Someone Had A Birthday!

My sweet Molly turned 2 yesterday! I was going to blog about it last night, but I fell asleep too early. So, a day late isn't so bad! Wow, I can't even believe she is already 2. The last 2 years have gone by so fast! She is still my baby though, even though I can feel the terrible 2's creeping upon us! She has been talking so much lately, she really wants us to understand her. If we can't understand what she is saying she will grab your hand and show you what she wants you to see! She gets along so well with her sisters, they sure do treat her like the baby of the family! I am so happy that my girls have each other. I tell them when they fight "You better be nice to each other because you have each other forever! You can never get rid of your sisters!" They love that one!

Here is Molly this morning before church. I didn't know what to get her for her birthday, since it is 1 day after Christmas, and she is into pretty dresses, so I got her this dress. I went to the store on the 26th and found this $45.00 dress for $15.00! I couldn't pass it up! I also got it in a size 4 so she can wear it for a while. She LOVED it and felt like a princess in it! I ask her all the time if she is my princess and she always says "Uh Huh"(Yes!).

Probably from watching her sisters blow out the candles on their cakes from past birthdays, Molly knew just what to do when it came time to blow out her candles! Rodger and I were both pretty surprised by it! She did such a good job!

She also knew that underneath the pretty wrapping paper were probably some really great toys, so she just ripped right into her presents! I guess I never realized how much she watches us and how much she knows! It also probably helped that Christmas was the day before and she had plenty of practice then!

Here Molly is with a blanket that her Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jeff made her. I'm not sure why but she LOVES blankets, which she calls "GG's". It's pretty cute. She also likes to be wrapped in them a specific way. She is pretty particular about her "GG's" and she loved this one and slept with it last night! How lucky I am to know my sweet Molly, as well as my other girls! Sooo, Happy Birthday Molly! I LOVE You!

To My Sweet Molly Girl,

Happy 2nd Birthday sweetheart! I am so glad that you chose me to be your mom. You make me happy everyday with your sweet smile and personality. Even though you are my 4th girl, and I had hoped that someday I would have a son, I would never trade you for anything! I am lucky to know you and I feel like you are here for a purpose and that you have some GREAT things to do here! When Dad and I found out that we were having another girl, we were soo happy! You have seriously been a ray of sunshine in my life. My hope for you is to have a long happy life, chasing your dreams and being the amazing person I know that you are! I love you! Happy Birthday!

Love, Mom

From My Family To Yours

Well, in my time zone it is still Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone had a really great day full of family, friends, food, smiles, PJs, movies, presents, more food! You all know the drill! Well, we had such a great day today! The girls woke up early, but not too early. Waking up on Christmas morning around 7:15 isn't so bad! Here we are as a family on Christmas Eve. We let the girls open up PJ's then. They loved them! I had bought them some jammies from Wal-Mart, but I went to a service day at my church and won PJ pants for everyone in my family! So a lady from my church made some matching pj pants for my girls and for Rodg and I. I bought their shirts at a consignment shop. So they are not all the same, but I thought any shade of pink would work-and they did! I spent a whole $10.50 on all 4 shirts! And to make the story even better, I had consigned some of my girls old clothes and got $10.35 back! So I really only paid 15 cents for their shirts! Sweet! I love a good deal! AND to make the story even better, the Wal-Mart PJ's were WAY to big and never would have fit my girls and they wouldn't have had any PJ's for Christmas! Oh, I am out of breath! I'm soo glad it all worked out!
My cute girls on Christmas Eve 2009

I LOVE this picture of Sophia! They were so excited about opening their presents as well as giving what they had purchased for their sisters and Rodger and I. A few weeks ago their was a thing called Winter Wonderland at their school. It is a place where parents can bring their kids to purchase gifts for their families at a pretty cheap price. I happened to be working that weekend so Rodger took all 4 of them! I was pretty impressed! They loved to see the look on their sisters faces when they opened the gift they had gotten them! P.S. Sophia is holding the PJ's from Wal-Mart! You know, the ones that are too big, the ones she won't be able to wear until she is 14? I hate Wal-Mart sizes sometimes!

Abby with her gift from Santa. She asked for a Tamagotchi, and that is what she got! She took care of it today and really had a fun time learning all about it!

OK, I know what you are thinking! You got Rodger a WHaT? A Nerf Sniper Rifle? He is grown up, right? Yes, he is my husband of 11 years, yes he is the father of my 4 girls and yes he loves Nerf guns! He had so much fun with it today!

Santa brought Macey and Molly this craft table. It is so very cute and they played with it ALL day, I'm not kidding! They sure did forget quick that this was not what they had asked Santa for! I'm so glad that they are so happy.

My girls, together. How sweet they are and what a sweet job I have being their Mom! Merry Christmas girls! I hope you had the best day ever!

So, to all of my friends out there that I did not call today, Merry Christmas! At least for the next 40 minutes! Love you all!

What A Difference A Year Makes

So I thought I would post tonight about where we were 1 year ago, and how far we have come since then. Last year we were living in California, for the 2nd time, and loving it. We really did love it there. The beautiful weather, the great ward, and the most awesome friends ever! I have a few great friends here, but I do miss my friends in California. It wasn't just my friends, but my girls had such great friends too! We had the Redfern's, which are family to us. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with them last year. Oh, I sure do miss them! It seems so weird sometimes to think about how many times we have moved in the past few years, and all that comes with that. I am grateful my kids have adjusted well and are just happy to have each other. We have had a few job changes, school changes and so on. But we all seem to be doing good. Last year at this time, I really didn't know where we were going to end up. Were we to stay in California or go back to the Pacific Northwest? We prayed and waited, and waited and prayed. Finally an answer came that we were to pack up again(10 months after we had moved back down to Cali.)and go back up north. I am so thankful that we got an answer to our prayers.
This year our Christmas might be a little smaller, our tree might be a little smaller, but I think our girls will be just fine! The picture above is of our tree last year in our 2nd Cali. home. The girls have grown so much since then! It's amazing how fast they grow-and you don't really notice it until you see old pictures!

Molly-1 year ago. She wasn't walking, in fact, she had just started crawling a few months before! She has always been such a great baby! Can't believe how much she has grown!

Here we are last year in front of The Oakland Temple during the Christmas Season. They decorate the whole grounds with lights. It really is a sight to behold! We have some great memories of the Oakland Temple! Making a goal of going every month-and doing it, waking up way too early to go with the sisters in our ward for a very early morning session, spending time with my eternal companion in the most beautiful place ever! We sure do miss it!

The girls in front of The Oakland Temple

Here are my girls, last Christmas, waiting to be able to go down stairs to see what Santa had brought them. I know we were not in that house very long, but we sure did make some great memories! Christmas mornings are always good memories! They had such a great time last year! Opening presents, playing with presents and doing fashion shows in their new clothes is etched into my memory. Like every other place we have lived, memories. But if we hold onto those memories, we can always go back and be thankful for that time in our lives. No matter what our trial is, always try to create memories, and hold those ones from the past close. I know we no longer live in Cali. but we are grateful to have had that opportunity to create so many wonderful memories! I can't wait for this upcoming Christmas Season, to see the excitement in my children's eyes, to feel the cool crisp air, to spend time with family, to make memories that will last forever.

Bring It On!

NEW MOON!!!

Just a little excited about the new movie coming out tonight! A lady from our church rented a whole theater at a place called Cinetopia! They have a Living Room Theater, which we got, and no one under 21 can go in! So tonight I will be hangin' with all of my friends from church watching New Moon! Oh, I almost forgot to say, we get to see it at 8:30 tonight. 3 and a half hours before it actually "gets released"! I am so excited! I am one lucky girl!

Love Those Smiles!

I love the smiles on my children's faces and the ones on the pumpkins too! This year when we carved pumpkins, we let the girls pick out what kind of face they wanted and then Dad carved them out! It was a lot of fun just watching the girls gross out at the insides of the pumpkin, but the next second they were smiling because they saw their finished pumpkins! It was really cute! Here's Molly trying to smile and to hold that heavy pumpkin up! she did such a great job!
Here is Macey with her super happy, super smiley pumpkin!

Abby cleaning out her pumpkin, she is the only one who did this(except for Mom, of course!)! My brave little one! Abby, with the help from Dad, cleaned and carved her whole pumpkin. Way to go Abby!

Here is Sophia with her toothless Pumpkin! Looks like Sophia wanted to look like her pumpkin this year! She has lost a lot of teeth in the last 6 months! Here's hoping they all straighten out! Her teeth look like they are not coming in straight, should I worry about that? Oh well, she is one cute toothless girl with her toothless pumpkin!

Here are all the pumpkins out on the front porch. Abby's is in the middle, the sad pumpkin. I don't know why she wanted a sad pumpkin, maybe just to be different from her sisters! But we all had such a great time as a family carving pumpkins. Its too bad that Halloween comes and goes too fast! Until next time!

PUMPKIN PATCH 2009

I love October. It is the start of fall and all of the festivities coming in the next few months!I love pumpkin patches! I love the hay rides, hot apple cider, corn maze, hay pyramid, bale maze, pumpkin launch, and of course, searching a huge field of pumpkins to find our perfect pumpkins! This year we had a great time and I do believe we found our perfect pumpkins! My 4 beautiful girls with their pumpkins
Abby, Kamryn, Sophia and Macey at the top of the hay pyramid, boy was that fun for them! They probably could have done this all day.

Molly with her pumpkin

Macey showing off her pumpkin

Sophia posing with her pumpkin

This is the best picture I got of Abby with her pumpkin. She did such a great job picking out her pumpkin. Because we have 4 kids, and no chance of getting a wheelbarrow(there were so many people waiting in line for one. We probably would have waited at least 30 minutes) , we told our girls that they had to pick pumpkins they could carry out. They all did really good and carried them pretty much all the way out! Way to go Ladies!

Here they are carrying their pumpkins out

Here's Molly. Apparently, she did not want to be held while leaving the pumpkin field. But if she walked, well, we still might be there! Bless her heart!

They had little stations where you can wash your pumpkin and make it clean, so you don't have to get all the dirt from the field in your car! Such a great idea!

This was the last picture I took that day, my camera battery died. Who goes to the pumpkin patch with your whole family and doesn't make sure your battery is charged? Um, well, I do. After we let the girls play in the corn pit(kinda like a sand box but with corn), we still did the pumpkin launch, bale maze, corn maze and the animal petting area. Yep, missed it all! Oh well, the pictures I have, I LOVE! So, a little word of advice - ALWAYS make sure your camera battery is charged when you are going on a fun outing with your family! And if you accidentally forgot to charge your battery and it dies, try to go on smiling while you are crying on the inside!

Yep, You Guessed It!

Yep, you guesses it! Sophia is holding a maxi pad! So, here's the story. The other day I was in the kitchen making breakfast while Sophia and Macey were looking through some old magazines that my mother-in-law brought over. The magazines were Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day and things like that. I had no idea that they put samples inside their magazines! I had no idea until Sophia said "Hey Mom, Look!" I look and see that she is holding this maxi pad! She said"Mom, this is great! You can use this for your running! When you run you can put this on your foot for padding!(picture #2)" I couldn't help but laugh a little and told her that was a great idea. I told her to stay right there because I HAD to get a picture of this! She was nice enough to pose for me! I did have to try it out a bit, but did not get a picture! Macey wanted to get in on the fun so she had to try it out too. She is so sweet and innocent! She really thought she had found a treasure!
Trying out the "running pad"

Macey sporting the "running pad" too!

I love sweet memories like this! I'm glad I blogged about it before I forgot how the story went! I will remember it forever! I'm sure I will be able to hold this over her head when she gets bigger! Ha Ha!

3 New Posts...

Just wanted to let you know that there are 3 new posts below-so keep scrolling down! Apperantly I like to blog all at once! So, Enjoy!

This Ones 4 You...Mom

Alright Mom, I did it! And I had fun doing it! Who would've ever thought that I could be handy enough to sew? Well, I did it! I am proud of myself! Yea me! A few weeks ago my mom was coming for a visit, I asked her if she had any old sewing machines that she would give me so that I could learn how to sew. Well, she brought me this sweet machine, she says it's old, but it basically looks brand new to me. I have been playing with it a little,but today Rodger needed me to make a few bean bags for when he is out officiating on the football field. Sooo, I had to go to JoAnn Fabrics to get some fabric and the beads to go inside. And only my mom, I think , knows how much I used to HATE JoAnn's. It wasn't so bad this time though, although I did have to bribe Molly with a huge bag of gummy bears so she would stay in the cart! We got through it and made it home in 1 piece. Then the sewing fun began!

The machine my Mom brought for me, Thanks Mom! I LOVE it!
Aren't those bean bags awesome?:)

My beautiful, or not so beautiful handy work. They aren't all that pretty but they work and it was fun!

Oh my gosh! Me behind a sewing machine-and smiling!

Look at those hands!

I am really concentrating hard! I was making a bean bag for heavens sake! Ha Ha!

My Mom also brought a bunch of fabric so I took the time to sew up the sides to make this pretty table cloth. I think it will be a good one for the seasons coming up!

The machine does close to 40 different stitches! So super cool!

Here it is, finished product. I like it!

Please do not look at how straight my lines may or may not be. I tried and it was my first try! I will get better!

Well, I really had a lot of fun today with my sewing machine! Thanks again Mom for such a sweet gift! Remember, I am making pillowcases for everyone this year for Christmas! Wish me luck!

20 Minutes A Day

You know that saying that children need to be read to for at least 20 minutes a day, well, we cover that, and then some! Molly is my little sidekick and we do everything together, especially since all of her sisters are in school everyday! But when her sisters come home, she tries so hard to keep up with them! She loves her big sisters! Another thing that Molly is lovin' is BOOKS. I am so happy that she is so excited about them. She would have me read to her all day every day if I would! She has a little green bag that she carries her Disney board books in. When I say that she carries the bag around I actually mean that she sleeps with them, takes them where ever she goes, and cries if she can't find that little green bag! The following photos were taken when Papa Rocks and Grandma came over. I had picked up some books for Molly that morning and she was sharing them with Papa and her sisters. Too sweet. Macey huggin' her little sis'
Molly getting all of the attention! She is Loving it!

Sharing her Books

Cutie Pies