Catch up on the first of the year

Well the year started out with celebrating Brian's 34 Birthday. We had a family party and Brian and I went to eat Brazilian food. It was not like the yummy Brazilian food they have out in Utah. In fact I would never return to that place again. The best part was that we got to be together. It was the first in a long time, for us to go out without the kids. We were also able to go to the temple together which it had been a while since we had done that as well.





























2011 started out with cold weather and snow. We had more snow this year than we have ever had since living in N.C. The kids enjoyed playing in the snow. Well that is everyone except Carleigh. She did not enjoying being cold at all. The kids missed a lot of school as well due to the snow. Which took away more than half of their spring break that they will have in april.

So in this picture of Lizzy, she had me straighten her hair. She looks so grown up with her hair like this. What a beautiful little girl!!

So the next event in January for us was Carleigh's birthday. I can't believe she is already 2. What a sweetie. We had the family over and had mexican food for everyone. She had pick out a princess cake that day at sam's. She makes us smile all the time. She is also super smart. I mean I know I'm her mom but how many kids turn 2 and know there shapes, colors and can count to 10. She amazes me everyday with the stuff she says and does. She got some princess clothes from nana and granddad and loved them. She had to try them all on for us as soon as she opened them. She also got a trike and loved it. The girls have pushed her around the house just about everyday until the weather warmed up and she could go outside.

Caty-lynne made her this crown to wear and she loved it. She wore it until she got her princess clothes with a real crown and then up graded to the non paper crown. She also received some cookies from nana and granddad and loved them. They had one of her favorite people on them, Minne Mouse. She loves Minnie Mouse, I think we need to take her to meet her down in Flordia. That would take a lot of convincing to get her dad to go again. I'm sure in a few years she will get him to take her, she has him wrapped around her little finger. I thinks she has everyone in her life wrapped around her little finger, even the girls at the gym daycare. What a wonderful blessing she is in our family.

Later in the month we celebrated Caty-lynn's 8th birthday. We had a surprise birthday for her at CiCis pizza with a few of her friends. She was really surprised and had a great time. We had pizza played games and then came back home to play at the house and have a sleep over as well.

This was a special birthday for her seeing that she was getting baptized. Nana came out the week before and was able to be here on her birthday. We let her stay home from school that day so she could hang out with mom and nana. We took her to get a pedicure, lunch and then a little shopping. I do mean a little shopping, because Caty-lynne does not like to shop and if she does it is for a very short time. She had a wonderful day. That night she wanted to eat at Taco Bell for dinner. So for two years now we have eaten there for her birthday. My kids love that place, but actually Brian and I like it as well. We just all love anything mexican.

On Saturday after her birthday She had her baptism. Granddad came the night before and stayed for a few days. She was able to have both sets of grandparents here for this special day in her life. Ooma and Granddad gave wonderful talks at the baptism. It was such a wonderful day. We thought we were going to be late due to her brother Bri. He was outside playing and saw a few of his friends and went off with them without telling anyone but Lizzy. So we were out searching the neighborhood for him and finally found him and made it on time.

The kids had a great visit with nana and granddad. We just wish we could see them more.

So Caty-lynne love to decorate cakes, so for her birthday every year she wants to make the cake and decorate it with me. I am not good at it at all but we have done it twice now and I don't seem to be getting better, but she loves it so I am sure we will keep doing it for years to come. This year the cake looked ok but it tasted soooo good! It is hard to believe that we now have two kids that are baptized. Caty we are so proud of the choices you have made and that you were baptized. I know that it was a very special day for you and your dad. You will always remember this day and will hold it close to your heart. We love you and are so glad to have you as our daughter. What a wonderful little girl you are.

So lastly I wanted to show the before and after of Bri after he cut his hair. He decided that he wanted to grow his hair out and I let him. After months of growing he realized he was sick of having to get up and do his hair because if he didn't then it would look like the picture below. So he decided to cut it and boy does it look so much better short. I thought I would put this up so he would always have a picture to remind him of that. Well that should catch me up for know. Oh yea to share a Lizzy moment, our home teachers were over and after they had been here for a while Lizzy looks up at them and says "oh would you please go home now" I was not sure what to say to that. I wanted to laugh but was not sure if I could. Luckly the home teacher both started laughing so we were able to join in. I swear you never know what is going to come out of her mouth. Oh yea one more thing, Bri had his pine wood derby race for cub scouts and this is the car he made with his dad. If did not win but he had fun making it with his dad. So hopefully I will be able to keep up better on our blog so I can continue to make blog books for our family.

Finishing Up 2010 Blog!!!

Well I am trying to finish up 2010 Blog so I can print off our family blog book. I realized I never put any pictures from Brian's half iron man race he did in September up in Williamsburg, Va. Not that I had very many pictures but I did get these two as he was finishing the race. My parents came with us to cheer on Brian at the race. His swim took about 50 min., the bike 3hrs, and the run 2hrs and 45min. for a total race time of 6hrs and 42min. We were so proud of him. He said he drank gallons of fluids and still did not pee until the next day. He did manage to make it out of bed to go to dinner that night to celebrate papa's birthday. What a great memory we all got to share together. After the race we toured the Jamestown settlement. We also road the ferry over to Williamsburg and that was exciting for the kids as well.

I'm sure you can tell Bri does not look happy in this picture. That is because he had just gotten in trouble and was forced to be in the picture. Oh Happy Days!!!

In November we had our family pictures taken at farm near by our house in Summerfield. They turned out pretty good. The ones of the kids turned out much better than the family picture but even that one was not bad.












For Christmas this year we stayed home and enjoyed Christmas here in Summerfield for the first time. The week before Christmas Nana came to visit and we all enjoyed that. We had not seen her since June and that was a long time without Nana. For Christmas we had Christmas eve at my parents and went to Mandy's for a delicious brunch on Christmas morning. We then had the family over here for Christmas dinner. Brian had to work on Christmas but did not have to go in until that night. What a great Christmas and wonderful time to spend with family. We even had a white Christmas this year. It was snowing in the morning and lasted all day. The kids were able to go out and enjoy the snow even though they had no snow shoes or snow pants. This meant lots of clothes changing throughout the day. Well 2010 turned out to be a pretty good year but lets hope 2011 is even better!

October 2010

Well October has come and gone so fast this year. I can't believe we are into the first week of November. The kids had a blast trick or treating this year. On Saturday night we went to the church for trunk or treating. Lizzy wanted to be Princess Ariel for halloween this year. So she put on her costume for church and loved it. Well on halloween I told her to go and get her Ariel costume and her reply was mom I already wore that costume last night, I can't wear it again. So she went up to her tub of dress up cloths and picked out a Bride dress and was that on halloween. I can only imagine that this will only get worse with age. She always keeps us laughing here. When out trick or treating at one person's house they gave out one piece of candy and she looks at Michael and say only one piece really. Of course the lady was still standing there to hear. At another house she sees the lady approaching the door with bags of pretzels and yells OH PRETZELS! The other day we were in line to pick up the kids from school it started to hail and I said look lizzy it is hailing. She ask what hail was so I told her and then she looked out the window and says oh HELL. I'm not sure who laughed first Brian or me. I then tried to correct her but she was unable to see the difference between the two words.

We went and got family pictures taken yesterday. Hopefully they will turn out good. The kids looked so cute and they did really good at the farm we went to take the pictures. We will get the disk tomorrow and see how they turned out. I had to throw in these pictures of Carleigh I took this morning before church. She looked so cute I could not resist putting them in.

Well the girls just finished up there soccer season and it went great. Bri is playing flag football and is doing great. His season just ended yesterday but they have there tournament starting this saturday. He will start basketball in about 2 weeks so that will be fun as well.

The Girls!

These are a few pictures I took of the girls this morning before school. Caty-lynne had pictures today and she got up bright and early to make sure she got her hair done and looked great. This was a surprise because it is so not Caty-lynne to want to have her hair done or even care about her hair. She even took a brush to school and lip gloss to put on right before her picture. I would have never believed it if I was not her to see it. I guess she is growing up and getting girly on me. She looked very pretty and I'm sure the pictures will turn out great. Bri on the other hand could have cared less that it was picture day. He did at least wear what I had picked out with no argument. Lizzy and Carleigh just wanted to be in some pictures as well. I found them watching tv like this. Carleigh coping Lizzy, I thought it was pretty cute.

Women's Only Run for Breast Cancer

This morning Lizzy, my mom, Mandy(sister) and I participated in a 5k run/walk for breast cancer. Lizzy did the girls run which was 400 yards. She did great! She was so excited to do it and loved the pink shirt she got and the medal as well. It was a great morning, perfect weather and lots of wonderful people. Caty-lynne wanted to do the girls run as well but you had to be under 7 and she did not want to do the 5k. I told her she could walk with my mom and mandy and at first she said yes. I then told her that she could only do it if she would not complain the whole time to them. She then looked at me and said no I do not want to do it then. Caty-lynne is known for always complaining about something. Whether it be her socks, shoes, pants, shirt or the weather. We are trying to teach her how to be more positive. I mean she has the best example, me that is. I guess that is something we all need to work on. Well it was a great day, helping raise money for a wonderful cause that has special meaning to us here in our family

Lizzy's Birthday

Well I can't believe it Lizzy turned 5 yesterday. She is growing up so fast. She is now in pre-school 5 days a week from 9-1 and is loving it. Yesterday she got up very early to open some presents, went to school, went and got her ears pierced and followed all that with dinner, cake and more presents. She loaded up this year. I think her favorite gift was her remote control strawberry shortcake car. She has been asking for it for a long time and in fact when she made her wish blowing out the candles that is what her wish was for.

In this picture of Carleigh she has on a Ariel necklace lizzy got and when you press the button it has Ariel singing. So Carleigh would put it on and just open her mouth so it was like she was the one singing. It was very funny to watch. We started potty training Carleigh this week. She is 20 months so a little older than her siblings were. She is doing good, I think it is because she gets candy if she goes on the potty and she loves candy better than anyone.

Well back to Lizzy she had a great little family party. She wanted tacos but we had to go to Taco Bell with the play place to eat and then we came home for cake and presents. She had a princess cake and the majority of her presents had something with princess on them. She truly is our little princess. In fact yesterday every time she wanted something she would say it is my Birthday and that means I get want ever I want. She then ask since I am 5 does that mean I can have candy for breakfast everyday. No lizzy you can't, well I can today because it is my Birthday! She also believes that when Carleigh goes potty she should get candy as well if she is in there cheering for Carleigh. Her response was I was in there helping her so I need it to.

Lizzy is such a sweet loving little girl and we are so lucky to have her in our family. We love you Lizzy and are glad you had a great Birthday.