Sweet Molly

Something about being the 3rd girl has made this one often want to play defense, however she has ALWAYS been confident and happy.  We have been working on being more kind, especially to her sisters and friends.

This week as she was saying her prayers she gave the most sincere sweet prayer I have ever heard her say.  It ended with, "We will do whatever you want us to do."  When the prayer ended I had tears in my eyes and her response was, "You can cry on dad's shoulder mom."  

I just love her.

So while she was in the kitchen today modeling for me and saying, "Doesn't this one look pretty?  Don't I look cute."  I decided to cease the moment and take some pictures.  Such a precious 4 year old and I swear every day she gets bigger, smarter, more independent and more grown up.  I just can't stand it.  These babies are growing way too fast.

Princess Palooza

A month or so ago we were at the Library and Ella spotted an ad for a "PRINCESS PALOOZA" for daddy's and daughters as a fundraiser for the library.  She came and got my phone so she could take a picture of it to email her daddy.  He of course agreed he would take the girls, however when the actual night came he was dragging his feet a little bit.

When he got home from work he walked through the door with a bouquet of flowers for his 3 beautiful princesses who were all dressed up and ready to go.  What lucky girls and boy what a lucky dad!

They had a great time and even won a $10 gift card to Perkins as a door prize.  Each girl had a small prize they had won there, a balloon animal and a giant smile on their face.

I felt so blessed to have a good husband who will take the girls out and make them feel like the princesses they are.  I know not all daddies will do that.  He is a good man.

Mrs. Prince's Baby Shower

Ella's teacher, Mrs. Prince had a baby boy.  And because my daughter is such a great girl she wanted to plan a surprise baby shower for her.  She rallied up the other 4th grade teachers and they taught the kids some lullabies and had them make her a cute book on how to take care of a baby.

One day while Mrs. Prince thought the kids were in PE they went and asked her to come down to the gym.  She turned bright red as she walked in to see all the kids waiting for her.

I helped them with some games..

And got teary listening to them sing to her..

Those teachers are pretty special people.  I feel so blessed my kids have such fabulous ladies to be their teachers and influence their lives for good.  I am also proud of little Ella for arranging this baby shower for Mrs. Prince.  I know here heart felt happy.

Great Great Grandma Bitton

For Christmas this year grandma Bitton just wanted all her great, great grand kids to come to her house for a picture.  Easy enough.  We were only missing one.  Pretty awesome for these kids to have a picture with their great, great grandma who is 90 years old.

Johnna

My sister in law Johnna and her son Aaron share a birthday with Alissa.  This year she was celebrating 50 years and we were able to celebrate with her.

She is one of my favorite sister in laws.  The kind that you say "I love you" to when you hang up the phone or leave her house.  I think that's pretty rare.  She is like a 2nd mom to Dustin because her oldest son is less than a year younger than him and he grew up doing most everything with her 4 boys.  Molly now calls her grandma.  Not because we taught her that, but she just observed that her relationship with her is like that.  Hugs, kisses, snuggles, treats & gifts.  Sounds about right.

27 years or so ago she was diagnosed with a rare hepatitis from a bad blood transfusion and was told she had only a few years left to live.    She has had a liver transplant, a kidney transplant, way too many to number hospital stays, and lots of surgeries.  I am so grateful she is a fighter.  So grateful to celebrate her 50th birthday!  I just love her and am thankful to have her in my life.

Alissa's 6th Birthday

My 2nd baby girl is 6!  I don't know how this happened.  Last I checked she looked like this.

.Oh my goodness I love this baby girl of mine.  She planned to have 5 of her friends come over to have a little party.  She drew me a cute little chart with the names of her friends and little pictures of what they were going to do.  Make crowns, soak feet, pin the tail on the donkey, eat cake and open presents.  Sounded good to me.  

Since her birthday was on Sunday she opened a few presents that morning and then we just hung out that day.  She had a few visits from grandparents and her cousin McKenzie was here from Boise so the girls played with her and it was pretty laid back day.  I bought her a tiny cake from Albertsons so she could have some sort of cake on her birthday.  Grandma Debbie took her birthday shopping and to lunch at Arctic Circle which was super fun for her.

Lincoln loves his sister.  She is the very best at making him giggle and she must taste good cause he always wants to kiss her face.

Here is her little friend party.  They got to soak their feet in little popcorn buckets and read the Friend magazine.  :)

While a few were soaking the others were putting jewels on their crowns and then we would switch as we finished painting their toe nails.  My sister Heidi and mom came over to help me get their nails painted and restrain Lincoln from playing in their buckets of water.

She requested a pink heart cake - easy enough.

I just love how excited they all get about watching her open their presents.  It was all they could do to hold back from helping her rip them all open.

Molly, Marie, Alora, Lia, Alissa, Ella & Kiya

Alissa is the most active of all the kids.  She doesn't normally prefer any electronic to playing with a friend or riding her bike.  I love that about her.  She is always busy doing something.

She is a huge momma's girl.  She hates when I leave and will chase me out of the driveway if I leave her home.  She wants to go where ever I am going and will do just about any chore I ask her in order to go with me.  I may use that to my advantage sometimes.

She is by far the most stubborn of all the kids.  When she wants to fight, she will fight.  Completely go limp, stop dead in her tracks, whatever it is she feels she needs to do to get her way.  I hope she can use that to her benefit through her life to stand strong for what is right.

She is shy.  When I went to her parent teacher conference and talked to her teacher she said she was so happy to hear Alissa loved school because she wasn't sure because of how quiet she is.  She often struggles going to Primary and you most certainly can't get her to go play at a few friends houses unless she is extremely comfortable with the family.  I am just grateful most days I don't have to fight her to go to school.  

She is so tiny and SO strong, coordinated and flexible.  She can sit completely in the splits, do an amazing cartwheel and back bend and can climb a rope in the blink of an eye.  She is only 39lbs and is only 3/4" taller than Molly at this point.

She is a smartie.  I am so impressed with how quickly things are sticking in Kindergarten.  Since she started school she is reading so many more words.  She counts by 2s, 5s, 10s.  She can spell all the main colors.

"THE CAGE"

Now that this boy is crawling and standing up on everything and eating EVERYTHING in plain sight (and not so plain sight) we have to keep an extra close eye on him.  He finds sequins and beads and jewels and polly pocket shirts and gumballs and crumbs from who knows when and chomps them.

I asked Ella to keep an eye on him for a few minutes and this is what I found.

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Very clever Ella!  He had a box of toys back there with him and was happy as could be.  :)  Love it!

Mommy

I found this post from March 2012 that I hadn't finished.  I has a lot to do with what I was actually thinking about writing today.

Getting kicked all night by the kids

Sleeping on the floor next to monkey just to get some sleep.

Kissing the poopy finger (without knowing it was poopy) after it just came out of the diaper

finding dried poopies in the closet

catching throw up in your hands

It makes me laugh a little bit because after 4 kids and 3 years since I was having those thoughts I almost don't even think about those things anymore.  It just comes natural to deal with all those sleepless nights and bodily fluids gone wrong.  I have learned to just roll with shoes on the wrong feet and somebody going commando after an accident.

I took my kids to a trampoline park today and was sitting there watching them jump while I tried to hold baby Lincoln back from jumping straight out of my arms.  I watched all smiling young mommies with their toddlers and had a flood of memories of life with 1 little toddler.  It always seemed like an overwhelming task to take care of one kid yet it was pure joy.  Just as it is today.  Just grateful Heavenly Father allowed me to ease into it.

Speaking of good mommies I remembered another thought I had this summer that I wanted to write when I had a second about a grandma I observed at the swimming pool with her grandkids.  She was in her swimming suit along with them jumping around in the toddler area with the small child and I just saw pure love in her eyes.  I also saw a grandpa riding a scooter with his grandson who was also riding a scooter at the park.  Both were clearly enjoying themselves.

I just had to have a little mental note to my old self to remember those times I witnessed and always, always remember that THAT is what matters.  Quality time spent, not money, not toys, just quality TIME.  Love it.

Putting on our Armor

A month or so ago as I was sitting through church I remember hearing somebody just casually say during a talk that we are in a war.  I have heard that phrase a bunch of times over but this time, thanks to the Spirit, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I remembered a picture I had at home that I had intentions of framing and putting in the girls room and just haven't yet.  

We have struggled with a consistent time to read scriptures together.  Most of the time we just weren't doing it because it wasn't habit.  I decided I needed to be reading with the kids before they leave to school to arm them for whatever battle they would face against Satan that day.  I explained that to the girls and told them we needed to give them their shield and their helmets through prayer and scripture.  Somehow when we put it in that perspective it has become easier.  

Every day we sit down and read 5-10 verses as the girls eat breakfast and if I put it first we always make it to school on time.  I just love how the Lord blesses us like that.  I also can stand confident that I have helped arm them for the evil temptations that are lurking about all over the place.  I hope we can stay in this habit so my girls and boy can be strong.  

New Years Resolutions

I was reading over last year's post about my New Years Resolutions and can just feel how overwhelmed I felt at that time and it makes me so thankful I am not carrying that anxiety anymore.  It was difficult and made me have compassion toward those who have a constant struggle with it.

I wanted to review the goals I set last year and make sure I set some new ones for myself.

2014 Goals:

Increase personal prayer.  I am still so terrible at kneeling to pray!  I did start a prayer notebook though to help me remember all the things that are constantly in my mind to pray for.  It helps when I stop to pray to focus better.

Do initiatory and an endowment once a month until April and then do my best after that.  I did enough.  I am satisfied.

Be a better mom by spending time teaching, disciplining and rewarding my kids more.  Did way WAY better here.  It makes my heart so happy that I have improved in this area.  I see big improvements in my family and in myself from working on this.

Get at least 1 year blog book done!  (Bonus points for all 3 years)  Sadly - no blog book.

SURVIVE.   Hooray for survival with a newborn!

2015 Goals:

My main goal this year is to be more healthy by losing some weight and developing better eating & exercising habits for myself.  I know if I do this for myself I  will in turn be more conscious about it for my family and they will, as with everything, follow my example.  I am not setting any certain numbers of pounds lost or anything, just changing habits.

Health would be my word for this year.  

Along with this I would like to:

Teach Molly how to read.

Help Alissa get ready for baptism by teaching WELL PREPARED gospel principle lessons in our FHE.

Spent time listening and talking with Ella (dates or just quality time) to maintain trust and friendship.

Continue to schedule time away biweekly or weekly with Dustin.

Sledding

After Christmas we got to spend the week with Dustin's brother Alan's family while they stayed at our house.  One of the days we went to Iona Hill with 2 other brothers families and went sledding. 

 I got Lincoln all dressed up to come out but he only made it about 5 minutes before his cheeks were super red.  It was 0 degrees.  So we sat in the car and watched and took pictures most of the time.

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He had fun there.

And Molly soon joined us.

The kids always have so much fun going sledding and I sure love watching and remembering how much fun it used to be screaming down that hill.  Now it just makes my back hurt. :)

Thankful for this good man who pulled the kids over and over up the hill while his face got wind and cold burned.  He would bring them past the car so I could see their cute faces and try to catch a picture.  Love him!

Family Newsletter & Sunday Journal

One thing I did right in 2014 was keep good records.   One Sunday as I sat through a church meeting as they were talking about family history and I realized I may not be able to do research and family search like that right now but I can keep my own family history and teach my kids to do the same.  So along with the blog history I have had the kids sit down every Sunday and do a weekly journal along with a picture.  We started the beginning of June and I believe we only missed 1 week.  It is a treasure!!

Aside from that my sister came up with a brilliant idea to start a family newsletter with my parents and siblings to send to my grandma and grandpa who have permanently moved to Utah and developed Alzheimer's disease.  Each month Heidi and I take turns making the family newsletter which started in April and continued every month.  I finished us off in December.  This is what they are like though with a page for each family.

It makes me feel at ease that we are doing a great deal of family history work right here.  I am thankful for my family and for the gospel which unites us with common purpose.