Addie's growing up

A few signs:

Baby Food....I finally figured out that the crying that has recently started during meal time (as she use to sit happily in her exersaucer in the kitchen) was because she wanted some TOO! You can see her red eyes from crying to join in. It was an impromptu starting of solids-- grabbed some applesauce from the fridge and ground up some oats in the pantry.



Sitting in stroller without baby carrier...she's been enjoying the view



First ward camp-out and in a tent... I'm pretty sure she slept better than I did. I kept waking up to make sure everyone was tucked in their blankets and sleeping bags.



New found fear of vacuum and hair dryer... not sure when to vacuum now: when awake and terrified or sleeping and bound to wake-up from noise?
Diaper bag full of baby toys that she now enjoys to play with... the trick is keeping the older kiddos from taking them over.


Addie is nearly six months and so much fun. She seems to just be waiting for anyone's attention to give a great big smile! =)

I Digi Scrapped!

It's been forever since I did a layout. I found out it takes not changing from my walking clothes, not doing my hair or make-up and doing nothing but essentials to actually get a few quality moments to digi scrap. That was my day yesterday! Here are a few pages I made of the kids' first day of school. I think I'm going to create separate "school" books for the kids and just do like 5 pages a year per kid (my sister Christine's idea). That doesn't sound too hard right? Yeah, we'll see.

To save time, I made them pretty similar (they'll be in different books anyway). My amazing digi scrapper sister Suzanne and new designer at Scrap Matters let me have her new kit to use. I love it! Check her out over there. She likes to do freebies. She will be opening her virtual doors on Friday to start selling.

Firsts

It's been a few weeks of firsts around here, thought I would post a few pics of them (I'm trying to be better at lugging the camera around!)

Our first camp-out of the season (and maybe last):

We went up to Tony Grove, an amazingly beautiful place. It wasn't until someone asked if the leaves were changing yet that I realized there were only tall beautiful pines everywhere. With keeping track of 3 kids I didn't get to soak it in as much as I would have liked, but loved it any way. We were going to do the tent thing, but luckily we have some awesome neighbors that hooked us up with a very nice trailer. Nothing like a little home on wheels. We went with several families in the neighborhood, so the kids were loving it. There was a fun little lake that we spent the day canoeing, kayaking, fishing and hanging out on shore. It was nice to have a little end of summer fun.

Andrew spent forever "casting" his fishing pole with his friend Wil even though it didn't have a hook on it. I guess the casting is the fun part?

Here's a little slimy creature that the kids found (a water snake!) They played with the poor thing until it was probably near death, but I certainly did not care if there was one less snake slithering around.


Andrew's first soccer game of the season:

Go Green Dragons!!

After we had reserved our camp spots we found out that Andrew's game was at 10:30am the morning that we would be coming home. So, after a very not restful night of sleep, we got up early and raced back home for his game. We showed up just in time, but we were smelling a little like a camp fire and in need of a shower. Luckily some of the other boys on the team were camping with us, so we weren't alone. Andrew's loving this year of soccer because all of his little neighborhood buddies are on his team. His friend's dad is the coach and Justin's kind of the unofficial assistant coach, when he can be around.

Andrew's first day of Kindergarten!!!


Wow, I had thought a lot about this big day. It was crazy to think it finally had come. I was worried that I might tear up (I had previously just thinking about it), but I made it completely dry-eyed. What probably helped was Andrew was soooo excited. His normal 3 bowls of cereal was cut short to one and he was just ready to bolt out of the door. Being a first time mom of a kindergartener, I followed others and jumped in my car to follow him to school. Of course he made it just fine (I'm not sure what I thought might happen). He gave me the wave good bye (again) and he was off. His comment about his bus ride was that he had a hard time finding a seatbelt-- that's my little cautious Andrew. When I met him at the bus stop coming home his first response was "mom we're going to paint tomorrow" Phew-- I was relieved to find out he wanted to go back tomorrow.

Andrew's best buds before they got on the bus

Good-bye!

Good-bye, again!

Ashlee's first day of Preschool:


Ashlee's first day seemed harder for me than Andrew's. Maybe it was the quiet house or something, but how can Ashlee be old enough for preschool. Time is REALLY flying. Ashlee has been looking forward to school since the beginning of last year. Every time I picked up Andrew we would have the same conversation: "I go to school too mom?" and then I would reply, "next year when you are bigger". She then would say appeased, but slightly disappointed, "ok". So, when Andrew was getting ready for his first day, Ashlee was nearly devasted when I told her she had 2 more days. She kept saying "I bigger now, I bigger now mom". She couldn't grasp the concept of 2 days. I'm sure to her 2 days could be 2 years. But, we finally made it to the first day. I got her all settled sitting down reading her book and was about to leave when she gave me the panic look of are you really leaving me, but then she must have remember how much she's been looking forward to this day and was just fine.


It's bitter sweet to see them grow up. I have been worried this summer that I hadn't prepared them enough for the big world of school, but luckily I've realized that they don't have to know everything for the first day. We've got a lot of time ahead of us to keep plugging away and hopefully there's a little, or a lot of help from above to fill in the cracks.

Need a boost?

If you haven't seen the video "Create" based on a talk from the October 2008 General Conference by Elder Uchtdorf-- YOU MUST WATCH IT! It's such a self-esteem booster and very motivating to go out and do something great! It gives me the chills every time I watch it.

I don't know how to upload the video to my blog, but here is a link to the video on the Relief Society page of lds.org:

http://www.lds.org/pa/rs/home/video.html

Enjoy being inspired!

Full-time SAHM!

It's official-- I'm now a full-time SAHM! I love nursing and think it's a very rewarding job, but I am thrilled to get to stay at home full-time with my kiddos. Really-- who wouldn't want to be home and be the full-time recipient of this kind of slobery love!

Family Fun Pass

With the great tip from a neighbor, we got a family pass that's been tons of fun. It's an annual pass that costs $50 for a year of family admission to the Dinosaur Museum, Ogden's nature Center, the Union Station Train museum, Tracy Aviary and the Zoo. (The Zoo is just the first Thurs of each month). So far we've hit the Dinosaur Museum, the Nature center and Tracy Aviary. The kid are loving it! Here are a few pics from our outings:

Tracy Aviary:


Here are a few shots of our fine feathered friends. Here's a mama keeping a close eye on her "peachicks" (

I learned that the pretty colorful peacocks are actually the males.

We made a day out of our trip and also visited the 7 Canyon fountain play area also at Liberty Park. They have man made miniature streams that wind around with bridges and little ponds that are chlorinated and open for kids to play in. This was probably Andrew's favorite part. I was busy feeding the baby and chasing Ashlee so I didn't get any pictures (seems to be a common theme of our outings these days. Oh well. )

Ogden Nature Museum:


We went on this outing while Justin's sister was in town with her 4 kids. It was the day for deals, we also hit the Tree House Museum for FREE. I found this site with free Ogden area activities for every Saturday. Apparently we weren't the only ones who knew about this. It was packed.
Tree House Museum:



Dinosaur Museum:

Not pictured.....I forgot that my camera memory card was in my computer at home! But the kids loved it. Andrew was even brave enough to go through the part with the "life-like" moving dinosaur exhibit this year.

PS-- You can buy one of these family passes at the Dinosaur Museum (maybe the other places to!?!) The Admission to these places are somewhat limited like to only mon-fri, but they are good for a full year starting from the date of purchase.

Bathtime Beauty

Addison was being so cute and loving being in the buff after her bath that I decided to grab my camera. She loves her feet toes, fingers, whole hands-- whatever she can shove in her mouth. She's turned into the little rolly poley baby that jambers and is so happy. She's almost 5 months and growing up....time is really flying by.

Will I ever blog again?

Wow, it's 10:30pm and I finally had time to pee again since this morning! (I have a nurse's bladder that comes in handy as a mom too.) It's been a day of lots of laundry, breaking up fighting children, rocking, rocking, rocking and more rocky of baby that doesn't want to drift off to sleep like a little newborn anymore! I'm so far behind on blogging, that I'm sure I'll never catch up, so here are a few things I should be blogging about, but can't find the time:

~preschool graduation (see I'm REALLY behind)
~Trip to Park City for swimming, biking and shopping over memorial day weekend
~Ashlee turned 3!!! Finally her birthday came. She's been talking about it since her little friend had her's back in January.
~Month of July full of family visitors!
~Trip to Bear Lake for annual Todd family reunion
~Addison's rolling all over at 3 1/2 months!

I know there must be more, but really this summer has been so fun and crazy that it's all kind of a blur..... I think we're surviving 3 kids, but just barely. Major kudos to those of you who have gone beyond 3. Well time to switch the last load of laundry and jump in bed!

My Little Angel

Addison was blessed on June 7th! Wow, for moms with new babies, this becomes quite the ordeal between cleaning, cooking, shopping for a new blessing dess etc. I debated back and forth 100 times whether to buy a new blessing dress for Addison or not, but I was sold on the idea of getting one after my neighbor (Michelle) told me about her tradition of passing on her blessing dress to her oldest daughter to be blessed in. So, a tradition has began. It was nice to pause for a moment the night before as I was trying on her dress (making sure/hoping it would fit at this late hour of getting ready) that I saw my beautiful angel in white! I feel so lucky to have her and realized she was worth all of the stress and time put into getting ready for this day. As far as I'm concerned, the food was good and the dust around not too noticeable. Thanks everyone that helped make this a great day (especially Justin and my Mom!)


Here are some pics from the day:

A Family Pic (Our first all together with Addison, I just realized):


Here are those that helped Blessed Addie:


Proud Daddy:
I decided that the actual blessing day was a bit too hectic to takes some pics of her in her dress, so here she is at a calmer moment:

Go Fireballs!

This spring we entered a new stage of life--little league! Andrew joined soccer for the 2nd half of the season (we didn't know he was old enough to play last fall-- we're just beginners at all of this stuff!) Andrew LOVED it! He looked so cute in his red and black uniform. He was hilarious to watch. Mostly he ran around with a smile on his face and running in his friendly little shuffle! Justin was busy shouting from the sidelines to run faster and get the ball! I could see that Andrew wasn't being as aggressive as Justin would have liked. I'm sure there is still time for that side of Andrew to emerge.

Andrew with some of his teammates and his coach Casey. He gave them all fireball candy after their last game-- very cute

Here's a little team huddle. Go Fireballs!

Go Drew!

2 Months, at last!

Wow, the last 2 months have been quite the roller coaster as Addison has adjusted to life, but we're finally getting there! She actually slept from 10pm to 6:30 am last night!!!!! That may not happen again for awhile (and especially tonight, since I am choosing to not jump in bed as soon as I tuck her in), but I thoroughly enjoyed the sleep. I'm trying to take a picture each month and jot a few things down about her for her 1st year scrapbook (that may be all that my kids actually get despite liking to [digi] scrap so much). I probably won't bore you with all of her achieved milestones, but here are some picture of my sweetie: