Leah at 4 years old

I’m so sad.  We lost all the pictures from Leah’s birthday.  In all the computer craziness that has been going on here lately (Dan buying a new MacBook, transferring everything over to that computer, backing everything up on the hard drive, then deciding he wanted the MacBook with the high-def, anti-glare screen, so sending the first one back and finally getting his new one and transferring everything to that one, etc.) somehow they disappeared.  Gone.  And I’m bummed. 

Just imagine a really cute picture of Leah, in my favorite outfit on her right now (her grey skinny jeans and her grey shirt with pink flowers), with her hair curled, sitting with her legs out stretched and crossed, with bare feet, in front of her pile of pink and yellow presents, with the biggest, happiest smile on her face.  It really was a cute picture. 

But they are just pictures, and I can’t worry about it. 

She did have a good birthday though.  I can at least write about it, right?  Her birthday was on a Saturday, and our friends, the Lee’s, came over to help celebrate and to watch the BYU basketball game.  We got Leah a Playmobil set (she loves Playmobil), a new outfit for her American Girl Doll (the purple jazz outfit), a new Guess Who game, a huge thing of Playdoh, and Annie got her some sidewalk chalk and candy.  The Playmobil set said it came with 771 pieces, and wow, it sure did . . . . Dan and Matt were setting it up for most of the BYU game, and Adrienne and I joined in to help for the last hour.  Wow, a total pain.  But she loves it, along with her other gifts. 

I can’t even express how much we love our little Leah Lou.  I call her “Lovie” and sometimes “Lovie Lou.”  I say to her, “Do you know why I call you “Lovie?”  She always says, “No, why?” with a big smile on her face because she knows exactly what I’m going to say.  “Because I just love you!!” And I give her big hugs and kind of tickle her.  She really is just full of love.  She’s been like that every since she was little - very loving.  Sometimes a little too loving . . . . she can drive James crazy with her smooching and sometimes a little too rough of hugs.  But it’s always out of love. 

Here’s some more stuff about Leah at 4 years old:

- What is your favorite animal?  “a zebra”

- What is your favorite color?  “blue”

- What is your favorite game?  “Guess Who”

- What is your favorite song?  “Follow the Prophet”

- What is your favorite food?  “muffins and broccoli”

- What is your favorite drink?  “chocolate milk and pink milk”

- What is your favorite toy?  “my American Girl doll”

- What is your favorite thing to wear?  “a dress-up”

- Which dress-up is your favorite?  “My Belle dress.  But if I had a Fancy Nancy outfit and you asked me that question, I would say my Fancy Nancy dress-up.”

- What is your favorite movie?  “Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me”

- Who are your favorite characters in those movies?  “Jessie in Toy Story 3 and in Despicable Me, the middle girl who always wears a hat.  Because she’s funny.”

- What do you like playing with at home?  “with my playmobil”

- What places do you like to go?  “Scheels!  I like to go to the library for storytime and to buy some books, and I like to go to the park, and I like to go bowling.”

- What is your most favorite place to go?  “I like all the places but my favorite favorite is Disneyland.”

- What is your favorite part about going to gymnastics?  “I like to go on the trampoline and do seat drop, puppy, tummy, up.”

- What is your favorite part about going to swim lessons?  “Going to the deep side.”

- What’s your favorite thing to do with our family?  “I love to go to Hawaii with my family.  Hmmm, and read a book.”

- What do you like to do with Annie?  “sing songs”

- What do you like to do with James?  “play with him”

- What do you like to do with Mom?  “watch movies and snuggle”

- What do you like to do with Dad?  “go on the Ferris Wheel” (at Scheels)

- What is your favorite thing to do outside?  “Well, if we had a trampoline, I would say jump on it.”

- What is your favorite room in our house?  “me and Annie’s room”

- What do you like to sleep with?  “My Pillow Pet and my Pfee Pfee.”

Yep, she still calls her blanket her Pfee Pfee, pronounced “Fee Fee.”  I always put a P at the beginning for some reason, because it almost has a p sound.  Anyway, she has 2 Pfee Pfees, exactly the same, because one was Annie’s when she was baby, but Annie got attached to a different blanket.  Leah is still very into music.  She’s definitely our little music girl.  She always wants to listen to the primary songs in the car, and then she’ll take her iPod into stores with her and listen to Black Eyed Peas, “I’ve Got a Feeling”, or the Brady Bunch, “Sunshine Day.”  Those are her favorites as of late.  She’s also the one most into computer games and games on the iPod.  She loves doing “homework” pages while Annie is working on her homework, and she is enjoying learning how to read . . . . she loves getting out a book she knows by heart, like Pinkalicious, and pretends to read it.  Although I think she really believes she’s reading.  She is getting better at sounding out basic 3 letter words though, and she is starting to write and draw more, probably because Annie is always writing and drawing.  Her and Annie play so great these days, they really are the best of friends.  It’s so nice. 

Happy 4th Birthday Leah!!!  We can’t believe what a big girl you are!  We love you so much!!

Snow Day!

School was cancelled today due to the snow. Yay!  So we invited some friends over and had a little snow party!  The kids had a blast playing outside in the snow.  They actually stayed out there for quite a long time, so the 4 moms could sit inside, eat snacks, and chat the afternoon away.  It was great.

Snowball fight!

Abigail and Annie, 3rd cousins

Valentine’s Day

We really do love Valentine’s Day.  Our girls were so excited for it . . . . and especially for our traditional Valentine’s Day Treasure Hunt!  We’ve done this the last few years, and the girls absolutely love it.  Here are the kids reading the first clue:

Finding another clue:                                                     

After finding clues all over the house, the hunt finally led them to the treasure!!

Heart boxes of chocolates, our traditional Valentine’s Day balloons, and a new DVD for each of them (Despicable Me for Annie, Toy Story 3 for Leah, and How to Train Your Dragon for James).  Happy Valentine’s Day kids!  We love you guys so much!

And Dan brought me my favorite flowers!  Thanks, sweetie!

Dan had the day off (he took Friday off for my birthday and Monday off for Valentine’s Day so it was fun having a 4 day weekend!) so we went out to breakfast, which is always a fun treat! 

 

Then, for dinner, Dan whipped up the most awesome meal – Grilled Tilapia with Mango Salsa.  So good. 

This is what a romantic dinner looks like with 3 kids.  Haha . . . . but we wouldn’t change it for the world!!

And for dessert I made a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.  Mmmmm . . . . heaven.

Love, in all kinds, is definitely something to celebrate.  I’m so lucky to have so many people in my life that I love and who love me.  Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

James - 10 Months

 

We love this little boy to pieces!  He is so adorable and sweet.  We just can’t get enough of him.   This is all about James right now, at 10 months old:

- He is an expert crawler.  He’s pretty fast too, which is why he’s pretty content with just crawling for now.  He has no desire to stand yet.  If we try to stand him on our lap or the floor, he won’t put any weight on his legs.  He’ll just lift them up.  So it seems that walking is a long way away for this little boy. 

- He is less than 10% on the charts for his body weight.  He’s a skinny little thing!  We need to beef him up by his one year appointment:)

- He doesn’t really like baby food anymore.  He just wants to eat whatever we’re eating.  He seems to like most foods.  His favorite food is just whatever is on his tray at the time. 

- He still loves his bottles.

- He’s a great sleeper at night.  He goes down around 8 pm and will sleep until 6 or 7 in the morning.  We give him a bottle then, and he goes back to sleep for another few hours, waking up for the day around 9 am.  It’s so nice!!

- He’s not that great of a napper during the day.  I blame it on the fact that we have to take Annie to kindergarten at 12:30 pm everyday, right in the middle of his ideal naptime.  Sometimes I try to hold him out until after we get back home so he can sleep while she’s at school, but he’s often tired way before then.  He takes a decent nap if he goes down at around 11:00, but then I have to wake him up to take Annie.  It’s a toss up everyday as to what we do.  And he doesn’t transfer well, so that’s never an option.   

- He’s getting a little harder at church now.  He just wants to get down and crawl all around the church. 

- He’s getting into EVERYTHING!  He is a curious little guy.  His favorite things right now are the dishwasher (he can hear it being opened from anywhere in the house and makes a bee line straight for it), unrolling the toilet paper rolls, the pantry, the printer, door stoppers, brooms and dustpans, picking out things to eat from the sliding door track (so gross!), etc.  He definitely keeps me on my toes!!

- He loves balls.  It’s so funny how little boys just automatically love balls!  He gets so excited when we sit down and play pass with him.  He loves it.  It’s so fun.

- He’s just learned how to do, “How big is James?  So big!” with his arms up.  I love that.

- He says “mama” and “dada” but I don’t think he knows what it means yet. 

- He LOVES the bath.  He loves to put his hands under the water coming out of the faucet and he loves to splash in the tub.  I can’t wait to take him swimming!

- He also LOVES his blanket.  He has a special blanket and he always finds a corner of it to shove in his mouth to suck on.

- He’s starting to get kind of feisty . . . . like when one of his sisters is giving him a little too much love.  He lets them know he wants his space.

It’s so fun watching his little personality grow and develop!

   

We put him on the grass for a different backdrop, but he wasn’t interested in taking pictures anymore.  Haha . . . we just love this picture . . . . “I don’t want to do this anymore.  Haven’t you gotten enough cute pictures of me?”

I did feel special!

Birthdays are all about making that person feel special.  And I definitely felt special on my birthday yesterday!  Starting first thing in the morning when I opened up a package from my mother-in-law.  Thanks Mary!  We’ve been wanting one of these.

And how could you not feel special with all the phone calls, text messages, facebook messages, emails, cards in the mail, etc. all day long from everyone you love?  Thank you so much!!

Dan had the day off work (awesome!) so he took Annie to school for me at 12:30.  After they pulled away I heard the doorbell ring, and when I opened the door I found this:

A single rose with a Bachelor date card!  haha.  (Ok, I have a little confession to make . . . . I do watch The Bachelor:)  On the show, the girls usually receive their date cards on the porch with a clue as to what their date is going to be.  My date card read,

“Sarah, A one-on-one dream date, tonight you will have,                                                                        With that dream “Bachelor” Dan (way hotter than Brad).                                                                      Though there won’t be cameras or cheesy love songs,                                                                            This reality date you’ll remember for long.                                                                                               The sitter is coming, the plans are all set.                                                                                               Be ready by 5:00 for your best date-night yet.                                                                                           So let’s see if there’s drama or tears or attraction,                                                                                There won’t be a hot tub, but there may be some action!”

I got a one-on-one date!  Yay!  haha . . . . And I know what you all are thinking, but hey, let’s face it – it’s good to have a little cheese in your life!  I was excited.

In the mean time, at 2:00 we all went to Annie’s school for her kindergarten class Valentine’s Day Party.  Leah LOVED being there with Annie – helping her pass out her valentines, eating ice cream sundaes, being called “adorable” by Annie’s friends, helping Annie move to gold on the behavior chart, sitting on the rug with all of Annie’s class while the teacher read a Valentine’s story . . . . she was just so excited about being there.  And she never left Annie’s side.  It was cute.  

We came home and Dan and the kids sang to me and gave me my birthday gifts. My “cake” was 3 Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory candy apples . . . . so yummy!!!

Dan surprised me by getting me airline tickets to Ohio so I can go have a girls’ weekend with all of my friends!  I was so shocked and excited!  He has it all planned out, including who’s watching my kids on the days he has to work.  He even contacted all my friends and had them write me individual notes telling me how excited they are that I’m coming!  I was seriously getting teary eyed reading them and thinking about how much fun it’s going to be to see everyone.  I can’t wait!  Best present ever.

Then at 5:00, Dan picked up the babysitter and we were off on our date.  He didn’t tell me what we were doing, but the moment we were driving on the freeway toward the Grand Sierra Hotel, I knew what he had planned.  “Oh my gosh, are we going on THAT?”  I asked.  “Yep!” he said while laughing.

The Ultimate Rush . . . . a bungee free-fall swing type thing that flings you through the air at 70 mph.  I really did feel like I was on The Bachelor, doing some crazy date like bungee jumping where there’s no way you can say, “I’m not doing that,” because the whole world is watching.  No one was watching me but Dan, and he had planned this all out . . . . I really didn’t even think about saying no.

Honestly, the scariest part was going up, not knowing how much higher it was because you can’t see, and just getting further and further from the ground.  And all you see below you is cement.  SCARY!

In the picture on the left you can see Dan pulling the ripcord to release us, and there we go!!

It really was the ultimate rush.  And so much fun!  We got off and both of us were just saying, “Oh my gosh!  I can’t believe we just did that!”  haha . . . it was so fun to do just the two of us:)

Well, we got back in the car, and Dan handed me an envelope with a card in it (I’ll spare you the cheesy poem this time;) telling me what we were going to do next on our date: a guilt free shopping spree at the Summit!  So fun.  And after that, another envelope with a card leading us to a restaurant for dinner.  It really was the perfect date night.

Thanks Dan for everything!!  You sure know how to make a girl feel special!

January

Well, January has come and gone, and I can’t say that I’m all that sad about that.  January is typically my least favorite month of the year . . . we go through post-holiday depression, we have no birthdays to celebrate, it’s usually really cold outside, etc.  There’s just not a lot to look forward to in January. 

But before I sound like too much of a downer, we did have a pretty good January.  One day we came home from picking Annie up from kindergarten, and found 3 huge boxes from Pottery Barn Kids on our porch.  “What are those!?!” the girls yelled.  “It’s your Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa Cole!” I said, and we dragged the heavy boxes inside.  We waited for Daddy to come home to open them, and the girls were so excited when we finally did!  A brand new play table and chairs for the playroom (I helped my mom pick it out:)  The girls have been loving it!

The girls have also been inseparable with their American Girl Dolls.  They got them for Christmas last year, and they are definitely their most played with toys.  They LOVE their dolls.  When the girls go to their dance classes, they dress their dolls in their dance outfits too.  When Annie goes to school, she asks Leah to babysit her doll for her.  They do their dolls’ hair and change outfits multiple times a day.  And now they have cute little nightgowns and matching aprons thanks to Grandma Walton who made them for the girls for Christmas!

Dan and I have also been enjoying our Christmas gifts!  Dan got a new mountain bike for Christmas and he is loving it.  He’s been out a few times with some friends from our ward and as you can see in this picture, he’s definitely broken it in:

And I am LOVING my new UGG slippers:

Dan also got me an iPhone for Christmas, and I have to say, I am loving it way more than I thought I would.  Well, no, I take that back.  I knew I would love it, I guess I thought I just didn’t need one.  But Dan got it for me anyway, and it has been fun learning all the amazing things I can do with it.  Dan and I just started playing a scrabble game on it between our two phones . . . . it’s definitely fun having an ongoing game that we can play with each other throughout the day.  

I got a lot of projects done in January that I’ve been wanting to do.  We did some emergency preparedness projects like buy a fire ladder for our 2nd floor, put new batteries in our smoke detectors, start our water storage again since we left all our water in Ohio, redid our 72 hour kit in our van (you know, replace all the food that had expired 3 years ago:), had ADT come and install an alarm system on our house (you all know I can’t live without an alarm:), started thinking more seriously about our food storage again, etc.  I think from now on, January will be my month to reevaluate all our emergency preparedness stuff, and make sure everything is good and in order and ready for the upcoming year. 

We also did a few house and decorating projects, including getting all our family pictures printed and framed.

I also gave Annie a haircut.  I’ve been cutting Dan’s hair since we got married, but girls’ hair was a completely different story.  But I thought, well, if I botch it too bad I can always take her somewhere to have it fixed.  So, I went for it . . . . and I actually think I did a really good job!  Haha . . . . but Annie’s hair is pretty forgiving.  It’s curly and bouncy.  Leah’s hair would be much more difficult since it’s so straight.  But I’m glad I know that I can at least do Annie’s hair now too!

Another thing that made it a pretty good January is the weather we’ve been having.  While most of the country has been suffering through severe snow and ice storms, we’ve been having a lot of nice sunny days in the 50s and even 60s!   I almost feel guilty reading my Ohio friends’ facebook statuses and blogs about how they’re freezing, stocking up on food, and hunkering down in the house . . . . while we’re having play dates at the park.  It’s been so nice here and the sun was shining for most of January.

Let’s see . . . . what else have we been up to . . . . OH, I just got a new calling at church.  I definitely have mixed emotions about it.  I was pretty happy as a Primary teacher.  I was team teaching the CTR 4 class this year, and we had a great little class of 7 rambunctious boys and 1 little girl, whose twin brother is in the class.  And I was excited to be in Primary now that Leah is a Sunbeam.  It’s so fun to watch her in there.  But my time in Primary was short lived and I’m on to something new . . . . well, not really new.  Because I got the same calling I had in Ohio.  I’m the new Relief Society Meeting (formerly known as Enrichment) Leader.  What’s funny is that after I accepted the calling and we went into Sacrament meeting, I looked at Dan (we had already laughed about the irony), and I said, “I know why I got this calling.  It’s because when we moved here, I said to you, ‘I don’t care what calling I get as long as it’s not the Enrichment Leader.  And if they do call me to that, I’ll probably say no to a calling for the first time in my life.’”  Have you ever known someone to say, “I don’t care where I go on my mission, as long as it’s not (fill in the blank with some totally obscure place).”  And then that’s where they get called to.  I’ve known 2 people that that has happened to.  So, I’ve learned my lesson.  And of course I didn’t say no.  SO, I have to shift my mind back to planning activities.  We’ll be having monthly activities, and the first one I have to plan for March is actually going to be a dinner and program for the sisters and their husbands . . . . here I go!  Wish me luck!  At least I have 3 years worth of ideas, right?  haha . . . .

So, that’s pretty much what we’ve been up to in January.  It’s been a busy and productive month.  Now on to February!  February is one of my most favorite months . . . . Valentine’s Day, my birthday, Leah’s birthday . . . . lots of fun things in February:)  We’ve been doing lots of crafts and card making and getting ready for February, which has resulted in our island looking like this:

This is one of Annie’s most favorite things to do.  She seriously sits there for hours making cards and decorating hearts.  Leah loses interest after about 15 minutes, and usually ends up at the computer playing  games, on the couch listening to music on the iPod, or playing with her little Play Mobile toys.  I love their different little personalities.  Anyway, these are just some of the hearts Annie made:

Happy February!