Monday, February 21, 2011

An All Family Update

So I know I'm overdue to update about how big the girls are getting, and what they've been doing. I also know that we haven't talked about what's going on with finding a house for a while. So, this is the update to check out I guess.

Georgia is 2 years old now. It's crazy to think that my baby is already so old. I took her in for her yearly check up and she is now 33 1/2 inches tall, and 26 1/4 lbs. She hasn't gotten much taller in the last 6 months (only 1/2 inch) but she's gained 3 1/4 lbs. The doctor was amazed at how much she talks! She literally speaks in full and complete sentences now. There's still times we can't understand what word it is that she's trying to say, but you can make it out from the other words in the sentence. She loves to sing (Rock a by baby; Twinkle twinkle little star are her favorites) and she loves to dance to every song-in commercials, on tv shows, on the radio-everything. She is a hambone too. She loves doing things to make people laugh, and she's just got this funny personality. She has two favorite cereals, which has never happened with the other two, but she loves to eat cocoa puffs, or corn pops (which she calls her popcorn cereal). She's getting into that terrible two, defiant stage, but she's quick to recognize who's upset and gives out so much love. She loves nursery and being included in everything her sisters do.



Grace is 3 1/2 now. She keeps asking when her birthday is because she wants a birthday party so badly. She is very much looking forward to turning 4 and having all her Primary friends over for a party just for her. I weighed and measured her around the same time the other two had their appointment with the doctor. She is 40 inches tall and 35 pounds. She has grown a lot in the last 6 months (grew 1 3/4 inches and gained 3 pounds). She's lost that little baby fat tummy that most kids (except for Gwen) seem to have as toddlers. She's also really enjoying learning to recognize and write letters and numbers (she knows them by sound though). She's still so loving and sensitive and we've begun to notice that she is very very loyal to those who become close to her. She started Primary this year and is loving it. She also finally became potty trained-hooray!!



Gwen is 5 now. You dream about the time that they get old enough to go to school, and do all these new and fun things, but it's weird now that kindergarten is just around the corner, and I know her first day of kindergarten is going to be a hard and tearful day for me. After all, she's my little peanut. She's doing really really well though. She is now 41 inches and 32 3/4 pounds, which means that in the last 6 months she's grown only 1 inch, but gained 1 3/4 pounds. The doctor and I celebrated at this last appointment because Gwen has finally made it onto the charts and is now in the 10th percentile for weight instead of the 5th, where she's been all her life. She is such a smarty too. Her memory is amazing-she remembers things from a year or two ago and so many details-it really is amazing to hear her talk about her memories. She loves to tell us about her dreams, has such an amazing imagination, and is now getting into a stage where she loves to be mommy's helper. She recognizes and writes all the letters and numbers up to 20, and can count to 100 with just a little bit of help. We are also starting on learning how to read to prepare her for kindergarten (along with some other stuff).


As for me, I am still taking care of things at home. We do little lessons at home to help them prepare for kindergarten (and hopefully preschool for Gracie in the fall). We include things to do with letters, numbers, days of the week, months of the year, weather, and all sorts of music, plants, animals and anything else we can think of. I am still teaching relief society and I am still the relief society activities coordinator (I think that's the new name for enrichment leader). I have also been keeping busy with little sewing and craft projects, as long as scrapbooking, cardmaking, making and storing up lots of hair bows with my sisters to eventually sell.
Rob is doing pretty good too. He's still the Young Men president in our ward, and loves working with the youth. Things have changed recently for him though. His job in New Hampshire had been sending him to Haiti a lot, which he loved. However, he said that things just weren't going well at work, and he didn't like being there, and they noticed. So they asked him to figure out what he wanted to do and gave us 3 days to make a decision and let them know. So, after praying A LOT and fasting, and trying hard (at least for me) to accept the answer we got, and having lots of faith, Robbie went in and told them he would be leaving the company. They told him that he could work there until they found someone to come in and be trained to replace him, or until he found another job.
Well...this weekend my dad offered him a job. They bought a new house recently that's about 30 minutes from where we are all living now, and my brother in law has been working on renovations there along with some construction workers from the company that my parents are working with to do the big stuff. My brother in law said he needed some help, and so...Rob took the job after my dad offered. He went in this morning to work and told them he was done...that he'd been offered another job and he was done. They were sad to loose him, and told him to keep in touch, but he is currently on his way home from New Hampshire for the last time.
So...we don't know what the Lord has in mind for us. We just have faith that he does have something in store for us, and that it will happen soon. The job for my parents will only last for maybe another 2 months, maybe even less time than that. So...lots of faith, and as much as it makes me nervous and scared, we are doing what the Lord told us to do.
That's the family update. We're all healthy, happy (most of the time-the girls can get pretty mad at me sometimes), and boy are we grateful. We have so much-wonderful family, a place to live, cloths to wear, and food to eat. Most of all we have each other and 3 beautiful, sweet little girls. We are so grateful to the Lord for looking out for us and helping us through so much change and yet another "life limbo" moment in life. Thanks to everyone who's showed us love and support-we are grateful for you too!!
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Monday, February 14, 2011

Love Bugs

Three little love bugs just wanted to say





Have a Happy Valentine's Day!!

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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Gwen's Birthday Party

A couple weeks ago Gwen had a birthday party with all her Primary friends and her cousins. She decided that this year she wanted a Princess and the Frog birthday party, so Rob and I did a lot to prepare for it and make it look special. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in finishing things up that morning that I didn't really take too many pictures of the decorations...you will have to use your imagination when you get down to the pictures of what I used to decorate. I was so busy with the party that I didn't get any pictures of the things we did during the party. So I'll just describe it all.

When the kids first got there I had them all decorate their own aprons, because Tiana likes to cook so I thought aprons and make your own pizzas would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the aprons took so long to dry (the kit came with squeezable, glittery puff paint pens instead of regular paint pens like I thought it would) that we didn't use them when we made the individual pizzas. The kids still had a really fun time making pizzas without the aprons.

After we made the aprons we played games. We played pin the tounge on the frog, musical lily pads, and had a frog shaped pinata. The kids loved the games (every one got a prize, no matter who won), and they loved hitting the pinata. It took Gwen's Papa (my dad) to break open the pinata in the end though.

After the pinata we ate pizza, opened presents, and had cupcakes. Gwen got some really nice presents-a necklace, dora playdough, a my little pony, a make your own jewelry kit, and a decorate your own jewelry box kit. Gwen has loved everything she's gotten!

Gwen opening presents with her friends and cousins surrounding her to see what she got (and playing with the balloons at the same time).




Gwen couldn't wait to open each and every present, so present time went fast. All the kids had fun watching and waiting to see what each present was.




These were the cupcakes. They were supposed to look like frogs with crowns. I got the idea off of Disney's website when I googled for ideas for a Princess and the Frog party. The mouth is a green jelly fruit with white icing for the smile, the eyes are a big green gumdrop cut in half with a chocolate chip stuck through a marshmallow into the gumdrop (and please, if anyone likes jelly fruit gummies or gumdrops, I had to buy a bunch of bags to get enough green ones for the cupcakes...so please come eat them because I think they are gross). The crown is a yellow starburst cut up and stuck on a toothpick. Just used some vanilla frosting and food coloring to make the green frosting to go along with the frog theme.


So there was a method to my madness when it came to the decorations. The entry way was decorated to look like New Orleans in the middle of Mardi Gras (since Mardi Gras happens during the movie) and these are part of the decorations. I hung streamers that were black, purple and green from the entry ways into my parents dining room and living room, pretending that they were the entrances to the Shadow Man's voodoo shops.



I made the lanterns from black poster board and yellow tissue paper, to make street lamps. I finally broke out the cricut I got for Christmas and used it to make letters for the street signs (Orleans, St. Charles, Canal, etc.). I had planned on putting a smaller part of the sign (like they have in the movie, and even some pictures online had them) on top of this street sign that said Rue Orleans, or Rue Canal, etc.) but I couldn't get it to work, so I left those out.



This is one of the signs I made and set outside the entrances to the dining room and the living room for the shadow man's voodoo shop.



This is the other sign I made. I based them off of the sign that you see at the beginning of the Princess and the Frog movie.



I decorated the front entry with Mardi Gras masks-stuck some on the stair banister, on the street signs of the lamp posts, and just on the wall.



I put Mardi Gras beads all over the place-some on the floor by the voodoo signs, some on the table, and just where ever I thought it looked good.



So these are all the decorations that I used to decorate the family room to look like the bayou. I wish I had taken a picture, cause it would've been so much easier to show/explain it-oh well.

Robbie helped me make these tissue paper flowers to look like lily pad flowers that we put in different places all over the room-on drawer handles for couch side tables, on handles for the big cabinet they have in that room with all their geneology stuff in it, above the fireplace-anywhere that I could wrap the pipecleaner around-even on the arm of the rocking chair.



I spent a long time on these. They are supposed to be fireflys, and they were supposed to hang from the end of the balloons, like they were flying all over the bayou, but they were too heavy (even as just a plain styrofoam ball they were too heavy). I painted small styrofoam balls, then used some craft brads as the faces and super glued the google eyes on. I sprinkled glitter on the styrofoam balls while they were still wet with paint, and I cut the pipe cleaners into small sizes for the long legs they have in the movie. I also used my cricut to cut out heart shapes to make the wings, which we super glued on. Then we just placed the fireflys all around the room-on the tables, on the windowsills, and on the fireplace mantel. Gwen wanted so badly to have fireflies there that this was a priority.



These stars we hung up side by side on the middle window in the family room (there's three windows in there, all right next to each other). They were there to represent Evangeline the star that Ray is in love with during the whole movie, and the smaller one represented Ray the Firefly after he had died and joined Evangeline as a star in the sky.



I hung this fishing net between the big geneology cabinet in the corner of the room and the edge of the couch, making it stretch out to reach the coffee table that I had moved back into that corner so the kids wouldn't hurt themselves on it while running around and playing games.



I made the water out of blue poster board, and just taped it up around the base of the walls and sometimes the base of the couch, table, chair, etc., to make it look like we were in water in the bayou.



I put the crocodile in front of the rocking chair in the room (in between strips of posterboard water). There are crocodiles in the movie that try to eat Tiana and Naveen right after they become frogs, but there's also a crocodile in the movie that they become friends with named Louis and Gwen made sure to tell me that this crocodile had to be Louis.



These are the lily pads that I made with green poster board for the musical lily pad game. Robbie and I both think though that they look more like green pac mans. Oh well...I tried.



I found this at a party supply store. It was with all the Princess party stuff. It's actually supposed to be a pin the kiss on the frog game, but seeing as we had two boys at the party, I had to do something different. So I made a bunch of tounges out of pink construction paper, and me and my sister curled them around pencils to make them look like frog tounges.



I didn't get a picture of the pinata, but we bought two of these balloons and had them tied up in different corners of the room.


We actually bought one of those fill them yourself helium kits at Walmart because my plan (mwah ha ha ha ha) included filling as many green balloons as I could and have them floating on the ceiling so that it would look like we were under a canopy of green leaves in the bayou. We definately didn't have enough helium to fill all the balloons, or to cover the entire ceiling, but we had enough to make it look like we were under a bunch of trees in the bayou.

These are the girls aprons that they made at the party. I was not only disappointed with the pens that came with this kit, because it was really hard for the kids to squeeze the tubes and decorate at the same time, but there were only three colors in the kit-red, yellow, and light blue. And...there were only two or three blue aprons, making the rest of them yellow or blue. I had thought that they were advertised as having purple and dark blue as well, but maybe not. Anyways, it was a bit disappointing. I saved all the decorations though (minus the used balloons) so that if any of the girls ever decide to have a Princess and the Frog party again, I can use the same decorations and I know better when it comes to the aprons.

All in all though, the party went fantastically, the kids all had so much fun, and most importantly Gwen was so happy to spend a day with her friends and cousins, having fun and celebrating her birthday.
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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Fun In The Snow

Back in the beginning of January, we got a ton of snow within the period of a week. Granted, it was nothing like the storm we had last week (we got a foot of snow in one day, and today we've already added another 4 inches), but it was a lot of snow. Enough snow that I took the girls out to play in the snow twice that week. They had so much fun!!

Georgia kept falling over in the snow, but didn't have a hard time getting herself back up again. She figured out how to eat the snow though, and I had to keep a close eye on her after that, because all she wanted to do was eat the snow and there were some bad spots that I didn't want her getting snow from. She had so much fun exploring in the snow.





Grace had fun in the snow too. She walked around everywhere, helped shovel, and helped Gwen and I make a snow man. She was one of the first to get cold, but had lots of fun while we were out there.



Gwen loves playing in the snow, and is constantly asking if we can go out and play in the snow again (which we have). She helped shovel as well, along with helping me make a snow man and exploring in the snow and eating the snow.



Gwen and Grace made a bunch of snow angels while we were out playing. It was one of their favorite things to do.



Georgia even tried making snow angels, and even though she knew how to move her arms and legs from watching her sisters do it, she had a hard time getting back up. She only made snow angels once or twice before the getting back up part became too much and she gave up and just started eating snow instead.



This is our snowman. This is what I was busy doing the majority of the time we were outside. He's a little on the small side because the snow wasn't sticking together as well as it needed to for a good sized snowman, and although the girls tried to help, they got bored halfway through and just wanted me to finish it. The girls did find the sticks for the arms (and we used little pieces of the sticks for the eyes since it was really hard to find any rocks with all that snow). We got a carrot from inside for the nose, used another piece of stick for the mouth, and used oreo cookies for the buttons. It turned out pretty cute and the girls had so much fun outside.

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Monday, February 7, 2011

My New Sunbeam

Gracie started Primary back in January. She's gotten so big!! It's so weird to have two kids in Primary now and only one in nursery. We've had a hard time getting Grace to go to Primary, because it is so different from nursery and she definately takes after me-she is my shy child. She's started to get used to it though and has lots of fun in Primary. Our Primary has so few children that they have been combining some of the classes together. Gwen and Grace's classes are combined, so that makes it a bit easier for Grace, because she has Gwen there to help her. We are so excited for her and so proud of our little Gracie!!


Of course Gwen wanted her picture taken as well. Gwen is in the CTR 4 class now...and is still the oldest in the class, having already turned 5. Gwen loves Primary and all her friends and gets so excited about it, but has been having some problems listening and sitting down and staying in her class. So we've been trying to work on that, but overall she is just so excited to go to church every week and have fun with her friends.


Georgia likes getting her picture taken just as much as her big sisters do. Georgia is still in Primary, and will be for a while. Because her birthday is so early in the year, she will be spending the next two years in nursery. She loves nursery though, and has so much fun in there, that I don't think she'll notice or care. She looks forward to nursery every week and loves playing with her friends!!

They all love Primary so much and I am so grateful for the Primary Program and for all the leaders and teachers that strive so hard to teach my kids and help them to learn and grow in the gospel. We love Primary!!
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Friday, February 4, 2011

Christmas Day

Besides hanging around and playing the Wii and various other games all of us got for Christmas, we went back to Robbie's Nana's house to tell her thank you for all our gifts, especially the hand knitted blankets she made the girls.

Gwen loves playing with her Daddy...they were having a tickle fight at Nana Jane's.



Grace just likes to snuggle with her Daddy and give lots of hugs and kisses...and occasionally have a tickle fight too.



Georgia and I were busy playing on the other side of the room while the other two girls were playing with their Daddy and Great Nana Jane's cat toys. She laid on the floor, and I would gently put my foot on her stomach and tickle her with my foot. She kept saying again...over and over.



Later on the girls were having so much fun with each other that we caught a rare moment...them giving each other a hug and laughing.



Georgia was busy hanging out with Grandma Congdon and Zoie and trying to give Zoie hugs.


All three of the girls had a lot of fun playing with Aunt Hillary by rolling their bouncy balls back and forth with her.

To get the girls hair all curly for church, I started using these new curlers that really make their hair a lot more managable and curled in ringlets compared to the old curlers. Gwen loves having her hair curly...we were snuggling together before they went to bed.

The day after Christmas we went back to my parents and opened more presents. Georgia got a little backpack with an owl on it from my parents, another tag book from us, an animal sound game from my Grandpa and Grandma Sessions, a church book from my parents, and this stuffed bear from my Grandpa and Grandma McCauley.


Grace got a little backpack with a monkey on it and a church book from my parents, a leapster game from us, barbie cloths from my Grandpa and Grandma Sessions, and these two stuffed animals from my Grandpa and Grandma McCauley-a skunk and a parakeet.

Gwen got a little backpack with a mouse on it and a church book from my parents, a leapster game from us, barbie cloths from my Grandpa and Grandma Sessions, and these two stuffed animals from my Grandpa and Grandma McCauley-a rooster and an anteater.


We all had such a wonderful holiday season, spent with almost all our family. We are so grateful for all we have...thank you all who helped make the season so special for us!!
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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Christmas Morning

The girls were so excited for Christmas morning, but especially to see what Santa had brought them. Gwen got the Sleeping Beauty version of the game Pretty Pretty Princess.



Grace got a 4-in-1 game set. There was a Princess game, a Tinkerbell game, a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse game, and a Cars game, all in one box.



Georgia got a Tangled dress up kit. Gwen and Grace had gotten dress up kits (princess and tinkerbell) last year from Grandma Congdon, so this was the perfect thing for Santa to bring Georgia as she was getting tired of trying to get her sisters to share with her.



The girls couldn't wait to get out of the bedroom and go see what Santa brought and to open presents. Gwen is all about making faces at the camera now.



Grace was jumping around on the mattresses she was so excited.



Grandma Congdon grabbed Georgia to help her out since Daddy was busy setting up the video camera and Mommy was busy trying to take pictures of all the chaos.


Georgia was so thrilled with her dress up stuff-she wore it all morning long and didn't want to tak it off.
I think Grace had more fun going through her stocking than she did playing her new game. She loved getting fruit in her stocking-she really loves oranges.


Gwen just kept digging and digging, making sure that she got everything out, before she started to really look at what she got.



Georgia's big present this year was a tag junior reader from Rob and I. She had so much fun with it and we quickly read through every book we got her to go with it. She still loves sitting with it and reading books and calls the carrying case her little "ba-pack."

Grace's big present from us this year was a Leapster Explorer. Her older cousins got a dsi and a psp for their birthdays this past year, and the girls are always wanting to play on them, so we thought Leapsters would be a good compromise. Grace also got the games Toy Story 3 and Tangled to play on her Leapster.


Gwen also got a Leapster Explorer. I have a hard time getting her off of it, but they are awesome. The games they make for these really help teach them about spelling, math, writing, science, solving problems, and things like that. Gwen got the games Up and Princess and the Frog to play on it.



The girls got some other things besides stuff to do with their Leapfrog stuff-hand knitted blankets for each girl from Robbie's Nana, Pillow Pets from Grandma Congdon, new books, a huge thing of crayons, a new board game, baby dolls and baby doll stuff, movies, and a few other small things. We only opened gifts from Rob's side of the family, and waited to open gifts from my side of the family until we went to my parents house the day after Christmas. The girls had so much fun with their new stuff though and Robbie did as well. I finally caved this year and for Christmas we got ourselves (Rob and I) a Wii. I don't think Rob stopped playing Super Mario or Donkey Kong most of the time that we were there. I finally got a cricut-hooray!! It was a great Christmas.
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