Will turns 3

We had a family birthday party for William a couple of days before the actual day of his birth. 

 He wanted cookie dough for his birthday dessert, so that's what he got.  A big scoop of cookie dough.

 And it was a good thing we did because he spent his real birthday in my bed, sick with a fever.

Parker Turns 10

We had Parker's birthday a week early and celebrated him and Matt's together...

Attendees: 

Garnica's

Pickup's

Andersen's

Reed's

Teeples

13...say it isn't so.

On June 9 Kate turned 13.

We had a friends and family party at our house on the big day.  

She is a great kid. Not overly moody yet, I'm just waiting for that to set in. She is helpful around the house, plays with her siblings still and can laugh at herself. She is beautiful on the inside and out. For her birthday she got a sewing machine and a week at sewing camp. She starts camp in just a couple of days and is super excited about it. We love her and are so glad she is ours.

14 Years

Fourteen years ago Matt and I were married. 

those 14 years have included...

4 children

6 moves

8 cars

some tears

lots of laughs

I like and love him more today than I did fourteen years ago. I'm glad he's mine for eternity.

Time Flies

How can it be almost four months since my last post. Time has flown by since we moved to our new (wonderful) house. I really love it here. Lots of projects are in progress, i.e. backyard landscaping and patio cover, little kids built in beds, paint touch up (the painters finally came back to fix a few things after a four month wait and they will have to come another day to finish up the touch up) So the paint might be done by Christmas :). We had three trucks of concrete poured in the backyard to make up the patio, a riding path for the kids and a partial basketball court on the side of our house. It was a lot of concrete. The house is slowly getting decorated. I don't want to just put things on the walls to have things on the walls, so I'm taking it slow. Making sure I love or at least like what I have up. I haven't posted any pictures of the kitchen completely done because of the painters. They are supposed to paint the crown all around the top of the cabinets so that it matches exactly. So again, maybe by Christmas.

LOVE

It has been years since Matt and I have been home for Valentine's Day. That's not a sad thing, we've spent them all in Aspen while someone else watched our kids. But this year we didn't go to Aspen (soooo sad), so I decided to make the best of it and have a LOVE dinner with the kids. I set the table and cooked while Kate and Parker were still at school and Maggie and Will had naps. Parker rolled his eyes at me about all the heart shaped food, placemats etc. He told me I was a little extreme. The girls loved it and I think Parker secretly did too. Will was just glad that there was chocolate on the table. We had Lasagna, Death Bread, Red Grapes and Salad. And heart shaped brownies for dessert.

As we sat and ate we each took a turn saying something that we love about each person at the table. A few things that were mentioned...Mom is loved because she takes care of everyone and cooks. Dad is loved because he plays business (wrestling with the kids). Kate is loved because she is so nice. Parker is loved because he is always teaching us things we didn't know. Maggie is loved because she draws us all such great pictures. Will is loved because he makes us laugh. It was interesting to hear what each child had to say about each other. Kate and Parker were very thoughtful about what they said. It was really great to remind each other that there are specific things we like about one another. As a parent I rarely, if ever hear my kids tell one another something nice about the other, so this was a good change. I felt really grateful to spend the night with them.

If the Aspen trip is forever over, this will be a new family tradition.

Christmas Outfits

I really like it when Christmas falls on a Sunday.