Some Sunshine!

Last weekend was gorgeous outside. For the first time in a month or two it was above 50 degrees, no wind, and the sun was shining. Kyle's sister Kym was having a birthday and her kids and grandkids were here so we headed over to the park.

Bentley waiting patiently  in his chair as I get the girls ready to go. Kyle was super excited to use his camera and got a head start. 

My girls LOVE the swings. We usually have a rule that I'll push you the first 10-15 minutes at the park but after that you gotta go play somewhere else.

Apparently my kids aren't the only ones that love the swings. Kym's grandkids sucked her in too :)

This baby just makes me smile.

 This girl can turn her attitude on so fast. Man she has pretty eyes.

Confession: I've neve done jumping picture before. I know right?! I was super nervous, but then after the first one we were addicted. Here are our favorite two.

Holli, Me, and Rocky (Holli's finance)

Kreslie Hawk, Kyle, and Me. Kyle says he got more air then me... hmm I don't think so :)

Happy 4th Birthday, Macy!

I was super nervous/excited for Macy's 4th birthday. Now that she's a little older and going to preschool she has gotten some friends and Kyle and I decided it was probably time to start doing a friends party for her instead of a family party and more geared toward adults than really the kids- because let's be honest- when their little they don't really care about their party anyway. Macy and I sat down about 2 weeks before her birthday and started planning her party. She wanted a My Little Pony party and a pinata. I worked with her a little bit and we decided we would have pony cupcakes, a pin the tail on Twilight Sparkle, and "Find the Pony" game. I found the invitations I wanted online and gave Kyle the job of making them in his photo editing program and Macy got to hand them out to all her friends that Sunday at church and Monday at school. I didn't realize that kids parties are much different then adults parties. At like a baby shower you usually plan on only 1/3 of the people that you invite being there- but a kids birthday party, if they are invited they are coming- which is a good thing- I just wasn't prepared for that :) The whole week before her party I just couldn't stop thinking about it! Silly, I know. It was my very first "kids" party and I wanted to do it right! That Monday we headed over to Walmart to find some My Little Pony party supplies and a pinata. We found nothing. At all. The only "My Little Pony" thing we found was 1 sheet of stickers. That's right, just one. No wrapping paper, pinata, coloring books, action figures- nothing. So we made due with what we could. I got pink everything and hoped that I could find something online to print off to add the My Little Pony factor. Here's what we came up with!

  For an "arrival treat" we had cups of "Rainbow Dash Goldfish" by their "make your own pony" coloring sheet, a party hat, and a My Little Pony Bracelet. (Sidenote on part hat: The night before Macy's party she says "MOM! We forgot about PARTY HATS!"... luckily Dollar General has some ballon party hats that I stuck some stickers on :) Way to go for last minute party hats huh?)

Next we played a fun round of "Pin the tail on Twilight Sparkle". I opened up google images and Macy picked which pony to pin the tail on, Kyle set up the projector, and I traced and colored the pony. 

We tried to play "Find the Pony" to kill some time, and it went okay for about 5 minutes. With 8 kids 4 and under they don't have a very long attention span. 

My awesome Mom came up that morning of the party and saved the day by bringing a Pony pinata. At Walmart they only had HUGE pinatas, so I was going try and make one. Well, that was an epic fail. Grandma Carbonneau to the rescue! The kids were too cute with this pinata, after the candy fell all the little girls would run over, pick up one piece, run back and show their parents, and then run back to get another piece. It took a good 10 minutes for them to pick up all the candy. 

The cake! I was lucky and found someone that would let me borrow a cupcake holder and I found all the cupcake toppers online. I just printed off, glued together, and -shabang- My Little Pony cupcakes!

I made these little Thank You take home bags for all the guests. Inside were My Little Pony stickers I found at Dollar General, flower bracelets, a candy necklace, and a pair of sunglasses (Macy insisted that we get them each a pair of sunglasses). I found the pink bags at Alco and I printed off the Thank You cards off pinterest. On the inside I wrote something along the lines of 'Thank you for coming to my party" and Macy signed her name. 

I was super happy with the way everything came together, and Macy had a blast. For a good two weeks after her party she told everyone about it. I'm super excited for more parties to come!

Let Them Be Little

I love the song "Let Them Be Little" by Billy Dean  and I have been trying harder lately to let my kids "be little". I think too often I try to make them act older then they really are and I get frustrated when they are acting their age. This morning I took an effort to make them feel special. They got to wear mommy's jewelry to church. As you can see in the picture, Macy absolutely loved it. I hope I take can keep remembering to take advantage of how easy it is to just let her wear my necklace or to let London eat breakfast off of a huge snowman platter that was given to us with treats on it. I'm a little uptight about how things are "supposed" to be, I can feel myself lightening up a little and hope I can keep doing so.

I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand
Felt so good in it, no bigger than a minute
How it amazes me, you're changing with every blink
Faster than a flower blooms they grow up all too soon

So let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little.

I've never felt so much in one little tender touch
I live for those kisses, prayers and your wishes
Now that you're teaching me things only a child can see
And Tonight while we're on our knees all I ask is please

Let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little

So innocent, precious soul, you turn around and It's time to let them go.

So let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little

Let them be little

Too Big.

This handsome man is 5 months old!

He is trying to grow up on me. 

He loves rice cereal. 

He loves to lay on the floor and screech. A happy screech. 

He loves his sisters, and they tend to love him a little too hard sometimes. 

He's sitting up assisted. 

He loves his Mommy, and I love it.

Happy Holidays!

We had so much fun this year for the holidays. The week before Thanksgiving Kyle had All-State Show Choir, so the kids and I headed down to my parents since he was going to be gone all weekend. I had tons of fun hanging out with my Mom and I, of course, put us to work. We made 3 quiet books in 2 days. Thanks amazing, and they are so good. We spent a weekend in Tucson while my Dad and brother Chris rode in the Tour de Tucson and then just hung out in Buckeye. We headed over to Mesa for Thanksgiving with Kyle's sister Kathleen. She made an amazing Thanksgiving meal  and the girls had tons of fun playing in their AMAZING playhouse. I say playhouse, but really it's like a mini house. Carpet, stairs, windows, shingles- it's amazing. Macy actually asked for one for Christmas- I told her it was probably too big for Santa's sleigh (I left the "too big for Santa's pocketbook" part out). We drove back to Buckeye that night and joined my parents and Chris and Kati's family there. My Mom and I went to Toys R Us for Black Friday deals and I got all my Christmas shopping done. It was amazing, I got like 70% off, super fun. The actually day of Black Friday we got Kati to go back out with us and had a blast at Charming Charlie and Kohls. We found more awesome deals and it was a great little girls day out. 

For Christmas I really tried to make the entire month of December very Christmasy. I loved getting the tree out and having the girls help me decorate. We did cookies a few times, lots of Christmas music playing, and we tried to go over the Christmas Story  a few times so the will learn why we celebrate Christmas. The Sunday before Christmas we drove down 45 minutes after church got out. We stopped at Kyle's sisters house and handed over some Christmas presents and had another amazing dinner at their house. 

Christmas Eve Day was spent COOKING. LOTS and LOTS of cooking- like 8 hours worth. It was really fun and I had never cooked that much in my life. The pictures pretty much sum up our Christmas so we'll go from there :)

Kyle's brother Mike and sister-in-law Trish sent Bentley this ADORABLE reindeer hat. I just had to get a picture of him in it with his sisters in all their Christmas colors by the tree. 

 Uncle Steven got London to help him make cookies, she was having the time of her life. Thanks Uncle Steven! 

 Grandma and Grandpa Bochat joined us mid-day Christmas Eve, and Macy loved to play the "travel" game with Grandpa. He is such a good Grandpa and always loves to play with the kids. 

 Kyle did a lot of taking care of Bentley so I could help my Mom cook. Thanks Babe! 

 Steven, Meghan, and Jack joined us too! Meghan was in the kitchen with us all day too- she makes VERY good carmel corn!

 One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to open new PJ's on Christmas Eve. The girls loved their jammies. 

 This is the best picture we got of all the grandkids that were there that night. It's tough getting 4 kids 3 and under to look at the camera!

 Christmas morning was pretty exciting. London wasn't sure at first, but when she found out there were presents and CANDY in her stocking she was all game. 

 Bentley got a rattle ball for Christmas. He loves it. $5 well spent. 

 My Mom made Macy and her cousin Brelee ABC quilts this year. She loves it. As you can see.

 The girls big presents from Santa this year were BIKES. They got helmets from Grandma Gardner to go with it. Macy finally got the hang of her bike after about an hour but London still just loves to sit on it. I'm actually not sure if she loves her bike or her helmet more. The girl fell asleep in her helmet on the way back to Holbrook. 

 Kyle got a snazzy new lens for his camera. He loves it and had lots of fun taking pictures. Chris and Kati got to Buckeye Christmas afternoon and squeezed all their kids bikes in the van. They spent a good 2-3 hours a day outside riding their bikes. London didn't really ride it but she did work on it a lot :) She figured since it wasn't moving it must be broken. 

London learned how to FLY!

Macy would get frustrated on her bike when she would get stuck on an upward slope. 

 

 Until Grandpa Carbonneau put a PUPPY in her basket. This is my parents new puppy Zoey- she is SUPER cute and extremely good with the kids. They hauled that poor thing everywhere and she never ran from them or anything.

 The girls all took turns riding around with the puppy. They all took very good care of her.

 After the girls all had enough of bikes Grandma Carbonneau helped them make bracelets. She let them pick which beads they wanted and then we put them together. They wear them all the time now. 

I'm really sad to see this Christmas Season go, it was one of my favorite Decembers. It's been really fun to have kids that are old enough to know something is going on and to try and make it special for them. I'm excited for more Christmas' to come with these little ones. 

Cute Kids

I realized recently that we've stopped using our nice camera to take pictures.  My phone is so handy that if anything cute is happening I just take a picture with that and send it to instagram. Well, the pcitures aren't very good quality and so I decided to leave my nice camera out so hat we can get more pictures. These are just some cute pictures of the kids around the house.

I love my cute kids. 

Utah

Kyle had his Fall Break October 8-12 so we decided to head up to UTAH! Kyle's sister has lived up there for a few years and we had yet to visit them. They had a baby 1 week after Bentley was born and were planning on blessing him that weekend. Since Kyle was on school break we decided it would be the perfect time to go. His Mom and Kathleen were already up there for a dinner that Kathleen put on for work and Brian, Jane, and their family were up there dropping off Austin at the MTC so it was kind of a little family reunion. We drove up saturday the 6th and we were pleasantly surprised at how well the kids did. Bentley did AMAZING. He seriously didn't cry once on the way up. We stopped about every 3 1/2 hours to give the kids a little break and to feed Bentley and I really think that helped a lot. We stopped at a really cute park in Kanab, Utah and ate lunch and let the girls play on the playground for about an hour to break up the trip even more. It is a really pretty drive from here to Utah. You get the forest, AZ desert, the reservation, and the Utah desert. It took us about 12 hours and we got to the Johnsons at about 9:00 pm. 

The first day (Sunday) we just hung out at the Johnsons and enjoyed conference and family. The girls had tons of fun playing with their cousins. Kellie has a little girl a few months older than London so it was fun to watch the 3 little girls run around and play together. Macy played with the old boys quite a bit too- Kyle went outside once to see what they were doing and Macy was bossin' them all around- and they were actually listening to her. She has 3 older boy cousins and there were a few neighbor kids playing with them. Macy said she wanted to do a race so the boys all stopped and asked where to start, she told them where. She  said go and they all ran past her so she turned around and headed back and said "I won!" . They all agreed she won, but then they decided they should set a definite finish line. They she decided it was time to play something else and they just kind of rolled with it and did whatever she said. We're in trouble with that one. 

The next day Kyle and I took our kids to temple square and enjoyed the LDS sites. It's amazing how pretty the Salt Lake Temple is. It is such a castle looking place. Sadly we forgot our camera at home so didn't get any pictures. We took a tour of the conference center and then headed back to Kellie and Karls. 

Tuesday we headed over to the This Is The Place Monument and Pioneer Village. This Is The Place Monument is a ginormous statue of Brigham Young saying that this is the place that they needed to stop and settle. There are lots of other monuments and carvings around it, it's actually really cool. We remember our camera but forgot to take a family picture with the monument in view. In the picture below you can kind of see the side of it :). 

 In Pioneer Village the kids had A LOT of fun. There were so many different things to do. We started off in a cabin that had little crafts for the kids to do. Macy is making her necklace and her cousin Ava is coloring on her bag. 

 London and Me trying get London's necklace they way she wanted it. 

 They were getting the buildings all ready for their spookfest so we had to look past on the scarey cobwebs. London didn't mind but they really freaked Macy out. 

 We headed over to the school house where the kids colored on chalk boards and they taught us about the alphabet that Brigham Young tried to start, it was actually pretty interesting. 

 Ava, London, and Macy

 They had this adorable kid sized village that the girls just ran around from house to house. They were too cute. This is basically what they did, Macy would run to a house, Ava would follow her, and London would follow Ava. 

 There was a cute stationary train at the little village that the girls could run around on.

 Next we went over to the petting zoo. The girls had tons of fun on the horses, they look like pros. 

 This little guy was tricky! He escaped out of the petting zoo once and tried to get out when we were leaving. The girls really liked him because he was little. 

 Macy really liked the sheep, but London would scream if one looked at her or walked too close.

 The girls all love their Grandma. 

 Macy found these sunglasses in the little stationary train and sported them for the rest of the day.

 We also did some gold mining. This was the gold miner. Back then a man would own the river/stream and if you wanted to mine gold you would essentially rent a piece of the lake from him. They would do a daily rate with each person and if you got 10 pieces of gold you have to give him 3. We didn't end up doing much, I think the girls each got like 3 pieces so the gold miner actually ending up giving each girl about 10 extra gold pieces. 

 They opened up this little kid train just in time for the kids to ride it. They had lots of fun. The little family in the car behing the girls were too cute. There were 3 boys and 2 girls and you could tell the Mom took lots of pictures because when they would pass their Mom they would all smile and keep looking at her until they past, it was really cute.

 Mr. Bentley was, of course, awesome. Hung out in his seat most of the time. He got hungry once but after that was taken care of he was his happy self. 

 Our last stop was the bank where the girls all traded in their gold for some candy. 

After we got home from the village we did some Deseret Industries shopping. I got Macy 2 sweaters, a jacket, and a super cute dress. Their DI was seriously amazing, so much nice stuff there. The next day we headed home. Bentley was a little more fussy on the way home, but you can't blame the kid. We had a lot of fun visiting Kellie and Karl and hope it do it again!