A Happy Day of Love

We had a good Valentine's Day.  It is nice remembering how much we love each other and how much we love our kids.

We planned a service Relief Society activity for right before Valentine's.  We wanted to heart attack and give cookies to some less active sisters in the ward.

The girls loved helping make the heart shape cookies.  They also liked licking the floury table clean.

After Family Home Evening, the kids each got to decorate one cookie for a treat.  Megan thought it was fun, but needed lots of help.

On Friday, we surprised Will at work by decorating his door.  We decorated his door last year and someone rudely took down our hearts one day that Will wasn't there.  He was upset about that.  We decided that he needed decorations again.

Will made Valentine's breakfast - some heart shape birds in nest (or whatever it is called).  I cannot remember the name, but it was delicious.  Thanks for cooking, Will.

We don't have any Valentine's wrapping paper, so this was the reddest gift bag I could find.  Opening presents was fun.

The girls especially liked opening presents.  They got some candy and some new princess shoes.

Megan wasn't too sure about her shoes.  I guess they were harder for her to walk in.  But she did smile for the camera.

And it wouldn't be a fun day without playing some live action SuperSmash Bros.  Will made it up and it is Whitney's favorite game.  Something about poking each other with swords is exciting.

There was a ward dinner that evening.  The high priests cooked delicious chicken cordon bleu and the youth helped serve and babysit.  It was a fun evening.

Will and I played in a couples see how well you know each other game.  We got second place and won a "dinner at home" date package.  It had two cans of ravioli, a water bottle, and some plastic cookware.  So that was kind of funny.  

Anyway, it was a great Valentine's.  I am glad Will and I are still very much in love after 7 1/2 years.  I hope everyone else had a great day also.

Our Climber

We have a climber in our house - a very short and very cute climbing machine.

Her name is Megan and she is almost 18 months old.  She is by far the most climbing child of all my children.  And she is persistent too.

Megan smiles for the camera after successfully getting on the box.

This position is funny because Megan climbs up, and then gets scared and goes back to the box.  And then collects her courage and climbs up again, and then down again.  It was funny to watch.

Finally tumbling headfirst into the crib.  At least that is a soft landing.  You cannot tell, but she was smiling for this picture.  She was quite pleased with herself.

The computer desk is another great spot to climb.  She gets on the chair and climbs all the way up.  Our heater control is up on the wall, so Megan climbs up and pushes the lever up and down.  The poor heater doesn't know if it should be doing fifty or ninety.

There are other spots that Megan likes to climb, but I don't take pictures of them because I am quickly trying to pull her down.  For example, Megan enjoys getting on the kitchen table, laying down on it, and then spinning while saying 'Whee'.  It would be really cute and funny if it didn't make me so nervous.  We have now placed all our chairs sideways and moved them away from table.

But then Megan gives me a cute smile (after stealing some lipstick) and all is forgiven.  Hopefully we can get through this stage without a concussion.

Family Fun Day

Will had the day off from work last Monday.  So we decided to make it a fun day for the whole family.  We did lots of fun things together.

First was bowling, which is one of the few things to do in the area.  Whitney insisted on pushing the ball all by herself.

Rachel liked holding the ball.  After dropping it a couple of times, Will was very careful with Rachel holding the ball.  Rachel especially loved bowling.

Megan had one short turn.  She was more interested in the ball dispenser machine than the actual bowling.

Here Whitney lets her hair fly.  I don't know why it blows air, but all the kids thought it was pretty amazing.

After bowling, we just had to play at the arcade center.  Thankfully, the kids are young enough that they don't care about playing for pretend.  So we didn't waste a bunch of quarters.

The guitar hero was a hit.

Whitney turns into Batman. Good driving.

After the fun bowling alley, we went and got ice cream.  Megan usually just shares with the other girls, but we decided to let her have her own this time.  Megan was very mad whenever we tried to feed her bites.  She is becoming too independent for her own good.

Because the weather was nice, we decided to take the kids to the park after getting ice cream.  It has been quite awhile since we have made it to the park.

Trying to ride down the slide in a train.  

Anyway, it was a really fun day.  I am glad to have some family together time.

Babysitting

Lately, I have been doing a lot of babysitting during the day while Will is at work.  It gives us a little extra money to pay for things, that is always nice.

This little boy is Asher.  He is a couple of months younger than Megan and isn't quite walking yet.  His mom goes and substitutes at schools a couple of days a week, so he gets to come to my house.

I gave the babies some smarties and Megan decided to help feed them to Asher.  I think she was secretly doing it because she wanted to help him eat some of his smarties.

Fighting over a spoon.  Asher is actually a really good and easy baby to watch.  Now that he is use to this house, he doesn't cry much or anything.  However, there is some baby squabbling sometimes.  They both had their own spoon but the grass is always greener with the other baby.

This was really cute, Megan and Asher played peek-a-boo in the TV cupboard.  It was fun watching them interact and smile at each other.

One day last week, we also had the Bingam girls over for a little while.  That meant there were seven little children in this house at one time.  It was loud.

But then I made some pizzas for lunch and the kids watched an episode of Full House and calmed down a bit.  Trying to feed three one year old children was challenging.  But we survived.  When everyone left and I just had my three over, the house seemed so quiet.

Not from babysitting, but that is okay.  All the girls wore black and pink to church.  Will tried very hard to get them all to smile and look at the camera, but we just settled on all looking at the camera.

Will gets a chance to paint Whitney's and Rachel's fingernails.  They got fingernail polish for Christmas and were super excited to be able to pick a variety of colors.

Dressed up like princesses.  Maybe we will be princesses for Halloween.  The girls really like dressing up all pretty and having a tea party.

Anyway, that is what is happening.  The girls are happy and are so fun. I am a lucky mother.

A Beautiful Wedding!

Kylee and Chas were married on Friday, January 2nd, in the Columbia River Temple.  I am so glad that we were able to attend the sealing.  And thanks to Kaitlin, Zach, and Conner for helping watch my girls while we were in the temple.

The girls in their pretty yellow dresses that my mom made for them.  They waited in the church across the street from the temple.  I guess they did pretty good just eating snacks and watching a movie.  Aren't the dresses adorable?

Here Kylee and Chas leave the temple - a brand new married couple.  It is hard to tell, but Kylee is holding her lollipop bouquet.

And doing the dip.  Will and I practiced that before our wedding so we could do it well for pictures.  Now we are old pros. 

I wish I had thought to focus closer so the picture would show us better.  Oh well.  Here are Kylee and Chas with all of us siblings.  It was nice that all of us brothers and sisters could be there to support them.

It was very hard to get good pictures because it was freezing and the girls became really grumpy whenever we took off their coats.  But here is Kylee with her four nieces.  They were pretty good sports.

Now we are at the reception.  When you go in and sign the wedding book, they wanted pictures of each family. And they provided us with props.  The girls thought that was pretty neat.  I think it is a clever idea to include pictures for their wedding book.

This is their cake.  They decided to have a black cake to look like the shirts they made when Chas proposed.  It was a rainbow cake inside which was really pretty.

                                    

And they squished cake on each other...I mean, fed each other a piece of cake.  You can kind of see the black shirts in the background.

Kylee and Chas had a slideshow with pictures of them growing up.  Then they did some dancing.  Here Kylee and my dad did a dance.

The reception was fun.  A couple of my aunts and one uncle and my grandma all came for the wedding. They helped with getting everything ready.  The reception was carnival theme, so we got to eat yummy food.  My kids really enjoyed the cotton candy and popcorn.

At the end was a balloon release to wish the couple well.  Of course, my girls didn't want to let go of their balloons.  So here Whitney holds the heart balloon that she colored.

Anyway, congratulations to Kylee and Chas.  You guys make for a very cute couple.  Be sure to let us know if you need anything.