Winter Recital

Ella had her winter dance recital and it was pretty much hilarious. She came running out onto the stage with her hands on her eyes, making "binoculars" trying to find us in the darkened crowd. She finally spotted us and started waving like crazy and giving us the "thumbs up" sign. Everyone in the audience was cracking up at her. Not to mention Kash, who immediately started screaming, "Ella! Ella! Hi Ella!" I don't know if there was much dancing going on, she was just up there having a good time, sometimes a solid 8 counts behind everyone else, and watching the girl next to her, who was the only girl in the class who sort of knew what she was doing! She sure was cute though!

Here she is after getting ready, so excited to have make up on.

Not bothering to find her place, she is too busy trying to find her family with those binoculars!

She is front and center.

Taking a bow.

After the show...

With her cute teacher, Mrs. Trista. She was really excited to give her teacher a little Christmas gift.

Christmas Cookies

I have been feeling like a bad mother because I have not been doing many holiday activities with the kids-I think I will use the baby excuse on this one. So I had Gina and her kids come over to decorate sugar cookies so I could at least say I did something. It was fun and crazy and SUPER messy but worth it.

These three could be triplets they are so close in age.

I think more frosting was put in their mouths than on the cookies.

I made a double batch of cookie dough which was way too much, so I gave all the kids their own dough to play with and I found Kash's with frosting and sprinkles on top!

Ella literally spent the entire time frosting ONE cookie. She gets so into these kinds of things, it is so funny. She was pretty proud of her Christmas Tree cookie.

Little Emily.

I am hoping next year these type of activities will happen a lot more frequently! I guess we can add this to the list of new years resolutions.

Happy 31st Matty!

Matt turned 31 on December 11! His birthday is at such a crazy time of year but we managed to have a small get together at our house. Matt said all he wanted to do was invite some friends over and play croquet in the backyard so thats what we did! We ordered pizza and had cake and ice cream and just hung out. Here he is blowing out the candles with the help of Kash and Ella:
It was baby overload at our house with three new babies! Matt's cousin Kurt is married to my dear friend Ashley and she just had her baby, Amelia Marie, exactly one month after I had Evie. They are such cute cousins!
And our friends Nate and Audrey had their baby, Lola, one day before Evie was born. We are going to have some fun play dates with all these girls!
And I might as well throw in these pictures of Evie who is two months old here. She is really getting SO big. I cannot believe how fast she is growing. She is much bigger than Ella was at this time, so she might be taking after Kash!

Heave Ho!

Oh, the giant bear. Some of you might remember him. Well, I heard I giant crash and thought for sure one of the kids had finally fallen all the way down the stairs so I went running. But it was just that dreaded giant bear. Ella and Kash were at the top of the stairs laughing and I knew right away they had thrown him down, sending the basket of toys that stays on the stairs with him. So I insisted that they take him back up to the playroom, and no, mom was NOT going to help them. It took them a good ten minutes to lug that thing up but they finally did it. It was quite the workout. Maybe next time they will think twice before doing that again.

Busy

This past week has been so busy! I cannot believe Christmas is almost here and I am still scrambling to get ready for it. I feel like I have just been going going going and at the end of the day I wonder what I really accomplished. I also feel like Ella and Kash have been acting out lately, fighting and oh the whining (Kash is my whiner for sure). I don't even know how many times I have threatened them that Santa is watching and going to take one of their presents away! By now there are no presents left! But I was looking at these pictures and it made me so grateful for them, even though they really drive me crazy on a daily basis.

My little planner

I remember I used to have my outfits all planned out and have them laid out nicely the night before school. I would even write my whole week out, and keep a record to make sure I didn't wear the same thing too close together. I was always trading shirts with my friends (Kristen!) to switch things up. There was a time when I was super organized with this type of thing, and now I only care if I can zip up my jeans. Anyways I am flashing back to this because Ella reminded me of it. She told me that she had already picked out her outfit for the day. I told her that she was getting her picture taken at school today and we had already picked something out for her to wear. But she said, "oh no mom this is my outfit for AFTER school, silly!" So I went upstairs and found this laid out on her bedroom floor:
Complete with hat, purse, Kash's church belt, butterfly wings, and shoes! I could not believe the detail she put into this! I thought it was the funniest thing and had to have Matt come see it too. Who knows maybe she will follow in her mom's footsteps. And thank goodness she didn't put up a fight about wearing this to school.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving everyone came to St. George. It was nice for us to not have to travel with the kids and I think I am discovering that I love being the hostess! Not that I do much other than provide a place to sleep, but I just love having everyone around. We had the actual Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents house so luckily I wasn't in charge of the whole thing...just the thought of me doing the turkey by myself immediately stresses me out. We had so much fun staying up late, playing lots of games, eating lots of food, and doing lots of shopping. And whats great is that they will all be back in a few weeks for Christmas! Yay!

My mom really wanted to take a quick family picture. Bless her little heart for even trying...this is the best we got.

And I thought I would try to get one of my kids while they were all dressed at the same time (usually at least one seems to be naked) and of course it didn't work out:(

And just to remember what I have been thinking about this month:
While visiting teaching we talked about President Monson's talk on gratitude. I guess I must be complaining a lot about my kids lately because I have had so many people tell me to be grateful for this stage, because I will be so sad when it is over and really miss it. This of course is always coming from people whose kids are older and I think "you must not remember how hard this is!!!" I have three kids under the age of four, including a daughter who is a total diva, a son who is still being potty trained, and a newborn who I am up in the night with. So somedays it is really hard to be grateful and I find myself fantasizing about the day when they are all in school!! But then there are those moments that really do make it all worth it, as cheesy as that sounds. Evie is smiling now and it melts my heart, especially when we get her to full on laugh! When we hear Ella and Kash who sneak into each others room at night and we can hear them playing so dang cut together. And when Ella says something so smart or Kash says "I lub you mom" for no reason. So I realize that I really do need to be more grateful, and live in the moment and try to remember these sweet moments (as rare as they might seem some days). Who knows, maybe I will look back and smile at the thought of me cleaning poop out of batman underwear and hosing Kash down in the backyard? I just don't know.

Sleepy

Liked how this little girl fell asleep on my lap...

Neighbor Girls

We have some of the cutest neighbor girls around. I was worried when we first moved in realizing that there are not a ton of kids Ella and Kash's age. We are actually the youngest family in the neighborhood. Most families are done having kids and here we move in with 2 babies and now a newborn! We definitely stand out a bit. Anyways, these girls that live on our street come to our door almost daily. I love it because they entertain my kids! They are mostly around the age of 9, so it is nice to know they are capable of playing with them outside and can watch them for the most part. They love to ride wiggle cars, give rides on their scooters, play in our backyard, go in the playroom, etc. They are really cute with Ella and Kash and often want to come over to hold the baby. There have been days around 3pm when I am wondering if they are home from school so they can take my kids away and give me a break! I am hoping that the day they become "too cool" to come over and play never comes!
Carly, Lacy, Robin, and Ella came downstairs all dressed up. They walked around the neighborhood showing off their cute outfits!

Staheli Farm

This was our second year going to Staheli Farm. The kids always have a really good time, so this is a fun tradition for us. This year we went with the Harris family, they are our cute neighbors that live right across the street from us.

Here are all the kids, minus Evie who stayed nice and warm in her car seat the entire night! Macall, Olivia, Ella Kate, Ella Grace, and Kash

Here is Dave leading the kids to the corn maze.

Kash on the train ride.

The Ella's wanted to ride together of course!

Dave about to sit on Macall!

Climbing in the play house.

Riding the horse swing-I think this is always the favorite.

Sliding into the corn

This is where you pump the water and see who can get their duck to the other side the fastest.

We ended the night with the animals. Kash kept hugging all of them, and I kept telling Matt they would have to get a bath as soon as we got home!

Surprise!

Saturday night I was in the kitchen talking to a friend when the doorbell rang. The kids ran to get it as they always do, fighting over who gets to open the door. I knew it was the neighbor kids again so I kept chatting and eating. And then I hear this voice...could it be?? Are you serious? I threw my quesadilla on the counter and ran to the door. PAPA!! Ella and Kash were both jumping on my DAD! Surprise! I had NO idea he was coming. He said he got off work early and decided to come at the last minute. He has not seen little Evie yet so he has been dying! I was in shock and trying not to cry my eyes out! We were all enjoying the moment and a few minutes later the doorbell rang again. Now here come the neighbor girls. Then I hear, "NANA NANA!" And then there is my mom at the door, who had been hiding in the car haha. Of course I start tearing up again...:) Can't believe it. And a few minutes later the door bell rings AGAIN. And there is my littlest sister NIKKI!!! Now I am crying. The first thing she said was, Dad made me wear this!! I could tell she was so embarrassed as she stood there with her crown on her head and her Homecoming Queen sash on. The week before she was crowned Homecoming Queen and I was the ONLY sister not there to see her and I was so depressed about it. I guess Dad wanted me to see her in all her glory, much to her dismay!

This was the best surprise ever!! We were all so excited and had such a fun weekend together. Oh how I love my cute family! The proud Papa holding his newest grandchild.

One Month

I can't believe Evie is already one month old! She is actually just over 5 weeks now and time is going by so fast. I hate that she is already so much bigger, I want her to stay tiny forever! She is just so sweet. I could kiss her cheeks all day, and I do because she can't fight me! Ella and Kash don't cuddle with me very much so I am getting my fill with Evie before she has a say:)

Here she is at 1 month:

These pics are of her only a few days old, she looks so small in her crib and car seat.

People are always asking who I think she looks like, and I think she just has her own look. A lot have said Ella and Matt, but some even think she looks like Kash. What do you think?