Our Little Princess

Kayla turned 3 years old on Wednesday. Yesterday she had her birthday party. The theme of the party was princesses. So as you can imagine, there was A LOT of pink involved.




The decorations. Susan kindly offered her services - and her height - to help set things up since Bill wasn't home yet.



The guests. L-R: Emmalyn, Allison, Kayla, Alice, Sophie, Esther. Since this was a princess party some of the girls were dressed up. It was really cute to see them running around in their dresses and crowns that we had them decorate. I think one of my favorite parts of this picture is noticing Emmalyn's crown is backwards. Honorary guests: Will and Justin. Justin's little sister was one of Kayla's guests, so we decided to let Will have a friend there too.


The games. This isn't a very good picture, but we played a couple of games that had a princess twist. One was "hide the slipper" which was a version of "hot or cold", and "castle bean bag toss". You can kind of see the castle in the background.



The gifts. Kayla got a lot of fun gifts this year. Some of her favorites were: fairy wings, princess baby dolls, a princess ball, bubbles, and a purse with all kinds of treasures inside.




The "cake". Originally I wanted to do a cake shaped like a castle, but then I decided that might be a bit much for me to handle. Bill found these cute crown-shaped toppers. And no we didn't get a black candle for the middle. I'm horrible with lighting. That candle has a 3 on it.

This was Kayla's first friend birthday party and I think it was very successful. Although I have to say I'm glad I only have to do this kind of thing a couple of times a year.

What's in a name?

When we moved to Illinois over 4 years ago I knew that there would be a number of differences between Utah and Illinois, among them being terrain and weather. I also knew that being members of the LDS church would put us in the minority rather than the majority, like we were in Utah. But up until recently I would say that the majority of our friends have been LDS as well. Since Will has started school, however, things have changed slightly. He's got at least 2 or 3 friends who are not members of the LDS church. Which has brought up some interesting conversations in our family. For example, when I picked up Will from school today we were talking about calling one of his school friends to come over and play. Will said "Can you call Sister K to see if S can come over tomorrow?" It caught me off guard but didn't totally surprise me to hear him call her that, because up until now all of his friends parents have been either Sister so-and-so or Brother so-and-so. So I did my best to explain that, if someone is a member of the LDS church you call them Sister or Brother, but if they aren't you call them Mr. or Mrs. I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens as Will is exposed to other religions and other ways of thinking beyond what we know as members of the LDS church.

The 7 Days of Valentine's Day: Days 6 and 7

This final activity/craft was done over 2 days. I'm actually kind of proud of it. For Family Home Evening tonight we will be having this:



It's super easy and looks cute. It's brownies with vanilla frosting, and the hearts are made out of colored sugar and a cookie cutter. Yummy and awesome-looking (if I do say so myself).

The 7 Days of Valentine's Day: Day 5

We slacked off a little on Thursday and Friday, but made up for it yesterday. Our Valentine's Day activity for the day was a temple trip. We decided to go up to Chicago rather than go to St. Louis, and we were able to leave Will and Kayla with some friends so we could go by ourselves. It was wonderful. We had lots of time in the car by ourselves, and doing sealings in the temple was a fabulous way to grow closer together and celebrate how much we love each other.

The 7 Days of Valentine's Day: Day 2

Today's creation: What I like to call "Heart People". I don't remember where I saw this idea, but I thought it was kind of cute. Will was a little resistant at first, and neither of them helped me as much as I would have liked, but I think they enjoyed the finished product.

The 7 Days of Valentine's Day: Day 1

I decided to extend our Valentine's Day celebration to a whole week with a number of fun crafts/recipes/activities/etc. So here is our first one:


Please pay no attention to how homemade this is. I'm not a crafty person by any means, but I figured a mailbox that we can put love notes and valentines to each other in would be fun. So my thought is that we put notes in there throughout the week and then open the mailbox and read them on Valentine's Day. I'm predicting that the majority of the notes will be from me and Bill to the kids or me and Bill to each other, but I think it's a fun idea anyway. I'm excited to see what else we come up with throughout the next few days. If any of you have ideas of things you've done in the past, I'm open to suggestions!

Fun Christmas Extras

I forgot to mention a couple of things in my Christmas post, which Will has reminded me of in the last couple of days. And I hope Susan doesn't mind that I stole a video from her blog :)

One fun thing that Susan did was make up little rhymes for each member of the family, then put them inside Christmas crackers. Will still gets a kick out of ours, so I thought I'd share.

Will:
There once was a young boy named Will
And one day he couldn't sit still
He leapt off the ground
And flew all around
And landed 'kersplat' on a hill.

Kayla: (I thought this one was clever. Not easy to rhyme with Kayla)
There once was a little girl Kayla
Whom Alice invited to play-la
They put on their dresses
And danced as princesses
Until the sun set on the day-la

Kristin*
I once had an in-law named Kristin
I asked her to to work in my kitchen
She chopped and she peeled
The veggies did yield
Nourishment forged by persistin'

Bill:
There once was a daddy named Bill
He had an unusual skill
He'd take out some light
And bend it just right
Using lasers to pay all the bills

*This has become somewhat of an inside joke. We go over to their house at least once a week for a play date. And while the kids play I help Susan make dinner. It seems like every time I help I'm in charge of chopping the vegetables.

Will and Alice like dancing together occasionally. I don't remember who it was, but someone taught them the proper way to dance. Maybe Will has a future in ballroom dancing?

Christmas 2011

*Warning* Picture overload

We had a fabulous Christmas this year full of fun activities and lots of time with family. Bill's parents were here for about a week, then Bill's younger brother and his wife came for a couple of days. We unfortunately didn't get pictures of everything, but here are some of the highlights.

The annual decorating of the Christmas tree



Will helping me make cookies


Gingerbread houses with Bobby and Susan

Our family went with the traditional looking house


Bobby and Susan's family decided to make a stage, complete with a chorus line in the background. Knowing their daughter Alice, a stage makes perfect sense.

Acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve

Shepherds (Alice and Will) and sheep (Kayla)


Shepherds coming to see baby Jesus, Mary (Grandma Evans) and Joseph (Robert/Susan)


Wise Men (Alice, Will and Kayla) talking with King Herod (Bobby). Bobby's face in this picture was perfect.


Wise Men bringing gifts to Jesus

Christmas Morning

Candy Cane Coffee Cake - Before

After

Waiting patiently for breakfast

Opening Presents




Uncle Jonny and Aunt Brooke



Brooke and Jonny came for a brief visit, but definitely made the most of it and quickly became very popular with all the kids. We went to the toy room near our apartment, and they spent the majority of the time spinning, flying, and tackling our kids.

Alice and Kayla burying Uncle Jonny


Will and Alice wanted to be just like Aunt Brooke and Uncle Jonny (see previous picture).

Other highlights not pictured:

-Christmas Eve dinner. Susan decided to do a "shepherd's feast." We had lentil soup, artisan bread, cantaloupe, and other yummy things.
-Christmas Day dinner. We were the hosts this time, and had ham, mashed potatoes, salad, bread, and homemade peppermint ice cream.
-Bowling. So much fun! The first round was adults versus kids. I think Will beat almost everyone. I didn't do so hot that round, but definitely made up for it the second round, which was boys versus girls.
-Spending almost a whole day with Jonny and Brooke. They were at our house for almost a whole afternoon and evening, and we had so much fun chatting, playing games, eating pizza, and they even made us some butterbeer (think Harry Potter).

Hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!

Family Pictures 2011

Sorry for the recent lack of pictures on the blog. I know most of you probably come on here to see pictures of our adorable children. And believe me, I don't blame you :) So here are some of my favorites from the family pictures we had taken back in October.

Mommy Musings: Extremely hard...but so worth it!

I have a news flash for you. Ready?...Motherhood is hard! I know, you are all shocked, right? But that is something I have continually been learning in the 6+ years I have been a mother. Being a mother has been an emotional roller coaster for me, especially the last year or so. I have two VERY active and VERY energetic children, who keep me constantly thinking to myself "Can I do this? Do I have the energy/patience/willpower to make it to their high school graduations?" And for some reason, the last few months have been particularly difficult. There have been days when I haven't wanted to get out of bed, or I might have put Kayla into quiet time a little extra early so I could have more time to myself, or been grateful that Will is in school the majority of the day. That may make me sound like a bad parent, but it's the truth. But somehow I keep going, mostly because of things like this:


I was having a particularly bad day earlier this week, and I ended up sitting at the table with my head in my hands wondering if I could get through the rest of the day. Unbeknownst to me, Will started drawing a picture. He then comes over and hands it to me. But the kicker was what he said. He said "I drew this to make Mommy happy again." It makes me cry even now just remembering that moment. Bill and I looked at the picture for a minute, then Bill leans over to me and says "We really do have great kids." And I of course knew he was right. So I'm grateful that I now have this tangible reminder that my kids really do love me and that I can do this difficult job called parenting.