T minus 32 hours until delivery time for our new little one. We are FAR from ready but attempting. With Christmas, we have gotten really backed up but are SUPER excited to meet this new little lady!

I'm just sayin'... this kid is adorable!

In order to play catch-up, I'll give a short re-cap of what has been happening at our house. ;)

Today the kids and I spend the day at a cabin in Sundance. My great friend Kristin and her family stay there each fall. I'm sure we wore out our welcome, the kids (and me too) didn't want to go home. They all played so well together. Of course, Kristin and I had to pull out the cameras and take some fun shots of the monkeys.
Here is one that Kristin took of mine! All of you AZ folk, you need her. She is so talented!

Gavin started preschool yesterday! He is TOO BIG! I can't handle it.


He picked his own first outfit (thank you to the stylish mannequin at Gap) and was very excited to go. He asked a few times if I would stay with him. I told him I would pick him up when he was done. I guess he got a little sad after I walked away but his teacher said it was very short! He is such a sweet boy!
When I picked him up, he was SO excited to see me and told me all about the toys he played with, songs that he sung and about the mouse necklace. "It means BE QUIET mom".
I LOVE this kid and don't know what I'll do with 2 1/2 free hours alone every day!

KINDERGARTNER!!!
I can't believe that Alexa is a BIG kindergartner. WOW!
Today is the first day of school and the time couldn't have dragged on any slower. She was SO excited to go, ride the bus and be independent! Reports on how she liked it coming soon!

This last weekend we were in Oregon for our cousin Mat's wedding. Alexa was a flower girl and Gav was the ring boy. ;)
They both had a lot of fun and were great sports for having such a long day. The favorite part by far was the dancing at the end of the night.
Scroll way down to turn off the music at the bottom of the web page.


Congrats Mat & Linds!

Alexa was LOVING dancing with Denece, KayLynn & Joe! She loved Aunt JoAnne too!

This last weekend we headed up to Bear Lake. Chris let us borrow his trailer and it was SO much fun being able to camp with the group.
The highlight, by far, was playing on the waver runners. Gavin never wanted to get off and couldn't go fast enough. He and Greg spent most of the 3 hours out on one of them. "Faster dad, Faster!!"
I LOVE wave runners but couldn't go because of the bambino in my belly.
Alexa was super nervous but was finally convinced to get on. She wanted to be in control so she drove and went super slow. ;) She and Gavin are polar opposites.
We really had SO much fun! Both kids keep asking when they can go camping again.

Just what I thought, we are having another girl! We are SUPER excited, even Gav who wanted a boy!

I was sure that I would be posting if baby #3 was going to be a girl or a boy today. But no! :(
We went to Fetal Fotos last night to find out what we were having. The gender session is generally 30 min. Nearly an hour later of drinking cold water, rotating from side to side, poking my belly and the darn kid would not uncross "it's" legs for anything! We finally decided to give up and come back. Luckily they'll keep trying until they can tell you for sure, boy or girl! We did get a few pictures of the cute little thing.

I finally had a bit of energy so I actually pulled out my camera today and snapped some pix of the kiddos.

Last week, I had Alexa try-out for the competition/performance team at her dance studio.
I debated about this quite a bit but decided to let her try just for fun. I honestly wasn't sure that she would make the team so I didn't even tell her that it was an audition. I just let her go to the workshop and have fun dancing.
Auditions were last Friday and she did in fact make the team. She had a great time and I am so impressed with her.
Luckily at this age, not much will change from her weekly dance routine. She does get to perform a few more times each year though which will be fun for her!

Alexa's last day of school was a few weeks back. Again, like last year, I was more sad than she was. She is just too excited to be a big kindergartner now.
Alexa has always loved learning. She loves school and wants to know how to do everything. She picked up reading so easily, I was amazed. They had reading day one-on-one, once a week. If they passed off the previous book, they got a new book. Alexa's reading day was Friday and she always got a new book each week. If another reader was absent on their reading day she would beg to take their reading time. Because of this she often passed off two books in one week. She loves to read and is very good at writing. It makes her crazy to not know how to spell. She tries to write a word, asks me how she did, I correct her and she rarely gets it wrong again. She is awesome. I'm so very proud of her!

At her January assessment Mrs Hawes wrote about Alexa: "Alexa is an exceptional child; she is well-mannered and learns new things easily. She is self motivated and is a careful worker."

In May she wrote: "Reading through 30 books is quite an accomplishment for a little girl who just turned 5! Alexa is a dream student-smart, focused and obedient! I miss her already!"

I could not be more proud of her! Great Job Alexa!

When I knew that Gavin would be born so close to Alexa's birthday I was dreading having to do two separate birthday parties each year in one week. I didn't know how I would pull of a combined boy/girl party for kids 2 years apart. I think this is my solution and might have to be duplicated each year.
We went to Bouncin' off of the Walls and the kids and parents (Greg and JT, don't kid yourselves you sweaty boys) all had a blast. It was so so so much fun.

Get ready for picture overload!