Birthday Month

Well, it's that time of year again.  Yes, the best time of year- my birthday month.  Oh, and Emma's, and my sister Kayla's and my niece Sadies, and my Grandpa's... at least 2 of my cousins.... Yea, it's a big month for birthday's.  But lets not forget the most important one- mine.  Just kidding.  Kinda.  Well, I'm going to dedicate this post to Emma and her birthday.  Randy can do mine.  Hint hint.

First, I wanted to show you this picture of Kenadi sleeping in the closet.  She decided that she wanted to sleep there one night and we said yes, because we figured she would move to her bed since it was so uncomfortable.  But, no, she slept there all night.  Amongst the shoes.

 Emma LOVES trains, cars, trucks, princess things, dressing up, etc.  So, I took her to the Thomas when he came through town.  She was so excited to see Thomas.

 Emma loves Mya and Kenadi.  She is a good big sister to Mya.  A little overwhelming, but all with good intentions.  =)  Most of the time.

 Emma loves dancing.  She watches Kenadi in her dance class, and can't wait until she's old enough to go too.  They dance around the house together, it is so cute.

 For her birthday we took her to the zoo to go ride the train and see the animals.  The girls love the zoo.

This is our happy Emma and Kenadi, on the zoo train.  She loved it. 

 I decided to try fondant this year.  It was my first time making it and using it, so I didn't expect it to be perfect, and it wasn't.

 Emma loved her cake so much that she had me set it on the table close to her so that she could watch/guard it all day.  I had to give up worrying about it because it was A) her cake after all, and B) she drove the cars around on top, stuck her finger in the side (right where I covered it up with lots of green grass), and it made her so happy to mess with it.  No one was eating it but us anyway, so I let her play with it for the rest of the day.

 Happy 3rd birthday Emma!  

Growing girls and a secret word

This is my new favorite song:  cute music, words seem to apply, and I love her wings she wears in the video. Hope you like it like I do.

Ok, I have hidden a secret word in this post.  Comment below to guess which word it is.

A sweet friend made our girls these tee-shirts.  They say :" I am the big sister" "I am the middle sister" and "I am a frog".  Just kidding.  I crack myself up.  It really says "I am the little sister".  Did you guess?  Aren't they adorable?

 Oh, they are growing too fast!

 THIS happy girl finally learned how to ride her bike without training wheels.  She LOVES it.  Now the bike is too small for her.  =)  She doesn't know that though.  So, she insisted on riding for a half an hour in the rain today.  She would have ridden longer, but alas, it was time for lunch.  

 A few times we have been convinced that Mya was teething.  However, I wasn't prepared for it and didn't have a teether in the fridge for her, so I decided to use butter.  If this isn't red neck, then I don't know what is.  Alas, she wasn't teething.

 I have a few first day of school pictures that I've been meaning to post for a while.  The one above is Kenadi's first day of homeschool.

 Emma's first day of Joy school.

 Emma's other first day of school.  No, she just really likes to dress up like her sister.  I haven't posted on here or announced it or anything, but we've decided to homeschool Kenadi for this year.  We are so happy with this decision.  There are quite a few reasons why we did this, but #1 being that our school district has mandatory all day kindergarten and I felt like that was way too long for her to be gone during the day at that age.  She needed more influence at home than she did from people at school.  She likes homeschool too.  We stay busy for sure.

Here is my happy baby.  She crawls all over the place, makes huge messes now, and is so proud of herself.  Such a happy happy girl, but a VERY bad sleeper.  

OK, can you tell me what the secret word was?  It is one I don't think I've ever used on this blog- that should give you a hint.  Oh yea, and I don't know if I even used it right.

Some finished projects.

 Ok, well, I'm never done with these projects (Randy and the girls).  Seriously though, remember our green kitchen?  I did like the color, but was ready for a change.

 And our blue bathroom?  It got a Rapunzel makeover before I finished it off with a new coat of paint.  The girls LOVED painting the walls just like Rapunzel does in the movie Tangled.  Kenadi even painted herself with long hair and lanterns in the air.

Well, the blue became grey, which I LOVE.  It goes so well with anything, and brings a little sophistication to our tiny bathroom.

The kitchen became blue and dark blue.  I don't think that this picture gives you true color though.  Oh, but it's close enough.  I do like the blue, but wish that the dining room was a shade lighter.  I go back and forth liking the shade, and then wishing for lighter.  I have decided that I like color a lot though. I like seeing that it's blue, and having the brightness that it is.

My moss covered H.  I had to BUY this moss.  Crazy that a girl from Oregon would go out and buy moss.

I got this adorable crochet book for Christmas and I've been loving it.  These little guys are gifts I've made for other people's kids.  Olie the octopus,

 Ellie the elephant- she's dancing by the way,

and Pete the penguin.  Aren't they cute?  Now it's time to make some for my kids.  They've put in their orders and have been waiting patiently.

Now, let me give you all a heads up that these projects have been over the corse of about 5 months.  So, I definitely don't have a high turnover rate.  Just so you know that I'm not THAT on top of things.

Family and Friends

I had a few more "picturesque" ones that I needed to post.  The one above is Kenadi, Emma, and Sadie with a box of Lucky Charms.  They got ahold of it when Kayla and I were cooking, and the other adults were preoccupied, I guess.  If you look closely there are no more marshmallows left.  They ate all of them.  Out of the whole box, which was dumped out in Nick and Haley's bedroom.  I do have to give them a little credit for using spoons instead of their fingers to eat them off of the floor.

Randy and Mya by the Idaho Falls temple.

We were on the green belt there, and Kayla missed her turkey's at home, so she tried to catch a goose.  She actually did catch one, and got bit.

Cute little cousins.

At the end of our trip we went to see some good friends, Shannon and Jory.  I love this family, they are so happy, smiley, and funny.  They make us laugh.

Here we were talking about how the best pictures aren't the posed ones.  SO, they were "not posing" and acting like I caught them in "the moment".  Looks realistic guys.  Oh, and would you look at their adorable little baby that only weighed 5 lbs something?  I need to have a 5 lb baby. ( Not NOW, but in the future.) What would that feel like? 

Some Mya news lately.  She's pretty much crawling, just in short little bits.  She is so happy to be on the floor so she can figure it out.  I love this little squishy baby.  She is so sweet.

Beautiful Idaho

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip and drove all the LONG way to Idaho.  My family was all meeting up there to drop my sister Kayla off at school.  We loved our long trip.  Well, Mya didn't really enjoy the time in the van after a while, but she was s trooper and did very well. 

 Along the way we had many bathroom breaks.  This was one of them.  A tree by an open field.  The funny thing is that Emma would go to the bathroom only if we were outside, and Kenadi only if she had a toilet.  What funny girls.  Is that too much info for you?  

 My heart soared when I saw these beautiful Teton mountains!    Emma pointed out every hill and every mountain and made sure that we saw them.  They were so excited about the mountains too.  It's in our blood, I guess.

 While in Idaho we saw many of our cousins and family.  We were in heaven!

 The girls got their Grandma and Grandpa Simonson...

 Their sled ride from Uncle Nick...

 Everyone was happy!

 Even Kayla.  Just kidding, Kayla's always happy.  She's off to college!  I can't believe my little sister has grown up so much!

 Mya was mesmerized by my Dad.  She stared at him for a good 10 minutes.  She wouldn't break her eye contact either.  I wonder what she was thinking about.

 Then there's my sweet sister Jenna.  She has lots of great silly faces for the camera, but I can't get her to give me a normal one.  Sorry Jenna.

 My Mom and littlest brother, Reid.  We were all on the way to Jackson Hole, WY to see the Bar J Wranglers.

 Jenna gave us a lesson on "planking".  Have you heard of this craze lately?  Apparently it's cool to take pictures in random places face down and post it on Facebook or something.

 Haley enjoyed Bar-J Wranglers, even though she doesn't like cowboy humor.

 Here they are folks!  THESE GUYS ARE AWESOME!  They are my yodeling, banjoing, auctioneering inspiration.  Well, especially yodeling.  You should look them up and see if you can find a song that they sing.  It is a riot.

 OK, back to my Dad and Mya.  Apparently Dad forgot how to feed a baby.  He couldn't find her mouth, and would say, "she's not opening her mouth.  Oh, she wiped it all over her!" and stuff like that.  It was cute.  Mya just looked at me as if saying, "MOM, what are you doing to me?!"

 We went to a splash park and swimming pool in Rexburg. 

 When it was time for Mom, Jenna, Reid and Dad to leave, we took time for some pictures.  This is us sisters and Mom.  Haley, Jenna, Me and Mya, Mom and Kayla.  I am dreaming of future trips together!  Girl trips, no kids.  Of course, when mine are a bit older....

 It was utterly impossible to get a picture of Mom and the kids with all happy kids.  Emma was sad the whole time, or Sadie wasn't looking, or Kenadi was doing crazy faces...

 Here they did a little better with Grandpa in the picture.

 It's been a long time since we've had a group picture!  We are missing my brother Chase who's on a mission in VA right now, and Kyle who works and lives in Salem.

After my Mom, Dad, Jenna and Reid left, I decided to eat my feelings and make a cake with Kayla's help.  This is one I've wanted to try for a while.  It was in one of my Taste of Home magazines, called Red Velvet Crepe Cakes.  I've drooled over the picture for a while and finally decided to make one.  It is basically thinned out cake batter cooked in a pan like a crepe and then spread with thin layers of cream cheese frosting.   As you can tell, it was pretty messy to put together, and I decided that I wasn't that impressed with the taste.  I think I would have liked it better if it was cooked the regular way in the oven.  However, everyone else liked it, and it was gone quickly.  I think I was a minority with that opinion.  AND NOW, I AM OFFICIALLY OFF OF MY SUGAR CRAZE AND ON TO MY HEALTHY EATING AND EXERCISING PHASE!  (again, but this time is different) Wish me luck, I've done well this week and feel highly motivated.