She is 6!!

I can't believe it has been six years already. Claire was so excited for her birthday and her ice cream cake!

Claire wanted to have a princess birthday party. We told her she could have one IF we were in our house. At that point we didn't realize how crazy it would be...we moved in Friday and Saturday, Claire's birthday was Sunday and her party was on Wednesday. I am so grateful to all those who helped us move, but especially to my parents who helped me pull off everything.
At her party, they decorated crowns, dressed as princesses, watched Barbie Princess and a Popstar and then were able to have glitter fingernails and or toenails...then of course presents and cake. Claire loved every minute of it...her only complaint was she didn't get to invite everyone she wanted (if that was allowed she would have had like 30+ kids at her party).

 

Here are the beautiful princesses...minus Mia (she was still sleeping).

I can't believe that Claire is already six years old and she is already talking about when she turns 8, 12 and 16...oh man I hope the time doesn't pass that quickly!

And the Winner is???

The Ugly Sweatshirt winner (by a landslide) was Terin for making the shirt Bryan was wearing. Second place was Bryan for the shirt Josh was wearing.

Votes Needed!!!

Well it has been a few years, but we did it again!! We have done the ugly sweater exchange contest. We need your votes. I will post the pictures of the sweaters and the person wearing them. Please vote for who you feel is wearing the ugliest sweater.

DON

 LOIS

BRYAN

STACIE

CLAIRE

MIA

JON

TERIN

JOSH

Get your votes in now so we can crown our winner of the annual (well almost annual ugly sweater exchange contest)!!

Let The Holiday Fun Begin

This is my favorite time of the year. I love how happy, kind, considerate and loving people are, but most importantly I love all the fun things I get to do with the kids. Here are just some of the fun times we have had so far. First off was our ward party. It was a lot of fun! There was some great music and then some great activities for the kids. My girls both loved to do the games, decorate a cookie, made a finger painting wreath and got to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. Here are the girls with Santa.

As you can tell Mia wasn't all that excited about being with Santa, but Claire was a great big sister and held onto Mia's hand. We decided to see Santa at another place to see how Mia would do. While we were waiting in line to see Santa and his wife, we told Mia she didn't have to look at Santa if she didn't want to, but she needed to tell him what presents she wanted from him. This time we had a different result, but Claire was still helping out her baby sister by holding her hand.

Bryan's sister Janelle, is due this month (we are so excited about this. The girls can't wait to meet their new cousin Echo...) and because of this we all hurried in and got our hair cut before that baby comes. She spoiled the girls and made their hair PINK! My girls were so excited!! We were ok with that because it washed out. Here they are with their lovely pink hair.

As a family we got together to do our annual gingerbread houses. We had a lot of fun doing this. Here are the girls getting ready to decorate their homes. Papa Don helped build them a home at of cardboard so it was easier for them to decorate.

Here is Mia with her home that she decorated!

Here is Claire with her decorated home!

Finally Bryan and I with our decorated house.  We had a great time decorating and love seeing the creations that the family all made. 

Here are all of our homes (sorry it is a bit blurry). The homes were done by the following (starting from the left)--- Don and Lois, Janelle and Jon, Bryan and Stacie, Terin and Josh, Mia and Claire.

Surgery

About a week and half ago Claire had her tonsils and adenoids out.  Here she is before surgery. She was so excited to get in her gown and her little hat. I love this smile!!

Then they gave her the funny loopy medicine. She was so entertaining. The nurses kept coming to look at her and lots of people in the room kept commenting on how great her singing was. One guy even commented that he had never had anyone sing to him during his recovery. She loved her bubble gum scented mask she was given. Here she is all full of the loopy medicine.

This wonderfully brave girl had a rough time coming out of surgery. She was super sick and had lots of issues with her pain medicine and lots of other struggles, but I am so proud of her and how much she has listened to us to do all she could to help her get better quickly. Mia has been so worried about her. She even played doctor to make sure Claire was on the road to recovery.

We are so thankful to all the amazing friends and family who sent stuff, brought stuff and visited Claire. You all made her feel so important and that is something that was so needed. Even Claire's primary class got in on wishing her a quick recovery.

October Fun

This month has been a fun and crazy month. It started out by us going to Utah for Conference weekend. Which was a blast. It was so fun to see my family...even if it was a short trip. We appreciate the time we were able to spend with family and enjoyed our adventure. We bought a new van, but now we are going through some red tape to register it up here.

 Then we were able to go to the pumpkin patch a couple of times this month. We went with Janelle and Lois for a time and then we went with Don, Lois, Janelle, Jon and our little family. The girls were excited to go with their daddy. We had a great time at the corn maze, hay pyramids, petting zoo, train rides, pony rides, airplane ride, bounce house, hay ride, hay bail maze and then of course picking out our pumpkins.

Bryan and I surprised the girls by taking them to Disney on Ice. It was so much fun to see them and how happy they were to watch Princess and the Frog, Cinderella and Rapunzel....what a great show!. I am so happy we were able to do this for them. What great memories we created. They had a Cinderella carriage made out of legos for the girls to sit in. That was a great photo moment.

Then it was the Annual Halloween Party. We had a good time going and Claire even won the best kid costume this year. She was so proud of herself.  Here are our costumes for this year...Bryan was a Woopie Cushion. Mia was Sleeping Beauty. I was Waldo or Wanda which ever you want to do and Claire was Belle.

This post was full of pictures, but we had so many great memories to catch we had to take a bunch of pictures.

Sisters

I love how much Claire and Mia enjoy being with each other. I feel very blessed that my two girls love playing with each other and (as of now) they are best friends. This post is dedicated to my girls. This year we took the kids to the fair and rodeo. They both had so much fun. Here are my cowgirls!!

 

A couple of Sundays ago, Janelle (Bryan's sister) brought over her Badminton game and we had a great time as a family playing. She left it up so the next day, the two girls decided they needed to be in costumes to play badminton. They were so cute; of course I couldn't resist taking pictures.

The girls latest favorite movie is Barbie: Princess and the Popstar. Quite often we get to enjoy a concert put on by the "popstars".

The other day after Clarie got home from school, the girls decided they wanted to "make a cake". They were just pretending, but I decided to make it a little bit more fun for them....I gave them a mixing bowl with fruit snacks, marshmallows and fruit nuggets (a different type of fruit snack). Once again I thought they were so cute I had to take a picture.

I love how much these two girls love each other. I am so grateful that these two girls are in my life and so proud to be called their mother!!