Emily's 5th birthday

 

How old are you?    four, actually five

 

What's your name?    Emily Anne

 

What did you like about your birthday?    Getting my rockstar book

 

Did you like anything else?    I liked my game.  My princess game.

 

What is your favorite color?     Pink, uh every single color is my favorite color.

 

What did you want for your birthday?     I really wanted Barbie, uh, actually books.

 

What are you exctied about being five?     Going to kindergarten and getting gold stickers.

 

What can you tell me about your family?     My favorite thing about my family is playing.  Actually, having family home evening with them. 

 

What do you like about your brother and sister?     Thay share each others love.  I like playing with them.

 

What do you like about Daddy?     Daddy's nice and he loves us, and I am done.

 

What do you like about Mommy?    What I like about Mom is she's nice and she loves us.

 

That's exactly what you said about Daddy!     Well, you guys are both the same!  You are nice and you love us!!   Now write, "I am done!".

 

 

Emily turned five last month.  I can't believe how big she is getting and that we are getting ready for her to start school next year!  I love how much love for life she has.  This girl wants to have fun and play all day long.  (In fact she complained most of her birthday about not having a party, or cousins or friends over, etc.  By the afternoon I was very tired of telling her that we were not having a party this year.)  I love that she still says a few words wrong.  Bery instead of very, sompfing instead of something, uhman instead of human, ooze instead of use (or oosually instead of usually;  ooseful instead of useful).  Emily loves to help me cook and got a cook book and some easy bake oven things for her birthday that we have already used several times.  Emily loves spending one on one time with us.  She also loves making crafts.  She loves to play with other girls and idolizes her older cousins, Malia and Ellie, who are Max's age.  Boys in general are tolerated and will do in a pinch if no girls are available to play, but they are not her first choice of playmates. 

 

I substituted in her primary class several months ago and Emily got to stick pictures on the board of the kids who were there that day.  She put herself up first and then kept sliding all of the boys over to the other side of the chalkboard until she got to her friend Kealia whose picture was allowed to go up next to Emily's picture.  (Their class is mostly boys.)

 

She still loves dresses and skirts, but no longer refused to wear pants and shorts.  She is definitely a girly girl and loves all things pink, purple, sparkly, twirly, etc.  We just love our little Goosey Girl!!  Happy 5th Birthday Emily!

As you wish

Max and Emily's conversation in the car last week:

"Max, can we watch Princess Buttercup today?"

Max, in a whispery voice: "As you wish."

New Landscaping

I guess the universe has decided that it is time for us to do some new landscaping in our front yard. This is what our house looked like this morning after about 6 hours of very intense wind. I'd say we woke up to it, but there wasn't much sleeping going on at our house last night as we listened to the wind, occasionally hearing stuff hit our house. (I'm pretty sure we were hearing our neighbor's roof shingles.)

We lost all four of our trees in the front yard, including the enormous pine tree, and our little apple tree in the back yard.

As you can see, the pine tree also took out half the flower bed, a bunch of grass and tore up three sprinkler lines when it went down.

This is how it looked this afternoon after our wonderful neighbors helped us cut up the trees so that we and our next door neighbors could access our garages. We are so grateful that the trees didn't damage our home and that we live in a place were people look out for each other. There was a group of men and teenage boys with chain saws going around our neighborhood helping clear up fallen trees all day long. Our neighborhood looks pretty bad with trees and fences down all over the place and blown off shingles and debris everywhere.

I'm a little sad at how drastically our yard has changed in the last 24 hours. At least I won't have to rake up pine needles any more, and I can plant a tree that I like in place of that big pine tree.

Max: "Mom, have I been through a big change?"

Me: "What are you talking about?"

Max: "You know, metamorphosis."

One down....

...and a whole mouthful to go!

Jane at 15 months

(This picture is actually a few months old, but she looks so cute in it I had to put it up.)

Things Jane loves right now:

Shoes: She loves to have you put them on her feet and she loves to bring you your shoes and then wait for you to put them on. We try to hide them from her, but she's a pretty smart little girl and will bring them to you again if you don't hide them well enough.

Peek-a-Boo: This is her favorite game to play. The more you can startle her the funnier she thinks it is. I just love those deep baby belly laughs!

Her Belly Button: Jane loves to show off her belly button, and loves to have it poked. She'll even help you poke her belly button if she thinks you aren't poking it hard enough or enough times.

Dancing: Jane loves bouncing herself up and down on her legs to the music and "running" around the room while her siblings dance. She also loves it when you dance with her in your arms and will bounce in your arms squealing in delight.

Swinging: This girl loves to swing and can already use a big swing.

Being With the Family: Jane loves to be part of whatever is going on around the house. She loves her big brother and sister, loves to dance with them and to play in the play kitchen with them.

Her Thumb: I don't know what it is with our kids and their thumbs, but all three of them have been thumb suckers. Jane also loves to rub her hair while she sucks her thumb. Maybe she picked it up from Emily, who loves to twirl her hair while she sucks her thumb. (It makes a funny sight in the morning while I'm fixing the girls breakfast.)



One thing Jane still doesn't love is snuggling, but I still try to get her to snuggle with me several times a day. I am determined to turn her into a snuggler. This little girl definitely has her moments of fussiness, but on the whole she is such a sweet and pleasant baby and really just brings so much joy into our home. What did we ever do without our Baby Jane? I am so excited to see her little personality really come out this next year.

15 month stats:
weight - 25 1/2 lbs. (85%)
height - 33 1/2 in. (99%)
head - 18 1/2 in. (87%)

Over the last 7 months........

Jeff, Jane, and I went to Washington DC to visit Jeff's parents before they came home from their mission. (We also got to spend a day walking around New York City.)

We celebrated Easter and Jane just kept getting cuter!

I ran the Dirty Dash with my brother, his fiance, my sister, and my mom.

My brother got married, and we are so excited to be able to officially claim Jessica as family!
(I made four flower girl dresses, and they turned out so beautiful.)

My Dad turned the big 60 and we had a very fun party for him at our house.

Jane turned one year old, and started walking two months later.

Max learned to ride a bike.

We went to Bear Lake with Jeff's family and had so much fun in spite of the mice and bat in our cabin. (Actually, Sherry's reaction to the mice was half of the fun!)

Max started kindergarten and has loved it from day one.
(I guess I didn't need to worry so much last year!)

And we carved pumpkins and celebrated Halloween, which involved more sewing.

Now we are getting excited for the holidays and LOVING the fact that my sister just moved back to Utah and is only minutes away instead of a 12 hour drive. Max is on the verge of loosing his first tooth and I am not so excited that he is growing up so fast! (Too many big milestones in too short of a time!) And I'm hoping that maybe I will finally be able to stick with blogging again, although I don't promise anything. Having three kids has limited what I can get done in a day, although we would take Jane over the extras any day, she brings so much love and joy into our home. I am constantly looking at my little brood of children and feel so happy and content with our little family right now. We are definitely blessed!!