Gracie's 4th Birthday! A horse and rainbow spectacular!

Gracie loved her birthday! She had to have a rainbow horse party! She also told us that when she turned 4, her favorite color would be yellow AND pink, not just yellow anymore! She is getting so big and she starts preschool this year at Kim's ABC adventures. We are excited!

4th of July

The kids always have a great time at Grandma Julie's house on the 4th of the July! They throw SO much candy at the kids! Max kept saying he was getting in the candy zone. He was pumped and got A LOT of candy!

 Gracie got really excited about it too. She was running around like a crazy person. I love her beautiful curly hair! She is so adorable!

 When Sophie finally woke up a little bit she got excited about the candy too.

 Apparently Grandma Julie is very excited about the candy as well :)

 The parade took all of Gracie's energy. I'm sure Grandma loved the snuggles.

 Sophie discovered that she LOVES jumping on the trampoline!

 She is always SO happy! She is my bravest child by far!

Grandpa was too tired to stay awake while he was making the peppermint ice cream. We didn't get any pictures of the fireworks, but Daddy almost set the neighborhood on fire. It was pretty exciting!

Messy Children

My kids are the messiest little stinkers lately. Every time I turn around there is another mess to clean up. Sometimes I capture their mischief on camera just to prove to daddy that I don't just sit around and eat Bon Bons all day. Today Sophie thought it would be a good idea to dump baking soda on the ground. Apparently it's a very effective and fun medium for her artwork.

 Gracie got in on the action too, but I didn't capture her joy, only her frustration as I kept her outside on the patio while I cleaned it up. If these pictures don't make you laugh, you're dead inside. "Mommy, I don't want to be alone with Max and Sophie outside!"

What's going on?

I can't believe how fast time flies by! It's been so long since I've blogged. Lot's is going on around here! We are happy, healthy, and loving life. 

Mike is working hard as a financial planner and he loves his job! He has been doing really well and I love that he is control of his own schedule. He also just got a new calling as assistant ward clerk, in charge of membership. Our weeks just got busier folks! But, I know that if we work hard for Heavenly Father we will b blessed so we'll do whatever he wants us to do!

I have been working hard in YW and just got some new counselors, so things are changing a little, but I'm sure it will be great! The kids keep me busy cleaning all day, but I wouldn't change it for the world. I love being home with them. They are adorable and so much fun. I absolutely love being a mom and I'm sad that my kids are growing up so fast. 

Max is almost 7! What happened to my sweet little baby boy? He has had an amazing year this year. He has done extremely well in 1st grade. Mrs. Wininger is his teacher and she has really been great with him, and he has loved her too. Max was chosen to compete in the school spelling bee out of his whole class. He was 1 of 2 students in his class that got to compete against the other 1st graders. He took second place with the word toothbrush! The words were extremely hard for such little kids, but they had to be since the winners went on to compete against the 2nd and 3rd graders! Max didn't place when he got to the next level, but we were so proud of him for just being chosen to compete! 

Max also excelled this year in the Reflections contest. He won on the school, region, district and state level! It was so exciting for us! I still don't think he realizes what an honor that was for him. He choreographed an awesome hip hop dance to Boom Boom Pow. He became very popular in his school because he got recognized so much this year. 

Max also did really well in his class as well. He was one of the first kids in his class to pass off all of his sight words and lists this year. He was finished half way through the year and Mrs. Wininger had to make up new lists for him so he would still have something to do! He worked really hard, but he really is a smart boy and it wasn't that difficult for him! He also received his Golden Eagle this year, which means that he read a lot of books and took quizzes for each of them. Mrs. Wininger was really great with him and let the practicum students help him to finish the last few books so he could pass them off! It was fabulous! He was so excited and called me at lunch to let me know that he got his Gold! 

And Finally, Max got into the Spanish immersion program for 2nd grade. We are really excited about it! Mr. Burton called me today to let me know for sure, and he also went out of his way to let me know what a good boy Max is. It was so nice to know that Max acts nicely when he's not at home! He is such a special nice boy! I love this sweet little boy so much! He is so tender-hearted and still snuggles me when I want him to! I'm so excited for summer so we can play all the time!

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Gracie is my sweet little almost 4-year-old! She has mostly grown out of her fits and is my little sweet buddy!  She is getting much more talkative and loves telling people that her favorite color is yellow, she loves horses and she is 3! She is so sweet! She absolutely adores her little sister and they snuggle and tickle each other all day. 

Gracie tells me that she wants to be a swimmer and she can't wait until she can take lessons this summer! She loves playing with dolls and she also loves horses! Did I mention she loves horses! She wants a horse party for her birthday and more horses! She loves mommy snuggles and we love to watch Dora and Diego together! She wants to learn Spanish with Max and already knows her colors and a few other words. 

Gracie spoke in church last Sunday and wasn't shy at all. She adjusted the microphone for herself and made sure everyone could hear her. 

Gracie is very brave and likes to try new things! She is a very sweet girl and I hope we're best friends forever!

Sophie is 19 months old and is the cutest little baby ever! She always has a smile on her face and her little dimples are to die for! She is very independent and will not eat unless she is feeding herself with a fork! She loves to climb and even insists on walking down the stairs, instead of scooting on her bum. It scares me to death, but she demands it! 

She is a sweet heart and gives the best hugs and snuggles when she wants. He hair is a soft brown/ reddish color and her eyes are dark brown,. I love her big brown eyes! She is such a sweetie! She loves going down slides and she even goes down head first. She's not afraid of anything! 

Sophie calls everything and everyone Mama. She doesn't talk much, but she is starting to babble a lot more! She is still teething and loves to bite things, including her sister if she doesn't get what she wants. She's a bit of a stinker, but not all the time! Sophie loves her brother and sister and they all play well together. She especially loves Daisy and snuggles with her all the time! 

We are loving life! We are so blessed and we can't get over how happy we are. We are busy, but we really enjoy our time on the weekends together. I don't want my kids to grow up any faster. Life is good!

It's that time of year!

Life is great! I haven't blogged enough and I need to do it more often. I don't want to forget about the cute things that my kids have been doing. I'll give a short update on each kid.

Max is 6 1/2 and so dang cute. He has Mrs. Wininger this year (1st grade). He is so very thoughtful and tells his teacher every day that he loves her and he doesn't want to leave school. He also tells us that every morning before he gets on the bus. He LOVES school, but he gets really sentimental all the time. I love that about him. He is my sweet sensitive boy.

Max's teacher always tells me how smart he is, but the thing I love to hear most is that he is thoughtful and sweet. He loves his best friend Mikey more than anyone in the world and they had their first friend sleep over last night. They are so sweet and if we listen to them when they think we aren't, we can hear them telling each other how much they love each other and what best friends they are. They are so dang cute and we feel so lucky to have such good friends next door.

Max loves playing games on our phones or on the Wii. He loves cereal and granola bars and hot chocolate milk. He loves playing with his friends and is so excited for Christmas! He wants an iPad, but I don't think Santa can afford that.  He loves doing experiments and is always making us chuckle!

Max just lost his first tooth. His other tooth was growing in behind it so it had to be pulled, after it came out he said, "Well hello tooth, We meet again!" Then, while we were at the store later that night, he couldn't stop telling everone he saw that he lost his tooth. He is NOT shy and will talk to anyone. He also just won an award for dance choreography and the whole school got to see his dance at the Reflections assembly. He thought he was pretty awesome!

Gracie is so sweet. She has had some really sassy moments in her short life but she is starting to grow out of it. She is very particular about what she wears and how her hair looks. She recently decided that yellow is her favorite color now, not pink. Too bad we only have pink clothes.

Gracie loves mermaids and horses and obsesses about having long golden Rapunzel hair. In fact, she wants to be Rapunzel mermaid. She loves healthy food like grapes and strawberries, but she also LOVES treats. She can be bribed to do almost anything for a treat. Good thing she thinks that oatmeal and yogurt are treats!

Gracie just started dance this summer and at first she loved it, but then she didn't really love the outfits I was picking out for her. At her Christmas recital she did the first count of 8 and then watched everyone else dance. She says she loves it, but I'm starting to think she loves the sucker that she gets at the end more than anything.

Gracie just had her 2nd eye surgery in October. Everything seems to have gone well, but we will have to keep watching her eyes for a long time.

Sophie is so sweet. She started walking about 2 weeks before her 1st birthday. She got her first two teeth at the same time on July 4th and her 3rd tooth just popped through last week (almost 5 months later)! She has been fussy lately, because of her teeth, but she has always been an awesome sleeper and goes down around 6:30 or 7 for bed and wakes up at 8. She has been my best sleeper by far!

Sophie is wise beyond her years. She is thoughtful and caring and always notices if someone is sad. She also gets nervous when people wrestle. She likes to harrass her brother and sister and, if they are laying on the ground, she will tackle them and giggle. She also loves music and dancing. Anytime the radio is on she starts bopping up and down. She loves her hot dogs, oatmeal, yogurt, grapes and animal crackers. She also loves macaroni and cheese. She loves to color, which is so strange to me. I don't remember any of my other kids having the attention span to color at this age. She always finds crayons and lays on her tummy in the middle of the floor and colors on whatever scrap she can find. She loves banging on the piano and sometimes I think it's Gracie because it sounds planned out.

Mike is busy with work and trying to get his mortgage license. He is a great dad and the kids love him. I love him too and appreciate all the work he does for our family. He just spoiled us with a vaction to Disneyland at the beginning of October and we had the best time! We had three days in Disneyland and California adventure and the kids were fabulous!

I am busy with Young Women, teaching cheer and musical theater on Mondays. I have also been teaching dance for the choir at the middle school. Gracie really loves coming with me to teach the kids to dance! I just finished with Reflections contest at Max's school and I'm looking forward to be being less busy!

Gracie is a big girl now!

My sweet little Gracie decided she was sick of diapers this week! She is doing so great! We are happy we don't have to buy 2 sizes of diapers anymore!!

I love Easter time when all the stores have cute little dresses and accessories for the kids. I know it's not Easter yet, but I'll use any excuse to buy my kids new clothes!s

Sophie is so dang cute! She slept through the night from 7:30 P.M. until 8:30 A.M. when I woke her up to make sure she was still alive! It was fabulous! Now if she would just do that every night we would be set!