December

Our December from my phone

Decorating our own stockings this year.

My kids don't like hot chocolate. Its sad really, so we enjoy nice cold chocolate milk in our christmas mugs instead. And lots of bubbles!

Making Christmas trees with all the cousins on a quick weekend trip to Boise we took.

Hunter's preschool program. Probably one of the cutest things I've ever seen. He sang all the songs and was a great lamb in one of them.

A fun Christmas story hr.

I keep texting Weston pictures of stuff I want for christmas. Hint, hint babe!

Lots of green and red play dough. They should make Christmas flavored kool aid so my play dough smells like the Christmas scents instead of lime.

Haylee's Christmas choir concert. She has had so much fun being in a choir and I loved watching her perform!!

Haylee named our elf Jack and Hunter named him buddy. So Jack/Buddy has been very silly this year. Haylee likes to call him a little rascal.

December!

We are in full swing Christmas mode. All what we have this year for decor is a tree and dollar store stockings. Today I noticed on our picture new testament scriptures that there is a picture of baby Jesus so we added that to our decor too and now it's complete! And it's fabulous. So much less stress. Of course I miss all my decorations but next year when we are moved into a home and have all of our stuff back we'll go crazy decorating again. This year it's so fun because Haylee cannot read enough. She reads everything so she is reading us the christmas story out of the scriptures every night. Brings such a sweet spirit into our home. And we took the kids to see the mall santa. Haylee tells me that the mall santa's are just helpers but not the real Santa. The real Santa is too busy. I told her well sometimes the real Santa has to be at the mall because the helpers are busy too. After we visited him in the mall we figured out that the real Santa is at our mall! And it was exciting!! He was totally the real deal. So so sweet with the kids and very Jolly. We went to a different mall a few days later and this one was for sure just a helper Haylee told me. I agreed with her 100%.

haylee is 7

I'm usually not this behind on blogging but Haylee's birthday celebration was a couple weeks ago and here's the pictures to show for it! She got spoiled at home in the morning, at school and at her party. Can't believe she is 7. It still seems hard to say. It's too old for me and I still think of her as a little 3 yr old nervous to go to preschool.

Happy Birthday to my 7 year old!

I have been so blessed in my life. Countless blessings have been poured upon me. Lots of which I probably don't even know about. But I can say the biggest blessing I have received and am so thankful for every single day is the blessing I received straight from Heaven 7 years ago today. It made me a mom! I can remember so clearly when sweet Heavenly angels put one of Heavenly Father's strongest, sweetest spirits directly into my arms.

I hope we all feel this way about our children but I really don't know what I did to deserve Heavenly Father to entrust me with one of his best spirits. I guess he knew I needed her. Oh my sweet Haylee bug is so special and our whole family just loves her to pieces!

Haylee is so caring about others. In kindergarten there was a girl who was struggling. She came from a rough home life but Haylee loved this little girl. I have to be honest I was a little nervous about how much Haylee played with this little girl and how much time she spent with her. I was in the wrong. Of course, let Haylee teach me a lesson. At conferences her teacher told me with tears in hey eyes that Haylee is this girl's little angel. This little girl has started to blossom and her happiness level has changed drastically because of Haylee. Haylee always helped this girl with projects in school and reading. She would stay with her until her work was done. Her teacher continued to tell me that this little girl loved school because she got to spend time with Haylee.

Haylee has a memory like you would not believe. When she was two and a half I started reading her the articles of faith. Before she turned 3 she knew 11 articles of faith from straight memory. I would say what is number 7 or any number and she would repeat it back to me word for word. We had a fun summer doing that every night before bed together. I was amazed!

Haylee loves to pray for others. I love hearing her prayers because they kind of inspire me and remind me what prayers are all about. Sometimes when my faith is too weak I can rely on hers. The faith of a child is exactly what ours should be like. Often her prayers include her cousins. I'm pretty sure her cousins are her favorite people. She is happiest when her cousins are around!

This girl is soooo creative. I loved having her home before she started school because I loved all the games and things she came up with. Most mondays she would play sharing time. She always had smoothie shops in the bathtub, have hair bow stands, for every holiday she throws parties in her room with our family and they seriously are so fun. She decorates her whole room for us, has goodies bags, games, and music. Of course there are the standard games of shoe store, library, house, and ice cream stands. Last year at Christmas she came up with this fun idea to have a Christmas party for her friends. She wanted to go Christmas caroling with them. So we loaded up about 6 or 7 of her friends and went caroling around the neighborhood in the snow. It was so much fun and she planned the whole thing. I love how she is so kind to Hunter and always makes sure he is included. Hunter definitely misses her when she is at school. Even though he loves to tease her she is pretty patient with him.

We've moved a lot and she easily makes friends wherever she goes. She loves her friends and spending time with them. She misses them when we move. I'm always so proud of her for jumping right in and trying new things. She has done art classes, gymnastics, tap and ballet, hip hop, soccer, basketball, and now she is in her school choir.

I wish I knew how to be the perfect mom for her, I hope she will always know how much I love her and pray for help from the spirit every single night! Happy Birthday my cute heart girl! We love you!

The end of October!

For a week in a half it is complete chaos around here. With halloween school parties, church parties, library parties, class parties, Weston and I's birthdays, Halloween and in a couple of days Haylee's birthday, we feel like crazy people. And it seems to get worse every year. Lots of pictures, the fun begins with pumpkin carving and carmel apples.

Library story hr halloween party in costumes. They did the cutest parade around the library. So fun!

Here comes our birthday. I woke up to a decorated apartment, Very fun surprise from Weston. Later in the day it was my turn to spoil him for our birthday.

Birthday shopping.

Homemade birthday presents are the best.

So much fun playing in the balloons all day long

Major perk to living close to parents. They spoil you on your birthday. I was lucky enough to be able to go to breakfast with them on my birthday and then they spoiled me for my favorite birthday dinner! Every year for the past 8 years Weston and I have our classic picture of us blowing out our candles together!!

Ok, on to Halloween! We had a vampie and a power ranger this year. And they both stuck with their costumes for the whole month of October. We normally have a few changes but not this year. It was great! Haylee and Hunter have some nice friends in my parent's neighborhood. They were so excited to go trick or treating with them and they had a blast. The older boys are soooo nice to Hunter and always make sure he keeps up with them ok. Haylee has two little girls she loves to play with. They were literally running from house to house crazy kids!

Proof of their hard work halloween night!

Phew......ok we made it. Almost, Haylee's birthday is in a couple of days. She wants it to be big. Pictures to come soon I'm sure.