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!

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!

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. :)

Bella's Spring Dance Concert

Nolan's Preschool Graduation

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. :)

Star Spangled Banner

This is too cute. It's my sweet Nolan singing The Star Spangled Banner (listen closely to the words he says). . .and Simon trying to steal the spotlight.

A Few Random Things. . .

I thought I'd post a few random things from the last month or so.

Simon has been playing soccer this Spring. Thankfully, for Ben's sake as well as my own (because now I don't have to hear Ben whining about Simon's skill level), Simon is a ton better! He actually goes for the ball instead of following in the back of the pack. His new love is being goalie.


This is what Bella does when she doesn't get her way. . .and she looks like this a lot. :)

I found this little fella in our laundry room. Nolan wanted to keep it as a pet, but I told him he needed to take it outside. . .he'd be happier there. :) When Nolan didn't come back, I went to check on him. I found him sitting on our porch with his new buddy.


We went to this great place for the ward camp out. We only stayed for an evening to let the kids play and have s'mores. . .but they had a great time! I definitely want to go back there again.
Nolan, Simon and Bella played in the lake, and used their water bottles to catch tadpoles. Malia was fascinated by the little frog Ben found. The poor froggie got a little squished. . .I'm sure he was happy to get away from Malia's tiny pincers.


Last but not least. . .for Mother's Day, Simon woke up early and made me breakfast in bed! He's such a cute boy. He made me oatmeal (which I'm sure he made before he got anything else), got me milk with ice, an apple, string cheese and a rice crispy treat. He gave me a pink cup and green plate and bowl because he knew those were my favorite colors. It was his idea to do breakfast in bed. He said he wanted me to have the best Mother's Day ever. Ben told him to wait until 7:00 to bring it to me. . .but as you can see from the clock, I think he got a little excited.
Here is this year's Mother's Day picture. It's not the greatest, but it's the best we can do after church, before nap time, and with four kids who hate getting their picture taken. As you can see, they aren't interested in smiling or looking at the camera. I do love these kids! With breakfast in bed, a three hour nap, dinner and dessert at a good friends house, and me not changing any diapers. . .this was the best Mother's day ever. :)