Valentine's Love for 2018

We love Valentine's Day at our house!  We love to share the love all day long . . . from sun up, to sun down!  We hope you had a happy Valentine's Day!  We are so thankful for the love we share in our little family, for all the love that is thrown our way, and for the opportunity to love others!

Our cutest Valentines!  We love them so!

Adeline at 3

I've got to give a little report of our sweet Adeline at the age of 3.  She's growing up and we are loving her at this stage.  She can be a little stinker sometimes, but man, she's so cute and is starting to say the cutest things.  She has a smile that lights up any room, and her giggle is so contagious.  This girl brings us so much joy!

• She loves anything related to the movie, "Frozen."  
• Thus, her favorite color is blue.  She loves all shades of blue, but ice blue (or Elsa blue) is her favorite.    
• She is a fabulous eater.  She loves all the healthy food I make and usually eats all her meals.  She does love her sweets, but they don't ever replace real food.  I think that's why she's had the healthiest year of her life thus far.  She's definitely gotten sick a few times, but not every month (like she did her first 2 years of life).  
• She LOVES music.  She would way rather play on my phone and choose/play songs than watch TV.  She loves to sing and dance while the music plays.  She was given a music machine for her birthday and she is in heaven when we connect iTunes to the machine.  She chooses whatever song she wants and then sings her little soul out.
• While she's not crazy about TV, if she ever does choose something to watch, it's almost always, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood."
• She has developed a love for coloring.  Over the past couple of months, her coloring has improved immensely.  
• She has absolutely fallen in love with all of the animals.  This past year she has grown and developed and has become capable to really play with and love the animals as her heart desires.  She could not get enough of our baby puppies and begged to get them out every day so she could play with them.  She played with them outside, she held them on the couch while she watched TV, and she even took them in the car while we went various places.  She also loves the big dogs too and will NEVER turn down an opportunity to ride a horse.  Now that the baby calves are being born, she wants to go see them too.  

• Her playful imagination has been way fun to watch.  She plays with Evie constantly and they are always make believing.  They love to play with their stuffed animals, Shopkins, LOL dolls/pets, babies, and Barbies.  
• Speaking of Evie, Adeline misses Evie so much when she's at school.  These two have really become such great friends and play together throughout the day.  Adeline is always anxious to pick Evie up and get her back home.  
• That being said, Adeline and I love getting that one-on-one time together while Evie is at preschool.  Adeline is my little helper and best friend.  We run errands together, have plenty of lunch dates, get pedicures sometimes, and usually just play and read stories at home.  It's precious time for us!  
• This girl loves to go to the mall.  She loves to shop, play in the play places, and go to her most favorite shop . . . Bath & Body Works.  This kid loves her some good-smelling hand sanitizer, lotion, and bath bombs.  
• Her girlie side is ALL girl.  She loves clothes, accessories, doing her hair, playing with makeup, dressing up, and smelling good!  
• She is a screamer.  If she gets frustrated, she screams and cries.  We're working on this one and trying to help her find words ("Mom, will you help me with this?) instead of scream and cry.  She also screams in excitement.  That screaming is much more tolerable.  :)
• She is a tease!  She loves to play little tricks on us just to get a silly reaction.  
• She's becoming more independent.  She still loves to have one of us in sight, but she's getting braver and trying things on her own.  She'll go to her gymnastics class and participate, she's attending her church class without a parent now, and she'll run off to play with other kids.  She always checks back often for a hug or a kiss, but then she'll run back off to do whatever she's doing.  
• She is a curious.  She's always discovering things and trying to figure them out.  Often times, she pulls and prods at things until they break.  She breaks and/or ruins a lot of stuff . . . simply by pushing things past the limit they are intended.  
• She totally enjoys the reaction she gets from saying "naughty" words.  She'll say stupid, dumb, etc. . . . just because she knows we all react to it (Evie is the one who mostly reacts to it and CANNOT believe she is not following rules).  She pushes her limits and eventually ends up in timeout and is completely upset by this consequence.  
• She has always loved her daddy, but lately she has REALLY loved spending one-on-one time with him and "survives" just fine when I'm not alone.  She loves to be his buddy when he goes to the farm, she cannot wait for him to get home from work, she usually calls him during his workday to tell him she misses him and loves him, and she looks forward to daddy-daughter dates.  
• She loves to exercise with me.  She is seriously so sad if I get my workout in before she wakes up.  She loves the music, she loves to move, and she loves to lay on me and add weight to my lifts.  She's my little workout buddy.  I love it!
• Adeline is thoughtful.  If one of us are not with her, she'll think of us and what she can do for us.  She draws us pictures, she leaves surprises under our pillows, or she'll make sure to pick up an extra sucker/treat for her sister to give to her.  It's pretty darn sweet.
• She is still so cuddly.  She loves to cuddle and still asks to be held often. 

This sweet pea is full of love, mischief, and giggles.  We can't help but hug and kiss her all-the-day-long.  She is a ray of light in our lives.  We are blessed that she is part of our beautiful family!

A Magical Christmas for 2017

Having a 5 year-old and an almost-3-year-old are both hard guarantees that Christmas is going to be magical.  And, our entire season was just that.

We kicked off the holidays with our favorite family tradition . . . hunting for, and cutting our Christmas tree in the woods!  It's seriously so fun, so old-fashioned, and so magical.  This year the weather was sooooo warm, only a tiny amount of snow to be found, but still oh-so-festive.  

Beau and I took time for a little Holiday Concert with some friends.  We cherish our date nights together. Jewel did not disappoint.  She is one of those artists who are better live than on her own record.  She is amazing!

We had lots of fun with Snowflake, our Elf.  She was generously given to us by Evie's birth grandma and this Elf brought so much Christmas fun to our home.  We loved looking for her every morning after she had flown the North Pole to give her report to Santa during the night, and sometimes, she brought the girls gifts.  You know . . . on the days when they were super good!

We got to visit Santa and the girls were able to ask him for their Christmas wishes (Evie = Ukulele and Adeline = Beanie Boo).

The girls and I went on our yearly Mommy-Daughter date to the Festival of Trees.  We loved looking at the trees and playing in the Kiddie Village.

We got to go to Evie's Kindergarten Christmas Program!  Oh, how I love these!  The kids are so darn cute and Evie just sang her little heart out!

Our family has a holiday tradition where we go to a Christmas concert together every season.  So far, it's always been to the Voice Male concert.  They are fun, family friendly, and we all had a blast laughing to their jokes and singing along to their music.  Adeline even caught a little nap.

Christmas Eve day with our little family was fun.  We said goodbye to Snowflake, she said goodby to us (in a special letter), we opened new PJ's, ate Christmas pancakes, and decorated a gingerbread house.

Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, and we love it when that happens.  It really helps us to focus on Christ and worshipping at church just seems like the perfect thing to do!  The girls looked so fancy!

Christmas Eve night was spent at Beau's mom's house.  This is a traditional celebration with the extended family that involves singing carols, playing games, giving gifts, eating good food, reading Christmas stories, and more.  This year we had a fun gender reveal (we're getting another girl cousin in May) and a surprise visit from Santa!  It was so much fun!

Christmas morning was SO MUCH FUN!  The girls were so excited, and so we were too!  Their excitement was infectious.  The girls both got their Christmas wishes from Santa.  We loved opening gifts with them and they loved watching us open our gifts too.

Christas day we always go and visit my side of the family.  My mom and dad make a traditional Christmas breakfast (Monte Cristo Sandwiches) and we do a gift exchange.  This year all the girl cousins got Hatchimals and they were a huge hit!  We also try to sneak in some fun, family games.

Every Christmas night we make our way over to Beau's dad's house for Christmas dinner.  We had a yummy dinner, participated in a puppet nativity, and Grandma Ellie gave Evie her very first Ukulele lesson.  Their house is always filled with music and cheer.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day always feel like a whirlwind, but it's a very HAPPY whirlwind.  We loved our time spent celebrating Christ's birth with all of our grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins!  We are so blessed with so many people to love and who freely love us back!  Our hearts were so full!

Part of what also made this Christmas season extra special was that we participated in the "Light the World campaign.  It's a service-based program with an initiative for every day in December.  We weren't able to do it every day, but we took time to talk about it most days and found ways to serve where we could with two small children.  We loved our neighbors (made, decorated, and delivered sugar cookies), we helped the girls honor their mother (game me flowers) and father (gave Dad a slurp and left secret love notes in his office), we judged less, prayed for our enemies, visited the sick, read scriptures, found ways to serve strangers by feeing the hungry (bought a case of peanut butter for the food bank), we served those that may be mourning (took gifts to those who recently lost loved ones), tried to be more merciful, clothed the naked (bought clothes for an unborn baby boy and his older sister), and we rejoiced!  The girls were truly excited to do all of this and every night asked what the next day was for on our "light the World" calendar.  They came up with most of these service ideas after we taught them the principles and we would ask, "what do you think we could do to accomplish this day's effort?"  This truly made the season more meaningful, more Christ-centered, and brought so much love into our home.

Halloween 2017 - We're Off To See The Wizard

Our Halloween was full of all sorts of fun this year!  

We took our traditional trip to Cornbelly's.  It's one of our favorite traditions of the season.  We usually have tons of fun exploring, playing, watching shows, cheering for the pigs at the pig races, and much more!  This year, we headed out and the weather was AWESOME!  We didn't really even need jackets.  We played for about two hours and then a HUGE wind storm came in an instant.  We hurried as fast as we could to our car, getting dirt in our eyes.  Once we were in the car Evie asked if this was the same thing that happened to Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz."  Evie asked, "Is this what a twister is like?"  Pretty close.  Pretty close.  We were covered in dust from head-to-toe.  Luckily, Cornbelly's allowed us to go back the next day since they totally had to shut the place down.  We LOVE Cornbelly's and pumpkin patches this time of year.  

We also attended the yearly Halloween Party on Beau's side of the family.  The costumes are ALWAYS stellar at this party.  A lot of effort goes into them since there is a costume contest.  We had Despicable Me, Donald & Mrs Trump with the Secret Service, and Belle with her two suiters (the Beast & Gaston).  I'm proud to say our little Wizard of Oz family won this year.  Woot, woot!

As the actual day of Halloween approached, the girls mom carved pumpkins.  Evie had to have a spooky one and Adeline wanted a kitty.  I think we succeeded.

Halloween Day was filled with tons of fun.  Evie had a Halloween party in her Kindergarten class.  We had to "minimize" the face painting for school so I dolled up her face a little differently than we had done at our Halloween party.  Once school was out we hit up Beau's office for trick-or-treating, then we went to Auntie Amber's office for trick-or-treating, and then ended up at my mom and dad's house for neighborhood trick-or-treating and dinner (chili & cornbread).  We had such a fun Halloween this year!

In the end . . . remember . . . "There's no place like home!"  We sure loved our Halloween and we loved returning to our home and our beds.  We love our little family and the memories we build.

Sally & Bingo

Look who we brought home yesterday!

Meet Sally!  She's our new Australian. Shepherd. We've been looking for a female Aussie for a while and we finally found her.  She's 18 months old and has a very sweet temperament.  

She and Bingo (our dog we've had for a while now) instantly hit it off.  They get along great.  We all love having these two dogs, but Evie and Adeline CAN'T wait to run outside to play the dogs.  

 Welcome to the family Sally!!

Evie at FIVE Years Old

Evie turned FIVE in May.  I finally got her five-year-old pictures taken and you MUST know more about this darling girl.  She is so sensitive and sweet, yet fierce and determined.  She's had our hearts since before she was born and that hasn't changed one bit!  We love this Evie doll and love how she makes our hearts explode with love constantly.

 Here's a little birthday interview I did with Evie.  Her answers are raw and I put down exactly what she said.

Birthday Interview - Evie at 5 Years Old
Mom's clarifications are in parentheses.

1. Who is your favorite person in the whole world?  Freddie (The CUTEST and NICEST little girl in our neighborhood.)
2. What is your favorite color?  Pink
3. What's your favorite television show?  America's Funniest Home Videos.  (She seriously loves this. We love Sunday evenings at 6pm because we all snuggle up on the couch and get in some good laughs.)
4. What is your favorite outfit?  Mermaid Shirt (She got this for her birthday.  She loves the mermaid and the sparkles on this shirt.). 

   

   Evie on her actual birthday.

5. What sport do you like best?  Gymnastics (This changes by the season.  She has loved soccer and swimming, but hasn't done gymnastics for a few months and she's missing it.)
6. What song do you love?  "I Am a Child of God."  (She actually does love this song.  She loves us to sing it to her when she goes to sleep at night.)
7. What is your favorite cereal?  The circle one.  (Honey Nut Cheerios is her current favorite.)
8. Who is your best friend?  Lenna  (A few months back we met this darling girl in our neighborhood and Evie and Lenna seriously hit it off.  It's like they had been friends for years.  They have so much fun together.)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Vet.  (She even plays "animal doctor" with all of her stuffed animals.)
10. What is your favorite book?  The wallet book.  (I didn't even know what she was talking about and she had to go grab it and show it to me.  It's actually a pocket music dictionary book.  She loves that it is small and has a picture of a pocket, a place for a wallet, on the cover.  She does pack this book around.  When I further prompted her for a book she actually likes to read, instead of play with, she then said the Scriptures.  Again, she actually does love her scriptures, but I kept prompting her for her favorite children's book and she just wouldn't drop the wallet book or the scriptures.  So, these are her definite answers today.)
11. What are you really good at?  Riding horses, swimming, and soccer.  (She is indeed good and all three of those.)
12. Where do you wish you could go on vacation?  Disneyland.  (Ever since our Disneyland trip this past February, she can't wait to go back.)
13. What would you buy if you had $1000? A lollipop . . . a Mickey Mouse one.  Candy.  Surprise Toys.  (She loves all of these things.  When we go to the store, she definitely asks for candy and surprise toys.)
14. What vegetable do you love the most?  Broccoli.  (She is a great vegetable eater.  She prefers her veggies raw and will eat most of them.  She also loves carrots, cucumbers and bell peppers.)
15. If you could have a wish, what would it be?  To fly.  (She talks about wishing to fly almost daily.)
16. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?  Strawberry.  (She does indeed love strawberry ice-cream.  She loves strawberries plus she loves the color pink.  Thus, strawberry ice-cream is the best!)
17. Who is your biggest hero?  Dad  (Shouldn't every little girl's dad be her hero???)
18. What do you like to do best with your friends?  Play at the park or in a swimming pool.  (For sure!  One of her most favorite things to do.)
19. What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday?  Clean up and do my chores.  (What a funny answer.  I sure hope she does clean up and do her chores before her next birthday.  Ha, ha!)
20. What is your best memory?  When Codee died.  She was getting old and then she died.  Now she's in heaven.  (Our dog Codee died last August.  I don't thing this was her "best" memory, but I do think that having Codee as a dog is one of her best memories.  Evie misses her constantly.  She often continues to still tell me on random days, "Mom, I really miss Codee."  We all do.  That dog was the VERY BEST dog ever!)

What else is Evie up to these days?

• She has progressed by leaps and bounds educationally.  She went to preschool this past year and learned several sight words and started to actually learn how to read!  She loved school.  She loved the social aspect, the learning aspect, the art that she got to do, and all the performances she participated in.  We all loved and adored her awesome teacher, Mrs. Jensen.   Her Preschool Graduation was epic.  :)

• She is a little second momma to Miss Adeline.  She is always watching her, telling her what she can and can't do, tries to keep her out of trouble, and stands up for her, and protects her.  

• As Adeline continues to grow, Evie is finding that she is more available to play with and wants to do what Evie likes to do.  They have recently been escaping to the playroom for long periods of time to play.  I love it when they play so nicely together.  
• She has a tender heart.  She cannot stand hurting someone when it's on accident.  She totally breaks down in tears and can barely handle it.  We help talk her through it and explain that accidents happen, that she still needs to say she's sorry, and then it's usually all okay.  She just always feels so badly.  
• That being said, she also has a fierce side to her too.  She is a fighter when she has a cause to fight for.  She's super competitive and will fight for the win.  She also gets pretty serious and determined when she sees someone breaking the rules.  She also gets ramped up if she sees someone messing with her little sister or best friends.  
• Evie continues to shine as an athlete.  She competed in fall and spring soccer this past year.  It took her a few games to figure out the game, but once she did .  . . there was no stopping her when she would head for the goal.  Her first game this past spring she ended up scoring FIVE goals.  

• She also made the swim team this summer.  There was only one other 5-year-old that competed all summer in her league. Everyone was amazed to see this little peanut out there swimming like a champ.  She is wicked fast with Freestyle, and when focused she actually beat out all the 4 and 6-year olds one meet.  She also competed in the Backstroke and continues to get faster and faster with both strokes.  She ended up winning lots of ribbons, medals, and even a trophy!

• She went elk hunting her with daddy this past year.  They were gone for 3 days and Evie rode her very own horse all 3 days.  She rode all by herself and did awesome!
• She still loves to play with friends!  We try to get together with her cousins regularly and then we have some fun girls in the neighborhood that she loves to play with too.  
• She hates doing her chores.  She's wonders why we have to make our beds every day and keep our rooms clean.  But, she's getting better at them.
• She LOVES to help more when we're outside.  She'll help pull weeds, water plants, feed the horses/chicks/chickens, and anything else we can find for her to do while we're outside.
• She LOVES to play in the snow and then drink hot cocoa afterwards.  
• She loves corn on the cob and watermelon and corn dogs.
• She loves to play games.  Board games, video games, physical games (like hide-n-go seek), and paper games (like word searches, connect the dots, etc.).  Her mind is so sharp and she loves to strategize and figure things out.
• She loves "daughter" dates.  She loves to go on mommy-daughter dates, daddy-daughter dates, and when we all go out as a family, she calls those family-daughter dates.  

There's so much more we could write about this darling, expressive, sweet girl.  We love her so and CANNOT  believe she is going to start kindergarten this year.  Man, they grow so darn fast. We're blessed to call her ours.

Adeline at 2.5 Years

Time keeps flying by.  Miss Adeline is growing like a weed and seems to keep "growing up" in so many ways.  She's so darn adorable!

Here's what she's up to now.

• She's counting.  She is solid on 1 through 5.  Then she skips around all the way up to 13.  Playing hide-and-go-seek is awesome because she does her best to count with her eyes closed and it's adorable as she works her way through the numbers.
• She's singing like crazy!  She loves to take my phone, open the music up, and sing along to the songs (children's songs, church songs, pop songs, old country songs, Disney tunes, etc.).  It's amazing how well she knows the lyrics and how well she can keep up with most of the songs.  
• Along with singing, she's still a dancer.  She loves to dance to the beat of songs and dance parties are VERY common in our home.
• She no longer has her bottles.  After we got home from Disneyland in February, Addie got sick AGAIN!  I knew that we had to give up the milk in order to get her better.  So, I just got rid of her bottles altogether.  She LOVED her bottles, so she was VERY sad for the first two nights and then she kind of just moved on only occasionally fussing about the absence of her bottles.  She got over her sickness and got over the loss of her bottles, and she has NEVER been healthier.  I know she doesn't have a milk/lactose allergy, but I do believe that the enormous amount of milk she was drinking threw her body out of balance.  Now, she has maybe had 1 cold since taking her bottles away.  This is a miracle because she was sick at least ever 4-6 weeks during her first two years of life.  
• Now that she doesn't rely on her bottle, she is eating like a champ!  She is seriously such a great eater.  She definitely loves her sweets still, but otherwise she eats incredibly healthy.  She loves to eat eggs and avocado almost every morning for breakfast.  She loves to eat almost everything I cook for lunch or dinner.  She'll eat all my healthy food like crazy.  I'm sure this is also contributing to her health.  
• She still love her blankies.  She has loved them almost to shreds.  They are getting holes in them now and she has nearly worn them out.  
• She just got a "big girl" bed.  We converted her crib into a toddler bed.  She loves it.  She doesn't stay in it very well.  She keeps getting out of bed when we put her in.  It usually takes 3-4 times in walking her back to her bed to get her to stay.  But, she's sure feeling more grown up now.
• She loves whatever Sissy (Evie) loves.  This has probably always been the case, but as she gets older, it becomes more evident.  She copies Evie in almost everything (from behavior to favorite toys to things she says).

• That being said, she still has her own unique interests.  She definitely LOVES anything that makes her look pretty.  She loves lip gloss, chapstick, makeup, nail polish, bows, jewelry, etc.  More so than Evie does.  

• Adeline is a great cheerleader!  When we go to watch Evie play soccer or swim in her races, Addie will be cheering, "Go Evie!" louder than life.  It's adorable!
• She's entered the stage where she loves us to watch everything she does.  She's constantly saying, "Look at this!" as she does tricks, or dances, or simply makes a funny face.  After she gets you to notice her she'll often say, "When I do this, I do this."  Then she'll jump, or do a dance move, or something silly, etc.  
• She insists of doing things all by herself.  She wants to potty all by herself, buckle her carseat all by herself, dress herself, feed herself, drink from water bottles all by herself, etc.  She is adamant and gets so frustrated if we try to help her.  And, then with things she really cannot do by herself after trying, she'll break down in frustration and beg for help.  
•  She gets SO excited about stuff.  We'll be driving down the road and she'll see a baby horse and she'll yell so loudly, "I see a baby horse!"  It's cute and hurts our ears all at the same time.  She'll do this with anything she quickly gets excited about.
• She loves to break and ruin stuff.  Oh, this is frustrating.  She'll purposely write on my leather couch, rip an important paper before you can get it from her, stomp on something breakable, etc.  
• She also loves to make messes!  She'll just throw stuff on the ground, break up chips and scatter them on the floor, dump stuff out, etc.  
• You say, "don't" . . . . she'll "do."
• She loves to go swimming, but only because she mostly loves to play in the water.  She has very little interest in learning how to actually swim.  She's even hated people splashing her.  However, I have recently convinced her of the necessity of learning to swim and she'll actually practice putting her face/eyes under water.  We're making progress in this departments!
• Her favorite articles of clothing are either swimsuits or pajamas.  We seriously go through about five changes of clothing a day.  The changes usually consist of 2-3 swimsuits and 2 pairs of pajamas.  When she does have to wear clothes, she'll choose skirts or pants. She's not a huge fan of shorts.  I love it when I can talk her into the shorts though.
• She still is great at praying.  Her prayers are now consistently about going to Disneyland or the park.
• She still loves the movie "Frozen", but she also loves "Moana" and "Zootopia" and "Enchanted".
• She still loves to talk about going to the temple.  She'll constantly tell me how she wore her cute baby shoes when she went there.
• She is so sweet and will constantly tell us she loves us.  She'll tell me, Beau, and Evie at random times saying, "I love you sissy/mom/daddy."  
• She is LOVING her daddy so much these days.  It's so sweet and beautiful to watch.  
• She is seriously so silly!  She is constantly trying to make us smile, loves funny things, enjoys laughing, and we absolutely love it!

• She is starting to venture off and play a little bit without me.  When we go to the park or the pool, she'll actually go play with Evie for a few minutes at a time.  She's finding a bit of independence.  
• Her time frame for anything is 2 minutes.  You can ask her when her birthday is and she'll say, "In 2 minutes."  If she's headed to the store and asked when she'll be home, it's always 2 minutes.  Anything that can be calculated in time will always be 2 minutes worth when you ask Miss Adeline.
• She is downright beautiful.  I cannot go anywhere without having people (even perfect strangers) tell me how pretty she is.  Oh, she's a heart melter.

This sweet, silly, mischievous, adorable Adeline has our hearts tighter than we can describe.  She's so great and we can never seem to get enough of her.