Jackson's Birthday Package

It came today and they were all so excited.

(Notice Sunny's pose...that was totally accidental. She is such a model)

Silly String...every kid's dream and every parents nightmare. He is thrilled to have it.
I actually love the stuff, just don't like cleaning it up. Oh well, it is worth it for the kids to have some fun.

A new baseball glove and baseballs. He is excited to start practicing for baseball season. He starts machine pitch in May, with Ryan as one of his coaches.

Just sitting amongst all his gifts. He loved them all. Mok always knows exactly what the kids will love.

This is those Velcro paddles that the ball sticks to. They wanted to go outside, but we have had such an ugly dust storm today that they couldn't. I gave in and let them play inside, but I had to hold my breath. I hate letting them play ball in the house because something usually gets broken. Not today though. They did good.

Thanks Mok for all the birthday presents and the beautiful Easter dresses and clothes for the boys. I can't wait to dress them up and take a picture.

p.s. Good thing you got size 18 months for Griffin. It looks like it will be a perfect fit. He is a big kid :)

Easter Egg Hunt

Last Saturday we had a ward Easter activity. It was an Easter Egg hunt and brunch. My kids aren't in these first two pictures, but I wanted you to see exactly how many people were there. There were kids everywhere!

This is just a portion of the people. It was pretty windy, so not the best weather, but it was fun to get out and do something.

The kids under 3 got to look for eggs first. Lila loved it. She was such a big girl.

She was so proud of her eggs. She didn't realize there was candy inside them until later.

After the little kids found their eggs, they set the big kids free to go hunt. Unfortunately there were so many kids that the eggs all got taken pretty quickly. Neither Jax or Sunny even got one. They were so disappointed, especially Jackson (that would be why he was crying in this picture). Soon enough some sweet older kids came around and gave eggs to the kids who didn't get any. My kids cheered up quick enough and Jax was able to dry up the tears.

So excited for the candy!

Brunch after the egg hunt. It was dutch oven breakfast casserole. Yummy! Griffin also had a good time. He was comfy in the Ergo on my back. See his cute little striped hat? We had a great day and we love our ward.

Family Home Evening -- Week 14

Last night we had a combined Family Home Evening with our neighbors from across the street, and our next door neighbors. We talked about talents and then the kids performed in a talent show. It was so funny. Jackson's talent was dribbling a basketball between his legs. Basically he would kick his leg up really high and throw the ball under. Very funny and pretty spazzy looking. Sunny did a ballerina spin move for her talent. Lila just watched all the kids, and Griffin was going to perform his talent of clapping his hands, but it was a little chilly so he had to stay wrapped up in a blanket the whole time.

Our neighbor brought some yummy chocolate peanut butter bars and we ate them while all the kids played in the front yard for awhile. It was a fun night and we feel so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors.

I don't know why I didn't take any pictures. I should have b/c they would've been adorable! Oh well, maybe next time.

Family Home Evening -- Week 13

Last weeks Family Home Evening was great, and the results that we have seen since then have been even better. I decided to focus on rules, discipline, and behavior in our home. All of you that know my kids, know that they are very well behaved, but I feel like there is always room for improvement, so with that in mind, here is what we did.

As a family we chose three "rules" for our home. Earlier I had started to make a list of all of our rules, but it got to be too long. I also felt it was too specific. I want the kids to use their own discretion as to how to interpret and follow rules, so there needed to be some room for interpretation in our rules. Here is what we came up with.

1. Love

(Family is all about love. It is definitely one of the greatest gifts we have been given. We need to treat each other with love.)

2. Respect

(This one covers everything :) If you have respect for your parents you obey them. If you have respect for your toys, you keep them picked up. If you have respect for your home, you help keep it clean. The list could go on and on. I love this one)

3. Work

(We are all part of this family, and we will all work everyday to keep it running the way we want. We don't have chore charts or rewards or anything like that. We do what is needed, when it is needed. We don't keep score. We help each other with all the work in our family so we can all enjoy the rewards together.)

I could really go on and on about this, but I'll just say this past week has been great. The kids are taking on more and more responsibility without being asked and I really appreciate it. I think they are getting the whole "We're all in this together" thing. (Please appreciate the HSM reference :) But, that is what it all boils down to...

We're all in this together!

Crawling

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Look at him! He's been rolling to get what he wants for a couple months, and then about a week ago he started army crawling just a little bit. Yesterday he learned how to get up on his hands and knees. He rocks back and forth and then he'll either launch himself forward or backwards. It's pretty funny to watch. At this rate he'll be crawling well pretty soon.

I'm proud of him, but so not excited. I want him to stay my little baby forever. I thought he wasn't going to crawl for awhile, and I was thrilled. I suppose I was wrong. Why, why, why do they grow up so fast?

Nana

I love Lila's face in this picture. She didn't care a lick about the book, but she wanted a spot in Nana's lap.

Nana came out to our house to visit last week and bring Lila her birthday presents. The kids had a ball with her. I wish I had taken more pictures of all their adventures. Sunny loved having a book read to her (Iris La Bonga - Mok sent them and they are so cute). Jackson and Nana played football in the backyard and then Nana went down into the pit with the big kids. They loved it and had such a good time exploring with her.

Pretty Dress

Nana got Lila this new dress for her birthday and I just love it. Lila looks so adorable that I couldn't resist a few pictures. Then the big kids had to get in on the action and have their pictures taken before we went to church. Don't know where Griffin was, asleep maybe? He was pretty cute to though, don't worry.

We're Back to This Again

Back to the nebulizer again. Poor Lila is having a really hard time with wheezing. Her cold isn't all that bad though, which I'm grateful for. The doctor said last month that after a kid has RSV the wheezing can come back when they get a cold anytime during the next 6 months or so. Hopefully it didn't trigger asthma in her. That's what I am afraid of. Jackson was fine until he was two and then he started with the wheezing and breathing problems.

Nevertheless, she is a tough girl and she loves her fishy medicine. She can do it all by herself. I don't even have to hold her at all. She also knows how to tap on the part that holds the medicine to get the last little bit to come out. Notice in the picture how big she is smiling behind the mask. I'm not kidding when I say she loves it!

(I finally ordered us a nebulizer of our own. I think it's about time. Unfortunately it won't be here until tomorrow, but we had a couple of great neighbors that helped us out with one this time.)

Family Home Evening -- Week 13 --Sunny's Version

Tonight I was in charge of the lesson, but Sunny wanted to do a little lesson first. She seemed very excited about it, so I said okay. First she passed around a sheet of paper and had all of us sign our names. Then one by one she blindfolded each of us and made us walk to the Jesus statue (about 6 feet straight ahead). She was very proud but I could tell she didn't know what to say next, so I prompted her...

me: By walking to Jesus we learned about?

her: being blind

*insert hilarious laughter all around*

She cracks me up. She obviously has a issue about blind children. She brings it up all the time and draws them pictures quite often. She also collects money and other random objects "for the blind children to see"

At least her intentions are good :)

I'll post later about our real lesson. It went really well and I'm hoping to see some big changes in attitude around our house.

Family Home Evening -- Week 12

First, pictures of Griffin in his new Atlanta Braves shirt. Very cool.

This post needed some pictures because I completely forgot to bring my camera when we went out on Monday night. On to Family Home Evening.

The kids school had skating night at Classic Skating. Ryan and I left the two little kids with my Mom and Dad and took Jax and Sunny skating. They were so excited to go skating with us and with their friends. However, that excitement was short lived. Once they put the skates on and realized it was kind of hard to do they both got pretty upset. For Jax, we decided to swap his skates for a scooter and he was happy. Sunny swapped her regular skates for some training skates, which were a little more stable, and she started to enjoy it all a lot more.

We had a blast with just the big kids. It is fun to spend time with them doing activities. They also enjoyed spending time with their friends. Makayla and Emery (two of Sunny's best friends) were there, as well as one of my 8 year old activity day girls, Caitlyn, who Sunny just loves (she is adorable and I must admit I love her too). Caitlin was so helpful and held Sunny's hand and skated all over the place with her. I could tell Sunny felt so important that Caitlyn paid so much attention to her. We are definitely blessed with some wonderful friends and neighbors.

After skating we went and got ice cream at McDonald's before picking up the babies. It was a great night!

Matching Haircuts

I was going to get my haircut today and at the last minute Sunny decided to come with me. I've been trying to get her to chop off her long hair for a month or so and she didn't want to, but something changed her mind and she got it all cut off tonight.

My hair was super long and driving me nuts. There is a girl in our ward who cuts hair (she also went to high school with Ryan) and so we went over to her house to get it done. She has a really cute salon in her basement, and she did a great job on our hair.

You can see how swollen her upper lip is here. Hopefully the antibiotics kick in quickly before she is in too much pain.

You can also see the swelling pretty good here, but ignore that, look how cute our hair is.

Fashion Show

Lila wanted to try on all her new clothes. She is hilarious!

I love this little purple set. Too cute!

She finally settled on what she wanted to wear.

"Dis one"

The Tooth Thing...AGAIN!

Sunny woke up with a huge swollen lip this morning and I knew immediately what it was. Her other front tooth! We knew there was a chance that she could need it pulled too, but we were hoping she could keep it. Yesterday she was acting pretty strange. Very sad and whiny, which is so unusual for her. She wasn't even super happy while we were at the skating rink, and I just knew something was wrong. Unfortunately I was right. When I saw the lip and the glazed look on her face I called the dentist right away and they were able to get her in this afternoon. Her tooth is abscessed and infected and has to come out. She is on a 7 day course of the super strong antibiotics and will have the tooth pulled on the 25th. Poor, poor Sunny Bunny. She is such a trooper. I hope we can get rid of that tooth and be done with the dentist for a good long while. Thank goodness for good dental insurance and a great pediatric dentist!

Birthday Package

Lila's package arrived today and boy was it worth the wait. She dove right in and started ripping open her presents. She got a new baby doll (who has since been named iCarly --by Lila, not Sunny), a tea set, a puzzle set, clothes and a cute ELMO book. She is so sweet b/c she is so excited for each thing and kept repeating what they were over and over. Then she told Griffin, "These mine, Dwriffin, not for you." Sunny was just about as excited as Lila and she loves her new book and coloring book that Mok sent her.

The pictures are out of order, oh well, it is too much of a hassle to fix them.

In her new hat and asking me to PLEASE get the baby out!

Griffin reading his new book.

I made her smile and pose before she could open the package and it was all she could do to stand still for 10 seconds before she was back to hopping around the package and trying to tear off the tape.

Getting rid of the newspaper on top.

"My presents, my presents. Open them now"

Sunny showing her how the baby works.

Thanks so much Mok and Pok. It really made Lila's day. I need to get a video camera so you can see how fun it is to watch her get excited about all her presents. We love you both and appreciate everything you do for us and our kids. You're the best!

Happy Birthday Baby

March 14, 2008

I remember being so thrilled that Lila was finally born. She was so sweet and such a good baby at first. Her birth was the 2nd best of all my kids (Griffin will always be the winner...who could beat being born in the van!?!) and it was pretty easy. She was born somewhere between 3 and 3 1/2 weeks early and weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces.

Her blessing dress. I think she is around 3 months old here.

3 1/2 months old. This was taken by Jessie O'Neal during a BBQ at their house during Summer Fest.

Her 1 year old birthday. She sure has gotten a lot of hair during the past year!

This is one of the pictures that Sarah L. took of Lila for Jess and Darci's store. Doesn't it make you want to go buy headbands?

I can't believe how fast the past 2 years have gone. I am so in love with my little Lila. She is such a perfect fit in our family and I couldn't imagine life without her. She is so funny. She makes us laugh constantly. She is sweet, sensitive, and feisty too! I can't wait to see what the future holds for little miss Lila Cate.

Lila's Birthday Lunch

We took the kids to IHOP for Lila's birthday lunch. The kids all wanted "Funny Face" which is a chocolate chip pancake with whipped cream, chocolate chips and cherries. They were thrilled that we allowed them to have such a sugary treat for lunch.

Griffin was there and as usual, he was pretty darn cute.

He was also very loud. He kept talking the whole time and wouldn't stop. I guess I'm lucky he was happy talking and not crying.

I hate this picture of myself, but for posterity's sake, here it is.

Digging into her pancakes.

The big rascals. It is so cute how excited they are for their sister's birthday.

Coloring.

The birthday girl with her Daddy.