A LOT of Catch up......

Holy cow.... it has been way to long. A lot has happened over the past couple of months. Good and bad. We had a crazy busy Christmas. We got the keys to our new and first house on Christmas Eve and moved in 2 days later. We spent our whole break moving, unpacking, decorating.... and not relaxing or sleeping :) But we love it so much!! Then a month later at the end of January, my sweet brother-in-law suddenly passed away of a heart attack. It was the worst thing that could have happened. It was and has been incredibly hard for everyone, especially my amazing sister and her 3 young kids. She is strong and beautiful and I love her so very much.But life is moving on and things are getting better....
My little baby turned 1 (NO!!), Rex is coaching track, we are busy with school activities, church, yard work, birthdays and enjoying anytime that we can to hang out with family and friends. Here are just a few pictures of the past couple of months.... Enjoy!

                      All dressed up in Christmas church clothes.....told you these were old :)

We bought our first house! AHH! We love it so much! I can't believe it!

Yay!!

                           Eleanor is just too cute to not take tons of pictures of :) Macey too :)

Olivia turned 3! Of course we had to have a Frozen party.

 All my girls love Frozen and we are always listening to the soundtrack on full blast around here. So she got books and dolls to go along with the theme :)

                                                                   Her favorite doll.

Annie ran in her jog-a-thon this year again and did great!! 12 laps in 30 minutes and Macey ran the last 4 with her.

Easter pictures!! Eleanor wouldn't sit or stand still after church and was in need of a nap so she got to skip out on the individual shots.... Sweet Olivia

Pretty Macey

Pretty Annie. They all had braids that wrapped around the back of their head and ended up in a bun. SO cute!!

Our family photo! I love it! Even if baby is chewing on a plastic carrot, I'll take it! I love Easter and the remembrance of our Savior and his loving sacrifice for us. I love that my kids are learning and understanding about this amazing day and how it makes me want to be a better person and show my love and appreciation for my Savior even more.

 

ok, all caught up!

 

Annie b-day and family pictures!

My sweet Annie turned 7!! Really..... every time one of my girls has a birthday I have a mini panic attack. It is hard for me to believe that she was my first sweet tiny baby! What is going on? Why do they have to grow? Well, at least she is growing into a good kid. She is sweet and kind. Thoughtful of her sisters, VERY helpful, she is great with the baby, is always making cards for me and Rex, she loves school and friends and art and riding her bike. I love this girl and don't know where I would be without her!

Annie had a really fun birthday. She had a bunch of her little friends over for a movie party. They all wore the pj's, we had candy and popcorn and watched Monsters University. It was a blast! I had fun making the treats too!

We also attempted to take some family pictures for holiday cards and they turned out pretty good.....

 Starting off the morning with yummy donuts, milk and fruit salad

 Here are all the little girlies! They were so cute all lined up. I totally did this at my slumber parties as a kid!

Here are the popcorn cupcakes! Perfect for a movie party!

 My sweet Annie!

 Annie got her first manicure at a salon! It was so fun to go with her on a mom/daughter date and see her so happy :)

Here is my sweet family



 Macey

Annie

 Olivia

Sweet baby Eleanor....on the verge of tears :)

Me and my handsome husband..... All the kids cooperated really well and it went pretty smooth. We are really looking forward to Christmas and celebrating our Savior with family and friends!

Halloween Fun!!

We had so much fun on Halloween this year!! It was fun to dress up my girls and take them out trick or treating. They were so excited as they ran from house to house collecting their goodies. We had a jam packed day starting by helping at Annie's class party, then we went and visited Rex at work. All the secretaries love when the girls come visit so we went to show off their costumes! Next we went to our church Halloween party and then straight on to neighborhood trick or treating. It was a great day. All the girls did awesome and we came home with a ton of candy :)

The girls were all characters from Peter Pan.......

Olivia was Peter Pan. Oh my goodness, she was so cute! She loved her costume and kept on her little hat all night!!

Macey was Tinker Bell. She was so excited to wear makeup and wings....

and pom poms on her shoes! She had so much fun!

Annie was Tigerlilly and and was so happy when she got to wear her costume at school. She made a beautiful Tigerlilly.

And of course we have Baby Micheal. Oh Eleanor.....you are so adorable as a baby boy :) She was warm and cozy in her jammies, the perfect costume for a baby!

Here are my cute kids! I love that they all match and go together. I am kinda funny that way but I love having a costume theme. We had so much fun.....can't wait until next year!

Macey turned 5!

I love birthdays. They are so fun. Especially for my kids. I always ask them for a theme and this year Macey told me that she wanted a turtle party. I am not sure how she came up with it, but she was very clear that she wanted a turtle party. So... I went to work on coming up with different ideas. And after looking and thinking and being creative, we had ourselves a turtle party. It was so fun and everything was cute! Lots of green food and green treats and really cute cupcakes. Macey was very happy and she deserves it.... she is so sweet!

I always tell each of my girls that they are all special to me is some way and different from their sisters and I always tell Macey I love her so much because she was my biggest baby. I remember that day so clearly. The day my sweet Macey was born. She was perfect with nice chubby legs. Now she is in pre-school, learning to read, riding her scooter and bike like a pro, taking care of her younger sisters and she is my good eater. She eats all her food. I love her sweet face, beautiful curly soft hair and her little voice. I am so grateful that she is my big baby and is part of our family. I LOVE YOU Macey!!

Here she is with her turtle cake. Yes that is just a turtle toy that I found and stuck it on top, but it looks so cute!!

Turtle cupcakes. I love these. They turned out great!

Turtle shaped bread. The kids loved the bread with butter. We also had green grapes, green oreos, and chocolate dipped pretzels with green sprinkles.

Taking a swing at her pinata.....they did NOT have a turtle. But I don't blame them, it's kinda random.

All her little friends and cousins. We had so much fun! We played hot potato but instead of a potato we used a turtle stuffed animal. We played to the musical stylings of One Direction and when ever the music would stop, all the girls would still be singing. It was hilarious. 

Totally unrelated to any birthday stuff, this cute baby is crawling EVERYWHERE!! She is trying really hard right here to get that marker. I am pretty sure right after I took this she got stuck under our table. :)

A little Catch-up............

I know. It has been forever. I blame it all on our laptop that is 500 years old. It wasn't letting me load pictures or type anything. So I would try and try and then cry a little and try again. And then I gave up. Then my husband comes home from work and I tell him how much I want to blog and how much I miss it. He sits down at our desktop computer and after about 3 minutes he is loading all my summer pictures onto my blog. He is my hero.

So now I am really happy!! I can blog again! I missed it so much! So this post is my catch up post. The last little bit of wonderful summer in photos. Then I will be caught up and ready for the best time of the year. When all the fun holidays arrive. Oh yeah. 

The girls both took swimming lessons this summer. It was fun to watch them every morning. Macey loved the water. She was in the guppy class, which is the cutest swim class name....ever.

Annie loved her teacher and loved using the kick boards. She practices her head bobs in the tub :)

Rex worked a ton over the summer for ODF and was on a fire for 2 weeks! But he did squeeze in time to take his mountain bike club to Canada and ride downhill trails for 3 days. He was in heaven. He looks pretty good huh? I love this picture.....

My sweet baby trying solid food for the first time :) I love this face!!

We celebrated my birthday. My 30th birthday! Ahh..... it is weird saying I am not in my twenty's anymore. But that is ok. Now I feel so grown-up :) I had a great party with family and friends and my yummy chocolate brownie trifle that my sweet hubby makes me every year.

Are any of these presents for me?

Rex is the best dad. Seriously. I love him and I love this picture. I love his smile and how happy is is around our kids. Everyone says Eleanor looks like him. I think they are both cute.

Beautiful view off our porch.

Olivia loves playing on the kindle. She is so sweet and cute.......

Eating ice cream outside with cousins. These kids love each other and it makes me so happy!

Annie's first day of first grade. She loves school and is really doing good in her class. She is in a 1st/2nd grade blend and she fits right in!

 Macey started preschool and came home on the first day and said it was "the best day ever!"

We invited the cousins over and had a back to school dinner. The kids made crowns and got fun school supplies. We had dinner and talked about our theme for the year. It was such a great night and I can't wait to make it a tradition! 

Ok... that was the last bit of summer in a nut shell! Macey's 5th birthday is next!!

Independence Day!

Rex and Eleanor at the parade

What cute sisters!! They loved the parade and got lots of candy!

So tired.....

Olivia modeling the cute parade candy bags I made for the girls :)

Macey enjoying our yummy berry dessert to finish off the night right before fireworks!

Eleanlor looking SO cute playing on her belly!

 

We made chocolate covered pretzels to snack on too :)