Primary Program

Since I am the primary secretary at church I got to sit up in the stands during the primary program yesterday. We practiced the previous two Sundays and it paid off- the program was beautiful! It wasn't too short, or too long, and everything went smoothly. The kids sang beautifully and the Spirit was there! We had a full house in the chapel with all the extra visitors who came, including our neighbor, Victoria's friend, Bethany.

Karissa was the first child to say her line. She said, "I am grateful for my family because they buy things for me." She had a 9-year-old helper who reminded her of the second part of her line when she froze up. She was adorable! I am told that she sang well for most of the songs.

Victoria was flawless on her line. She spoke slowly, clearly, and reverently. She said, "My favorite story of Jesus is when He raised the girl from the dead." She was sitting right in front and Jason said she was reverent the whole time, which was good. She has been known to wave a lot from the stand and I was afraid she was going to wave to Bethany the whole time!

Fall Fun

Here are some of the fall season activities we did this week.

We went on a nature walk with our neighbor friends.

We went to the zoo with our "far-away" friends. Luckily, we came home with all of the kids. We had a scare when we couldn't find Karissa for about 10 min. and I found her with a security guard. On the way home, I asked her if she wanted a drink of water and she said, "No, I have my slobber I can drink." Nice!

For the Halloween festivities, they had some moon bounce/obstacle courses. Austin, and everyone else, had a blast!

And we carved pumpkins. Austin enjoyed this more than his sisters did at that age.

Sweetest Day

Have you ever heard of Sweetest Day? Well, I hadn't, until a couple of days ago I saw those words a couple of times on the Internet, but I didn't think much about it. So I found out yesterday from my neighbor that yesterday was Sweetest Day. He and his wife had exchanged gifts just like it was Valentine's Day. I asked him if it was just a Michigan holiday or one celebrated throughout the US. He told me everyone in the US celebrates it and it has been a "holiday" since 1920! Later, I asked Jason about it, 'cause I really didn't think I was that out of it and he told me it was like a regional thing, around Ohio and Michigan mostly. Phew! But still, we've lived here 4 years now and I've never heard of it until now!

Luckily, we really had it all planned out. Jason had bought tickets awhile back for us to go to the Michigan -Iowa game at the "Big House" (Michigan's stadium which is the largest football stadium in the US). We got a babysitter and I was away from the kids for over 6 hours-- what a record! It was a fun game, even though we lost and Michigan really had some rough moments, but there were some hopeful moments and exciting ones as well. The best part was being alone with my hubby at a football game, just like back in the day. Another cool part was that we were two of the 112,734 people at this game, which is a record for people attending a college football game (though I know how they fit so many people at the Big House, the seats are 6 inches smaller than at other stadiums!) Also, when we got home, the house was somewhat in order and all of my kids were in bed! I did miss putting my babies to bed, but I must say it was nice to just come home and relax!

Happy Sweetest Day!

Here's what a quarter of 112,734 looks like.Let's go Blue!

Here's our wrinkly faces in the sun.

6th Birthday

Victoria's real birthday was today and unlike other years, this one had more meaning to me, probably because she was born on Monday, Columbus Day, so the timing between General Conference and her birthday was the same. It also helped that my sister-in-law was overdue with her first little chica and gave birth to her just 4 days ago, bringing back the memories of waiting anxiously for my first to come at exactly the same time of year.

I chuckle at the thoughts I had when I would think about my first baby, Victoria. I always pictured her as a sweet, little, soft-spoken girl; maybe a little shy. It wasn't too far of a stretch, I had some of those qualities when I was little. Instead, she is a free-spirited, outgoing, friendly girl with a very loud voice. In fact, she came out of the birth canal with her mouth wide open wailing loudly and did not stop for more than 30 minutes (I remember being stitched up for all that time and hearing her cry, loud as can be, the whole time)!

But, even though she is not what I expected, she is better. With the qualities and talents she already has, including her intelligence, she will lead a great life.

Happy Birthday Victoria!

We got her roller skates, upon her request. During Austin's nap, she, Karissa, and I roller skated in the cul-de-sac. I had bought Karissa some roller skates at a garage sale and gave them to her when Victoria opened hers.She really wanted to go to Bob's Big Boy for dinner since we drive by it every day and she's never been.
Jammin' to the Beatles' birthday song.

Our last few pieces of cake from the party.

G-I-R-L-S Rock!

Everyone who knows us, knows that Victoria is quite the performer/diva. These are just some of the pictures that she requests I take of her almost every time she is singing and dancing, which we do just about every day. But, a lot of people don't know that Karissa is a budding performer/diva. Check out these pictures!
Such heart and soul in these songs she's singing!

It came as no surprise when Victoria wanted to have a Hannah Montana birthday party this year. Since I didn't really want to do a party based around Hannah Montana, we chose a theme from Oriental Trading that we found a great deal on: G-i-r-l-s Rock! We got 8 goodie bags already stuffed with these fun little dive-like treasures,

guitar confetti, hot pink and purple streamers and balloons, plates, cups, napkins, utensils for eight, and a purple table cloth for $50! It was a pretty good deal, especially considering the quality of the goodie bag toys (goodie bags are my biggest complaint when buying for a birthday party, so this just made it easier and less expensive).

Victoria was very excited for her theme. We made cardboard guitars for her and her friends to decorate at the party. Here she is, practicing her guitar.

We had the party on Friday evening so Jason could be there, instead of needing to be off at the library studying as he would have been if it were on a Saturday, though he did have to come home from work early.

We played freeze dance and musical chairs, all to the tunes of Hannah, of course.

Even Austin was playing musical chairs.

Decorated their guitars, with feathers, buttons, the guitar confetti, beads, stickers, and glittery puffy paint. It was a big hit!
Eating pizza outside on the unusually warm October day.

Singing "Happy Birthday". (She wasn't giving everyone a dirty look here, she must have been clearing her throat.)
Of course I had to make a guitar cake!

She is leading her friends in a song from school here while we wait for everyone to finish eating cake and come watch Victoria open her presents.
Here's the birthday girl with her new shirt and decorated guitar.

Pumpkin Patch

I love visiting the pumpkin patch with my kids! Here is our recent visit there over the weekend. You can tell who the first child is and that she was born in October by her ease in posing with pumpkins!

Austin didn't exactly enjoy the wagon ride here...

16 Months

My baby is 16 months old! He has seemed so old the past few weeks to me. He is growing out of the baby stage and into the toddler stage and it's all gone by so quickly!

He has decided this past week that he will not sit in his booster seat at the table anymore, so I took that out. He tries to put his own shoes on, with no success. He likes drinking from a "big kid cup". He likes to brush his own teeth and at the park the other day he didn't want to play with the little girl who was exactly his age, but followed Karissa and her friend around instead who went on the tire swing, which he wanted to do! He has even had a couple of "baby tantrums". Of course they don't even compare to some of the ones Karissa has, they just make me laugh.

He recently said "Dadda" and he says "ball" and "woof-woof" when he sees a dog.

His favorite things are:
-singing with music and with the hymn book at church
-dancing with his sisters
-repeating "Ahh!" after his sisters say it, which is hilarious to hear how his voice is already an octave below theirs when he says it
-saying "Aya!" when he hears an airplane and he also points with his fingers crossed (I haven't been able to catch that on the camera yet, but he always points with his fingers crossed at airplanes and everything else!)
-being outside
-helping Mom (he likes to help put the lid on the milk, turn the faucet on, vacuum, put things away...)
-snacking
-his train
-"playing" the piano
-and the number one favorite thing is sniffing clothes! We figured out why he always bends his arm over his face, he's sniffing the fabric. Now he has discovered that he can sniff anything, from Victoria's pjs, to his own clothes he wore yesterday or will wear tomorrow, or even Grandpa's smelly running shirt! I think it's the same idea as another kids' "blankie", only he doesn't have a specific thing he likes. Anything that's a soft fabric, he will carry it around and sniff it until he's had enough.

Here are some pictures of his sniffing.

He was so cute with this popper the other day. He followed me around the entire house while I vacuumed and pushed his popper everywhere I pushed the vacuum. He is such a good helper!

Big boy cup!