Happy 9th Birthday Hallie

Hallie woke up very tired on her birthday last Saturday.

Apparently she was so excited she couldn't sleep half the night! ;) Her big surprise was a Plasma Car. Unfortunately no one would let her ride it for more then 2 seconds before is was their "turn". I guess we need to invest in a few more of these puppies, they are just too much fun.

I caught Hallie and Meg laying on the backyard swing chatting... love these moments.

Every other year the kids get to do a big "friends party". Hallie decided to have a Pajama Party late-over. This age is so fun. No need to plan a bunch of games because the girls just want to hang out and be silly and just have fun with each other.

Made it really easy for me.

Above: Waiting for all the girls to arrive.

Eating Pizza

Making beaded bracelets

Then we opened presents, ate pie and ice cream, and the girls watched "The Frog and the Princess".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HALLIE!!

Battle of the Books

Hallie was in "The Battle of the Books" at her school this year. The kids are given a list of 10 books to read and then there is a competition where they are quizzed on those books. Hallie loves to read and so this challenge fit her perfectly. She was so excited she could hardly sleep the night before.

She came home from school beaming with a 2nd Place ribbon around her neck.

Way to go Hallie!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREV

Unfortunately Trevor had to work the afternoon shift on his birthday so we celebrated in the morning with a birthday breakfast.

(I had to add an extender to the birthday crown to fit Trev's noggin)

A friend watched the boys while Trev and I went out to lunch for our favorite sizzling fajitas, yummy! Then off to work he went with a plate of cup cakes to share with the staff and a friend at work brought in a cake for him too.

The next night we had the official ice cream cake.

That's the face of a 32 year-old. lol


That's a whole lot of candles.
Happy Birthday Trev.
We love you!

A Rough Day for Davis

Davis had surgery yesterday... don't worry, nothing life threatening.

The day started early and we dropped the other kids off at Kristine's house at 6:30am (bless you Kristine) then headed to the Children's Hospital.

I was glad Davis didn't know what was about to happen. He smiled and waved and flirted with the nurses. They put on his cute little gown but then he broke out in a rash so we took it off.

We waited for a while and then it was time for the "Happy Medicine".

Davis was hilarious. He got really sleepy but then out of no where he would laugh and do this goofy grin.

It was seriously so cute.
They whisked him off to the OR and we waited in the waiting room for about 3 hours.

It felt like forever.

Finally he was done and the Surgeon told us everything went great.

Davis woke up very unhappy and VERY hungry. He hadn't eaten for 12 hours and this is a steak and potatoes kind of guy... no skipping meals for him.

He screamed and thrashed unless we were feeding him something so we kept feeding him knowing that it was probably all going to come back up.

Anyway, it was a busy and draining day but we were so grateful that everything went smoothly and although I was little freaked out when they showed me the 4 incision sites (I thought they would be a lot smaller) I know they did a great job.

Glad it's over with!

(Thanks to my dear friends Kristine and Christina for helping us. What would I do without these amazing people in my life... I'm just so grateful.)

The courage to CTR

I got this idea from my friend Kristine... who got it from our friend Amy. :)

I love to find great mothers and then pester them with questions about their parenting ideas and of course copy them!

I ain't no dummy.

I've been trying to encourage the kids to do things that challenge them and might even be a little scary. I feel like it is getting harder and harder for our kids to do what is right and often they stand out because of it and sometimes even get teased for it.

So this is our "courage jar".

When any of us (including Trevor and I) do anything courageous we get to decide how many fuzzies we think we deserve to put in the jar (up to 5 for each act).

It can be anything and is different for each of us.

For example Megan gave herself 5 fuzzies for pulling out her tooth and she deserved every one of those fuzzies... she was terrified but she did it.

Hallie gave herself 3 fuzzies for asking a boy to stop saying a bad word.

I added some fuzzies to the jar for doing a little missionary work.

Campbell got some fuzzies for working on some of his potty training goals (I'll leave it at that).

etc.

When the jar is full (150 fuzzies) we are going either here or here for an over-nighter and a little family fun.

Anyway, it has been working great so I thought I'd pass the idea along.

Thanks Kristine and Amy.

Randomness... in pictures

Heart Potatoes
We've had crazy amounts of snow in Kentucky this winter. School has been cancelled several times this month (stop laughing Utahns). ;)
Lots of snow means drinking lots of hot cocoa and I'm seriously missing Stephens Gourmet Mint Truffle. Not too many hot chocolate options out here.
I took this picture of the kids watching daddy snow blow the driveway (thanks for sharing with us Brett).

I was sick last Monday and so Trev was in charge. He put up a HUGE 3-room tent in our family room. The kids were in heaven.

I caught Davis like this the other day. He pulled down the couch cushions and then swiped a cookie to enjoy while he lounged on top of them.
A little tub time for Davis and Campbell. Check out Davis' eyelashes... I'm jealous.
Davis thinks everything is a phone.

Freshly bathed and ready to wrestle with Daddy.

A Day of LOVE

(Heart-attacking our house)

Trevor is not a romantic and quite frankly neither am I so Valentine's Day has never been a big holiday for us.
This year (and from now on) I decided I wanted to focus on the LOVE part of Valentines and on doing things for our family to help everyone feel how much they are loved. I got a great idea from my friend Lacey and I had the girls help me cut out tons of hearts and write things we love about each member of our family on the hearts. Valentines morning we hung the hearts up all over the house for everyone to read. It was so fun to read some of the things they wrote like Hallie's heart that said "I love playing Up high, Down low, on the side, too slow with Dad." and Megan's heart that said, " I love Davis' chubby hugs."
This will definitely be a new tradition for us. Thanks Lacey.

A traditional we have had since Trev and I were first married is a Valentine's Treasure Hunt. The kids love this and it's fun for me to come up with the clues and of course the treasure.





After running up and down the stairs about 5 times ( I like to wear them out) in search of clues they finally found their treasures in our closet.
Love letters, treats, and a toy. Hallie and Megan got some more "littlest pet shop" animals. I love to give these to the girls because it is one thing they love to play with together.

As soon as they found the new toys they were off to their room to play happily together ... love that. I came up about an hour later and had to take some pictures of how they set them up.
This is the other reason I love to give them these little animals... so cute.

(love how they put all the fish and frogs in the bathtub)






I cooked a nice dinner... made with lots of love and then we thought it would be good to spend a little time at the local Nursing Home and share a little love with those folks. So, the girls made some Valentine cards to pass out and we went with our good friends to the Friendship Manor.





HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Hope you felt loved. :)