December...part 1

I have been avoiding all my December pictures like the plague.  Its time to finally post them.  As I was going through them, I realized there were like 465 pictures all taken in December.  This may call for 2 separate posts.

This was too funny and memorable not to post.  Braiden's first infant care project for 9th grade Teen Living class...a 5lb bag of flour with strict instructions (If only the real ones came with instructions).  All I know is that I am pretty sure little "Shorty" died in the first 24 hours.  She had no chance.

Christmas decorating in Grandma's basement.  We did what we could with our little space and the kids had fun doing it, as always, even though it was with one tiny little box of Christmas decorations.

Mother nature played a bit of a prank on us in December of 2013.  On the 5th of December it snowed in St George...and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed.  By 6pm that day, there was like 8 inches of slush all over the roads with no plow or shovel in sight....anywhere!  Nobody owns a snow shovel in St George.  Why would they?  It was nuts!!  People all over the roads, sliding backwards down hills, church was cancelled and people everywhere were SNOWED IN!!  It was insane and quite memorable. So much for moving away from the snow...although the 75 degree weather in January more than made up for it. 

Paige had her one and only dance concert with The Vault in December.  The Vault has kind of a different philosophy about doing dance performances where they do these concerts to raise money for a charitable cause rather than having the parents spend tons of money on costumes.  I really loved The Vault.  I hope more studios follow in their footsteps.

Paige and I discovered the Rainbow Loom in December as a favorite past-time.  We spent quite a bit of time watching YouTube videos to learn how to do these things.  Its was fun but I am pretty sure I pulled out a couple fists full of hair. We ended making lots of them to give away as gifts. It became somewhat therapeutic.

December 20th I went to my company Christmas party at La Caille. Eric couldn't go so Amy was my hot date for the evening.  It was a blast complete with photo booth, yummy food and all the Shirley Temples we could drink. Verisk really outdid themselves in 2013.  

Of course the highlight of the evening was that I was awarded the Verisk Health Q4 Outstanding Employee Contribution Award.  It was nice to be recognized.  I work for a great company that takes good care of its employees.

The next week we had yet another Christmas Party in the St George office (I got to double dip).

Delaney and the whole fam met us at Chili's for a little Christmas lunch. 

I just love this picture.  See the remnants of the snow storm?  That was about 2 weeks later.  A little rain storm eventually washed it all away.  Aren't my kiddos cute?

Insanity and June'

I have been avoiding this for a while because I knew that trying to convey appropriately how crazy JUNE 2013 was for our family is near impossible just through pictures. I even considered skipping it but I started looking through my pictures and immediately I changed my mind.

Picture this if you will.  In 30 short days, this is what we made it through:

• End of school, beginning of summer, which means finding someone to watch the kids full-time.
• Paige's birthday and party (AKA I lose my mind)
• Week-long family vacation to California 
• Father's Day
• Trek for Braiden
• Football camp for Braiden
• Paige's dance recital
• Paige's Baptism
• Max's Birthday
• Cameron's Pre-K graduation
• Last day of Eric's job
• Move mom out of her house (where we were living) 
• Move ourselves to St George
• I'm certain I am forgetting something because this list looks way too short.

Anyway, you get it.  June was insane but so many good things happened. How could I even think about not blogging it?  June was awesome, great, happy, tiring, stressful, such a blessing and, oh boy, am I glad we made it.   Here goes.

We will start with Paige...June belongs to Paige.  I'm sorry Max, but really, even though you were born in June, you will have to take July.  June is all about Paige and there isn't much I can do about it.

This year, on June 6th, Paige turned 8.  What?!?!  What the heck just happened?  8 years just flashed before my eyes.  I can remember the day she was born like it was yesterday...well, I can remember the parts where I WASN'T drugged up anyway.  The story I always tell her about the day she was born highlights the fact that after being in labor with her for about 14 hours, all I wanted (after holding her for a brief moment) was FOOD!  It was about 10pm and luckily there was a Subway in the hospital.  I am pretty sure I inhaled it...foot long down in about 5 minutes...no joke. Then I passed out. She loves that story.  She is the lucky one that had an audience of 5 people (not including Eric and my doctor) to welcome her into the world.  

Paige is my sweetheart.  She has always has the coolest, calmest demeanor.  When she is TRYING to throw a tantrum, it just ends up being funny, because she doesn't know how to be a brat (well, she is slowly learning that skill, but mostly, she can't get the tantrum thing quite right).  She has her Daddy wrapped around her little finger and all she has to do is turn her smile upside down and bat her big blue eyes...and her wish is his command.  Oh boy.  I guess this is what comes when she is the only girl with 3 brothers.  

She hates getting her hair brushed, taking a bath, waking up, putting on earrings, and doing dishes. She LOVES to draw, My Little Pony, leave sweet little notes all over the house for the entire family, candy, taking care of her baby brother Max, dancing, reading with Daddy, and playing with Cameron and her cousins.

I keep telling people that I will only do a full-blown party for my kids every other year, but when it comes to Paige, thats a full-blown lie.  She has had a party pretty-much every year of her life.  I love doing it (even though Eric wants to commit me after every one) and I will likely continue to do it for the rest of her life...although she may not care about it so much after age 30 or so.  

This year's festivities were all about Cheer leading.  I am not sure where that idea sprung from but it turned out to be great.  I asked Braiden's little cheer leader friends to come over and teach the girls some simple cheers and it was a HIT!  They were so cool and the girls loved it.

From hand-made pom-poms and ponytails to eye-candy, we were DECKED OUT!  We're HERE TO CHEER!

They ate nachos, root-beer floats, and cupcakes then jumped on the tiny trampoline. 

Paige's Dance Recital

June 15, 2013

Jazz'n Place Junior Hip-hop & Mini-stars

More June to come.

   

Do you remember December?

So I posted Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in real time (5 or so months ago..hehe) but here is the rest of December 2012.  

Ya, so in December...it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.

This is the only picture I took on New Years...so there you go.  Happy New Year.

And, we cant forget Decembers favorite randoms....I especially love the one of Max (top middle).  That's the "give it to me or I will cut you." look that a 18 month old can be so good at.  Oh and lets not forget Braiden (upper right)..really, I don't know.

Paige, The Dancing Candy Cane

Dance, Dance, Dance!!

The Little Fairy Princess

Paige recently had her dance recital so we had to try out the spongy curlers for the first time. Paige's hair has grown like crazy over the last few months so I decided that I need to get a little more adventurous with it. The spongy curlers were great. They bring back all sorts of memories of going to bed with curlers in my hair every Saturday night so I could have gorgeous hair for church.

Paige's costume for her dance recital was so cute and will most definitely be recycled for Halloween this year. She was so cute with her make-up all done and glittering head to toe.

Paige has lots of little friends that go to the same dance studio as she does. They are all so cute together. These two have known each other since they were born and her older brother is Braiden's best buddy. Now that's a recipe for life-long friends!

Can you Throwdown??

Learn the Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown with me!!

Pinewood Derbys and Ballerinas!

Last week proved to be a busy one between all the adtivities we attended to with the kids and trying to get everyone healthy before we leave for Orlando next week.

Braiden had his second Pinewood Derby Race and did very well but mostly just had a good time making his car and racing his friends. As you can see they are a very well behaved bunch. Ha.
Braiden's car is the second one from the closer end. It had lightning bolts on it and weighed EXACTLY 5oz.
Braiden ended up winning the Gold Medal for his Den. This is something like 4th place I think. Anywho, he did great and had a good time.
I only posted this pic because Braiden begged me to. He thinks its hilarious that he snuck my camera and took this of himself.
So with our trip to Orlando coming up and my stress that something will happen to prevent us from having a good time I think I have managed to jinx us. Sure enough Paige came down with the double ear infection and strep throat on Friday when her dance recital was on Saturday. Needless to say she was in no mood to be dancing so I ended up having to bribe her with a Barbie. I actually had this Barbie to give to her on her birthday which is June 6th but I caved and gave it to her early. Guess what?! It worked! She smiled happy for the rest of the day and danced like a super star.

Ok so maybe not a Super Star exactly but she danced like a super 2 year old..
Ok so maybe she didn't really dance much but hey she got up on stage! Thank goodness she couldn't spot me because I am sure she would have gone running off the stage to me or Eric.
She got her flowers at the end of her performance and proceeded to climb the stairs and run around crazy in true 2 year old form.

So she isn't a Prima Ballerina but hey, she sure is cute anyway!!