New Cousin - Adelaide

Our newest cousin on the Tree side is here! Baby Adelaide Marie, born February 22nd. She is so cute!

Happy Birthday Ellie! (2)

Happy Birthday to our sassy, sweet, goofy, bossy, crazy little girl. Can't believe you've been a part of our family for two whole years! Can't really imagine life without you...oh wait, yes I can haha.

Ellie's favorite things are:

Chex cereal (every morning for breakfast....even when sugar cereal is available)
Boiled eggs - She will eat as many as she can get her hands on! Literally....she has eaten over 6 at once
Pizza, fries, chicken nuggets

ANYTHING pink - she doesn't care about anything if its not pink haha
Anything that sparkles.
Anything princess, she loves ALL princesses.
Nail polish - she always wants her nails done
Moana - she loves listening to the Moana soundtrack, and wants to be Maui for Halloween this year. That probably might be really difficult, but I guess we'll see if that changes.
Dancing - she loves dancing and shaking her booty!
Daddy - total daddy's girl...although sometimes she needs mommy too
Coloring - She loves crayons, markers, painting, you name it. She's a little artsy girl!

Ellie is a SMART little girl. She talks so well for a two year old. She counts, knows some colors, animals and sounds, and is almost potty trained. She can't seem to get the hang of pooping on the potty, but she has done so well for her age! We went and bought her a Moana bike as incentive, and she doesn't really seem to care enough about the bike to poop in the potty. She'll poop in her pants, and come to me shrugging her shoulders saying: "tan't get my moana bike." Its only a lot frustrating, but she'll get it eventually. It might be nice to go a few months with no diapers!

Birthday Breakfast - cereal with "pink" milk, strawberries and blueberries 

Birthday Girl!

Look Up - YW in Excellence

I kept YW in Excellence pretty low key this year. I think i'm getting lazy...but maybe just more realistic. This was held in November, and our theme was "Look UP" and we used balloons and the movie UP for a few ideas. I brought every girl a helium balloon, and talked about trials and even through our hardest times its better to look up. I had them think of a trial or struggle they've been holding onto, and we took our balloons outside and released them, literally and figuratively haha.
For our yearly photo shoot, I decided to do a value color theme. We're blessed to have several photographers in the ward who will do the sessions and editing for free. Each girl signed up to represent a different value, and we took them to Daybreak Lake and photographed them with different colorful props. I really want each of them to have a picture for each year they are in Young Women's. I guess depending on how long i'm in, there will only be a handful that get a good amount, but still. Thanks to Wood Connection, they each got a photo plaque with their picture and we placed them on their display tables.
I added a few pics from the photoshoot at the bottom, but aren't those girls beautiful??? I was so happy with the way they turned out :-) I'm lucky to have such a fun calling!

Boston Interview

I've seen several of these going around on Facebook and thought it would be fun to interview Boston :)

Interviewed: Boston (4) 

What is something I say a lot? "Nope"

What makes me happy? Don't fight

How tall am I?  5

How old am I? 5

What is my favorite thing to do? "Color"

What makes me proud of you? "Don't pee in pull-ups"

What is my favorite food? "Chicken"

Do you think you could live without me? 

"No - I want momma! I just want momma.

If I could go anywhere, where would it be? "Nowhere! Um...St. George"

What is my favorite show? "Girls camp"

*What makes me sad? 

Fighting

*What is my favorite drink?

Slurpee

*How do I annoy you? 

Do loud stuff

*What is my favorite music to listen to?

Moana

*Whats my job?

Mutual

*What's my favorite color?

Dark Blue

*How much do you love me?

Kissing (giggles) I mean a lot!

Boston Starts Preschool!

Boston started preschool!! Say WHAT?? Is he old enough for this now?! He was accepted into the Headstart preschool program, and goes right in our neighborhood! We had orientation beginning of November, and Boston started November 11th. He goes four days a week in the afternoon for 3 1/2 hours. He LOVES it!! When we went to orientation, however, he cried clung to me and kept saying: "mommy, I don't want you to leave me!" I tried to keep it together, but pretty soon I was sobbing too. All in front of the new teacher. I know she thought I was nuts. I was trying to fill out paperwork, and my tears were all over the pages, it was absolutely ridiculous! We got him excited after that, and he got a backpack, and really really loves his preschool. His teachers name is Pangchi (Pen-chi) who is probably the sweetest, nicest person on the planet. Boston loves her. She is the best!
Since starting preschool, Boston has started reading small words, (at, the, and, etc.) can write his first AND last name, can recognize most numbers, letters and shapes, and is learning all sorts of things. Right now they are talking about animals, and have opened a little pet clinic where they help and learn about different (stuffed) animals. Anytime Boston has free time, he wants to play with the pets. I guess we need a pet sometime.. They also have a class pet, a little fish that they get to take care of. The classes got to vote on a name, and Boston's class chose Dory, but the other class won, so they named it Pikachu. Boston was not happy they didn't get to name the fish Dory!
They have show and tell every Thursday, and he loves to take his favorite toys to show his friends. He made friends with a cute little boy named Joshua, and they always find each other when he gets dropped off. Its so cute.
They feed the kids lunch and a snack while he's there too. Talk about spoiled! The only thing Boston doesn't really like is when they have salad. He says he eats the cheese off the top ha ha. Pretty much the only right way to eat a salad!

First day of school!

First Day - Drawing a picture of his favorite animal

Pangchi and Boston

What do you wear in the winter? Sometimes I wear shirts and underwear --Boston

Baby Girl Tree - 2017

Welp, what can I say. Here goes another one! We found out the end of September that we were expecting another baby. I had some mild sickness, but easy enough to hide that we decided to make it a surprise and wait to tell everyone. We spilled the beans around Thanksgiving. We were all convinced it was a boy. I hadn't been very sick, and Boston really really wanted a boy! I was 90% sure we were going to see BOY written on all the ultrasound pics. We went in on December 29th for our gender ultrasound, and low and behold, we are having another GIRL! We were all dumbfounded. Boston was sitting on Jeff's lap saying no, just over and over again. I felt so bad for him, and being as emotional as I was cried all the way home. Not because of disappointment, but because Boston really wanted a brother! It didn't take him long to warm up to the idea, he says as long as he gets a brother next. We all are still pretty shocked, but are so excited to have another little girl in our family! 

Christmas Fun

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We spent lots of time with family, got to talk to Uncle Dustin (who sounds amazing!) and enjoyed time together just our little family. Ellie was so fun this year, she was completely amazed that Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk. She came upstairs, and didn't even care about the presents, just said over and over, "milk all gone! Ate the cookies all gone!" It was so cute. Boston was thrilled that Santa remembered he wanted a bike and a remote control truck, but was even more excited when Ellie opened her Minnie Mouse kitchen and started yelling, I wanted that for her! She got it, and I wanted it for her! Ha ha. We were all spoiled, and enjoyed going to church, then afterwards talking to Dustin for TWO whole hours! It was awesome! The kids were so excited to see him, and kept their faces right in front of the screen. We can't wait to talk to him again on Mothers Day.

The week before Christmas we found out Boston got Impetigo. Honestly, it just looked like a bad break out to me, and before that, just dry skin. Whoops. Luckily it cleared up so we were able to enjoy Christmas! 

We love our family and love this time of year! Always sad when it ends.

Impetigo

Impetigo a day after medicine - much better!

So excited for her Minnie kitchen 'table!'

Captain America bike helmet

Santa came!

Christmas Eve - cookies for Santa

Talking to Dustin

Changed so much in 4 months!