Growing up with Pa

My Father... what to say? He is great. He is loving, kind, soft spoken and always patient. I owe any "sweetness" that people see in me, to him. He has a sweet, kind heart. I don't believe I have ever heard him speak ill words of someone else. He is ever patient. It was near impossible to push his buttons growing up. You could not make him yell at you if you wanted to!

Some of my favorite memories of Pa are:

*always making the mistake of asking him 'silly' questions- like "what's for dinner?" He would reply things like "food". "what KIND of food!?" "good food". Oh how it would frustrate me!
*he was always working on something around the house. He was and is a hard worker. When I picture him, I picture him with a paint brush in his hands! haha
*He didn't talk to me a whole lot. He was always kind of quiet, but I thought it funny that when I brought around some of my first boyfriends he talked to them like I had never heard before! He just talked and talked and talked. Guess he wanted to make sure I was dating good boys ;)
*Always loving my mom. He set a very good example of how a man should treat his wife. He was always respectful and always gave her a kiss when he came home from work. I would sometimes find 'secret' love notes to my mom from him. They of course made me want to gag, but at the same time it was good to know that he loved her and still does love her with his whole heart. Because of him, I now have a superb husband that also treats me like a queen. I expected nothing less then the best!
I love you Dad. Thank you for being the best Dad ever! Love you so much!!

Weekend

This last weekend we:
1.Attemded Grandpa Petes funeral (Brett) in Arizona. He was gone for 3 full days
2.Bike rides
3.Splash Pad!
4.Ate lots of junk food (Dad was gone after all, you don't expect me to cook do you!?)
5.Missed Daddy.. especially at night when it was dark and scary!
6.planted flowers in the garden
7.went to a birthday party for Liv's friend Anna
Brett- we missed you so, and are so happy to have you home! We love you and are incredibly thankful to have you in our lives!

Emma waving

Em is learning to wave lately. It is so cute! It is so fun to watch them learn new tricks!

Liv graduates Kindergarten

Liv and her teacher Mrs.Lee.

 Olivia had a great year in kindergarten. She learned tons and is ready for 1st grade. Her teacher was amazing. In fact, she is probably one of the best teachers I have ever met. She loves those children with all her heart. She is so kind and sweet, yet she has an air of authority about her. Being a Kindergarten teacher is most definitely her calling in life! Liv loved her so much and will probably never forget what an awesome teacher she was!

I love to see the temple

We had an outing a few weeks ago to get pictures of the girls with the temple. I wanted them to have a picture of themselves in front of the temple in their bedrooms. The temple is a special place, and somewhere I hope my girls will aspire to go to.
On a side note- getting these pictures was very frustrating. The temple was SO bright and white, while we were in shade, and in the dark! It made it difficult to get the brightness adjusted just right, then getting the girls to be in just the perfect spot so the sun could shine on them too!

For Ma

Growing up with "Ma"

 1986

1987

 2009

 2010

2011

My Mother... If you know her, you would know that she is a fabulous, strong woman. She has taught me more then anyone, ever. She has taught me the basics like cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. But more importantly she has taught me about forgiveness, love, kindness, manners, and a few 'what not to do's' ;) She is strong. Much stronger then I think she knows. She has lived through, and with things that most people could not handle. She loves me so much. She loves my children more then I ever thought possible. She gives and gives. She helps me through my every day struggles with  a listening ear. She is my #1 fan, and I know would do just about anything to help me out and lift me up when I need it. There is no one else in my life like her. I need her, and love her.

Happy Mothers Day mom! Love you!!

It's a Sun Shine Day!

 The sun has finally decided to warm us up, and it has been GREAT! I love the sun! The girls are loving it too!

 Emma finally decided it was time to sit. So she is a sitting girl and eating solids now! And actually liking to eat! Yay!

I wouldn't get the kitty pool out, but I decided the girls could play in the hose. They had a blast. Liv says it was "the best day ever!"

Girl Friends

These are Olivia's best friends at school right now. Londyn and Maddison. They write each other love notes, talk about which boys they  "are in love with",do make-up, have friendship bracelets, etc. When I say write love notes, I am  always finding notes from her friends that say "To:Olivia Love:____ I love you. You rock!" and they always include some sort of picture. They remind me so much of my friends growing up ;) So happy she has great friends!

Growing like a weed

I read in a book awhile back (don't remember which book) the girl was saying "I don't know why anyone would compare their child to a weed" It seems so obvious to me- you pick a weed and you turn around and it's grown huge again. You just don't know how it got so large so fast! That is what my children are doing.. growing so fast that I can't keep up! Every time I turn around I swear they grew an inch!

Meet Fishy Foo Foo

There he is. Our newest member of the family. Mr.Fishy Foo Foo. Claire earned him from potty training. She actually earned a "daughter date" but she kept saying she wanted to go fishing on our date. Since that isn't ideal in February, we got a fish instead. Put him in a trifle bowl and put him on the hutch.

Crazy Hair Day

It was Dr.Suess week at school. They got to have stripes day, crazy hair day, and pajama day. My favorite was of course getting to style Livs hair all crazy! I had so much fun!!We did french braids down the sides and a curly mohawk down the middle. And Liv still looked crazy beautiful, even with crazy cool hair!

Best of Friends

Meet Grace- Claires best friend. She also happens to be her cousin! Grace and Claire LOVE to play together. When they get together their is lots of squeeling and running and laughter. We got to have Grace for the day and Claire was in heaven! They had so much fun together, and for their age, did amazingly well about not fighting about a thing! 

This was "rest" time. I thought they may take a nap... but no, they ate raisins while the watched 'Tinker Bell'. As soon as the raisins ran out, they were up and away. I put them back, but with no success. It was just too much fun to run and play I guess ;)

Emma 6 month stats

 

Weight: 15.5 lbs. (38%)

Height: 25.5" (33%) 

Head Circumference: 16.5"(41%)

Gramma K Visits

Emma Eating

Emma is now 6 months! I have tried giving her some solids. She is not fond of eating quite yet! She will only try things from my finger. If I put it on the spoon she refuses to even try it! Funny girl. The Dr said to not worry and she will eat when she is ready, so I won't push it. Maybe Em will be my first to have trouble eating? The other girls are super eaters, so we shall see!

Gymnastics

 

We have finally put the girls in a class! We went back and forth deciding if we wanted to do a dance class, ballet class, or gymnastics. We finally settled on Gymnastics. The girls LOVE it! Olivia is so excited to go every week. It is great to watch her. She is so determined and never gives up on anything! She truly loves doing it! Claire is really catching on too. The first time she cried and wouldn't do most things and now (4 weeks in) she does it all! She even jumped into the foam pit from a tower that is about 12 ft. high! CRRRAZY! Seriously, I think I would even get a big adrenaline rush jumping from that thing! I would love gymnastics even more if it weren't costing us an arm and a leg. It is freaking expensive, but worth it for now since the girls love it so much. Good thing Emma is too small to know, because we can't afford 3 in gymnastics!!

Cousins

This is not the best picture of cousins Emma and Henry, but whatever! Henry and Emma were born only 2 weeks apart. We love having Grace and Henry so close to play with. Too bad Scott will be taking his family to Michigan soon to finish up school to become an ophthalmologist. We are happy for them. Hopefully they come back to Utah when they are done in Michigan ;)

Happy Valentines Day

Sarah,

Will you be my valentine?

I love you,

Brett

Sweet Notes

 This is a note I found next to Claires bed one day. It is just too sweet to not share. It reads:

I love you Claire

And I like your bed

This is from Olivia

This is a note Liv wrote to the family today. It reads:

I love my family!

And I like my mom! 

And we love eachother and we have fun!

And we love our baby.

And have fun!

We have fun! 

I love you family!

Happy Valentines!

I thought that was so cute! I like how she wrote that we have fun 3 times! She is too sweet! She is getting soo smart too! She wrote these and many other notes all by herself! She is really getting good about spelling and punctuation! Go Livvy!