Big 5!

Our McKinley bug turned 5 years old this month. Its crazy to think I have a 5 year old, and even crazier to think she has only been part of our life for that long because I can't imagine life without her.
This year we did something kind of different for her birthday. Her past 2 birthday parties have been very girly princess parties, but this one definitely wasn't girly. This year Kinley wanted to have a "How to Train Your Dragon" party. Although most of her friends were girls and we gave out viking helmets, inflatable swords, and shields for party favors, it still looked like everyone had a good time.

The thing Kinley was most looking forward to was celebrating her birthday at school. On the day of your birthday at her Montessori you get to bring in a big poster with pictures of yourself to show the class. They also get to bring in a treat to share with the class and they have a special song sung to them.

A couple of months ago we hired a friend to come paint the girls room. We decided we weren't ready for Kinley to move to a downstairs bedroom yet, so we wanted to do something really fun for a room the girls could share once the baby comes.
This picture doesn't do the room or mural justice, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say that their room turned out adorable. We got the girls new beds, bedding and a cute chandelier. I couldn't be happier with their new bedroom, and the girls love it which is the most important part.
Now I would love to show pictures of a finished nursery, but the nursery is not yet finished. We did get it all painted, and I love the color we chose, but we're still waiting for our baby furniture. Hopefully it will be here before the baby. I hate not having the nursery finished this close to my due date, but I know the baby won't care...just the obsessive mommy is freaking out.
We have 4 weeks to go before the baby is supposed to be here, and I have to say this has been my most difficult pregnancy yet. I can't wait to get our little guy here for many reasons, but mainly because I can't wait to meet him.

My Baby Turned 2!!!

I don't realize how quickly time moves until I start looking at pictures of my kids. They are growing up soooo fast....too fast! I swear we just celebrated Annabelles 1st birthday and now my baby is turning 2. This year we decided to throw a big party for Annabelle since we finally live near family, and she's never had a big party. We celebrated her birthday at Leos Place with our friends and family. She was able to play with her cousins, eat pizza (which is her favorite), and have ice cream cake. Annabelle recieved a lot of fun presents, but I think she was most excited about her new horses.
The actual night of her Birthday we had a little family party with the 4 of us. She was really excited about the rocking horse Mckinley gave her

Annabelle got her own set of all the princess barbies from Mommy and Daddy. We've learned the hard way that to keep peace in your house you buy your girls the same things. Now they both have all the princess barbies, which SHOULD relieve some toy tension.
And here is another picture of Annabelle eating her cake without her hands, utensils or manners. Poor little girl doesn't want to touch it because she is afraid she'll get her hands dirty, just another example of how my kids obsessive mother has warped them...sorry kids.
We leave Monday for our trip to Cancun with some of our friends. I'm soooo excited and nervous at the same time. Our girls always have so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa, but I'm terrified that we'll have our little guy try to make an early appearance while we're there. Now if all my kiddos will promise to behave I promise to come home a more relaxed version of myself...DEAL!?!

Merry Christmas

We enjoyed spending Christmas with family for the first time in 4 years. The weekend before Christmas we spent in Utah with Bretts family. His moms family has a big party every year and it was really fun for us to be able to attend it this year. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the cabin, and we even took the kids sledding for the first time. While we were in Utah we took the kids to Temple Square, which we haven't been able to do in the past 4 years either.
On Christmas Eve we went to my brothers house and had a fun evening. We had yummy snacks, a gift exchange, acted out the nativity, and even had a special visit from the man in red.


It was a fun evening with family and Kinley was soooo excited that she got to be Mary in the nativity this year.
Christmas day involved even more family and presents, and I must say we all got kind of spoiled this year.


The girls got a trampoline from santa, some more barbies and horses, and they both got the walking dogs they really wanted. Brett got a new grill and some tools. However, I must have been the best this year because I really got spoiled. Santa brought me a diamond necklace and Brett gave me an Ipad.
As always the best part of Christmas was watching the girls open their presents Christmas morning, I love to see how excited they get. We also enjoyed being able to spend Christmas with family this year. What a wonderful time of year!

Halloween Fun

This has been such a busy Halloween month. We've had 3 Halloween parties, a school and ward carnival, trunk-or-treat, Boo at the Zoo, and of course trick-or-treating. By the time we went trick-or-treating on Halloween our kids were spent. We went to 5 houses and then Kinley asked if we could go home. I think its safe to say that we had enough Halloween fun to last us another year. We broke out all of the Halloween costumes and dress-ups so that we could wear different costumes for all of our events. It was fun dressing up the girls differently for each party, and it made for a lot of cute halloween pics.

Halloween Party #1




Boo at The Zoo was a blast, and we'll definitely be going again next year.





Halloween Party with Bradshaw Family




Trick-or-Treating


This is Kinley's friend Zach who went trick-or-treating with us. Apparently she plans on marrying him, which is fine with us...in 15-20 years.



What a fun month! Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. I saved my favorite pic for last. Its our little "Jo Dirt" wearing her daddy's mullet.
Happy November!

Fall Fun

This has been the best fall. We've had perfect fall weather, and I pray it holds out until after Halloween. It's so much more fun to go trick-or-treating without a snow suit on over your costume.
We started the month by going on a camping trip with some of our friends to Green Canyon. This is the first time we've taken the girls camping and it was soooo much fun, especially since the Sommers let us share a camper with them. We spent the day swimming and riding the 4-wheelers. Unfortunately I left my camera home, so we didn't get any pics. We'll definitely be doing more camping in the future.
A couple weeks ago we went to a local pumpkin patch for FHE with some of our cousins. It was so much fun! They had train rides and a little corn maze for the kids.
Then we took one of their wagons and picked out 4 perfect pumpkins.
We'll definitely be making the pumpkin patch a yearly activity :o)


So far this month we've already been to a school halloween carnival and a grown-up halloween party, and we still have 3 more Halloween parties to go. We're enjoying Halloween all month long, plus it gives us plenty of opportunities to wear our costumes.
"How to Train Your Dragon" came out on video this past week, which we had to buy that same day. It is the cutest movie and McKinley LOVES it! Walmart was doing a promotion where you could have your picture taken in a dragon cutout and Kinley was super psyched.

Not the most realistic picture I've ever seen, but it was fun.
Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall. Next week is our 20week ultrasound, so we'll keep everyone posted on what gender baby we've got cooking :0)

Caution: HUGE post ahead!

For all of those who were afraid I fell of the face of the planet, well my computer totally crashed...so I kind of did. Finally after 2 months of using our cell phones we bought a new computer. Isn't it beautiful!
The other reason I've been MIA is that, drum roll.... I'm 13 weekspregnant and first trimesters hate me.
Now I'm going to catch you up on everything that has happened in the past few months.We had a big family reunion in California the first week of August. It was fun but a good reminder of why we'll never live in a big city, no matter how fun the beach is. While we were there we spent a day at Disneyland. I've now realized that Disneyland and Disney world are completely different. We've only ever been to Disney world so we found Disneyland to be kind of a disappointment.
We also spent a couple of days at the beach. I think our girls had way more fun in the sand then in the water, and once we got back to the hotel we realized Annabelle had somehow smuggled a bucket load back with her. We also took some family pics while we were at the beach, and these were just a few of the ones I really liked.



I think our girls favorite part of the trip was visiting the Long Beach Aquarium. The were able to pet little sharks and stingrays. McKinley was also really excited about the jelly fish she was able to touch.

When we got back from California McKinley took swim lessons up at Green Canyon.
She was the youngest one there and still one of the best in her class. Our little girl was a fish in another life. Unfortunately, swim lessons were cut short because our cute little girl had to have her tonsils out.

Miserable doesn't even come close to describing the week that followed her surgery.
A week after her surgery she started school at Snake River Montessori.
I can't believe my baby is in school, she's growing up too fast.
For months McKinley has been asking to have her ears pierced. After months of explaining to her how much it was going to hurt and how much responsibility it required to keep them clean, we finally decided to let her get her ears pierced for school. When we went to have her ears pierced they only had one gun. After the first ear she started crying and me and the lady doing the piercing were worried she'd be going home with only one earring, but she sat there bravely for the next ear and didn't even cry. I think the first one just surprised her. McKinley is loving having her ears pierced and although I was worried she's still kind of young, she does look really cute with earrings.
I can't believe summer is over, but I'm excited to start back into some more normal routines. Hope everyone had a wonderful summer, especially since it looks like the nice weather is once again leaving us.
P.S- For any of you out there that have apple computers please tell me what the secret is to updating your blog in less then 2 hours while still keeping all of the hair in your head.