Love Day

We really, really like Valentines' Day. We like to cut out hearts and such to decorate the house with. We like to wear heart shirts (the girls) or red (the boys) on Valentine's Day. We make pink heart pancakes, pink heart rice krispie treats (usually sugar cookies but we ran out of time), heart banana bread, and heart brownies. We research the funnest V-day games to play at the class parties. We take our time in planning what kind of valentines will be handed out at school (why can't I just go to the store and buy a bag of cards)?
I kept asking myself that question when we were spending way more time than necessary assembling our homemade cards. I blame myself...I am the one who started it (with Millie's 3 year old preschool class). Now my kids just expect it and look forward to it every year. And I'll be honest, I look forward to it too. It's fun to include them in on what they want and let them help assemble. Last year we made glass candy. 2 years ago we made heart and lips suckers. This year we made "Rock Candy" for Millie's - iPods made out of a box of conversation hearts and a pair of peanut butter cup ear phones (idea from family fun). She was really excited about them and put them together all by herself.

Here she is, showing them off. She really wanted to make sure I could see her heart earrings. Can you tell they are clip-ons? She still has no interest in getting her ears pierced. Mostly because there is pain involved.

However, she was not so happy to see that I had printed "love" on them instead of "from" but I was not about to print them all out again. Deal.

Fortunately, the boys' were much quicker. The longest part was them deciding what kind of candy. They settled on red Blow Pops and Hershey kisses. They didn't really care about what the cards looked like, as long as they had some skulls on there (I guess because skulls show love??)
I admit it is probably over the top, but we have fun. I love you my little sweethearts.

Baptism

Look at the handsome lunchbox on his big day. According to his journal entry "Today I got baptized and it wasn't too bad". I am sure it was a day he will remember for the rest of his life! It was amazing the way the entire room felt. I think everyone present will remember how it felt!
We all played a little part in the service, including Mom and Millie playing the piano (mom did it impromptu), Dad doing the baptism and confirmation, uncle Sean and Wilbur doing a great job on the talks and Quincy looking super cute and singing so pretty. This is how Wilbur started his talk on the Holy Ghost (his idea):
"Why didn't the ghost cross the road? Because he had none guts!" But I am talking about another ghost..."

We couldn't be more proud of our little Sam.
As usual our families showed up to support him and us. We celebrated afterward at our house with lunch. Thanks everyone for a wonderful day!

8

Sam's birthday was on the 31st, but we waited until last weekend to celebrate with his buddies. For his party, the only thing he wanted to do was go skiing. We explained to him that not all of his friends ski and that it would be difficult to keep track of so many boys. But he still insisted on skiing for his party. I wasn't sure how the whole ski thing with 8 kids under 8 would play out (actually 1 was 10), but I decided to not worry about it and just go with the flow.
But we also wanted to include his other friends; so, we decided to take his friends that do ski for a couple hours, then meet up with the rest of the boys at Fat Cats for some bowling, pizza, presents, cake, arcade, and ticket spending.
Turns out....it was an excellent idea. The kids all did great skiing and they had so much fun! I think they felt cool going up the lift and down the hill on their own. They even figured out how to get their skis back on after a little yard sale crash! I even think Millie had fun being the only girl!
We met up with 6 more kids at Fat Cats for a really really fun time! I loved watching those adorable boys, they are all so cute and funny and play so well together.
What a fun day and night!
I love that in every picture I have of Sam opening his presents (like 10 pictures), someone is behind him giving him rabbit ears! Is that not classic 8 year old boys? They thought it was sooo funny!
I like to make a big deal of the birthday cakes. Other than a couple ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins, I have always made the cake whatever they choose. I really like to bake/cook so this part is always fun for me. Usually I spend a chunk of the day decorating the cake...but not this time. Sambo said he didn't really know/care what his cake was this year so I whipped it up pretty quick and threw on some gumballs inpromptu. It's supposed to be a # 8. But the best part was....
The middle! This cake is made with Sprite instead of eggs and oil. It tasted yummy and looked even better. The kids loved the surprise inside! Oh yeah and the gumballs.
We love you birthday boy.

Sambo's Debut

Sam had his 1st "TNT" (tramp-n-tumbling) competition last Saturday. He goes to a gym called Black Diamond Gym and he loves it. Not only that, but he's good!
Earlier last summer I posted about when we went to the Olympic park in Park City and Sam had a blast skiing off the ramps into the pool. After that he wouldn't stop talking about wanting to do flips on skis, so we looked into it. Black Diamond is the gym in Park City where the athletes train and learn TNT...but we weren't thrilled about driving to P.C. 2-3 times/week. So for now we are going to their other gym in South Jordan.
Anyway, we are new to the tumbling competition world. Growing up I did some competitions in gymnastics but man it has changed. Everyone now is soooo good!
Sambo did awesome! He was a little nervous but did great remembering his tramp routine and counting the right number of back handsprings on the floor. He hates that he has to wear "stretchy pants" and all :)
We are so proud of him. He took 2nd place on tramp and 4th place in tumbling! My family came out to support him, thanks guys! Afterward we took him out to his birthday lunch. What a fun day!

10

Amilia Anne (Millie) - 2 weeks old
Named after her Grandma and also the Millenium (Jan/2000)

15 Months

4 years old - 1st dance performance
6 years old
9 years old (almost 10) My baby girl is ten. Ten!
We really can't believe it. Dad and I were just talking about how fast 10 years has gone by. We will never forget the day you were born and how happy we were to see you. Our life has been so blessed ever since because of you and the joy you add to our family. There is something about the first baby. You take in every detail and second of being a new mommy. I will cherish our time when it was just you, dad, and me. Then you start growing and before we know it, we have 3 more babies and you are the BIG sister. You are the oldest because you can handle the responsibility of being a good example to your little brothers and sister. And even though you are the oldest, you will always be our baby girl. I am proud of the young lady you are becoming. I watched you interact with your friends at the birthday parties and I love how you are a good friend and make sure everyone feels included. I love how funny and confident you are with others. You are blessed to have many, many friends. Your fun personality draws others to want to be around you.
When it came time to plan your birthday party, you were torn because you wanted to include all of your close friends. But, you also wanted to have a sleep-over and we thought it would be too many girls! Because of this, you were lucky to have 2 birthday parties.

Party 1:
I grabbed your neighborhood friends and we picked you up from dance and SURPRISE! You were so surprised to see all of your friends in my car. I fooled you because you thought it was going to have to be the next week.
Then you picked a place to eat dinner and dessert. You chose Olive Garden, one of your faves. I had so much fun with these darling girls!


Here is everyone singing to you!
For dessert, everyone got ice cream sundaes. You got some awesome birthday presents!

Party 2:
Ice Skating at the Gallivan Center, then a sleep-over at the Marriott Hotel connected to the ice rink in downtown Salt Lake. I was impressed with how fast all the girls caught-on to ice skating. Even the boys figured it out and everyone had a great time. Quinny loved it too! The weather was awesome. There was live music and the DJ even wished Millie a happy birthday!

We went straight from skating to the hot tub and swimming. Then it was up to our room for presents and cake/ice cream. This year I made cute yummy "cake pops" and also ice cream cone cakes.




Then dad took the little kids home and I had the pleasure of having a slumber party with you and your friends. I tried to be a fly on the wall and it was then that I realized you really are in the "tween" stage. Right between young and teen. Listening to your conversations and the questions you asked the "magic 8 ball" was very fun! One of your friends was even wearing a bra and I just can't believe you are getting that close to grown-up! Of course we didn't get much sleep but who cares right? When we got home yesterday I loved that you and me got to take a 2 hour nap together! Did you feel me snuggle-up to you while you were sleeping? Could you feel me holding on to every breath, wishing that you would stop growing?

BUT, sometimes growing-up is not so bad...

You are getting old enough to babysit for short periods of time. I love that when dad and I needed to go out for some "alone time" last night, you were willing to be in charge at home. And even more, I love that when we left you in charge, we knew we could trust you to take good care of the kids.
Thank-you, and Happy Birthday!

Something SWeeT and something SiLLY

So SWeeT...

Without prompting, Sambo made this card for Millie and gave it to her for her birthday (this is the inside of the card)


How generous of him to give her a whole dollar! Oh he's a sweetheart. I love my sensitive little guy.


So SiLLY...

As we've mentioned many times, Will aka "The Great Man" is a funny dude. He says things and does things with his face that are hilarious...even when he's not trying to be funny.

The other day he was leaving to walk up to his friend's house. I said, "Have fun and use your manners."
He said, "Yeah, Kai's mom really likes manners. But she also likes the Utes. So how can she like manners AND like the Utes?"




P.S. {A happy birthday shout-out to Millie!!!!}

Proud

Her teacher, Mrs. Burton said Millie "stays on task, tries hard, gets good grades, and is a good friend to everyone"
I am most proud of the ladder. More important than an "A" any day.
Keep it up chick