Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Is it Spring Yet?


Today my cute girl Micaela came inside with the tiniest purple flower she found out in the yard. She said, "Here Mom, the first flower of Spring for my beautiful Mama." Of course my heart melted. But it also skipped a beat to think that maybe it actually is going to be Spring soon......could it be? Spring is my favorite time of the year. (And what a sweet girl I have.)

The kids had so much fun swinging in our yard today, riding their bikes, and collecting rocks. It was as if we were reacquainting ourselves with our yard again. It was great. We can hardly wait for spring at our house!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Cute Boy


AJ is 3 years old. I love this age, for one reason they say the cutest things.
Today we were in the car, AJ, Micaela and I. Out of the blue AJ says, "Mom, I know.......since Micaela and I both have yellow hair....we should get married, huh, Mom? .......that's a good idea, huh? Cuz we both have yellow hair!"

You have to picture him saying this in his cute deep, gruff, 3 year old voice.

He's my little boyfriend. I love this little man!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Happy Birthday to our Girl!

Lauren recently turned 8 years old. It seems like she has all of a sudden really grown up. The way she acts, it seems like the teenage years are just around the corner. (Oh, help me!)The things she wanted for her birthday: make-up and a real digital camera. She did get both, but she was told the make-up is only for play, not for wearing outside the house.
Lauren's birthday was on a Sunday, so we celebrated it on Saturday. We went to Jump On It---a big warehouse full of trampolines, as a family, and then we made her favorite dinner.....cheese fondue and jello. (Then last weekend we have 5 of her best friends over for a "Fashion" latenight. I'll put those pics in a different post)
Lauren is so special to our family. She is a great big sister. It was almost 7 years of marriage before she joined our family. She helped us to learn patience, faith, and a deeper respect and appreciation for parenthood. She was a beautiful little baby. Lots of curly dark red hair in the front, and long dark brown hair in the back. I was horrifed when it all fell out at a month. But she quickly grew back lots of curly brown hair, and long dark brown eyelashes. She got lots of attention everywhere we went. She always had matching shoes, bracelet, bow, burpcloth and blanket. And she always had a quick smile. Her Dad said she screamed until she was 2 yrs old. I don't know if that's quite right, but she was very colicy from 2 months until about 5 months. I didn't know any better, so we got through it just fine! I was so in love with her, it didn't matter.
Lauren has grown into a beautiful, fun, happy and very obedient little girl. She is an excellent student, and very conscientious at making sure she is on task and completes all of her assignments and homework. She wakes up at 6:30 AM, gets all of her "jobs" done before school. All of this with no proding. She wakes up by herself with an alarm clock.
Each time a child celebrates a birthday in her school class, every child in the class makes the birthday kid a card. So recently she brought home a collection of cards from her classmates that they had made for her for her birthday. I read each of them. One comment that was consistent in each card was, "you are very nice". This is really true of Lauren. She is a very kind, thoughtful child, and would never purposely hurt anyone's feelings. Because of this she has many friends. She also has a very strong personality, and is a leader among her peers.
Lauren LOVES to play with friends. It's something she wants to do everyday. She loves to be outside, to be spontaneous, to have fun! She likes to be creative and make crafts. Lauren would never come home from school and just veg in front of the TV. She's always going, and always involved in something.
She does 4 hours of dance a week, and will begin competition season next month. She's done "Company" dance for 3 years. She loves to perform and be on stage.....and get dressed up in the dance costumes and make-up.
She recently started piano and has picked it up easily. I think piano will be one of her talents. She also likes to sing, and make up stories, poems, and songs.
Here's a few pics of Lauren.......................
(Newborn Lauren with a little squishy face)
(4 months old) (Lauren's school picture from last year)

Happy Birthday Lauren! We love you, and are so glad we get to be your parents! Lauren is so excited that she is 8 and gets to be baptized and go to Activity Days. She has worked hard, and has had a desire to truly understand about the baptismal coventant. We've been having FHE about Baptism for about a year. We love our girl! She is precious to us!!!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

My Newest Accessory

Okay, so in my '25 Random Things' about myself I mentioned that I LOVE accessories of all kinds, and have ever since I was little. I remember when I was in 1st grade I saved my own money to buy a pair of clogs (it was the 70's remember!). My mother probably didn't think they were practical for school and didn't buy them, but I SOOOO wanted them. So I saved my own money and bought them and absolutely LOVED them.
So here's a picture of me with my newest accessory. I can't say that I LOVE these 'girls', but they're necessary. I think the frames are cute....they're made by 'Candies' , but.............I'm just so stinkin' blind! When you're as blind as I am, it's so much harder to see well with glasses compared to contacts, which I've worn constantly since I was 12. I have no depth perception, and very little peripheral vision. The other day I pulled into a parking stall at JoAnn's crafts. I thought I did a great job parking, but when I got out of my car, I soon realized the lady next to me had about 4 inches to open her car door to squeeze her baby out. I decided to jump back in my car and try again........didn't do much better the second time! (Normally I'm a pro at parking:)

Anyway, you may wonder why I'm choosing to wear glasses. It's because I'm getting ready to have Lasik surgery done. I am SOOOO excited. I have dreamt about it ever since it has become popular. But it was always a matter of money, and more recently a matter of inconvenience. But I'm doing it this time, and I can hardly wait. For any of you who have never seen Lasik done, I'll post the surgery on my blog. I guess they take a video for you as a keepsake! Yeah. I do feel very lucky that I get to have this done! If there was a house fire, or some other type of emergency, and I didn't have glasses or contacts, I'd be out of luck. There's no way I could see to help me or my family!

So if you live close, and see my van on the street, you may just want to watch out or pull to the side of the road................at least until I get my surgery done!
(This isn't the best pic, our 8 year old is the newest photographer in the family. She got a camera for her birthday, and there's more shots of me taken than I really care for. Me in bed, me first thing in the morning cleaning the kitchen, and lots of my backside. It's tons of fun!)