures of Kamdyn at our house. I was folding laundry in the girls' room and Lona put the babies in the basket and was pushing them around. They were laughing and giggling, it was hilarious.

Giving Kam some love!

A couple things...

2012-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

Nothing new or fantastic is really happening these days. I've been watching Kamdyn about 4 days a week lately so that keeps us busy. I don't really go anywhere besides taking the kids to school and home because it's... interesting with 2 babies. So we have friends come play with us which is nice. Kam turns 1 tomorrow, by the way. So exciting! This is the baby that they worked so hard to get here. Crazy! Last week I think she had a bug because she was just not happy with the world. The whole week. She was really cranky and fussy. I was READY for the weekend! But thankfully this week she is much happier and it's been much nicer. But I love the bits and pieces out of her. She is pretty much like a niece to me. As Kacie is as close to me as a sister. They even refer to me to her as Auntie Tia. Which is funny because in Spanish it would be Tia Tia. But it's cute. At least someone will call me aunt! (Thanks a lot, brothers!!)

Anyways, Ten is in a fun stage of throwing fits and hitting as of this last week. When she gets mad she takes a swing at you. And she doesn't seem to be getting the message that it's not ok. Pretty sure Kamdyn might have learned that from her. Or else they both learned it at the same time. Although Ten does is much more, and harder. And sometimes they do it to each other. So that takes some watching. However, Ten is just the cutest. (When she's not hitting you or throwing herself on the floor because you won't give her the piece of candy she just spotted.) she is talking more and just growing into a toddler. She nods her head yes or no and usually incorrectly which is hilarious. She is "winking" at us. She calls Kamdyn "Baa Baa" which I'm pretty sure means Baby. Although I can't get her to call her anything else. She stays in nursery the whole time for about a couple months now. Even though she's only like 15 months rather than 18... thank you awesome nursery leaders that allow us to do that!! But thus far we've never had any issues leaving our babies in nursery at church. Phew! She sleeps like a champ, takes one or two naps during the day. So grateful for that!! We just love her to pieces and it's so nice to get that baby fix in. It goes by so fast!! Oh, and as far as her weight goes (since she dropped down to the 3rd % and the dr.s were a little worried about her fat intake) we had to go back a month later and she had gained 1 pound 6 ounces. So she's doing better. I don't force the fats but try to add more than I would normally so that she is getting that for her brain development. So she is now in the 10th percentile rather than 3rd. Yay! :)

Lona is definitely growing up and getting closer to 4. She still can be such a stinker but she's definitely maturing and it's so nice! She is so silly and cracks us up! She is our singer. Although Lylee likes singing and is good at it as well, I think Lona has a real talent for it. I think she will be musically inclined when she's older. Whether she sings, plays an instrument or dances. We shall see. We want to put her into dance but her attention span is just too short to pay for something like that. I'm thinking around 5 we will look into it. She would love it! Her and Lylee play so well together (for the most part) that it is so nice for me when I need to get stuff done around the house. Preschool has been so awesome for her! She is a social butterfly and the kids love her. She is doing awesome with her letters and numbers. I'm so glad she gets to go! I know it helps in church so much! She doesn't have any problems being in a class-like setting.

Lylee is our mother hen. She is so loving and helpful. She's always been so great at helping me out, even when she was only 18 months old and helping me with baby "Nana." She keeps doing new skills and when I act surprised she says, "It's because I'm 5, Mom!" It's so funny. And she has been saying the funniest things lately. I wish I could remember more but her newest is "That's what I'm talking about!!" She gets that from her Dad! She also loves dancing around. Well, they get that from me. We have lots of girl dance parties at this house. Like, daily! If Jeremy is home he will join in as well. It's pretty funny! Ask my old roommates, if you live with me, we have dance parties. Our favorite show to watch together is Once Upon a Time. Anyone watch that? The kids love the fairytale characters. Although get confused when they are in the "real world" But still love the "flashbacks" of their fairytale characters.

Anyways, not a ton of new stuff but just wanted to jot down a few thoughts I had before they left me forever. Thought I'd give a glimpse into our lives for just a moment.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun...

2012-01-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Just a few fun things we've been up to lately:

Today was GORGEOUS! Something in the 50's and very warm. We went on a walk and had so much fun. The older girls rode their scooters. They had to give me their coats half way through because it was so warm. It looked colder than it was so I bundled these little guys up just to take most of it off throughout the walk!

Christmas toys are getting played with! These fun stackable things are for Tenley from my Dad. What do you call these? But we build something new with them every day!

We played at our friend's house on Monday. I don't know if they want me to say their names so just in case I wont. They moved here from Iowa and go to church with us. We like having more kids at Primary! They had some fun dress up that the girls played with...

This was perfect because I've always wondered what Alona would look like with long brown hair with highlights!... Now I know!!

And then a little Buzz Lightyear action. But she told us over and over that she is a GIRL Buzz lightyear... with a cape and heals. We had some good fun with them!

Our Little Sunbeam!

2012-01-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

Our little Alona graduated into Sunbeams at church. I will talk in my Mom voice first. Then I will talk in my Primary President voice next. Lona was SO excited to be a Sunbeam! This meant that she didn't stay in nursery anymore but got to come in with the big kids in her own class. She kept telling us all morning, "I'm a Sunbeam now!" As if we'd forgotten. It just got so funny the more she told us. And so randomly, might I add. She was excellent and I was very proud of her! It felt like we just put Lylee in Sunbeams but that was 2 years ago already. Then I realized the next two years will fly by and Tenley will be our next Sunbeam. So weird!

Ok, now onto the Primary President perspective. I, (as the presidency) made each Sunbeam a shirt like this that had their name and that they were a Sunbeam and on the back it had their last name like a jersey. In my head I imagined each kid would react just like Lona. Be SO excited and just love it!! In fact I didn't want Lona to put it on until right before we went to church so she didn't get breakfast and lunch on it (since we go at 1:00pm this year.) but that was too hard. She made it until 10 and she just had to wear it. So as far as thinking the other kids would love their shirts and being in Primary, I was WRONG!!! Out of a class of five, only one other boy would wear his. The others... well they wouldn't do a whole lot of anything but cry! Well, another little girl did end up putting hers on with some help from Mom. It was a very, very interesting day in Primary to say the least! And we'd been having them come in from time to time for the last 6 weeks to get used to it and none of them have ever had a problem before. I don't know what it was. But first of all, our music lady AND the pianist were both out of town. That makes for a challenging day all by itself. But no, it keeps going. It's the first Sunday of the year, which means a new theme and everyone has new classes and new teachers. So we had to figure out where everyone goes. Then I thought one of my teachers wasn't there so I was getting a little panicked. But she had family visiting since her nephew spoke in church so she was just talking a little longer instead of coming right in. Annie, my counselor and I were just trying to figure things out, running all around. I had Sharing Time so I was trying to get that put together as well. We usually have a 2nd Counselor but Beverly moved so it's just us until we get someone else called. So remember 3 of the 5 kids were crying. 2 of them would not stop crying so their Dad's had to come in and sit with them. Which made my Sharing Time even more awkward doing it in front of two men. I shouldn't care because I was well prepared but I was already flustered from the hectic beginning we already had I couldn't think straight. And I feel like my teaching is being judged when I know it's not. They're great guys. But still, you are that much more aware of your teaching. It's like having a crazy morning teaching a class at a school and your principal has to come in and watch you last minute. Eesh. It was just... chaotic and not the best Sunday.

But the moral of the post was to show cute Alona in her new Sunbeams shirt growing up. I am working on making the blog into a book for 2011 and it's funny seeing pictures from January and the girls are SO young in just a year. I can't help but look at this picture and know next year when I'm making this blog into a book I'll think the same thing. Weird!

Finishing Up The Year...

2011-12-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to squeeze in a last post before I start posting for the New Year!! Real quick, look how adorable this little miss is folding her arms. Well, what she thinks is folding her arms! We pray every night as a family and one night last week while we were saying a prayer I peek my eyes open and see Ten looking up at us doing this. I about died. She is the cutest!

This is a little out of order but just got the picture so I wanted to throw it in. When we went to Jeremy's Aunt Katherine's for Christmas she hired Sarah Molloy (who did our family pictures and then did her 60th birthday party pictures) to come take a few family pictures. She just posted this on facebook so I grabbed it to put on here. I think it's a neat picture of everyone! Oh, and speaking of Christmas, I wanted to include this cute little gift Lylee gave us from Primary. We asked all of the children to tell us something they loved about each member of their family and we (I) typed it up and mounted it really cute and they took it home the week before Christmas. Here is Lylee's:

I'm so thankful for my family! Here's what I love most about:

Dad: I like when Daddy cuddles with me.

Mom: I like when Mom goes out to dinner with me.

Alona: When she plays and laughs with me.

Tenley: When she laughs as you and when I chase her and tickle her.

She's such a sweetheart!

And this was last week as well when we went to Kid Time with Jeremy's cousin, Chad and his kids. This is the same place we had Lylee's birthday and we went again last Friday. The girls NEVER get tired of going there. We love it there!!!
And this was a few weeks ago but I just found it. If the weather is nice, I throw the kids outside for as long as they can stand it at least once a day. They get really stir crazy and can drive me bonkers so if it's not raining I bundle them up and kick them outside. I haven't had to any kicking as of Christmas because they want to go out and ride their scooters every day! But I just thought Ten was the cutest all bundled up. This jacket is so thick and hilarious. It reminds me of the little brother on The Christmas Story who can't put his arms down in his thick coat. Phil and Kacie got this coat for Lylee's first birthday. Then Lona wore it, now Ten. So fun!

I think I mentioned before I watch Kamdyn most week days. Last Tuesday she was eating her cereal in the high chair and I was doing the dishes. She doesn't usually take a morning nap until 10:30 or so and this was 9:45am. I looked over and she was most definitely nodding off. I even talked to her and she was already in the zone. I just had to take this picture! :)

And this is the certificate and medal Lylee got for playing on the indoor soccer league. She had a good time and we will definitely be doing it again!!

For New Years Eve we didn't do a whole lot. We spent the day out and about looking around the mall, Target, Best Buy. It was actually pretty fun window shopping. Our favorite was trying out the 80" TV's in the theatre style recliners, drooling. The girls loved that! There's a lot of crap to wish you could have, isn't there? Not just TV's and chairs... Not that I really wish I could have it, it's just fun to look. Jeremy is looking into getting a little laptop or an iPad for work so we looked a lot at that kind of stuff. Then that night Phil and Kacie and Kamdyn came and we hung out for a little bit watching Friends and then played some Pictionary which Kacie and I kicked their trash at. It was fun! And then I dinked around on my awesome laptop while Jeremy watched Jaws on TV (we both were kind of laughing at it and in awe that it was so old and it had been SO long since either of us saw it. ) and we actually stayed up until midnight. Wow! I know, we're lame. But when the kids wake up at 6:30/7 every morning... you don't really see the point in staying up.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

It was truly the most wonderful time of the year!! Having small children does make it so much more fun though, I'll have to admit. We had lots of Christmas stories that we read all the time, we made toffee, fudge and divinity and took it to people, listened to Christmas music on loop. (Our favorites were the Glee Christmas cd's. Great songs!) The girls were just giddy which made me giddy and excited for Christmas as well.

We started out our festivities on Christmas Eve by watching our family videos from the previous year. We also watched a few from 2010 as well. The girls LOVE this tradition. Jeremy was so smart making this tradition! So we watched some videos and drank hot chocolate. Then we did our Santa preparations: got his cookies, milk and carrots for the reindeer. I am ashamed to say that we used store bought cookies this year. It just felt SO busy this season that making cookies just wasn't in the cards. Oh well. The girls were SO excited and ready to go to bed so that Santa could come. It was hilarious!!

The girls were so excited to wake up to full stockings and some presents from Santa. They have been wanting scooters for so long and finally got them. They SQUEALED with delight opening practically every present. I say it every year but my kids are so blessed! They got lots of great gifts. Jeremy and I work really hard on getting them just a few quality gifts and focusing on the spirit of giving and the true reason for Christmas. But they always are so blessed by our family and friends.

An outfit we got them. They LOVE these tutu skirts and want to wear them every day!

After presents we set to work making breakfast. Jeremy's Mom, Sheri came over that morning to watch the girls open presents and then was a great help cleaning up and helping with breakfast. I am SO thankful for all of her help! I love this picture of Tenley and Sheri making the mounds of sausage! :) She was being so clingy to me and I was trying to get stuff ready and Sheri stepped in and grabbed her for me. We had great friends come over and enjoy breakfast with us. Phil, Kacie and Kamdyn Harmon came as well as some new friends we met a few weeks ago that just moved here and didn't have any family here. The Kitchen family consisted of Jodi, Bryant, Tayven, Madison and Taylor. The kids are the same age as ours so the kids had a blast. We all hung out in our jammies, and ate delicious yet fatty food. We had sausage, eggs and some homemade doughnuts I made. SO good! Oh and fruit that Phil and Kacie brought. Something healthy at least!

The Harmons gave us the same gift we gave them. So funny!! It's a game called "What's yours like". It's pretty fun.

We got Kamdyn the same laptop toy that Tenley has. Now they're twinners.

Later in the day we went over to Jeremy's Aunt Katherine and Uncle Phil's house here in Central Point. Their son Chad and his family were visiting from Washington. We saw them a little on both Friday and Saturday but came to see them one last time and exchange gifts. They have an 8, almost 6, and almost 4 year old so the girls love getting to play with them. Jeremy's Dad and his family were there as well. Above is Chad and his wife Shelly with Jeremy's Uncle Phil.

Katherine played "Santa" and handed gifts to everyeone. The kids sat so patiently waiting for their stockings she filled for them. She really made it special for them. The kids pretty much got three seperate Christmas'! This was the 2nd.. Here is Micah, Alex, Lona, Lylee and Briele.

Jeremy's step-mom, Dani and her Mom, Regina visiting from Brazil.

I was taking video of the action... while holding clingy Tenley. She has been so clingy the last couple of months!!! Stupid teething has ruined it for me! :)

Jeremy's Dad and his little brother Gabe.

My girls waiting for presents. I'm so glad they were patient and not greedy like they have been in the past. I don't think they're greedy but just little kids and when they get lots of presents at once (ie.Christmas and birthdays) they get really "gimme gimme". And this year they were not like that at all.

Micah and his fake mustache the kids got in their stockings.

Katherine got Lylee this mini-digital drum set. I wouldn't have ever thought to get her that but she loves it! All of the girls do, really. It plays different beats like hip/hop, rock, jazz, cha cha, disco, samba... and then you can drum to it. It's pretty fun.

Chad and Phil

Sarah and Alona. Neither one of them would look at me!

Katherine has lots of concrete so we made sure to bring the scooters so they could give them a ride. Jeremy's Dad, Dale brought some roller skates for the kids and himself. So funny seeing him ride around!

We only stayed there for an hour then it was time to head over to Jeremy's Mom's house for dinner and our third Christmas. Jeremy's brothers, Tyler and Branden were there as well as Branden's daughter Mady and her mom Kristina. We ate the best dinner! We all were SO stuffed.

Then after clean up we exchanged presents, sheesh! Sheri has been making lots of blankets for everyone. Lylee got one for her birthday and both Lona and Tenley got one for Christmas and we got a brown and blue one for our couch.

Haha, this picture cracks me up! They were like this for every present. Guess they are super excited about these art kits.

Ten with her blanket. She loved this little rocking chair!

With her new baby she got from Grandma.

And lastly, I wanted to show Jeremy with his present I got him. He's been talking about a job site radio for years. It can get super loud, you can put USB drives in it. It goes without being plugged in, tells the time, can be dropped off a house, and you can charge your tools into it. It was the best gift I've ever gotten him. He was so shocked and happy to get it. It was very rewarding how excited he was. I have been watching Phil and Kacie's little girl, Kamdyn the last 6 weeks or so and was able to pay for it with money I earned. Usually he hates when I buy him presents because he feels like if he wanted it he would just buy it. For some reason he just never wanted to pay the money to get one. So he was so thrilled. He was telling EVERYONE about it. It was fun.

I also got a great gift from Jer. He got me a laptop!! I'm typing on it right now. I have always wanted a laptop so I could do computer stuff around the house. For example I'm sitting on the couch under my super fuzzy blanket with Jeremy watching Friends while updating my blog. PERFECT ending to the day!! I love it. The other night I watched TV with Jeremy in our bed. LOVE IT!! He did a good job. We both did a great job!

But honestly presents aside it was a fabulous Christmas! It felt kind of busy going from house to house but I realized that we are SO blessed. Better to have too many places to be than none at all. At one point as we were driving to his Mom's house I looked around our Suburban at my family and just felt so overwhelmed! Presents can't replace that! Merry Christmas!!

Getting My Craft Fix In...

2011-12-20T12:16:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was really having a craft "itch". I love to make things and be crafty but lets be honest, it doesn't happen as much now that I have three kids. So every once in a while I just need to make something to get it out of my system. Plus with the internet you get SO many ideas and inspirations. So I just wanted to show a few things I've been making lately. And there's about3 other things I couldn't add in here as they were Christmas gifts and I'm not sure if they read the blog... but just in case.
I have been wanting a box advent calendar for years now. I saw this kit at Craft Warehouse and I just had to do it. It's not exactly done. I want to add some more cute little stickers or embellishments but haven't had the chance. I put a goodie for Lylee and Alona in each one and they get so excited to find the box for the day. I was originally going to add activities to do like read a Christmas book, make cookies and take them to someone... but we do stuff like that all the time. I didn't want to be put on a schedule. We'll do them anyways so why not when we want to or are able. So right now there's just a goodie. I saw a really cool boxed advent calendar at Fred Meyer but it was $40. Wow, I enjoy our homemade one!

I've seen in blogland these new types of frames that you can buy. They're made of wood and I thought, "Jeremy could make these!" And then I wouldn't have to pay a lot. Well I read a blog where this lady made them all by herself. So I thought, " I can totally do that!" So I set out making a stencil for each frame I wanted. (I even made a fourth one in case we had one more child I didn't want to have to do this all over again. ) We had left over wood from doing the pantry so really this was the time if I was going to do it. So Jeremy set me up with his jigsaw to cut them out.... yeah, turns out it was a lot harder than I thought! It was taking me FOREVER to get anything cut and it wasn't smooth and I was getting really frustrated! Jeremy was busy getting the new garage organized with his new shelving he bought for his tools so he had no desire to cut them out. Well, it was just too hard so I convinced him that for every minute he took to cut them out for me, I'd give him a massage. 33 minutes later I had 4 frames cut out! SO worth it! So I sanded and painted them and here's the finished product. I think they're so awesome! Mainly because they're just so different. I put them in the new stairwell leading up to our new bedroom addition we finished. I've never had a stairwell before so I wanted something fun to put in it.

A closer view of Lylee and Alona's.
And even closer of just Tenley. I really wanted them to be close up, candid shots. Not posing pictures like we normally have. I don't love Tenley's. I need to get a better picture of her and swap it out. But it'll do for now.
AND... here's the fourth one in case there's one more child! :)
I have been wanting a change in terms of my jewelry box for so long. I have one that dangles the necklaces but then the earrings are in a drawer. The necklaces were constantly getting tangled and I couldn't see my selection very well. It was so annoying. So I made this simple necklace and earring holders. They're just old frames I got from Goodwill and spray painted new colors. The necklace frame I just added painted wire and the earrings holder I just added lace to the back. So easy and simple and I can see ALL of my jewelry! (Well besides bracelets.... that's next. :) ) And there's lots of room in the girl's bathroom (our old master bathroom) to put them on the walls. And they're high up so they can't reach it, Muahahaha!!

This isn't anything fancy, just cut out paper. But I love banners these days. So simple and yet so powerful. BELIEVE... believe in the true meaning of Christmas. Believe that Christmas is about the birth of our Savior and for giving. Love it. I especially like the little flowers on the sides.

And these actually were made at the end of Christmas last year. I LOVE our Christmas countdown! SO simple but yet we love it. The girls are recognizing numbers so they are excited that they can look at it and understand how many days until Christmas. My favorite parts are the little rhinestones on the I's and the felt flower. And the JOY blocks need some embellishments as well. Maybe next year. :) They are reversible and say BOO on the other side for Halloween! Fun stuff.

Maybe after Christmas I'll show the crafts I made for gifts. It just felt nice being able to make something or cheap to decorate the home. Homemade isn't always as cute as store bought but it's more special, I think. Christmas is almost here! Enjoy the Holidays!!

Jeremy's 30th Birthday!!

2011-12-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

My awesome husband turned the big 30 on December 6th! In the past we haven't had good luck trying to do great things for his birthday. I tried doing a birthday dinner at his favorite pizza place and only two friends of his came. He knows and admits he doesn't have loyal friends anymore. So I thought we would just do something me and him. But then that seemed lame for his 30th birthday. His 29th or 31st birthday maybe, but not the big 30! So I thought I'd be clever and have a surprise birthday party for him here at the house. I was going to do it at dinner somewhere but thought he would appreciate staying him since when he gets home from work he's always so tired. Well... I told him his mom was coming over and we were going to go do something, a surprise. (Because I didn't have anything planned.) And he was SO excited to go out just him and I.... woops! So he woke up on his birthday and was SO sick. He'd been throwing up the whole night before. Oh great. I kept asking if we should cancel his birthday plans but he said he'd be ok. In the past any flu bug was gone after a few hours so we figured by that night he'd be ok. So off to work he went.

Around 5:30 his Mom showed up. He thought this was normal since she was babysitting. Then our friends Trent & Cherie showed up. Now this might have seemed normal as if they were stopping by to say "Happy Birthday" but they didn't. They just said, "Hi!" and came in and sat down. Well they don't come over often enough for that to be normal. They should've said they just wanted to say "hi" or something. He started to figure it out then. He said, "Are people coming here?"... Then the Copple Family showed up and he figured it out. Then his Dad's family, Phil and Kacie, his Aunt and Uncle and then his friend Dave and his family came. Poor guy still wasn't feeling well. He just kind of sat there. Then he'd have to leave to go throw up again. I felt so bad for him.

We had yummy soup, garlic bread and mingled.

Then we had some yummy DQ ice cream cake. This is after the candle was in it. I should've taken one before but you know how it goes. It was delish as usual. It's been a long time since I'd had some!

Jeremy didn't feel better for another 3 days. So we finally did go out just us on Saturday night. We went to Olive Garden (YUM!!) and then saw New Years Eve together. We had a good time. Sure love that guy and I kept telling him I'm so glad he's been alive for 30 years! Hope he has 60 more left in him! :)

Some Randomness

2011-12-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

Just a few things I've been meaning to include:

We had our ward (church) Christmas party at the beginning of December. The girls were SO excited by our special visitor! I forgot to prep Alona for it since she's always been so scared of Santa. But she went right up to him (a little hesitant) and sat on his lap. Lylee went first and he asked her what she wanted and she told him a scooter. (She may have asked me a few days earlier what she should tell Santa she wanted. I said, "What about a scooter like Riley's?" When we visited my brother Aaron and Amy in Eugene last summer Amy's son, Riley had a scooter that they just loved. Then Lona got on Santa's lap and he asked her what she wanted. She said, "Uh....... um....... a cookie?" Ha! Sure thing, kid! She didn't know what to say. So on the way home I said, "So Lylee's wanting a scooter and Lona wants a cookie?" She piped up and said, "No wait! I want a scooter too!" Ha, I figured!

Tenley using a fork for the first time and doing a pretty good job. She would stab whatever she wanted and then put the fork in her mouth. Just the cutest!

Lylee helping me make dinner. It was funny because she is notorious for looking at what I'm cooking and comment on how gross it is and how she's not eating any of it. (she does.) But when she helped me make this meal that was full of veggies Lona was saying how gross it looked and Lylee would say, "No, it's really good! Mommy and I made it!" Maybe she should help me make dinner more often! I really wanted to include this picture because Lylee has been SOO good lately. She is just so mature and so sweet and listens to me when I ask her to do things. She's just been the best daughter! I'll comment on how good she's being and she'll say, "It's because I'm 5!" Actually, she says that for a lot of things. " I can reach this now that I'm 5.", or "I can do this on my own because I'm 5." It's so funny! But she really has been so awesome!

Getting ready for church last Sunday in her "Mrs. Clause dress".

When we first set up our tree after Thanksgiving I would find Lona like this on a stool just looking at it. It is just the cutest! I love that my kids enjoy our decorations as much as I do!

Here is Lylee on her birthday with her favorite breakfast, waffles! This one is a lion, circus waffle. Even with whipped cream. Lucky girl! She's obviously super excited!

For Lylee's birthday I wanted to make something to take into the preschool. Everyone feels special when they get treats brought into school! I remember Mom would bring cupcakes in for the class. I've been wanting to make the ever popular Cake Pops. I found some that were mini cupcakes on a stick and they looked so fun. And fairly easy. Well. turns out I didn't have the right sized flower cookie cutter to make it. So I had to just make regular round cake pops. They were most definitely not as cute as the ones in pictures and honestly I would've rather have had a regular cupcake. But they were different and exciting and the girls just loved them. I got it out of my system so now I wont be wanting to make them. Below is what I was originally going to make but I thought I had a small flower cookie cutter but it was too big.

I just wanted to show how much my girls LOVE getting their nails painted. There's something that draws a girl into pretty paint on her nails. Even Tenley LOVES playing with all the bottles. :) They make a great noise when mixed and clinked around.
Ten is really into climbing onto anything and everything. I busted up laughing when I came around the island and saw her like this, just so proud as can be!! I grabbed the camera and got a shot.
Lylee with our tree. We sure love our tree, it's nothing fancy or coordinated but it's filling up with homemade ornaments from the girls so it's becoming more and more special. Although recently the bottom two feet have been pretty bare. Every time Tenley takes off an ornament we put it higher until there aren't much left for her to take off. Oh well. It's a special tree, right?

At preschool the girls made these for Jeremy and I for Christmas. They insisted we open them up immediately. I'm not complaining! :) They are just the cutest! They are canvases that they finger painted and then she put this picture on it that has some of their favorites. I just love their preschool, specifically their teacher Michelle. She is always thinking of new and fun things to do with the kids. I love pinterest and she has recently started it as well. So I know that she just saw this idea and pinned it a couple weeks ago and then she went full force and did them. They turned out SO cute!! I don't know if you can read the writing very well. Click on the picture and it'll enlarge. I thought it was funny that Lylee said her favorite show is "Little Einsteins" because it really isn't. We rarely watch that show. When I said, "What about Good Luck,Charlie or Jesse?" (Both on The Disney Chanel) She was so bummed she hadn't thought of that because those are for sure her favorite. And Lona for her favorite show said "Little Dragon" I said, "What is that?" She said, "I don't know". Guess it was too hard to think of something on the spot. She also said her favorite sport is Scooter Riding... someone is really wanting a scooter for Christmas!
These are some hats the girls got from their teacher at preschool for Christmas. Her Mom made each of the kids a hat. So cute.

And lastly, I wanted to give a few facts about Lylee, by Lylee. I thought it would be fun to know these answers from when she turned 5 years old!

Favorite color: Pink and Red
Favorite Toy: Hello Kitty Phone and Strawberry shortcake Dolls that Santa brought to the preschool. (We bought a toy and took it to the preschool and yesterday they had a party where they got to open these presents from Santa.)
Favorite Movie: Rapunzel
Favorite thing to eat for lunch: Turkey Dogs with cheese.
Favorite outfit : Mrs. Clause dress
Favorite Game: Her Leapster Games (Rapunzel is her favorite of those.)
Favorite Snack: Nutella on bread and goldfish crackers.
Favorite animal : A piggie and all the animals.
Favorite Song: Christmas Bells are Ringing
Best Friend: Julianna and Emelia and Taylor
Favorite Breakfast: Waffles
Favorite thing to do outside: Swing and ride bikes
Favorite drink: Juice
Favorite Holiday: Halloween and Christmas
What you want to be when you grow up: Swim lessons teacher and a ballet teacher and a mommy.

Lylee Turns FIVE!

2011-12-14T13:13:00.001-08:00

{Lylee's invitation}

My Baby Girl turned 5 years old on the 28th of November. So crazy!! She has been wanting a Rapunzel birthday since... well months and months!! So on Friday I worked hard on making her this fun Rapunzel tower. Here is was Friday night. I actually colored the top of the tower gray/brown the next morning because I had forgotten. It really wasn't anything fancy, just kind of time consuming. Which is why I stayed up late Friday night making it! :) But Lylee LOVED it so it was totally worth it!

So for Lylee's big day we had a fun party planned at a place called Kid Time. It's basically a children's hands on exploration zone. There's so many different areas that kids can just play and explore and have a blast. We get memberships in the winter because my kids just love it there and it's a great place to have playdates out of the cold and rain. So we had the party the Saturday following her birthday which was December 3rd. She had a fun turn out of church friends, school friends, and old friends. We started out just playing for an hour at all the fun areas.Here our friend Stacie is playing the giant legos with her girls and Lona. This is next to the construction pit that has slides leading into a pit of rubber tire pieces that you can scoop and dump.

Tenley's favorite thing was going up the stairs to this slide and going down on her stomach. I think she loved the independence of being able to do it all on her own. Once she figured out to turn around on her belly we couldn't get her to do anything else.

Ok, maybe not the best picture of Ten but still cute of her sliding.

Phil and Kacie with Kamdyn and Tenley.

She's just hanging out. Resting from running from place to place trying everything out!!

Wait, who's birthday is it? why do I have all these pictures of Tenley?! :) She was just too cute! She was peeking over this water table. Then she'd see us looking and get shy like she was in trouble. Oh, and she was poking her little hands in there to see if she could reach the water.

After we played we went into the birthday room where Lylee got to sit in the throne chair and we did cake and presents. Here you can see the tower is a different, and better, color.

I think it's safe to say Jeremy's niece, Mady liked her cupcake!

{Lona & Phil}

As you can see the girls had matching sweaters. Jeremy couldn't figure out why I did that but it was genius if I do say so myself. Whenever we needed to do a quick head count of the girls to see where they were you just look for one shirt. Otherwise you're searching all of the kids for your own. I loved it!

Lylee was the perfect present opener!! For every present she opened she was just SO thrilled and it was the best present ever!! She definitely didn't get that from me. I hate opening presents in front of people, it's so awkward. She did fabulous and I should take tips!!

This picture just cracks me up of Julianna and her!!

After we did cake/ice cream and presents the party was officially over. You could stay or play or you could go home. We decided to stay for a little longer. Lona was LOVING the craft room. She loves to paint!! She doesn't exactly get to do this at my house! She did 3 pictures, I believe!

This bank area is so cute. Lylee was all dressed up in fancy women's attire being my bank teller.

Here is a gift she got from Grandpa Ponciano. They love cash registers so I thought this would be fun for them. (He sent money and I picked it up.)

And I wanted to throw in this cute blanket her grandma Sheri made for her. We gave her the mouse pillow pet which is so dang soft and she just loves.

She got some awesome gifts and is so spoiled by family and friends!! I had the hardest time posting pictures on this post so didn't get to include some pictures of her guests. I will try to add them to another post. But I wanted to remember who was able to come:

Phil, Kacie and Kamdyn Harmon (with Kacie's mom and little sister)

Jeremy's Mom, Sheri and his niece Mady

Taylor and Addison Folin

Laeger Family

Natalya and Alena Vitus (church)

Julianna Copple (church)

Ella Lowder (church)

Bryn (school)

Adyson (school)

Lauryn(school)

Thank you to everyone who helped make her birthday awesome. She had such a great time!!We sure love that girl!!

21 Questions

2011-12-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

I saw this funny thing in blog land where you ask you kids these 21 questions. I thought it'd be really funny to try on the girls. It might be funny to try different ones each year as they grow. Here are the questions with their answers (all on their own, none from me!):
1.What is something Mommy always says to you?

Alona: Get in here now!

Lylee: I love you

2. What makes Mommy happy?
Alona: “I love you, Mom!”

Lylee: when I listen to you.

3. What makes Mommy sad?
Alona:“Get in here, now!” (what the hey? I almost never say that!)

Lylee: if we say, “I don’t like you”

4. How does Mommy make you laugh?
Alona: When we dance.

Lylee: like say, funny words.

5. What was Mommy like as a child?
Alona: She jumped.

Lylee: she had clothes on.

6. How old is Mommy?
Alona: 5

Lylee: 17

7. How tall is Mommy?
Alona: Bigger

Lylee: Ugh, 17

8. What is Mommy's favorite thing to do?
Alona: Picking Flowers

Lylee: Go to bed.

9. What does Mommy do when you're not around?
Alona: She plays

Lylee: Play with Tenley

10. If Mommy becomes famous, what will it be for?
Alona: Dancing.

Lylee: For dancing and singing. (haha, it’s nice they think so highly of my poor singing and dancing skills!)

11. What is Mommy really good at?
Alona: Dancing
Lylee: sliding Tenley on the slide.

12. What is Mommy not very good at?
Alona: I don’t know.

Lylee: you’re bad at fighting with daddy. ( I must clarify that she means wrestling. Honestly I don't stand a chance. But if she did mean fighting, I always win, right?! :) )

13. What does Mommy do for her job?
Alona: painting. (I wonder if she’s referring to working on the addition? I did do a lot of painting for a few weeks there!)
Lylee: Don’t let Lona do stuff with Tenley that hurts her.

14. What is Mommy's favorite food?
Alona: vegetables.

Lylee: all of the ingredients.

15. What makes you proud of Mommy?
Alona: saying, “ thank you.”
Lylee: That you give a lot of candy to me.

16. If Mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Alona: A coyote
Lylee: Princess and the Frog ( I think she thought of that because her name is Tiana and they call her “Tia” a few times. She’s smart because I’d totally forgotten about that!

17. What do you and Mommy do together?
Alona: dancing

Lylee: go on a date

18. How are you and Mommy the same?
Alona: we’re silly

Lylee: We look alike.

19. How are you and Mommy different?
Alona: Mommy’s bigger.

Lylee: You’re big, I’m small.

20. How do you know Mommy loves you?
Alona: she hugs me.

Lylee: She hugs me and she gives kisses.

21. Where is Mommy's favorite place to go?
Alona: the movies.

Lylee: shopping. (when do I get to do any of these? Rare occasion! How funny!)

Lylee Fall Soccer

2011-12-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

We got Lylee's professional soccer pictures back at the last game. I thought they were just so cute. I had to share!

Mexican Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T16:02:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I thought I posted this a long time ago. Woops! I've been having a hard time with blogger uploading my pictures so that's partly why I took a break and then obviously forgot about it. :) So the day after Thanksgiving we went over to Jeremy's mom's house for an After Thanksgiving Dinner with her family. She decided to have a Mexican theme so we all brought a Mexican dish. I brought my Mom's Nacho dip and mmmmmmmmmmm!!! Honestly, that was the only thing Lylee or I liked so we stuck to that. :) (We tried other things but just kept coming back to the delicious nacho dip!)

So everyone is super pleased I got up to take this picture! :) But here's the table and Branden's little girl, Mady is hidden behind Branden. That girl is Branden's recent girlfriend, Sausha. This was part of having her over is so that we can meet her. Jeremy's other brother, Tyler didn't show up. I don't remember his lame excuse. Slept in or something stupid. I'm not going to censor my thoughts. His Mom was really disappointed and it was just yet another irresponsible or lazy thing he's done lately.

Branden & Sausha

Mady was just SO tired! Grandma got her to sleep, though!

We played a bunch of games after dinner. Jenga, Uno, and then a long game of Life. I don't think any of us had played in 10 years. It was fun.

The girls had so much fun with these animals that came in a little game or something. I let the other adults play Jenga while we played with these. Here we put them in order from size. They were pretty proud of it! (Lylee did most of it!)

Here's a question I ask a lot: Who'se kids are these?!!!

Lylee LOVED these dogs! They are skiddish with little kids (AKA Lona and Tenley running after them) but Lylee would sit so still and talk sweetly to them until they'd inch toward her and once she would pet them so softly they'd curl in her lap. And she was content with doing it all night. It was the sweetest thing! She just loved Jenny and Arrow!! (She can get her dog fix here!)

Then the next day we set up all our Christmas stuff. Oh how I love Christmas decorations!!! The girls had so much fun helping with the tree. We just couldn't get it up and the lights put on it fast enough. Especially Lona, she wanted to put the ornaments on it NOW!!

Lylee helping put on the star!

And here is my awesome husband putting up the new color icicle lights!! He didn't want to but loves me so much!!! And it's a good thing he did because it has gotten significantly colder since then!!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. It felt so far away and now it's all over. So crazy! I wish Thanksgiving lasted at least two days! So it started out that we went over to grandma's around 11, 11:30. To our surprise my Mom was already there!!! She usually doesn't get there until after noon. It was crazy. But she had some fun goodies she'd picked up for the girls at a garage sale. The girls loved the Belle and Snow White outfits. Lona's Belle shoes are especially cute and they light up in the heel when she walks. Good score for $5, Mom! I didn't get a picture of the stage that went with it but maybe later when we set it up.
Mom wasn't able to make it down for Tenley's birthday so she brought her this horse as a present. It sings songs when it moves (which wasn't so cute on the way home! :) ) But the girls love it. Even the big girls. They will ride it in their dresses and say they are going to the ball!

Lona was a snuggle bug with everyone. Here she was cozying up to Uncle Clifton.

Ten really loves Tyra. She kept talking and trying to touch her. Stinker Tyra (My Mom's dog) got a nice bath that morning, got to grandma's and rolled in mud. She so had to spend some time in the crate as grandma's is a nice, clean, pet free house. We didn't want to get it all dirty. But Ten loved talking to her!

Since Lylee's birthday is so close to Thanksgiving my Mom and brother and his family will bring her a gift. So here's part of Lylee's gift from Uncle Aaron, Amy and Riley. She also got a fun princess coloring book with stickers. This box has a chalkboard on one side and a dry erase on the other. Plus the chalkboard slides out and the chalk, markers and eraser fit inside. She loves this. She's into drawing and writing A LOT right now. When she does an elaborate picture she says, "I'm an artist!"

Tenley also liked Grandma's doll. I think each kid growing up has thought it was a real baby at first. She kept going over and poking it and laughing and tickling it. Also note these cute pants! Just love the ruffles! Girls are just so cute!

And of course, Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without an awesome dinner!!!! So good! Above is my brother Jeston carving the turkey. And below is the "grown ups table". Ha. I wish I'd remembered to get a picture of the other table. We usually have to break it up into two tables and my family, Clifton and Jeremy's Mom sat at that table. Oh, Jeremy's mom, Sheri came to Thanksgiving with us this year. We were so glad. We've invited her before but never has wanted to go. She would feel so out of place with it all being my family but she finally came. We were so excited. We will be having a dinner today (day after) with all of the boys.

After dinner Lylee was allowed to open the present from my Mom. She got two of these hard plastic horses. I'm sure they have a name but I don't know. Above is her face when she opened it up. She was excited even though her face looks silly! The spotted one looks just like her horse Petite that we ride when we visit.

And a horse game. We haven't played it yet so I'm not sure how it works. Mom always gives horse and farm themed presents to the girls.

Lona snuggling Amy. We sure love us some Amy!!!

{A generations picture}

I found boots that I wanted so bad at Target but they weren't sold at my store. They did however have them in Eugene so Amy was so awesome and picked them up for me. Lylee liked them as well as you can tell...

And here you have it, our awesome family! Can I just note Jeston and Clifton are being stinkers by standing on their tippy, tippy, tippy toes. Seems every picture the boys will puff up their chests and stand as high as they can to look bigger than each other. Well joke was on Aaron because he didn't get the memo to do this again. So Clifton and Jeston thought it was just so hilairous that they are so much taller than him.... must be a guy thing!

LOVE my family and am truly blessed! We have so much to be thankful for!

WE LOVE FALL!!!

2011-11-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

Fall is so gorgeous!! We went out and enjoyed it today since it was so nice and somewhat warm in the sunshine. The girls just had a blast with the leaves from Lylee's little (getting big) tree out back!

Lylee Our Soccer Star

2011-11-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday was Lylee's very first soccer game through the league she is playing on. It was SO fun to go to her game and yell for her. I do love me some soccer and when your little 4 year old is playing, it's SOOO fun!! She is really good. Jeremy and I decided probably top 3. There are a couple other boys that you can tell have played before and are good but other than that, Lylee has some of the best skill. It's hard playing soccer in a gym because it just bounces and rolls forever. Most kids just kick it, just to kick it. Few actually aim where they kick it or dribble it in front of them. Lylee does both. AND, she even scored her first goal!! She got to kick it at the beginning of a "quarter" and she kicked it nice and hard and it bounced off someone and went right into the goal. We'll take it! She was so excited and shy about it. It was so funny.Here she is at the very beginning of the game. She got to start! Oh, they are the iguanas and she is #2.

Lona was a very good cheerleader. She cheered everything I did. It was funny! Me: Go Lylee!! Alona: Go Lylee! Me: Steal the ball! Alona: Steal the ball! So cute!

She's a fast runner too! We were definitely proud of her and hope she sticks to it and loves it as she gets older.

Towards the end she bonked heads with someone. I didn't see it but she hit pretty good and was crying and had to come out. She has a bruise under her left eyebrow now. Not that bad though. I was afraid she wouldn't go back in after that and then be too scared from then on out. Her coach asked if she wanted to go in a little later and we said, "Yeah Lylee. Get back in there. It's ok" Nope, tears!! Oh no. But then waiting a little longer, sipped on some water and he asked again and she first said "no." But then I said, "Yes, she'll go in again." And she reluctantly did but she was back to her old self. I really didn't want her to be scared of bonking someone else from here on out so I was so glad she went back in. We told her how awesome she did and she had lots of fun. (Except the head bonking of course!)

Seems I'm always sneaking in an older picture at the bottom of posts. But here's one posted recently from Jeremy's Aunt Katherine's birthday party in early October. This is Jeremy's little sister Sarah and myself.

And there you have it. I'm up to date. YAY!!!!!!!!!

HALLOWEEN 2011

2011-11-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Good Gravy! It feels like all I do is post about Halloween these days! I love it but am glad to be not only up to date but able to post about other things! :) We had a very fun Halloween! We have had fun before and my kids loved it before but they both were at awesome ages that they REALLY loved it and kept up and never once complained. So proud of them! Notice in the picture above how they wouldn't look at me? Trick-or-treaters were walking by me and I just couldn't get them to focus on me. Just too interesting to look at costumes. And I don't blame them! Also notice how dirty my car is. That's what happens when you live on a dirt road! Oh well.
This is the third year in a row we went with our friend Stacie and her two girls Taylor and Addison. We actually went to this neighborhood the first year and liked it best so we came back! It was so fun! Stacie brought her friend Ashley who I've met before a few times and her husband and their two boys. So there were 6 little kids running to each door. RUNNING is the emphasized word! I love Halloween purely for the excitement and fun they have. It just makes it so fun!

Here is all the kids trick-or-treating at someone's door.

And this is what my sweet baby did the whole time. She sat so content and loved watching what was going on. Jeremy was a great stroller pusher as well.

A funny story I don't want to forget: There was one particular house where the porch was super decorated in pirate/scary-ness. The man at the porch was all decked out in a scary pirate costume. He even had a scary mask that looked so real but you could see his lips moving behind it. I'm not going to lie, he was pretty scary looking, even to me. And he sat next to a big chest full of candy gold coins. To get one, you had to walk up to him in the scary porch. OH, and his garage door was half open with a strobe light going and a drag racing type car right up front. The car had a skeleton driving it. So the atmosphere is pretty scary if you're catching my drift. Lylee was pretty much the only one who'd go up and get a candy. She thought it was funny as well as scary. But the other kids including Alona would NOT go up there. NO amount of candy was worth it. It was hilarious! I tried getting a picture of Lylee next to him but he moved so his face is blurry. So great! I love when people go all out for Halloween!

Such a good time and the girls got SO much candy in the hour and a half we were out. Other kids were starting to whine that they were done and wanting to go home but ours never did. Such troopers. I did take out all the yummy chocolate bars right away and have since gained 5 pounds even though I said I'd have some self-restraint. Nope!

Trunk-Or-Treat!

2011-11-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

The Saturday before Halloween the church did it's annual Trunk-or-Treat. The girls decided they didn't want to be their usual Halloween costumes and decided to raid the dress-up bag for something different. So Lylee decided she wanted to be Cinderella and Alona decided she wanted to be a hand-me-down Ladybug. (She was a ladybug 2 years ago. Oh well.) I bought this cat costume for $2.50 last year at Walmart for 1/2 off and Jeremy got this mask from his brothers a while back. We wanted him to wear it so he'd dress up but he didn't. Boo!Lylee had fun with it though!

I'm just a cat. Not Catwoman like everyone thought I was. My clothes were much too lose to be Catwoman! :)

Tenley's costume I got at Goodwill. So we made off for pretty cheap this year!

Jeremy took the older girls around trunk-or-treating to the cars while Tenley and I handed out candy out of our trunk. She was more of a candy stealer than a helper!

Kamdyn the Kitty and Tenley the Tiger!

Some of the Gold Hill Babies (We're missing Brady Lowder). But here's Tenley (12 months), Abbygail Wells as Pebbles (7 months), Sophie Copple as a ladybug (Alona's costume 2 years ago) (13 months), Kamdyn Harmon the Kitty (9 months). Did you get all that? Sheesh!!

Alona and Cassidy eating some goods. Isn't her Repunzel costume so cute?

On a sidenote, we signed Lylee up in a Medford Soccer League. She plays on a 4 & 5 year old team and this is her first practice. She was so excited and just so dang cute! Jeremy took her to her practice and said she did awesome. She has some of the best control skills than most kids on her team. She stays with the ball no matter where it is. Jeremy has been working with her outside in the backyard about being a little more aggressive and really getting in there. The team is mostly Hispanic kids (except for 3 total) and Lylee is one of two girls. The little girl is 3 (must be going on 4? She's TINY!) It's funny because she's the only blonde person on her team. She's unique! :) So far she's loving it.

Preschool Halloween Party

2011-11-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Wednesday before Halloween the girls' preschool had a Halloween party and the kids all wore their costumes. It was adorable! They were Sleeping Beauty and a bride. (Both things out of our dress up! Cheap!)

Here are the girls and their buddy, Collin (Batman!)

Some other kids that wanted in on the picture taking: Collin, Lylee, Shyla (another princess), Jada (Repunzel. Between me and you this cracked me up because she has the shortest hair out of all the girls. It was ironic almost. But she's adorable!), Alona, and Mason (Woody from Toy Story.)

The Princesses

This isn't Halloween pictures but wanted to include it because it cracks me up. We have been putting finishing touches on the addition, most specifically on the new pantry. So this step stool has been out a lot. I'm not quite sure why it got put by the door but the next think I know Tenley has crawled up it and onto the bench where my purse was. She loves my purse because it includes so many wonderful things such as gum, chapstick... (as you can see on the floor.)

It was hard to be mad when she was so excited about it!! :)

Carving Pumpkins

2011-11-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

The day after we went to Pheasant Fields Farm was Sunday. We kept up our tradition of having the Harmon Family come over and carve pumpkins with us. I believe this was our 4th year doing it together. I got a really great picture of us all together... and then accidentally deleted it when I was deleting old picture on the camera to free up space. GRRR. I was so mad at myself! I tried and tried to get them back but couldn't. Boo. But here are the girls with their pumpkins we carved.

This is their "scary" face. Although Lona looks like she got scared!!

Then we were playing around with the "fish eye" effect on my camera again. When we do this and I show the girls the picture they laugh SO hard! It's so much fun!

So silly!

Pheasant Fields Farm

2011-11-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

I'm STILL playing catchup! So many weekends ago we went to Pheasant Fields Farm in Phoenix, Oregon that is. It's a small town between here and Ashland. We went there two years ago and had a blast. Last year we didn't go because the girls got their pumpkins at the pumpkin patch and we almost didn't go this year because of that same reason. But I really loved the Harvest festivities and didn't want to miss out on that again.

None of my girls were in much of a picture mood this day!

Ok, well maybe Lona got into one for a second!

See, not a good picture moment for Ten.

I wish I could say everything was free but no. Each year it seems they charge a little more and more. We kept saying this is definitely the business to be in during Fall. Have a farm and charge everyone to do each little thing! But enough griping. Here Lylee is loving her traditional pony ride. Lona did NOT want to go on. Boo.

They did have a FREE kids tent with this awesome giant sandbox and some other kid stuff. The girls really loved the digging and raking. Jeremy and I got bored so we played with the camera. It started out normal...

Then got silly...

And wait, did you take a picture?...

We wanted to do the corn maze but at $4 a person... $16 just didn't seem worth it! But we did do the historical hayride ! :) They had some facts about some troops that stayed there during civil war. It was called Camp Baker (the name of the road the farm is on) and had some actors throughout the ride. The first half was not so fun as a young woman had twins and one was CRYING nonstop. She finally gave him her phone but I was getting worn out from all the crying! I tried to be sensitive and understanding but it was getting so old. Of course I didn't let her know I thought that.

They had this giant staw hill. I guess kids just love to climb things, even Tenley. Didn't seem like much fun to me once you got up there. Then what do you do? Climb down?Nope, you slide down! And then you do it over, and over, and over...

Even Tenley loved climbing up it.

And then getting thrown around...

I couldn't believe she did this. Cute but ugh. Straw is itchy!!! But it gets worse!

They started throwing it into the air and onto each other. Ugh!! It gives me the willies to think of straw down my shirt. Yack! (That's a funny word to say! I made it up just now!)

This picture was to show all the straw in their hair and on their clothes but you can't see it that well. Phil, Kacie and Kamdyn came with us but I don't have any pictures of them. Woops.

Tenley's First Birthday Shindig!!

2011-10-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

HALLELUJAH!!! I have been working on this post every night for a week! No joke! Something was going on with Blogger or my computer or both but it was a nightmare trying to get these pictures uploaded! It would take a good 20 minutes for every two pictures. And sometimes I'd be waiting and waiting and waiting and it would say "bad request". Ugh! So I am VERY excited to finally have all of these pictures uploaded and I can tell you about them and get them for your viewing eyes!!!

So this post is super late for many reasons. The first is because my awesome friend Sarah Molloy who did our photography was gracious enough to come to the party and take tons of pictures for me. So because it was free I couldn't demand she hurry up and burn me a disc! So I waited patiently as she then bought a new house and got the keys and moved in. That would be rude. But I finally politely asked after a few weeks and she had forgotten. So I was glad I asked but still felt bad to do so. So it took me a while to get the pictures and then took me what felt like forever to get them loaded! But here is the party we had for Tenley's first birthday on October 11th. Her actual birthday is the 12th but we had a meeting to go to so we just did it the day before. I chose to do a black, white and pink themed party and had lots of fun with it! It was the first time I really put forth effort into a theme. Usually we are outside in the backyard with Lona's or at a venue for Lylee's because our house is too small for lots of little kids and their parents. I will do a theme for theirs but paper plates and cups aren't that in depth. So since we were going to have it at our house I decided to really go with the theme. Thank goodness for the wonderful internet and all of the ideas I got from it! None of it was hard, just a matter of time. And cutting paper can be done while sitting in the playroom with the kids! :)

We did family and some close friends. There were more people I wish I could've invited but our house was already super packed! I love my house but it's times like these I wish for a nice big family room for entertaining!

So from above you can see the goody table. Here there were drinks, cupcakes and candies all in black, white or pink.

All of the labels were done in the color combination as well.

Cupcakes! You can't see the black and white paper very well...

Jeremy's Dad and little brother Gabe. And Phil and Kamdyn.

I laughed when I saw this picture. Here I am holding a baby and trying to get dip for the veggies ready. What is Jeremy doing? Eating pizza! He's a good help but is such a guy when it comes to things like this!!

I love this picture of my Grandma helping with Tenley! Just love that she lives here and my kids get to spend time with her!

Some guests....

Jeremy's Aunt Katherine and his Step-Mom, Dani.

Check out here cute outfit! I ordered the tutu on ebay and made the t-shirt with an iron-on that I printed from the computer!

Just love my birthday girl!!

This is one of my favorite things my babies do. They grow out of it and it makes me sad. I have always thought I wish I had a picture to remember the sweetness of it. I didn't even realize Sarah took this so it makes me so happy! I will soak it up while I get it and truly miss it when it's gone!!!

I LOOOOOOOOVE this picture of my grandma and Ten. I printed it and put it in a frame in her room. It's so special!

Ten took a nice long nap and woke up right as the party was getting started. So it took her a while to get warmed up. She looked like this the whole time we did cupcakes. She is known for her scowl when she isn't sure about something. Although this isn't the full-on scowl!She didn't like the flame. And just sat there staring at the cupcake. It took her some coaxing but once I put that frosting in her mouth she loved it.

Lona did too.

This is one of Lylee's best friends: Julianna

Dani and Gabe Hopper

Opening some of her gifts: Above Tenley is holding this fun snack holder that I've always wanted but never wanted to buy. Dawn had always thought the same thing so decided to get me one. I love it. It's so you can stick your hand in and grab snacks but they don't fall out. (unless they're tiny like cereal.) But works great for Pirates Booty!

This is a Hello Kitty phone from Aunt Katherine that the girls LOVE!! It's an actual working telephone but we don't have a landline so the girls use it for pretends. All three love it. Lylee actually took it to show and tell the next day and it was a big hit. Oh, and I forgot to mention that's little Kamdyn Harmon playing with it.

This picture is out of focus but I wanted to show the cute ladybug bank she got from the Laeger family. So cute.

And not all guests are pictured so I wanted to make sure to mention who came to remember: Jeremy's Aunt Katherine and Uncle Phil, His Dad, Step-Mom and their two kids, Grandma Braden, Trent & Cherie Nistler, Laeger Family, Harmon Family, Copple Family, Molloy Family. I think that's all. I feel like I'm forgetting someone. Thank you everyone who came and helped us celebrate our little girl! We sure love our Ten!!

Some quick facts:
Rolled over: 4 months
Used to be the NOISIEST sleeper as an infant! (Grunted like a pug dog!)
Took longer to fully sit up without falling over. Around 7 months.
Crawled at 7 months
Walked at 11 months
Started getting teeth at 7 months
Has 6 teeth at 1st birthday. (Although she cut one more on the bottom a week later.)
First word: Ma ma
Says:Ma ma, Hello, Up

A Year of Tenley

2011-10-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

At Tenley's birthday party I made a banner of pictures. I had 12, one of each month of her life. I thought it was pretty cute. (Don't worry, I'm not that creative. The wonderful world of the internet!) It's now hanging in her room. It's fun to see the changes that can happen in just a year!

{3 Days Old}

{1 month old}

{2 months old}

{3 months old- Blessing Day}

{4 months old}

{5 months old- First try at solids}

{6 months old}

{7 months old}

{8 months old}
{9 months old}

{10 months old}

{11 months old}

{A YEAR!!!}

School Pumpkin Patch Trip

2011-10-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

{So this post took FOREVER to get up. Super sorry about that!} A couple weeks ago Lylee and Alona's preschool class went to the pumpkin patch.

Getting ready to head out the door.

We went to 7 Oaks Farm here in Central Point. The girls always love riding on the wagon ride to the fields. I might have gone overboard on the Halloween attire. Oh well!

{Searching for the perfect pumpkin. I love the fields of green vines in pumpkin patch pictures.}
For some reason it took them a long time to find ones this year. Which mind boggles me because they really don't know what they want. I kept pointing out a bunch of pumpkins but they just weren't right I guess. I had to finally say, "Pick one because we have to get back on the tractor or they'll leave without us." Well then the nearest one looked just perfect. :)

This picture makes her pumpkin look really big but they both got cute little pumpkins. Lylee's is just a bit bigger. The rule is you have to be able to carry it so they can't really get anything huge.

Tenley enjoyed it as well.

I'm not going to lie... I didn't shower that day. So don't judge! :)

Afterwards we went to the "Kit Town" where they have lots of fun things for the youngsters to do. They gave them apple slices to feed to the goats. My girls love feeding goats!
Above is last years picture. I even commented on how next year we'll have Tenley... and we did!!

They had all kinds of fun things for the kids to do. Their favorite was a little maze. They went in it probably 5 times each. We had a good time!

This is not the pumpkin patch but a few days later I took this of Tenley. I just think it's cute and she is looking more and more different as she grows older. Makes you wonder what she'll look like in a year, two, five...

School Pictures

2011-10-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

I wanted to quickly post the girls' cute preschool class pictures they had taken. They had a photographer come in and take individual shots and then a class shot. I thought I'd share the cuteness. Notice how Lylee is the 3rd tallest in her class, tallest girl. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. :) And Lona is not the shortest girl, not even close. Phew! I always thought she was tiny but she has literally grown 3 inches since she turned 3...4 months ago! (It's like Where's Waldo! Where's Lylee and Alona? Lylee is in the backrow, middle. Lona is pink shirt in the front, middle/left.)

It is scanned and then cropped down because it had lots of pretty background... making the kids teeny tiny. So I tried to make it bigger without going too fuzzy.

A Few Catch Ups

2011-10-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm finally getting a post in! Sheesh! Here are just a few things we did this last month.

First is at the beginning of the month (Sheesh!) we went to Mady's 2nd birthday party at the park. Mady is the girls' cousin. (Jeremy's little brother, Branden's daughter.) Here she is above after eating some bright yellow frosting. The cupcakes were from the Walmart bakery and had NEON frosting. Ugh, grosses me out just to look at. But the girls enjoyed them.

Ok, onto Tenley's poor injuries. I am NOT winning any Mother of the Year award (Well, ever!) but definitely not with Tenley! Poor third child has fallen off everything! She has fallen off the bed about 3 times. (Lylee once and it was traumatizing! Lona never.) Then this picture is from her falling off the back porch. It wasn't that high but she fell on some bark and got all scratched up. It was sad. Earlier this month she fell OUT OF HER HIGH CHAIR! That one was really sad. I didn't even see it. I went into the laundry room to get something and had to hear the awful crash. Thank goodness babies are rubbery or whatever they say. Ugh, don't turn me into Child Services, please! But if anything is.... off later in life. I'm blaming this! Oh, and she now has to be strapped into her high chair. Something I never had to do with the others.

Don't worry, this did not end badly. But Lylee was driving this jeep around the back porch and Tenley was squeeling in delight! She just loved it. Don't worry, supervised only!

This last picture is from Lona and my date. We've started date nights with the girls every couple of weeks the girls trade off going on a date with one of us. Lona was first going on a date with me. She wanted to go to the Mall and eat. So we shared this Chinese food and then had some ice cream. Then we went to a playground at a local elementary. It was fun because we've never gone there before and there was barely anyone there so it was new and exciting.

The next date was Lylee's and she went fishing with Jeremy at Greggory Ponds. (He proposed to me there some 6 years ago...) They had a blast. He forgot to take the camera and only got a picture on this phone. :( They actually caught a fish and Lylee loved every minute of it.

The next date was Lona and Dad and they went to McDonalds and she got a Happy Meal and then they went to about 3 different parks playing. Lylee and I get to go next week on our date. I'm not sure what we're doing yet. It's so great to have that one on one time. It's not too shabby having one less kid at home either. So there's lots of bonding and special time all around! :)

Sorry!

2011-10-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten about my sad little blog!! It's been busy and I've actually tried three different times to post some pictures but after 15 minutes of "loading" my pictures it says there is an error. By that time I am done with whatever I was doing on the computer and am needed elsewhere. So I give up. So hopefully tomorrow or soon after I will get around to dedicating a little time to getting a few posts up here. After all we've been to two pumpkin patches and my baby turned ONE! Sheesh! I don't actually have pictures for that just yet. My friend Sarah Molloy (who took our family pictures last month) came to the party and so generously took tons of pictures for us. Well, she just bought a new house and they got the keys yesterday. Plus this isn't a paying gig so I'm kind of put on the back burner if you know what I mean. So I'll wait patiently for her to burn the pictures for me. THEN I will put them up. But you'll have to wait as well. Sorry. We did have a rockin' black,white and pink birthday party for her which I thought was super cute, just sayin'! So anyways, here's a picture to show I haven't given up on you. This was from today, being silly at the pumpkin patch while the kids played in a sandbox. Come back later!!

Some Randoms

2011-09-20T21:37:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to make sure I included these little snippets in the blog:

Poor Tenley is having a hard time getting into a sleeping schedule and the girls' school schedule is making it harder. In the summer she could stay up later and sleep in no problem but we have to be at preschool by 8 so she is waking up earlier, then tired all day taking little cat naps. Well her new room is established up in the upstairs. (Did I mention we are sleeping up in our new master bedroom now? Yipee!!! It is not COMPLETELY done but mainly. There are little fixes and paint touch ups here and there but for the most part it's done.) So she is starting to get on schedule and last night slept from 8pm until 7:30am. The longest she has ever slept all at once! It was wonderful! Plus it was so nice getting up and ready and the girls ready for school and then get her ready to go. Back to this picture above: This was taken Sunday morning. I was trying to get ready for church in the bathroom and she was so cranky! It was only 9:30, which is way too early for a nap for her! She would crawl to the floor, whine and cry and then Jeremy would come get her. He would entertain her for a little bit and then she'd come do the same thing. Well he went upstairs to shower because she was doing ok in the living room with the girls and she came back whining at the door. After a minute she was quiet. So I opened the door and she was sound asleep on the carpet. Poor thing! I sure do love that little girl! As an update she is going to be a year next month. How sad! She is walking more and more these days. She is so opposite the other two. They both started crawling at 8 months and FULL ON walking at 10 months. I'm talking crawling one day and completely walking the next. It was bizarre. Tenley however started crawling at 7 months and took steps a few weeks ago and is slowly but surely building up to walking. She walks more and more each day but is so wobbly. The other two were not like that. However she is really persistent which is adorable. You can tell she wants to walk but just loses her balance.

This picture was taken yesterday. We picked up their Aunt Sarah on our way home from the store and she came and played with the girls for a few hours. They had a ball. Here they were reading books for a good 45 minutes together. They would share what was in their book with each other and then comment on it. They don't have many cousins but at least they have an their Aunt close in age! ;)

And one more funny thing I wanted to remember: I have been getting string cheese a lot lately and putting it in the bottom drawer of the fridge so the girls can easily access them. Lona calls them: Scruncheese, like what we used to call hair ties. She asks, "Mom, can I have a scruncheese?" For the longest time I would ask her what she is talking about! Then she would get one and show me, "See, scruncheese!" Saddly after correcting her so often she says it right. I miss the cute way! At preschool their main teacher is Miss Michelle and her assistant is Miss Sanya. She calls her Mizzanna which sounds like lasagna. Jeremy was laughing so hard when I had her say her teacher's names for him. Speaking of preschool. The only thing the teacher has said about the girls (besides doing great) is today when I went to pick up Lona she was concerned at recess she was chewing on bark. HA! If you don't know my Alona, she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth still. I'm talking just like a toddler. It's so annoying. Toys, dirt, sand, you name it. Not necessarily to eat but to feel in her mouth. I told her she does this and not to be worried. Then on the way home I remind Lona we don't eat dirt or bark and she says, "Ew, that's gross." Then why did you do it? By the way, I absolutely LOVE their preschool! And so do they. Still their favorite part is lunch time!

First Day of School

2011-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

This year the girls are BOTH going to preschool together. So crazy. We had to switch preschools because KidVenture, where Lylee was going made a cut-off birthday date of May. Alona's birthday is June. Big bummer. After trying to see if they'd make an exception (which they were really weird about) we looked around. We decided on Little Cubs Preschool by Mrs. Michelle and we LOVE it! She used to run the preschool out of the elementary but they had to cut that program so she converted part of her house into one. I wasn't sure about that but after hearing great reviews and checking it out I LOVE it! She's the sweetest lady and is finishing up this last year of her bachelors degree in the same early childhood ed. program I graduated from. LOVE it! Plus she's $15 cheaper a kid. And she ended up giving us a $10 discount so I'm saving $40 a month. Gotta love that. Yesterday was their first day...

I found these fun printouts for each year they go to school. It will be fun to look at them ALL when they are older and see how much they changed each year. I just wish I had one last year for Lylee.

My two cute girls on their first day of school. They were pretty excited.

Have to show off their spiffy backpacks that are huge! We looked and looked and this is as small as it gets that will still hold a notebook. Some were much bigger than this if you can believe it!

I wasn't sure how Lona would do with me just leaving her but she could've cared less. It was great having their friend Collin there because they rushed over to play with him and sent me packing. It was GLORIOUS doing errands with just Tenley! I am in love! Ok, it's only 3 hours 3 days a week but I'll take it. It's a perfect amount of time. Not too much but enough to get things done. It'll be REALLY weird when Lylee goes all day next year to Kindergarten!! So far their favorite part both yesterday and today: Getting to eat their lunch at school that we pack. Just so exciting!

A Couple More To Share...

2011-09-06T10:03:00.001-07:00

This is one of my new favorites. Tenley looks so sweet!!

Isn't this so trippy? So neat! Lylee loved racing us!

This one is sweet too!

Just being silly. I am obviously thinking very hard about my jumping skills to remember to smile or look at the camera!

Family Pictures

2011-09-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

You might have noticed the new gorgeous picture on top of my blog. I do love it, if I do say so myself! :) Tuesday night we went and had our pictures done by Sarah Molloy Photography. (check out her work here.) Sarah is our friend Dawn's sister-in-law and I've met her many times before but she's recently started a photography business. I talked to her about getting our family's pictures done since we are VERY overdue! I'm talking 2 summers ago people! Here is an example:

We have some family pictures on the wall, nice and big and Lona is 1 and Lylee is 2 1/2. That's rediculous! It annoys me every time I see them, which is often. haha. So we basically got the hook up with Sarah! She is just starting out so needing to get her portfolio going and we are... well poor. Ha. I mean to say we can't spend hundreds of dollars on family pictures that professionals charge these days. So we LUCKED out! I saw some family pictures earlier this summer that a family took in an apple orchard and it was awesome! I knew I wanted to do that. So I called around and found one, Fox Run Farms here in Medford. Very nice people and super cute farm but the trees were not as big and mature as I had imagined. But still cute and worked out great! Half way through we actually scurried down the road to White's Farm and took some pictures in their peach orchard. (with permission) She isn't done editing them but gave us a sneak peak at a few she has done editing. I just love them and am SO excited to get them blown up and put on the walls! Here you go!

Sarah had these pear boxes that I think were perfect!!

These next ones are at the peach orchard. The sun was setting and gave us some fun flare to the pictures. Don't worry, no peaches were picked. We didn't steal. We hunted on the ground for good ones that had fallen. It actually occupied Tenley for a LONG time! She's probably munching on a peach in all of the shots from this farm!

I went to the garden...

2011-09-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

And picked some tomatoes. WOAH! We have a few! Sure do love our garden! ( We didn't do much this year but what we did do, we love!)

CAMPING!

2011-08-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went camping and had SO MUCH FUN!! We've been talking about doing it all summer long and finally got it planned with our friends The Copples and The Harmons. We got 3 sites all in a row out at Lost Creek Lake. (A little past Eagle Point almost to Mill Creek Falls that we went to a little while back.) The girls were SO excited to go and have been waiting for this trip all summer. We decided from here on out at the beginning of the summer we have to schedule things we want to do and write them on the calendar so they get done. Otherwise it's a lot like this summer and "We should do this," or "We should go here." and it rarely happens on a whim. Another thing we realized is we need a camping trailer! The effort that went into getting everything together and packing and unpacking is unreal! It felt like a lot of work for 2 days. Hopefully next summer we can get one and just hook it up and roll out with everything we need besides fresh food and clothes. But we really had SUCH a good time! So fun and it went by way too fast!

The girls could not wait to do smores. They started asking when we got there! So waiting until after dinner time felt like forever. We have these marshmallow roasting sticks we got for a wedding gift (with some camping things.) and they are much too short! The girls felt like they were getting their faces burnt off! We had to do it for them. Then they just ate the chocolate bar!

This is Sophie Copple who is 6 weeks older than Tenley. Here they are sharing some leftover breakfast. I guess I missed it but in the picture below Sophie was feeding Ten.
On Saturday we went and played at the lake. Boy was it muddy and sandy but we still had a great time. The Copples had this huge inflatable called the "relaxation station" that was a giant circle with four "seats" and a mesh middle that water came in. The babies loved it because it was like a baby pool and we could just relax on the outer part. Well, as much relaxing as you can with kids jumping around it (because it's like a trampoline on water) and throwing each other in and out of it. I guess the adults told the kids to go build a sandcastle because they were driving them nuts and they did... with rocks. The boys did one and the girls did another.

Julianna helped build the above one but didn't want to come around for pictures.

Lylee and Juliana (Copple) enjoying our morning hot chocolate. I promise we're having a better time than it looks on Julianna's face!

There were 3 babies on this trip: Sophie Copple 11 months, Tenley 10 months and Kamdyn Harmon 7 months.

{Sophie and Kamdyn}

We chose this campground because it has lots of grass and that was important to me with the babies crawling all over the ground. Even as it was Tenley was so dirty. You can kind of see it all over her leg and foot here.

The kids loved helping wash dishes.

Don't tell Kacie what happens when she's not around!

Dawn Copple had a candy bag we all would munch out of. Here is Lona "sneaking" into it after I told her she couldn't have any more... not so sneaky!

Quick Eugene Trip

2011-08-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

On August 12th, a couple of weekends ago a friend got married in Eugene. So the girls and I made a quick trip up there to go to the reception (since they got married in the Portland Temple), stay the night at Mom's and head back. Jer didn't really want to have to miss work and since we were coming right back I told him to not even worry about it. Grandma ended up coming up with us though and that was fun. We were still bummed that we didn't go to the zoo on Lona's birthday since it rained so we decided to do Wildlife Safari on the way up. It's near Roseburg and halfway so it worked out great. Much spendier than I remembered but still fun. It's so fun to see all of these animals right next to your car! The girls' favorite part was not having to have their seat belt on! I loved looking in my mirror and seeing their heads poked out the window looking for animals!

Lylee was so excited to see some hippos she had to go get her stuffed animal named Hippo and held it the whole time. She would show "Hippo" all of the animals. The best part was these two girafes right in the middle of the road. It was crazy! They just stood there and looked at us. We pulled up RIGHT next to them. Closer than this picture shows. Their skin was so neat looking! They are SO tall!

Then we went into the walk around area of the park where they had some goats, snakes, some monkeys, lemurs, owls, cheetahs... stuff like that. These cut outs gave us a good laugh. I have one so similar of the last time we went with Lylee's face in this cutout 2 years ago.

Checking out the goats. Tenley was not so sure.

Lona petting the sheep...

Then that night was the reception. It was at such a beautiful place! Jessica picked it because of the barn in the background. Below is the gorgeous house on the same property. It's used solely for events. It had beautiful lawns, flowers and an arch and gazebo on the other lawn.
{Nana & Tenley gnawing on a piece of purple licorice)

They had the cutest hutch opened up with all kinds of purple and green goodies. (Their colors) The girls LOVED this of course. It was really adorable.
Lona was sucking the purple yogurt off of the pretzels and leaving the pretzels. One of the best parts of the reception was getting to see my great friend Lydia. We haven't seen each other in a few years and she now lives in Hawaii with her husband so it was so great to see her. I was sad it was for so short as her sister got married the next day. But it was so fun and felt like old times, joking and being obnoxious! Slightly different now that I have to keep tabs on 3 little kids. Didn't have to do that before! ;)

And here is the bride, Jessica Wilberger. Well now Jessica Helms. She is Brooke's little sister, a good friend of Lydia's and mine. I remember when Jess was so little and now she's all grown up. It feels weird! Her Mom was our seminary teacher and the best you could ever ask for. I sure love this family! They have greatly impacted the person that I am today! Jess looked gorgeous with adorable cowgirl boots under her dress.

The next morning Mom made a yummy breakfast and we lazied around and played some Dominos. I'm pretty sure I won. :) Then we went out and rounded up some horses for the girls to get a ride. Here is my Mom and Lylee on her horse Petite. Lona was super jazzed about riding the horse but I guess wasn't feeling it. She wouldn't even SIT on her! But Lylee loved it and let Mom canter her "go fast!" and she loved it. Grandpa and Tenley watching us all.

Then we had some lunch and headed over to my friend Sara's house. She lives just down the road for my Mom so we try to see her when we come. The girls loved playing with her two kids: Audrey (3) and Asher (1). Cute kids!

And then we drove home. It was such a super fast trip! But I'm really glad we got to go. It was great to see and visit with people I hadn't seen in a while.

I LOVE OREGON!

2011-08-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

First we picked Raspberries then we picked blackberries. This is one of the reasons I love Oregon so much! This time we went with our friends Dawn Copple and her kids. Here is Lylee and her little friend Julianna. We've played a lot with them this summer, it's been really fun.

I'm thinking Lylee is stepping on a thorn... why else does she look like she's in pain?! :) You can see Jenna in the background. We took her with us and I'm so glad we did!! She was a great picker!

{Lona with a little blackberry face.}

My "Mom" sunhat that I love. We go to a lot of parks in the summer and it's just so hot. I finally broke down and bought this hat. Mainly because one park we love is brand new and the tiny trees offer no shade! It came in handy for this event!This is the face of a baby who is DONE sitting in a stroller (playing with Lylee's new toothbrush from the dentist earlier that day) while we pick blackberries!

And this is the face of a chubby baby named Sophie who is about a month older than Ten.

The only picture of got of our blackberry haul. Once I noticed the bad lighting they were gone and would not take any more pictures for me. Sheesh.

After munching and snacking on our delicious blackberries I decided to try making a cobbler. I've never done it before and got a recipe online and it was YUMMO!! Thank goodness we had some french vanilla ice cream!

It was amazing!!

Tenley fell asleep in Jeremy's arms so he had me get him some on the couch. But then he couldn't get it into his mouth, it was so funny! He finally couldn't take it and laid her on his lap so he could eat it. (He then finished off the cobbler, don't tell him I told you!)

I guess it was a long day for Lylee because at about 7:30 we saw her in her room like this!

Then I of course had to see if Ten like them... what do you think?

Love the blackberry hand print! A bath came next...

Laughing So Hard You Cry!

2011-08-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

That is what we did the other night when I found a setting on my camera called "fish eye". It warps the picture making the center focus huge. We were laughing SO hard we were all crying! (Us girls that is!)

Blurry but still funny! (Blurry = kids taking the picture!)

Jenna was hanging out with us. It started out they were playing "American Idol" (A game we used to play with Jenna) where they pretend to be a contenstant and sing a song. We then "judge" them as either Simon Cowell (mean), Paula (so sweet) or Randy (sentences start and end with Dawg or yo yo yo...) So I went in to record them playing this funny game and then I accidentally switched to this setting and we were laughing SOOO had!

I was told not to post these on facebook... I'm totally keeping my promise! :) I figured I put my pictures up so we're even!

Lona said she didn't like this picture because it lookd like an alien. She said it was too scary!

Yikes!

Obese baby!

This looks like an Avatar to me. Anyone else?

This was Lona's favorite, seing what she would look like fat... weird!

A Few Things To Remember...

2011-08-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Often times something will happen during the day and I think, "Don't forget to write that down." or "Don't forget to put that in the blog so we'll be able to remember it later." And it doesn't happen and it gets forgotten! Literally! Jeremy will say, "What was that you were going to put in the blog again?" And of course my reply is, "I can't remember!" I need to get better at that so we can remember all these good and bad moments that happen with our family besides the fun pictures. So here's a couple to start it off:

1.The first is from today. This morning the girls and I went to visit their new preschool. We really liked it and I'm super excited for them. They just cannot wait! Anyways, we just went for about an hour and the girls got to play in their rotation and go out to recess with them. Right before recess they were all supposed to be in the reading area waiting to go out to play. So the girls and I were looking at some books and a very friendly little boy named Peyton was talking with us. Lylee was on my left side, Lona was on my lap looking at a book with me and Tenley was crawling around in front of me. Peyton said, "Why is she so little?" I look at Tenley and reply, "Because she's just a baby." He said, "No, her." and points to Lona. I couldn't help but laugh. She is small for her size. I just said, "I don't know. That's just how she is." She did look quite petite compared to the other kids, many being 5 going into kindergarten. Oh, you're probably wondering why there were kids at this preschool during the summer. They had a summer session, probably more for working parents.

2. The second tidbit happened yesterday at the park. We've been going to the new CP park every Monday. They have a free lunch that they provide for all kids which is awesome! Anyways, some other ladies from church I know usually go as well so it's good to talk and the kids play with each other. Anywho, as usual when we're there an ice cream truck or two will come. (In fact, this particular day 3 came!!) Of course once it pulled up with it's horrible "Here we go round the mulberry bush" song on repeat the kids come sprinting to me asking for ice cream. Once at the beginning of the summer I actually did buy them one because they had some for a dollar and we'd never gotten anything from the ice cream truck before. So it was a real treat. Well yesterday I had NO money. Literally 4 pennies is all I had. So I explained it to them and they took it well and went off and played. So that truck came and went. About a half hour later another one came. Lona again asked for ice cream and again I explained I had no money to buy one. So she went over and stood near the truck and watched people buy ice cream. It was kind of a sad sight. After 10 minutes of this she runs back over and says, "Mommy. Can I PLEASE have some 'moneys' for ice cream?!" It was so sad. Even Dawn who was standing with me thought it was so sad. I told her I had none. So she went over to my purse and scoops out my wallet (she really can't take no for an answer!) and looks through it for some money. She can't find anything inside so she searches my change pocket and found the 4 pennies. She takes them out so excitedly and said, "I found some moneys!!!" But then looks up to see the ice cream man leaving. {Insert sad Lona face here.} It was so heartbreaking! ( I did tell her that was not enough to buy ice cream so that I didn't look like a liar.) I felt so sad for my Lona! We had to leave a little later and she got a popsicle when we got home because I felt so bad for her. Stinken' ice cream truck people!!!! Maybe if they start taking debit! :)

Sunday

2011-08-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

This last Sunday was a nice family day. It started out getting ready for church...

Smiles from the babe... Kind of ridiculous she's almost 10 months!! She loves walking with assistance or pushing things but has no desire to walk by herself. No complaints here. No rush to be a toddler!!

Then we gave the Sister Missionaries a ride to Ashland and decided to stop at the park since we were there. Ashland has a large and beautiful park called Lithia and we hadn't been there in so long. The girls loved getting their feet wet in The Bear Creak. It was a HOT day and the water felt like ocean water. Youch. And we weren't swimming, just wading our feet! :) (We don't swim on Sundays.)

This was the look we got from Tenley the whole time. So concerned looking!

Jenna came along for the ride.

Sure love this attractive man!!

And then the girls played on the playground. They have a very large rope structure to climb.

I had totally forgotten about this water fountain. It's Lithia's "original" water with sulfur and all kinds of natural minerals. We had the girls take a drink and they were disgusted. Hilarious! Just leaning in it smelt like farts!! Jenna was so annoyed we didn't tell her ahead of time. HA! Where's the fun in that?I took this picture of Lona drinking and then didn't get a good shot of her face. You can imagine though. :)

SMORES!!!

2011-08-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

The girls want to go camping SO bad! They talk about it all the time. We haven't gone since Lona was an itty bitty baby and it just wasn't much fun with little kids so we hadn't been in so long. We are finally going in a few weeks with some friends but the girls are still so antsy to go. One of the things they are so darn excited for is to have smores. One night they were talking about going camping and having smores for the millionth time. So I got out the supplies and we roasted some in the bbq so they could see what all the fuss was about. They were SO excited!

Lona was lucky enough to get the first one!

I don't think they loved them as much as they thought. They loved the marshmallow and chocolate but towards the end they had had enough graham cracker.

Back when we first moved into this house we had neighbors right next door with 4 kids, 3 boys and a little girl, Jenna. Jenna was at our house ALL the time. We just loved her to pieces. She loved helping and playing with baby Lylee. 3 years ago, the day after Lona was born they moved to Arizona and we hadn't seen them since. The Dad's parents still live across the street (and sold us this house) so they are here visiting for a couple weeks. (The parents came and then went on an Alaskan cruise with some other family so the kids are staying with grandma). So it's been 3 years since they were here and Jenna just turned 6 when she left. She is now 9 and it's SO weird!! Lylee is now the age that we remember Jenna and she herself is so mature and responsible and OLD! It's so trippy! Well she's been playing with the girls and they are in heaven. They LOVE playing with Jenna. They want to be just like her! So here is Jenna above making smores with us and then below with all of the girls. She loves baby Tenley and I love the help! :) Last week Jeremy's Mom, Sheri came over so I could help her print out her resume and she watched the girls so I could grocery shop. It was amazing. Anyways, she brought over Uncle Branden's little girl Madelyn so she could interact with the girls. She has Downs Syndrome so it's always fun and exciting when she makes new milestones. She was giving the girls kisses and was just adorable. Lona thought it was adorable. And this picture got away from me. I found it hidden in a separate file and almost forgot about it. This is on the 4th of July when Jeremy and Lylee went out on the roof of the garage (2nd story, super duper tall and scary!) but thankfully he made her wear this harness that he tied a rope to and held onto just in case. I thought it was so funny. But maybe more so was this pose!

Raspberry Picking

2011-07-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

You know, I've never been raspberry picking. Isn't that crazy? Well, I'd pick one if I saw it on the side of the road but not for reals. My friend Stacie told me about one out in Sam's Valley and we went there today with our kiddos. The girls were helpful for about 10 minutes... then they just ran around asking when we'd be done. OR, they'd eat what we'd just picked! Lona was holding my bowl eating them faster than I could pick them. Sheesh!Good thing she's a cute helper!

Here are our little helpers: Lona, Taylor, Lylee and Addison. Taylor and Addison are within months of the same age as Lylee and Lona. It's fun. Tenley hung out in the stroller while we picked. She got bored of this pretty quick so I was giving her raspberries. I knew she'd make a mess but oh my!! However, it did keep her occupied and thankfully I brought an extra change of clothes. It did dye her skin a bit though... oops. Our berries at the end of the day. I forgot to take a picture right after, this is after we'd been munching on it all day...

Now we have a big bowl full of wonderful raspberries. They're always so expensive I never buy them so it's such a treat! I saw on The Today Show, the White House main chef made handmade PopTarts by putting applesauce and fresh raspberries in between two pieces of whole wheat bread. She crimped it (squeezed the ends shut), glazed it with a little oil and sprinkled cinnamon/sugar on top. Then baked it for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. We tried that today and YUMMO! I would try it, it's delish!!!

Visiting Baby Weston

2011-07-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago the girls and I had a playdate with our little nephew, Weston. This is Jeremy's little brother, Branden's baby. We met up with his Mom, Kerry (who is not with Branden since before the baby was born.) and got to see our little nephew and the girls' cousin. I just LOVE this picture of Tenley above! She was exactly 9 months this day.

This sitting pose cracks me up. She sure does look bald here!

Oh yeah, Jeremy's Mom went with us as well. She hadn't met Weston yet. Weston is 5 months I believe.

{Kerry & Weston}

We met her at Lewis Park here in Medford. It is another of our many spray parks. Sheri was really fun and ran through the water with the girls. They had a blast!

The water is refreshing but cold, so Lona is trying to warm up, here.

My little Tenley cracks me up with her fang teeth!

Then we were nicely surprised when the city of central point brought this fun jump house/obstacle court. The girls LOVED it! I forgot that they have this at a different park each day. We always missed it.

Hiking Mill Creek Falls

2011-07-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we took a drive and hiked around Mill Creek Falls. We hadn't been there for two years. In fact, I blogged about it if you want to check out the old post. It's really funny to see the same photo shots but the girls are two years younger. You can click here and check it out.

That bright light in the background is the waterfall but it was so bright it didn't capture well.

Here is another waterfall along the path.

We forgot the hiking pack, darn it!! It makes hiking with Tenley a breeze. So I used this Moby Wrap and it make me so hot!! Not to mention walking around with an extra 20 pounds is hard work after a couple of hours!! Did I mention I was hot? That extra weight didn't help.

We have a picture of them on this same tree two years ago...

The giant boulders...

Jeremy likes to take pictures of himself. There is one just like this from two years ago! Check the post.

These have nothing to do with Mill Creek Falls but wanted to throw them in real quick. For Lona's birthday my friend Stacie and her Ariel glasses, a towel and ariel flip flops. So cute!Her flip flops have fabric seashells on it. Fun stuff.
And here she is in her helmet she got from Grandma Sheri.

3rd Year at the Children's Festival!

2011-07-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

Man, we barely made the Children's Festival in Jacksonville this year! Usually I am so on top of when it is and try to go twice since it's only 3 short days once a year. But sheesh, I barely made the one time! I didn't realize it was happening until THAT day! And there was no way I was going to try and go by myself with all of these kiddos. The kids need a lot of help at the booths and there are so many people you have to keep them super close or you'll lose them! Jeremy was really not feeling up to coming after a long day of work so he stayed home with Tenley and I took the older girls for the evening session (6-8:30). We had a blast but it was NOT enough time to do all we wanted. This is why we usually go two different sessions and being $2 a person, you can't beat that!

I think their favorite part was the fancy face painting. Lylee got "fairy eyes" and Lona was set on a "kitty".

Gluing at the "bits and pieces" booth.

Ugh, stupid cotton candy! Once they saw someone with cotton candy and found out they could get some, they didn't want to do anything else. It was on the opposite side of where we were and I wanted to do some booths and make our way to it. But NO! So we had to go wait in line for FOREVER for cotton candy that was strung SO fast (because of the long line of waiting people) that there was barely any on it. So they scarfed it down in like 30 seconds. Sheesh! They loved it but way too shortly lived! But we had a blast!

This last picture is to show how much of a slacker a Mom gets by the third kid! On Sundays it has become a tradition that we have chocolate chip waffles. Well I wanted to give Tenley a little something to eat with us so I gave her the first waffle (that was cooked longer than my liking). BUT... I forgot the first waffle was the most chocolate chips in it. WHAT?! For a 9 month old? Woops. Let's just say she liked it! Lylee didn't try chocolate until she was a year. Oh well!