She's all mine

Ashli found my chocolate chip stash!

"hmmm what do we have here?'

Caught in the act!

A girl after my own heart!

Beating the January Blahs

It's cold, it's yucky, it's January. What to do with 3 little kids?  Hmmmmmm

make a homemade kitchen golf course

Woohoo

Score!

The little gopher stealing the balls!

painting

peekaboo

Cheese!

Someday it will be February!

Ode to a fish

Dearest Marigold-

It seems like yesterday we brought you home from the pet store. Oh how your slimy fins danced around your bowl.....the feedings, the multiple stinky water changes, the trips to Walmart to find a filter system that would allow me to clean you less often.  Then there was that time....the dreaded accident.... during a bowl cleanse, you leaped out of your cup for freedom, only to discover you couldn't breathe.  I discovered you near death and thought for just a second that this could finally be it. I could be done...but alas, my guilt overcame me and I quickly scooped you up and put you back. You seemed to thank me...we grew closer that day.  

My children's first pet! Maili earned you from getting stickers for something. I can't recall now.

But as I lifted your lid to feed you today, you did not come swimming...you did not. As I see you floating...colorless, I realize you may have been gone for a day or more.  

A bit of relief filled my soul and then quickly........dread.....dread. How to tell Maili when she came home from school? What would she say? Would she cry?

As I braced myself to tell her....her eyes welled up but did not overflow...My eyes, however, did overflow. Trying to teach my daughters about death. Haeli asked when you would come alive again. Maili asked why? I told them you were happy now and then in the next breath she asked when we could get a puppy.

Thanks Marigold for being our first family pet. Thanks for the good times, the laughter, the tears, but most of all thanks that I don't have to clean your bowl anymore!  

Farewell

Haeli ballerina

Haeli has been begging to start dance class like her sister. So we gave in the beginning of this month and she is loving it! She is really quite good! She follows the teacher really well and is having a ball!

I sure love this girl!

I had to add this one cause she's just so darn cute!

Awesome FHE idea!

So, I found this awesome idea for a Family Home Evening lesson and my girls loved it!  Kevin read Lehi's dream from the scriptures and each girl got a big piece of paper to draw a picture of what Lehi saw in his dream.  Here they are showing their masterpieces. If you look really closely, you'll be able to see the mists of darkness (black) and a river, a rod of iron, a tree and a building with people laughing in it.  This was so great, because for 3 or 4 days following, the girls kept talking about it and the people making fun of the righteous ones holding the rod and how that is bad to do. They even have people falling into the river.  I think they really learned this scripture story AND even learned about choosing the right.

Happy New Year 2011

I've been fooling around a bit in cake decorating, so for New Year's, I decided to make a cake. I took so many pictures cause I have to admit that I think it turned out pretty darn great and I'm a tad bit proud of myself!.  It was fun to get lots of ooooh's and aaaaah's from people.  We went to a family New year's party which ends at 10:00 which is of course midnight back East!  I love getting older and having a family and not feeling like I HAVE to stay up late to ring in the New Year!  It was a lot of fun!  Of course, I only have pictures of my cake though!

California 2010

This post is way out of order, but for some reason, I could never find these pictures!  Way back in April we went to Disneyland and Legoland and the beach. I have to put it on the blog, cause my girls LOVE to look at themselves in our blog books!

Christmas

So I've kind of had the blogging blahs, so now I have tons to catch up on.  I think I'll just summarize with pictures of our December events.

SNOW DAY!  There was so much snow that day that school was cancelled!

Kind of hard to walk in deep snow when your legs are about the size of barbie dolls

Here's our purple marshmallow all bundled up!

Daddy to the rescue. Maili couldn't get up!

Christmas morning!  Can we say spoiled?

Does your house look like this on Christmas day?

Grandma joined us bright and early for the festivities!

I loved these Christmas dresses!

My girls love to pose! Ashli's even learning how!

Our annual Gingerbread house party! This year I made real gingerbread and WOW the houses were amazing and actually kept standing!  We love this annual event and we love our neighbors!

Here's our house! These are the only pictures I took cause I was so busy in the kitchen making more icing! Real gingerbread takes a lot more icing!

After a long absence with a broken arm, Maili is finally able to dance again!  Here she is in her Christmas party/recital

My girls have no fears of SANTA!

The girls love decorating the Christmas cookies!

All three love the big guy!

so cute! My girls look so big to me here!

It was a great Christmas season filled with lots of fun and parties and looking at lights and shopping and LOVE!