Happy Birthday sis!

Today is my sister's birthday! She lives too far away from me and I don't get to see her very often - but we talk on the phone pretty much every day. And we talk about someday living by each other so we can work-out (she'd kick my trash), and shop (she'd support me in spending all my money) together. Someday!! Sophie and Nora are the same distance apart in age as Emily and I are, so it is fun for me to watch them and think about me and my sister doing some of the things they do when we were their ages! I love my sis and am so grateful to have her!

Love you Emo - Happy 3-0!!

Nora Gracie's new smile!

Before:
After:

Tears were shed by us both (is there anything worse than seeing your child in pain?! No!) but overall everything went well. Nora was very brave and even though she was shaking in the chair and tears were in her beautiful eyes she did all that was asked of her, and the dentist was excellent. And fast. And she looks pretty darn cute! She has already put her tooth under her pillow and saying she's ready for bed in hopes the tooth fairy will be tricked into coming before she's actually asleep! The rest of the day will be spent in comforting Sophie over the unfairness of it all....

P.S. The dentist also said she'll have to have the frenulum inside her top lip clipped when she starts losing her teeth. I've always suspected it would have to be because it is very thick and goes right between her front teeth and causes a gap - But we'll deal with that when the time comes!

The dangerous thing about bubble baths...

..is that with all those bubbles in there it's hard to notice any "unsanitary objects" floating around until the water gets drained. And, of course, that happens after all three of your kids have bathed in, played in and drank in the bathwater for the last 20 minutes. All you can do is hope it happened relatively close to the end of the bath ... and watch for any weird rashes to appear within the next few days. I really should have been watching more closely because little man has found the tub a convenient place to empty his bowels as of late. Looking on the bright side of things - he's saving us money on diapers !

He looks so innocent doesn't he!

A Birthday Wish...

Today my dad would have turned 53. And the older I get the more I realize how young he was when he died (42). He packed a lot of life into those 42 years and I love telling my kids about him. So today I am making a birthday wish in his honor: May my children be blessed to have his sense of humor! Happy Birthday Dad. Miss you.

sorry mom - you'll forgive me for posting this picture, right?

School Carnival, Batter & Backyard fun!

A few days ago we went to Sophie's school Carnival. She and Nora had been looking forward to it for a long time so when the day finally came they were ecstatic! Here they are by Sophie's school:

They enjoyed:

face painting (Nora chose a rainbow and Sophie chose a flower)

big, greasy pizza (it was so yummy!)

and some fun carnival games (with the requisite cheap prizes that were broken within an hour! But I like those kinds of toys - they have fun and then I can throw them away - no clutter!)

a few quick pictures in the parking lot

I made these cookies for the carnival (my favorite c.chip cookie recipe - next to my grandma's - but my sister has made me promise to keep that one a secret!) and afterwards Nora brought the bowl down from the counter and introduced Miles to the joy of licking the batter off the spatula...

And from the bowl. They were having a great time...

Sophie was quick to get in on the goods before they were long gone...

Sometimes when I see my kids all together I think -
Wow! I have three kids! Three!

Our neighbors bought this sandbox and we are looking forward to a summer full of sandy clothes, hair, eyes and diapers...
It will definitely be worth it!!

We also had our first real barbeque with our neighborhood which included yummy food, great conversation and an awesome game of kickball where Brian ripped a hole in his jeans climbing fences and almost took out my pregnant neighbor with the kickball - sorry Angela! - we are so excited for a summer of backyard fun!

Good News and Bad News

Bad News: Little man has been sick...

Good News: It's been warm enough for him to do this:

Which makes him feel like this:
Good News: I found this note on the table today:

Which makes me so happy! Sophie has made a friend in her class who is such a sweetheart and a good friend. It's made a huge difference - now I'm just hoping they will be in the same class next year!

Good News: Nora went to the dentist today and has no cavities - yay!

About a month ago Nora fell off the toilet (she sat down on the toilet to wait for me to brush her teeth and while I was getting her toothbrush she pulled her t-shirt over her legs and pulled her arms inside the armholes and then tipped forward..... I know it's a comical scene to picture - but with no way to catch herself from falling she landed on our tiled bathroom floor face first. About a week later I noticed her left front tooth was turning gray! After some serious freaking out on my part about her having either a black tooth or a missing tooth I managed to calm down after talking to my SIL Emily Ann (thanks Emily!) and searching the internet to find that it was possible her tooth would be okay....

You can see the top tooth on the right has a grayish tint to it

Bad News: The tooth is dying and has to be pulled out on April 29th! Which means my girl will be missing one of her front teeth for a good 2-4 years!

Good News: She'll still be just as cute - in a hill-billy redneck sort of way... but still cute! Truly I'm more sad that she's going to have to go through the process of having her tooth yanked out by a dentist than about how she's going to look afterwards. And Sophie will surely be jealous that her baby sister gets a visit from the tooth fairy before she does!

Taking advantage...

Miles is sick today and just wants to be held..... luckily he is content to sit on my lap while I "work" on the computer.... I took advantage of it and played in photoshop elements with some pictures of the girls that I took last week.

Here are the results:
(grandparents - you may want to click on them to see it bigger...)

And....

Easter Fun

We had a nice Easter weekend. On Saturday the kids woke up to find their Easter baskets and eggs hidden in the living room. Later my mom and I took the kids to a park here where some friends in the ward were getting together for a little egg hunt. On Sunday we had the Woolf family over for a yummy dinner of ham, potatoes, green beans, rolls, salad and carrot cake! The Woolf's brought their kites with them and the kids had a great time in the backyard!

Flying kites....
Miles loves being outside! And he loves his little playhouse - it is just his size!More kite flying...
The girls waiting at the kids table for dinner!

The Saturday egg hunt at the park:

Miles had a great time playing at the park (those are 12 month pants... he is a shorty, but I think they are a little bigger than regular 12 month pants!)

Sophie was the oldest kid there and I told her to make sure she stopped gathering eggs when she had 12 of them so all the little kids got enough. She was very good about it and I saw her counting her eggs a few times and putting some in the other kids' baskets to make sure she kept hers at twelve! (I got her super cute jacket at goodwill for 2 bucks!)

I had a hard time getting a good picture of Nora - she knew there was candy in those eggs and nothing in this world was gonna stop her from getting to them!

Here she goes again....

Waiting patiently for the hunt to start.... (notice the cute twirly skirts my mom made while she was here - I was going to make them myself - truly I was! But my mom wanted to do it - so I let her! Aren't I nice?? Thanks mom!)

I love this picture of Sophie and Brian!

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the kids with their baskets - and NONE of them in their Easter clothes Sunday morning. But our church starts at 9am, I had a lesson to prepare and Brian had a 8:15am meeting... so we were a little rushed that morning!But trust me - they all looked adorable! :) I am going to try to get some pictures of them in their new clothes when the weather clears up.... we have rain again today. And my boy is sick so we are going to be taking it easy.

Spring Break with Naunie!

We had a great time with my mom visiting us for Sophie's Spring break! Of course we didn't do ALL the things we talked about doing - the time goes by so quickly - but we did lots of fun things and she definitely spoiled us! Thanks SO much Naunie! We miss you already!
( The pictures are in opposite order but I didn't feel like changing them around!)

Taking Naunie to the bus stop that takes her to the airport....
Sophie was a pretty sad little girl and was sobbing in the car all the way back home...

Brian and Naunie.... he used Naunie's visit as an opportunity to get some extra school work in so we didn't see too much of him.

Just before going to the bus....
Me and my mama!

We went to Mcdonald's with the kids and they had a great time playing in the playland and bartering their toys with other kids for the ones they wanted..... (oh yes, by the way Miles now weighs 21 pounds and can turn around in his car seat! HOORAY!!)

Reading books...

Looking at the SNOW in our yard! We had snow the first 3 days of the visit! :(

Miles loves tools of any kind so he jumped at the opportunity to help Naunie fix our baby gate!

The girls made these "diorama's" with Naunie from our family fun magazine. But the word "diorama" made us all giggle and think of something else that sounds like "diar....." so we changed it to eggorama's! Naunie took the girls to the store and they got to pick out a little easter toy to put inside of it. (I know Nora's eyes are funky in this picture but I don't want to upload another and to be honest her eyes are often like this in pictures so I figured I'd leave it!)

Miles was a crazy boy during Naunie's visit - the crazed look on his face in this picture proves it. He was SO silly and SO funny he kept us all laughing!

Busted getting into mom's make-up!! Blackmail for when he's older.....

Working on the "eggorama's"

Both my girls are quite the snugglers - and Naunie didn't complain one bit! :)

Reading books - yes, I think Nora is picking her nose in this picture.... I just noticed.
She never does that. :)

Sophie drew Naunie a note with a sunflower on it - her favorite flower

This was on the way home from the airport when we picked her up! The girls were so excited!

Thanks again for everything Naunie! We love you and miss you already!