Sunday, September 30, 2012

Our snippets

Whoosh, it's been a busy month!  Nothing like three kids in soccer, three in 4-H, one in choir and one in piano to keep a whole family busy.  Plus, Abigail and Seth are always busy, in an unorganized sense.  My camera is still broken, I think we may have to replace it, but that might be awhile.  Sigh.  But with five kids there's always something to make me giggle. 

We love the Kid History videos, and they put out what they call Kid Snippets:
So here is our snippets:

Today Seth told me that I'm a "good maker."  Love the compliment, but it isn't quite as high praise when he told me that because I gave him a bowl of Top Ramen.

Abby loves to dance.  Any music comes on, whether car commercial or Joseph humming and she'll start to shake her hips.  She loves the magnet toy we got her for her birthday.  It's shaped like a barn with animals that you match front and back to make it say the animal sound.  It also plays little ditties that Abigail will listen to over and over again.  Today she was dancing to it and Farris said "She dances like a penguin!"  And, you know, she really does.

Primary program today!  Always love that.  Highlights:  Seth forgot to go up with his class (so did another girl.  Those unpredictable sunbeams).  So his teacher led the class up, they all did their parts, they sat down and then the pianist leaned over, whispered to the teacher, and she looked around, grabbed Seth and the other little girl and they gave their parts. I thought he was too nervous to stand up, but no, just off in Sethy Boy Land.  Another one:  Joseph turning around to give his friend a high five when the friend sat down after delivering his part.  Another one that didn't happen on the stand:  Abigail taking off from our pew and making it across the isle.  She was picked up  and snuggled and then she ran back to me with her "I'm so brave!" grin. 

We also went to the Piano Guys concert last weekend. It was free at the park, and it was Holy Cow stuffed with people. I haven't heard an official number, but I'm sure it was at least 4500. We got there plenty early (like three hours early) and saved good seats and the kids are still talking about it. This is one of my favorite songs they do:


All their stuff on Youtube is amazing.  The kids love Cello Wars. 

Our Regional area for church had a 5K or 1 Mile fun run a couple weekends ago.  Chad and Tarilynn and a couple of their kids came down to run it with us.  Caleb was so excited to do the mile, he wants to be an Olympic runner.  He's pretty determined, so I guess we'll see in about 15 years.  Joseph was excited too, he ran with Farris and talked the whole way.  When I told him that his dad told me that, he said, "Yep, I'm a talker."  Boy howdy.  I did the 5K with Tarilynn.  I almost died.  OK, not really, but I was very, very tired.  I haven't been running much since the 4th of July, but I've been doing other things, including Zumba.  I guess that doesn't cut it.  Farris took first place, though, and Chad, Reid and Tarilynn all placed well.  I beat the grandpa that was running with his 5 year old grandson.  YESSSS!

Our garden kicked in and we've been doing lots of tomatoes and beans, and pears and apples from neighbors and the Farmer's Market.  Yummy.  We got three watermelons from our garden this year!! We've never been able to get any to turn out, but two of the them were really good, one so-so.  Yum. Our raspberries did better this year than ever before.  Abby was fun to watch pick the berries.  She just goes out leans under a branch with her mouth and chews it right off the vine.  We're still working on her picking only the red ones, not the white ones.  We also got a lot of grapes.  The birds ate about half of the them, but we still had plenty.  So good. 

On Wednesday night we were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner when a cop car raced by and stopped in front of a house a couple doors down and across.  Then a fire engine.  Then another one, and a few minutes later another one.  Luckily, everything turned out well, it was a grease fire in the kitchen and a few neighbors all came together to help put it out and comfort the couple that lives there.  Caleb, so sweet, was standing in the front yard before we really knew what was going on, and he says, "Mom, I'm going to say a prayer for them."  and he turns around and walks into the house to do that.  Those are the best mom moments.

Friday, August 24, 2012

One Big Party for Two Big Girls

(This is the third blog post for today.  And I still have another one I need to do to catch up. Craziness)

48 hours of party!  Well, we didn't hit that exactly, but we did have a lot of fun.  Like I said in Felicity's post, we left for Idaho on her birthday, Friday.  We spent the night at Grandma's house and then on Saturday we went to the park at the Twin Falls for a picnic/birthday party/photo shoot spectacular. Lots of cameras going off.  Which led to an unfortunate accident with our camera: Seth's head:1, our camera: 0.  Seth was fine, he has a hard head, but my camera is out. 
But back to the party.

My family brought 11 balloons, 10 for Felicity and 1 for Abigail.  Abby loved them, until she got all tangled up in the balloon strings.  But she loves the squishiness of balloons and would giggle and squeeze and kiss the balloons.  Very cute. 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 Joseph and Michael!!  So happy together.
 


 We had pizza and then PRESENTS.  Felicity's birthday is first so she opened first.  Surrounded by cousins who tried to help.  Thank you to all you who gave her wonderful things. She was very excited and couldn't wait to get home to try everything out.
 
 
Abby had fun opening presents, she did get a little bugged by Seth trying to help.  That rubber ducky was so cute. 

 Playground ball was a hit, at the party and after.  That is one of the words she says now.  (the list includes Daddy, doggy, ball, and bye-bye.  She doesn't get all of the sounds in the words, but enough that you know what she means)




Lots of fun things!

 Abby loved the little doll grandma got her and had to give it a good squeeze.
 

More presents!
 
Felicity's cake.  She wanted to decorate it this year, so we made fondant in a lot of bright colors, and her and her cousin cut out shapes.  Then we frosted it (with good frosting, not fondant) green to look like grass and she put in as many animals as she could.
 
For Abby's cake Lissy helped me make flowers out of fondant. 

Lighting the candles.

 The first bite Abigail got was the fondant.  That was a mistake 'cause she wasn't about to eat any more of that cake.
She kept looking at us like, "You really want me to eat this stuff??"

I love this expression.  She does it all the time and makes a funny little whoo sound to go with it.

At this point, she knew she didn't want to eat it even though we kept trying to get her to taste it, but she thought she'd play in it a little.
 
 Now she's getting bored and wants to finish this thing that her parents are forcing her to do.
 

 Now we're done.  Now they won't make me eat it.
 
Finishing it with style.

 Ohhhh, look at mom, she's all clean...
 Do you think I should...
 
Ohhh, yeah, here I come!

 Getting my game face on.
 
 
All over mom's clean shorts...hee-hee!
 
Ha ha, I got her!


Abby, Abby, Abby.  My dirty little girl who doesn't like cake.  But she did love the ice cream.  And she got her first box of Grandpa Milk.

Not a lampshade, but a corky kind of hat.

Happy with the party.

But I don't think she's a big fan of cake.
 
We had a great party for the girls and lots of fun.  Then on Monday we went to Hagerman.  Hagerman is this great little town that has lots of (the sign says thousands, but...) hot springs so a couple hot spring pools are around town.  There's even a place that raises alligators.  Not sure why you would want to raise alligators in Idaho, but to each his own.  We were going to go to Sligers, but they are closed on Monday--who knew?-so we went to Banberrys, which is called Thousand Springs now.  We were in the pool for three hours and all the kids had a blast and were so tired on the way home. 
 
We stayed in Idaho the next week (mostly) and came home on Saturday.  We had a wonderful time.  I really like going to my home ward, it's so good to see so many people I grew up with.  Farris spent Monday and Tuesday up in the mountains with my Dad getting wood for the winter and I helped mom clean out an area in the basement so she could get down some new carpet and start rearranging.  By the way, if anyone wants a pool table with a ping pong tabletop, let me know my Mom wants to get rid of one.  But you might have to go to Idaho to pick it up.  Anyway, we headed over to Burley to spend time with farris' family on Wednesday, including going to the county fair.  Fun!  Then on Friday Farris' nephew got married to a sweet girl in the Salt Lake temple.  We went to the sealing and the wedding brunch and then back to Idaho for the reception.  It was wonderful to spend time with so much of our family and now we've got our Family Fix until the holidays when we get out of school  Unless anyone wants to come visit...we're always open!

Abigail's First Birthday

What a cutie!  Yes, this post is going to be a brag post.  'Cause she's just adorable.  Her huge personality is adorable, too.  She loves to giggle and smile and she's even learned how to tease a little.  She's always on the move, except right now she's fast asleep after a long morning of play, play, play.  She loves to play peek-a-boo and thinks it's hilarious that mom can't find her under the blanket.  It's fun to watch her reactions at stores to strangers, she'll either give them a perfect poker face no matter how they try to coax a smile or she lights up and flirts with them.   Don't worry if she gives you a crusty look, though, it's more about her mood and if her tummy is full and her sleep ratio is good than if she likes you or not.  Mostly she's a sunny baby that sleeps all night long and is always game for something new.  Her favorite things?  Animals delight her and she doesn't even mind the licking from dogs.  Water to swim in, she always is trying to get into someone else's bathwater and when we go to a pool she splashes with the best of them.  She's been such fun and a real blessing.
 
I took a picture of her every month (mostly on her monthly birthday) on the same blanket with her rabbit stuffed animal (she was born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit).  Well, I took one every month but her 12 month because we had an incident with the camera before I could get that one.  And I took one on her second month, but it's stuck in a flashdrive that won't open.  I'm planning on taking it to a computer store to see if we can get it fixed.  Any suggestions on a good place?
So here she is, growing every month:

NEWBORN
We took this picture right when we got home from the hospital, she didn't even have a name at this point.

1ST MONTH
She hardly ever took a binky, this is one of the few pictures with one. 
Very different from our Binky Boy Seth.

 
3RD MONTH
 
 
 4TH MONTH


5TH MONTH
 

6TH MONTH
Whoosh, al the sudden she's moving!
 

7TH MONTH


8TH MONTH
Such a big change in one month!


9TH MONTH
 
 

 10TH MONTH
 
 
 11TH MONTH
 
 
Hopefully we'll get the camera fixed so we can get a picture of her in all her one year old sunshineiness.
 
We did have my sister take a One Year Picture of her.  My grandpa was a photographer and he took pictures of all the granddaughters on their first birthday. Me and my sisters all hung above the piano for so long!  Since he passed away when I was little, Nicki took over the family photography and all the great granddaughters in our family have special pictures now, too.   
We took these on her birthday at the party at the Twin Falls.  She loved getting her picture taken, except for that pesky flower Mommy kept putting in her hair.  Still, they turned out so cute, thanks a ton, Nicki! 



 Sisters!
 
 In this one, she was trying to put that flower back in her hair.  She managed to blance it on her shoulder and thought it was funny that we were all laughing.
 
Love that cute little face! 
Happy first birthday Abigail!