Moments with Dad

The girls and I all agree that we are the luckiest to have Andrew as the man around the house. Not only does he work incredibly hard at work, he is the best when at home. Here the cuties are sitting on the couch, wearing jammies, eating cereal, and watching "Strawberry Shortcake." Does life get much better than this?

Elk

So there I was cutting off meat on an elk leg off of the bone when I called my sister to tell her I have the perfect Vegan-Therapy out there. Come over and help me with this elk leg :)

So, anyways, there I was cutting the elk when sweet Carolyn comes out with a butter knife to help me with the cutting ;) What a girl! She then went on to tell me all about the story of David in the scriptures and how he refused to eat a lot a meat. Man, I love my kids. They crack me up.

Preschool Website

My sister in-law, Michelle, introduced me to a fantastic resource for preschool! They have lesson plans with printouts! So awesome! http://education.byu.edu/seel/database

I love my preschool time with Ang! One of my favorite parts of each day :) Look at her pretty "B"s.

My Sweet 9 Month Babe!

Today our little sweety turned 9 months! We sure love her! She is soooo sooo happy and easy-going. She loves her sisters and they make her laugh better than any one else. She loves people singing to her (esp. "If You're Happy and You know it"). She is crawling like a genius and can now stand up by herself while holding onto something. She loves her solid foods (her favorite is oatmeal) and she is growing great. She is at about the 50 percentile for height/weight and in the 90 percentile for the head (as Carolyn's doctor once told me (b/c all my girls have had about that same measurement) - "perfect size and big brains.") She LOVES LOVES people - she gets so much attention every where she goes (she loves smiling, talking, and laughing at everyone). She gets lots of comments on her beautiful blue eyes and her tinted-red hair. She is such a peacemaker at the home - when Carolyn gets hurt, she literally cries for Emily (Emily has taken over a lot of my work as a mom). We call Em "Doctor Emily" b/c when the girls get hurt, Emily acts as a doctor and makes them all better (I do the voice and move her hands around like a doctor - it makes us all laugh - even Em). She is like her other sisters and is a total Daddy's girl. When she sees Andrew for the first time at night she just flirts with him for like the first 30 min (or all night)...calls to him ....talks/screams (a happy scream) at him...laughs at him...anything to talk to him and get his attention.

Emily with her cute sister:









Carolyn took these pictures of Emily and me playing...a little bit up close and personal but I decided to post them anyways.

Luckily, it's been a while since I have gotten a rude comment on how I must be a teenage mom. I think I finally might look my age. However, now I always get comments about how Emily is almost as big as me (some guy at Costco told Carolyn and Angela today that their mom forgot to eat her Wheaties as a kid and they better be sure to eat theirs). Anyways, when I look at pictures, I can sorta see what people are saying...this baby girl is going to be as tall as me before I know it (not that that is a hard accomplishment :)

We love you, our little Ms!

Halloween 2011

Halloween was so fun this year. We celebrated with several Halloween parties (church, community, school, etc.) and a great night of trick-or-treating (almost perfect weather). Here Carolyn is with her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Burkeen. Carolyn loves school and loves her teacher - so fun that they shared the same costume this year for Halloween :) My little witches :)
My sweet cheerleader...look at those beautiful blues :)

I just love my girls! I love Ang's smile here.





The girls even talked mom into being a witch with them - so fun to act like witches for the day.

And, for some random October pictures....
I had a very fun time making these sugar cookie fairy wands (http://familyfun.go.com/parties/parties-by-theme/fantasy-fairy-tale-parties/very-fairy-birthday-party-844544/3/). Fun for a "Fairy Day" at the Kims.
We also made a Thanksgiving poster where every day we draw a turkey with our hands and write 5 new things (no repeats) that we are grateful for. A fun (and easy) way to focus on all our many, many blessings this month!
This is Ang's first turkey she made (with NO assistance - I just wrote the words on the hands - she did all the rest).

"Seriously, you just don't get any sweeter than this..."

Many mornings Emily can sleep in until 8 AM if I let her...of course, with school this isn't possible. Therefore, most every morning, I have to wake Emily up so we can all take Carolyn to school. This morning I went into Em's room and started picking my sleeping baby up...as I lifted her out of her crib, even before her eyes opened - she smiled a big huge smile and then opened her beautiful blue eyes to greet the day. And I just thought, "Seriously, you just don't get any sweeter than this." She is such a sweetheart. A smiling sweetheart.

After that, I thought about how I think I have three girls that just can't get any sweeter. We obviously have our meltdowns and sass moments, but - I think my girls are incredibly sweet. After I had gotten a smiling half-asleep Emily out of her crib, this same morning as Carolyn left for school she began giving everyone her hugs and kisses as she always does. When it was my turn, our hug was weak so I said, "Carolyn, I need a better hug than that." To that she replied, "I'll give you a good hug any time."

Then, tonight as I was putting Angela to bed I gave Angela her goodnight kiss in which she responded, "I need a better kiss, mom!" So I gave my little Ang-ba-nang another kiss and she exclaimed, "I love you too much!" - something that Angela tells me ALL of the time. I just love it. I love my three sweet girls!

I also love my mornings with Angela and Emily. I just can't even put into words how much my mornings with Ang mean to me. A typical morning after we drop Carolyn off for school is we come home together and do starfall.com together as I feed Emily. Then, we eat our oatmeal together and chat. Then (Emily usually plays independently really well at this time so I can really focus on Ang) we go upstairs and have preschool together and then reading time together. I love love love it.

This week I have finally started making Angela her OWN phase books. She has been asking for them for awhile now...she loves Carolyn's so I am excited she finally has her own. My phase books are books I make personalized for my kids...they include lots of pictures of themselves, their family members, and friends...or whatever (animals they loves, princesses they love - anything that gets them excited about the book). Carolyn loved learning to read with her phase books and so far Angela is inlove with hers, too. I find it a wonderful way to teach kids how to read. This "R" book is all about one of her best friends, Rowan, and includes pictures of Rowan and her. I'm making phase one books right now for Angela with all the letters in the alphabet. We'll first focus on those and learn the letters and sounds really well. Then move on to phase two books with one word in them with pictures to cordinate (their favorite pictures are usually pictures I put in the books of them with someone or something). Then, phase three books have an easy phrase/sentence and so forth. Anyways - I love our phase books.

She's Got it!

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew taught this sweet girl how to ride a two-wheeler. Andrew and I thought it would take some time for Carolyn to learn, but - man - did she prove us wrong. She got it on her first time out! She's still mastering turning and stopping, but she's amazed us at how quickly she picked this up. Go Carolyn!