A staring contest

Here is a picture of our 4 year old. She is a happy, smiley, loving child.

 One day, we decided to have a staring contest. Her eyes got big and wide, and so did her mouth.

 The bigger she tried to open her eyes, the bigger her mouth. As long as her mouth was open, her eyes stayed wide. She also was jumping in place, and giggling.

Needless to say, I lost. I was laughing at her funny expression. She was hilarious. I wish we could get her to open that wide for the dentist!

The greatest 12 year old I know

I can hardly believe that my oldest daughter turned 12!

She was quite excited for her birthday this year. I made cupcakes for her class, (I think this will be the last year for that) and birthday dinner and cake. She didn't have any requests for dinner, just something yummy and not seafood! She doesn't like any type of seafood. Her birthday cake request was ice cream cake, so I called up my sister, who had the best ice cream cake recipe I know of, and Emma loved it.

She also got to go to her first Young Women's activity on her birthday. Her youth leaders came over and welcomed her to the group that afternoon and she was off to the activity that night. She was very excited.

She is such a caring, loving, wonderful daughter. She is beautiful and talented. We feel blessed to have her in our family.  We love you -E-.

Other changes for -E- came along after her birthday. Another B--Braces. She is still sore and eating only mashed potatoes, soft bread and oatmeal, but is handling it just fine.

Skiing for the first time

I finally took -L- skiing. She was eager to learn. She has been hearing about skiing from the older two kids over the past few winters. Unfortunately, the ski school program through the public school was discontinued this year. So, -N- and -E- got snowboarding and skiing lessons for Christmas. I told -L- I would take her up sometime during the season.  I decided to take -L- last week, just to give it a try, and she loved it! Another ski buddy for me. :)  Of course, I only took her on the rope tow for the first day. She mastered it very quickly.  The day started out overcast, but then the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. Most of the time, I felt like I was shouting out food orders: Pizza, pizza!  French fries, french fries! Our next trip to the slopes she will get to ride the big lifts.

First Haircut

My baby, who is 4, finally got her first haircut. I have never wanted to cut her hair. She still lets me brush it (most of the time) and put braids and pony tails in. It is so long and beautiful. She did cut a chunk out about a year ago, but it wasn't too obvious.

I told -K- that only her Auntie Kelly could cut her hair for her, so she has been waiting for Kelly to visit us.

She sat so still, I was amazed. Kelly cut about 4 inches off the bottom.

All smiles when she was done.

No rest for Kelly when she visits us, She also cut Spalding's hair, trimmed -L-'s bangs, trimmed -E-'s hair, and colored mine. Thank you, Kelly!

The kids are elved!

We had lots of fun making the kids into elves. We hope you enjoy it!

So it's not more than 2 months

Sorry blogland, yes, today marks two months since my last post. So sorry. We have been a little busy, I have not forgotten about you, but have been selfishly reading all your posts and not writing any.  So a little run down of two months worth of our lives.
We had some friends come over for a dutch oven dinner in late September. They came to the US from Mauritius for their son's wedding. Our family dressed up in Indian clothes. The girls love to wear these outfits.

Spud harvest came and went in October. We went to my parents house. It was a relaxing break. We had our Church Super Saturday craft activity. I was in charge of three crafts. It was a busy Saturday, but lots of fun. I finally made my "Pay it Forward" gift, so Crystal, Megan, and Monica go one of these cute photo cubes. It was one of the projects we did.

We also celebrated a birthday. My baby turned 4! What would I do without her?

The kids had a fun Halloween. I told -N- he is too big to Trick or treat, dressing up is fine-no more begging for candy. He took the news just fine, only a few friends teased him about it and his sisters were generous in sharing their spoils of the night.

November went by too quickly. Another birthday. Can't believe -L- is 7! She brings lots of laughter to our house with her sense of humor.

 I took pictures of the kiddos. They are growing up way too quickly. Sorry to tell the rest of you this, but I have the most beautiful kids.

My parents made a special trip to our house. Spalding was made a High Priest in our church ward and my dad was able to ordain him. It was a quick trip and lots of driving for them, but we appreciate them for coming. My cousin also stopped by on her way to her sister's house. It was fun to see them. It snowed the entire time we were at church so we got to play in the snow, and it hasn't melted yet.

Thanksgiving was great. We went to our friends' house. We enjoyed their company and the food was wonderful. It has been a long time since I wasn't the cook, so it was very relaxing for me.

Spalding went shopping in the wee a.m. hours on Black Friday. He picked up a few items we were looking at. I slept in. I have done most of my Christmas shopping online this year. It has been awesome! No lines, great deals, and most of the time I have got free shipping right to my house. That afternoon, we put our Christmas lights up around the house.

We went and got our Christmas tree. It is lots of fun to go in the mountains and hunt for the "perfect tree".

 I was amazed once more at how wonderful my kids are. They worked together, had fun, and it was a terrific day. Spalding was quite proud of the tree.

On the way home we stopped here:

We ordered a Big Jud burger. It's a one pound hamburger, the size of your plate. If you eat the whole thing, they put your picture on their wall. Four of us split one. None of us are daring enough to try to eat the whole thing. -K- bragged that she ate her whole "big Jud" burger from her kids meal and we didn't.

Now our tree is up and Christmas is coming quickly.

I still think it should be summer, but this morning at 7 am the thermometer said -4.  BRRRR! Definately December!

Church colors?

-K- started preschool last week. She is having a blast. She really loves it. She loves to learn and have interaction with other kids. The first day of school, they were learning colors. She had little circles of all the colors and was telling me all the names. She held up the yellow and asked, "Mom, is this a church color?" I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. Then I realized.......A Primary color. I said "Yellow is a primary color.  She said "Yeah, a church color." (At our church, the classes the children attend are called Primary classes).