December 30, 2011

An Angry Birds Birthday

My sweet Nolan turned six in November. I really do hate that my kids get bigger. (sigh)
I had been promising Nolan a birthday party when he was in kindergarten and had friends that he plays with rather than just sees at preschool. So, when the time came I asked him what kind of birthday party he wanted and without hesitation he told me "Angry Birds!"
I had NO clue what to do for an angry birds party.
However, with the help of Pinterest and my creative genius, (eh hem) this is what we did. . .

Nolan's invitation


Nolan's playable cake


Life-size Angry Birds game: (this was so so so fun!) I painted the balls and we made a makeshift slingshot. The kids loved it!



Pig Pinata


Mini Angry Birds game: I made each of the kids these little pom-pom birds and pigs. They built up the cups and then flicked the birds at the pigs. They got to take their mini game home. It's not the best picture, but will have to do. :)


I also made each of the kids a mini pinata filled with candy and toys.


Not to toot my own horn. . .but it was a pretty darn cool party! Nolan was happy and that's all that mattered. I'm glad he could finally have a "real" birthday party. I just hope he doesn't expect the same level of creativity from me next year. . .cause it's not happening! :)

December 27, 2011

Conversation on a Train

Over the next few days I'm going to attempt to get caught up on the last two months of activities. Tons of stuff happened. . .and I just haven't had time to sit and post about it!

First of all. . .I had to share what happened last week on the train. I took all the kids to meet Ben at work and go to lunch. On the way home we got on the train and it was totally full. I was standing with Malia and Bella and for the last half of the trip Simon and Nolan were sitting two rows away from where we were standing. A lady sitting across from the boys started talking to them. She asked them what they wanted for Christmas and if they had been good so Santa could come. Then out of nowhere Nolan decides to share some information with the lady. . .

Nolan: "Did you know all of my underwear is ripped?!"
Me: "Nolan!"
Nolan: "Well, it is! All my underwear is ripped."

At this point. . .everyone that could hear was chuckling

Me: "All of your underwear is not ripped."
Nolan: "Yes they are! There's a hole in the front and I can see my private parts! They are all ripped!"

And now. . .everyone is laughing out loud.

Me: (totally embarrassed) "They aren't ripped, Nolan. That is just how they're made."
Nolan: "Well, they are ripped, I guess so. I can see my private parts."
Me: "Well, I don't think everyone wants to hear about your ripped underwear."

I didn't think it was very funny at the time, but I think it's totally hilarious now. Nolan just tells whoever is around whatever is on his mind at the time. At that moment, he was thinking about his ripped underwear. And why wouldn't you tell some random woman how all your underwear are ripped?


October 14, 2011

Mud Princess

It has been raining a lot here over the last few days. In between the down pours, I thought I'd go outside and do some weeding (. . .yay.) Malia was kind enough to help out. . .only. . .she didn't pull weeds. She just grabbed handfuls of mud and relocated it. She also found a little puddle to play in. Then she thought it was fun to walk around and see all the little mud footprints that were left behind.
This is what she looked like when we were done. . .

Her poor boots!

October 3, 2011

Swingin'

Today Nolan got to bring home Cocoa the monkey from his Kindergarten class. He really really wanted to go take some pictures with him and Cocoa, so we went across our backyard and across the street to the swings. Here are a few pictures we took. I'm counting the few of Bella and Malia as part of their 4 year/18 month pictures. . .I'll be taking more. :)
I'm loving the ginormous tree for the background.


I must say. . .I do have some pretty cute kids!

September 15, 2011

Summer 2011

I wish I could say that we had a super fun, exciting summer this year. . .but I just can't. There were a few highlights. . .but mainly it was pretty lame. I will take you through our summer with whatever pictures I have. If I don't have pictures of it. . .it couldn't have been very important!

Father's day was lovely. We tried to let Ben relax and enjoy his day.

Do you remember the breakfast that Simon made me for Mother's Day? (oatmeal, rice crispy treat, string cheese, an apple and ice milk) Lucky Ben, he got breakfast in bed too! This time, Simon made oatmeal (once again he probably made that first, as it was nice and cold. . .ha ha!) and then put some cars marshmallows and some animal crackers on the plate as well. Such a good boy. :)

My mom came to visit us in July. That was so great! I love having my mom around. I miss her a ton. I would post lots of pictures, but we took them on her camera, and I haven't gotten them from her yet. I did take a few from our 4th of July firework show.

I love this random picture of Malia. She is getting so big. She starts nursery in two weeks! SO excited. . .and NO it's not time for another baby for crying out loud!
Bella turned four! Can you believe it?! She wanted a pink and purple cake. . .and this was the best I could muster that day. It has kind of a cool marbled look. . .that you can't really see in the picture too well.

I just realized that I never took any four year pictures of Bella. Yikes! I need to get on that. We sure do love our Mae Mae (that's what she likes to be called now. . .and she reminds us all the time. . ."Don't you mean 'go to your room, Mae Mae'" that one's my favorite. It makes me very happy when she says it or this one. . ."Daddy, it's Mae Mae, remember?" or "Don't you mean,'I love you Mae Mae?'" Those are a little more tolerable) She has TONS of energy and is so funny. She's our little tomboy princess. Love her. . .HATE that she's already four!

Malia and I went to Utah for a few days! That was awesome! My best friend, Leona flew us out for her daughter Addi's birthday luau. I loved spending time with Leona and family and our family loved spending time with Sweet Malia. . .and me. . .but mostly Malia. :) All of those pictures are also on other cameras, which are currently in Utah. These are the few that I have. . .

Simon started second grade, and Nolan started kindergarten! Here are a few pictures of their first day.

Nolan doesn't like waking up in the morning. . .at all. If I have to wake him up before he's ready, he will literally roll over and go back to sleep. I have never heard of an almost six year old doing that. What can I say? Nolan marches to the beat of his own drum. When I went in to get him up for school (at 6:00 in the stinking morning) he popped right up and asked me what took me so long. I don't know how long he was waiting for me to come get him, but he was up and ready to go that morning. Oh, P.S. He has gone back to his old ways. . .it takes me ten minutes to get him up and going now. Grr.

This is the girls walking down the hall after taking Nolan to his class. I think it's a cute picture. Malia loves to hold hands with her siblings. And they all love that she loves it. :)

They do a staggered entry for kindergartners, so I took Nolan on his official first day. . .which was really only part of a day. Then, on what I call his first day, he got to ride the bus. He told me when he got home that it "was my best day ever!" I asked him why and he said "Because I got to ride the bus to school, and then it brought me home too!" Nolan is loving school. He is reading really well. We read Bob Books every day. He's pretty excited to learn to read like Simon does. Two weeks into school, he has had three notes come home for talking. I am not even a little bit surprised. I think we will get many, many notes from his teachers until he graduates. Here are the pictures of him on his first day taking the bus to school. . .
Simon continues to love and do well at school. Ben asked him a few weeks ago how many hours are in two weeks. In his head, he multiplied 7 by 24. Then multiplied that answer (no, I don't know what it is. . .I can't even do that in my head) by two. We were at the dinner table at the time and Benasked him if he learned multiplication at school. Simon said that his teacher told him they might start learning it at the end of this year. Then Ben asked him where he learned it and Simon said that I taught him. HA! Ben and I looked at each other and laughed. . .out loud. We all know I didn't teach him anything to do with math. Simon insists on it though. I guess I'm a better mom than I thought! :) Here's my cute boys at the bus stop.

Bella Mae started preschool. . .sigh. That sigh was half sigh of relief, half sigh of sadness. Relief because that girl wears me out. She has WAY too much energy and she is WAY too much of a drama queen. Sadness because I will miss my little girl. She has been my buddy. We chat all the time and play games. She's my little ball of sunshine! I love her to death and I'm going to miss her craziness. :( Malia even misses her. Every day when she wakes up from her nap she walks around the house saying "B-la. . .B-la." When I ask her if she wants to go get Bella from school she gets a big smile on her face and nods her head. Love it!

On Bella's first day, we took pictures and went up to her classroom. There is a little boy in her class who is in our ward. His mom didn't have her camera, so I was taking some pictures of him. Bella looked up from her table, saw me, and said "MOM! Get out of here!" I laughed with everyone else. . .then cried and cried when I got to the car. At least she is comfortable and happy there. That's a good thing. She is still loving it too. I asked her teacher how she was doing one day. She told me that Bella had a hard time following directions. No kidding. I'm hoping she learns how to do that at school because I was certainly not able to teach her that trick. She has made some improvement in the last two weeks. . .there's hope!

I'm including this next picture just because I think it's cute. :) And really, who wouldn't?

And this one because it's funny. This is how I find Simon playing his NintendoDS. . .frequently. He just can't sit still and play it. Who knows why he wants to be upside down. Silly kid.

So. That is our Summer in a nutshell. I was looking back at my first posts and was realizing how much I love to see things that I have forgotten about. I plan to post more often. I want to remember the little things that happen while all of the kids are growing up. . .not just the first few. We'll see how it goes. :)

May 31, 2011

May Happenings

Simon and Nolan started taking piano lessons this month. They are loving it. They do a pretty good job too! I'll see what I can do about getting some video of them playing on here.


We had some friends come stay on our porch. It was really fun to watch these birds get bigger and bigger and hear them chirp away when there was food around. That poor mom would bring them food all day. As they got bigger there were two birds bringing the babies their endless meals. I took a few pictures from inside our office. And, if you can believe it, Bella would sit still for quite a while so she could catch a glimpse of the mommy feeding her babies. She was fascinated. It was nice of those birds to provide some entertainment for Bella.

Nolan graduated from preschool on Thursday (sigh). The preschool did a fun little program and then had a carnival-like place set up outside. They had a bounce house, a train, a merry-go-round, games where you could win prizes and lots of food. He was disappointed when he learned that he didn't get to start kindergarten the next day.


Last Saturday, I was at the temple for a sealing of some friends of ours. Ben was home with the kids and Bella found the scissors. . .Every salon was closed Saturday night and Monday for the holiday, so we went today to get it fixed. Her hair was long enough to donate it to Locks of Love. She got a little certificate and they took her picture to put on the wall. She was pretty excited. Here are the before and after pictures.


Doesn't she look so cute?!

Ben and I have been married for nine years today! Guess what we are going to do. . .
Take the kids to Chili's.
I know, sad right? We were going to go out to dinner and had a babysitter lined up. However Malia has a pretty bad cold and I didn't want to get the sitter sick. So instead. . .we'll get everyone at Chili's sick. :) Besides, kids eat free today! With their 2 for $20, we can feed our whole family for about $30. Can't go wrong with that.
Happy anniversary to us. . .Ha! So pathetic. :)