Lucy turns 5!

Happy, Happy Birthday, Lucy! I know I always say stuff like this, but I can't believe Lucy is FIVE! I can't believe how big you are getting- and miraculously the magic number 5 has allowed you to do many things that you couldn't do before! Like: swim under water, not cry when someone makes you sad, and go to bed by yourself. I can see just how independent you are becoming. :(







We had a fun day! We checked Caleb out of school to go swimming at the aquatic center. Lucy's friends Sophia and Natalie joined us and we had so much fun! The kids were little fish and didn't seem to mind that it was cold enough to snow outside!

After the pool, we went to Sonic for lunch and then Lucy got to pick a movie to watch. We played with balloons and did party stuff until Daddy got home. Lucy picked pesto pasta for dinner! She opened presents (the favorite part of her day), and her face was pure delight with each thing. We had our neighbors and friends come over for princess cake and ice cream!

What a good day! We love you Lucy and can't wait to see what the year ahead brings!

Bryce Snowboarding

Bryce was on skis half the day, and boarded half the day. Here he is boarding (in green)

Ski Trip

Bryce and I went skiing together for the first time! It was so fun! I was a little rusty, but Bryce was patient. A lot of the time we were hanging out with the youth from our ward and their friends, but we had plenty of time to do some of the slopes together. It was FrEezInG ~ but so much fun!

Stawberry Jam, Anyone?

For anyone who doesn't know, Bryce is absolutely obsessed with homemade strawberry jam. He won't even eat store-bought jam from our refridgerater any more. Instead, he will persist on having homemade jam until I've finally heard enough about it and I just do it. And its not that I don't like making it (its really not that hard), I just can't make more than 2 or 3 batches at a time because I don't have the freezer room. Two batches of jam barely lasts any amount of time at our house, so this time I decided to make him quart-sized jars instead of the pints. Caleb saw Bryce get it out of the freezer the other night and exclaimed, "whoa! that's a lot of jam!" Indeed it is! Hopefully it will last a little longer . . .

Cookie Date

I started a new incentive with the kids to reward good behavior: Good Girl and Good Boy charts. If we have a good behavior that day, the older kids get a sticker on their chart (James got one if he didn't pee in his bed - but he's done with that so now its a good boy chart). Anyway, they fill up their chart and get an ice cream date with Mom! It's usually really good motivation for them, and I like the chance to take them out. James just finished his chart for the first time, and seeing as it is like 8 degrees here (!), we went to a new place called "Crumb and Get IT" to get cookies instead! Its a fun place where you choose your dough and your mix in and they make it right there for you, nice and warm. Then we went to Starbucks and shared a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate (way yummy! - thanks for the tip, Kyle!). It was so fun to be just me and him! The whole time we were eating our cookies, he kept breaking his cookie up in pieces and explaining to me which piece was Lucy's, Caleb's, and Daddy's. How generous! I kept telling him that he didn't HAVE to share, but he insisted.



This other picture is just my cute crawling Annabelle wearing a vest that I was wrapping up for a baby shower that Caleb insisted on trying on her!

A little Freaky!

Caleb had these googly eyes and gave them to Lucy and James yesterday. We were eating a snack at the table last night and i looked over to see James drinking from his cup with this strange eyeball looking back at me! The picture doesn't quite do the trick, but it totally weirded me out. The rest of the night he was going around trying to scare me with his floating eyeball (kind of reminded me of Mad Eye from HP!).

New Year's Eve

We spent the last week in Danville, PA with our friends, the Parkinsons. It was fun to see their new house and tour around their new town! The kids had a great time playing games, watching movies, building forts, playing in the snow, and whatever else it is that kids do. The adults had fun eating really good food (my pants really don't fit the same way they did when before we got there!), playing LOTs of fun games, talking, watching movies, shopping, and celebrating the new year together. I was planning on joining my sister, Kristen in the big apple to see the ball drop in person, but a big snow storm kept me from going. Luckily Kristen came to visit us the next day and it was sooooo great to see her! What a fun week!